Wrap Your Head Around This

For pretty much all of my life I have lived on relatively small plots of land.

My childhood home had modest-sized front and back yards. In college I lived in a dorm for a couple of years, then shared apartments for a while. Had one interesting year in grad school living in the “groom’s quarters” with Vera, actually just another apartment attached to a barn. We lived in what was basically an oversized closet when spending a year abroad in France. Got to house sit after that in what seemed a palace at the time owned by a long-time prof, a fairly big two-story house with a decent sized yard and garden. But even that place wasn’t too big to wrap one’s head around.

From there we were in another apartment, then a house in one of those “cookie cutter” neighborhoods where you could just about reach your neighbor through an open window. And now finally we’re on the farm. With 15 acres. Some trees around the edges, but most of it is cleared.

It’s a big space. Challenges comprehension, almost.

The house we’re in isn’t especially big -- in fact it is about the same as the one we left, square-feet-wise. But it has been interesting to watch our now 12-year-old cat Sweetie tentatively explore the new space.

Sweetie’s an indoor cat, her somewhat skittish ways providing a fairly stark contrast to the three rambunctious and social “barn cats” we’ve inherited. She remained under the bed almost exclusively for the first couple of days, then ventured out little by little to get to know the kitchen, living room, and (thankfully) the litter box.

She tiptoes cautiously, keeping very low to the floor as she moves in a manner that recalls the origin of the phrase “cat burglar.” I suppose she’s slowly performing a kind of “cognitive mapping” of the space, gradually taking it in and rebuilding it piece by piece in her mind’s eye.

By the way, that picture up above is a cartoon I clipped and kept near my desk for many years some time back. I only just came across it again during the packing and unpacking. That’s how I imagine Sweetie working out all the new angles she’s been encountering this week.

As someone with a terrible sense of direction, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of cognitive mapping. As I’ve told colleagues many times before, it’s kind of an irony that I found a profession that lands me in casinos so often, places the design of which can challenge even the most able-minded cognitive mappers.

I am notoriously lacking when it comes to processing directions for getting from one place to another. Having been to a place before -- even multiple times -- doesn’t ensure I’ll be able to get back. In fact, I’ll admit that in this new house I’ve found myself walking to the bedroom and missing the entrance about a half-dozen times as my brain stubbornly