Monday, February 18, 2008

My first entry (My story)

I really don't know why I am doing this. I think I am really bored and depressed right now. Actually I am really bored and depressed right now. There really is no need to sugar-coat it. I doubt anyone will ever read this yet I am still going to waste my time posting all of what I am going to post. That is probably the definition of psychosis. Who knows, they always say that writing should be therapeutic and it always has been for me.

My name is Gary, aka G, aka hilenyo, aka Dr. Bad Beat, aka Mr Unlucky, aka King of the Jews. Although I don't like the term professional, I sort of play poker for a living. Maybe if I was playing for bigger stakes I would be more comfortable saying professional." I guess I am an ok player however, the reason why you have never heard of Dr. Bad Beat and probably never will is because I am usually running bad. No, this blog is not going to be one bad beat story after another. I hate hearing people bitch about bad-beats when in reality the person played the hand really poorly and deserved getting drawn out on. Recently, there have been hands that I have played very poorly only to get the shit-end of the stick. I make some of the plays I do because of table dynamics and because of the way I feel about the certain hand.

Personally I have gone through more crap in the last 6 months then I probably have in the previous 22 years of my life.

In May, I quit my parents business and went into bartending. Bartending is easily the most fun thing I have ever done and I look forward to getting back into it in the future. I was living in Whittier Ca, at the time and I was working in Pasadena. I wasn't making a lot of money and the gas was killing me. I posted an ad on craigslist and the result is that I now have a craigslist story. I only got one response to my ad and it went something like this.

Hi! I am a bartender too!

-Megan. (xxx) xxx-xxxx

I was like really? It sounded too good to be true but I called the number anyway. This girl offered me the deal of a lifetime. I was getting a place triple the size of my previous place. It was only two minutes from Old Town Pasadena where I was working at the time and the overall area was so much better. The rent was only $600 per month, their was no security deposit, no credit check, and I didn't have to sign a thing. I moved in on August 19, 2007.

Too make a long story short, Megan ended up being a tweaker. For the first week that her and I lived together, I saw her pretty much everyday. Then after that first week I would only see her about once a week on average. I was elated by the fact that she was never around and I was enjoying life immensely. To make things better Megan liked me and never gave me any trouble. One day she disappeared for 19 days. I came to find out about 10 days after she was deliquent on the rent that she was in jail. With the crap that I knew about her, I assumed that I probably wouldn't see her again. She came home on October 1, 2007 and went crazy when she noticed a minor change that I had made in the house. On October 2, 2007 she filed a restraining order against me citing all these false charges. Some of them were legitimate but she made them up and just happened to be right. The order said that I could not be in the same address as the plaintiff which of course happened to be my address. To give you an idea of how badly I got screwed: I am no longer allowed in my own house. I own pretty much everything in the house. She doesn't pay the rent. The utilities are in my name. She is home only once a week and when she does come home she turns on everything that requires electricity and then leaves and won't return for days. Not only that she is a full-blown tweaker. Meth must be a sick drug.

I was sleeping on my friends couch and I got a call from an old friend that I hadn't heard from in a long time. He told me that he was back in the "swing of things." He said that he just got a place in Highland Park and had an extra room that I could stay in until I got back on my feet.

On October 4, 2007 I met up with Johnny and the place was sweet even though it was in a terrible area. Johnny basically told me that I could stay until the New Year rent free. There was no implication of me having to get out or pay rent by that time, but that was our target goal. I knew what Johnny was capable of and I didn't want to stay that long anyway.

Johnny, bless his heart is a worse addict then Megan is. He just has different poisons. He will do whatever he can get his hands on but his ultimate demon has and always will be alcohol. When I first moved in, he had been out of rehab/jail for about 5 months and had been supposedly clean. It is very obvious when this guy is clean. When clean, this guy kicks ass in all aspects of life. Within a month of me living with him, Johnny started showing signs of weakness. He started overdosing on these anti-depressants. He was suppose to take them when he got his cravings but because he is an addict he got addicted to them. I really don't know whats true and whats not but supposedly he was drinking the whole time that I lived there although I don't really believe it.

The last month or so I lived with Johnny, he was completely bed-ridden. He only went to work a few times only to eventually get sent home one day because of his appearance. Toward the end, I knew that I had to get out ASAP but moving is a pain in the ass and not having to pay rent was clutch. Plus I was killing it at Commerce. I thought I would stay a little extra time because I felt I owed it to him. He had done a very good thing for me and I thought I would at least try and help him pull out of this. Obviously there was nothing I could do to help. It got to a point where I was literally having to clean up after his puke and shit.

There were some mornings where I would wake up to him hurling right on the floor. This would go on for about two weeks. Most of that puke was never really picked up and the stench became unbearable. I would go into the bathroom sometimes and just see shit everywhere. The only reason why I would even bother to clean it up was because it was my bathroom too.

On November 26, I woke up and Johnny was gone. His truck was parked out front and he was nowhere to be found. I was under the assumption that he may have been wandering the streets. The area we lived in is probably the most dangerous area I have ever lived in. We lived off Ave 64 and York right off the 110 in Highland Park, Ca. Anything could happen if he was just wandering those crazy streets.

I took a shower and didn't even worry about it. He had gotten so bad that he could be dead for all I cared. I was out the door anyway. I got out of the shower and looked out the window again except this time I saw his arm dangling out of his truck. SHIT!

I go outside and I see him sitting there in his truck completely dazed and out of it. He had puke all over the front of his shirt and it looked liked he had attempted going to work. He was unresponsive so I called 911 and they took him away. I found out later that they found 3 empty bottles under the seat of his truck.

I saw him a few days later as I was preparing to move out and he came with his brother. This guy is funny. Once the cat is out of the bag with his drinking he doesn't care to hide it anymore. When I saw him he was wasted and his brother had come by with him to pick some things up. His brother had told me some terrible stories about how they would have to bribe him every time they wanted him to do something. He would only do what was asked of him if he was given a pint. Obviously he had to have his pint before he came by to grab some of his shit. Fucking asshole. I am sure I will forgive Johnny for allowing me to witness what I did but I don't think that anger I have with him will ever leave.

I eventually moved out on December 1, 2007 and was left mentally damaged from my last two roommate experiences.

The place I moved into next, my mom had found for me. It was right across the street from where she lived in San Gabriel. I wasn't too happy about that since her and I get along much better when we are away from each other. It ended up being a good thing. Right when I moved into this new place I had already realized that I had made a huge mistake. First off, I couldn't bring most of my furniture into the apartment and had to get rid of it. All the things in my house were bought with poker money and throwing shit out is like throwing out winnings. Secondly the place was a disaster to live in. I am a very quiet individual and like to keep to myself. There was more noise throughout this complex then I knew how to handle. By this point I was playing poker full-time and was keeping a poker schedule. My hours were 12:00 pm-4:00 am. Some days I would sleep in later if I could but thats an average.

My biggest complaint were the people who lived directly above me. They have this little boy who runs around the house constantly when they are home. The walls are paper thin all I would hear all day and night when these people were home was pounding on my ceiling. For the first 3-4 weeks I just let it go and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. One day they were standing right out my bedroom window which led into the parking lot of the complex. They were conversating very loudly right out my window and I pounded on my window for them to shut the fuck up. They didn't listen and I did it again but much more violently. They kept at it because they're rude-ass FOB Asians. I told them that if I had to come out there, there were going to be serious problems. They walked away as they finally figured out that they had upset someone. That was their first introduction to me. Over the next 3 days I kept a broom in my living room so I could pound on the ceiling when that little brat was running around upstairs. Once again because they are rude ass Asian people with no class and no manners they never stopped. One day I had finally had it and I went up to there door and pounded on it and gave them a piece of my mind. They called the cops who showed up at my door about 2 hours later. I showed the cops that my bed was now in the living room because my bedroom was unlivable. The cops actually took my side and went up there and told them something because for the next week or so there was never any noise coming from the upstairs apartment.

On January 2, 2008 the next major life changing event in my life took place. I had made a New Years Resolution to quit smoking weed because it was affecting my overall health in a really big way. I was coughing up flem like crazy and smoking was making it very difficult for me to urinate which lead me to having to piss all the time. More on all this later, because when I went to the doctor, I found out the potential cause and its going to make you laugh.

I was on the second day of no smoking and I was going through major mental withdrawls. Day 2 is always a really bad day for me when I try to quit smoking. My mom called me and asked me to take my sister up to Pasadena to Best Buy. I said sure, and we went up there. When we left the traffic was absolutely terrible and I took a detour.

The traffic was so bad where I was at that it took me 10 minutes to get to this one light. When I got to the light I sat there for another 10 minutes. I had somewhere to be and my patience was wearing thin. In a fit of desperation, I just went for it and took off. There were cops directing traffic but I didn't give a shit. My other big mistake was that I stayed on the same street instead of turning down a side street. About a mile down the road, I got stopped and arrested for wreckless driving. The dick seargent that eventually showed up tried to pull that I ran over a police officer. When he couldn't make that fly he tried to get me for gun/drug charges. I was clean and had nothing on me, so he says, "fuck it, take his car for 30 days." My heart sank and a tow truck driver took my car to impound and the jerk cops left me and my sister on the fucking corner. I had to call my mom and tell her to come pick us up and told her my lame ass story when she arrived.

I had no job and now I had no car. I basically was resigned to just sitting in my house all day. It was like I was on house arrest. I would usually just go to my mom's everyday and just hang out since she was so close. A few days went by and the assholes upstairs started up again. I pounded on the ceiling a couple times to make them shut the fuck up. 20 minutes later, the landlord who lived on the premises tells me to pack my shit and to get out. She tells me that I am making excessive noise and that I am disturbing my neighbors. Really? Well fuck you then. The cops show up a couple hours later and we go through the whole routine once again.

The landlord decides not to evict me but that I have to leave on my own terms. I say fuck this place and I want out anyway. On January 9, 2007 I moved out once again and moved into my mom's house. I have basically been on my own two feet since I was 18 and I could not be more demoralized. I am almost 23 and am living with my mom. The stay at my mom's was intended to be short and two weeks in I found a place to live.

I decided to roll the dice one last time and put an ad on craigslist. This ad was much more thought out and I typed it in such a way that I made myself look like a sane and rational individual. I got about a dozen emails from people who were looking to room with me. One of them was from this Vietnamese guy named Dom and he writes.

I have a place. It's a 2 bedroom in Alhambra and you can have it for $1000 per month.

I'm like no shit. There has to be a catch.

I go meet this guy and he is one of the nicest people I have ever come across. He shows me the place and shows me what has to be fixed up and what not. I decide that I want to take it.

Fortunately one good thing has happened to me in all this. My attorney pulled some strings and got my car out of impound in only 10 days as opposed to 30. Not only that but my impound fines were $500.00 instead of the $980 it was going to be if it stayed for 30 days.

Fast forward to now and I am still living with my mom. Dom opened up a can of worms and went crazy fixing his place up which is fine. The unfortunate part however is that he has broken numerous promises to me about when the place will be complete. Hopefully he will be done very soon because I am at my wits end living with my mom.

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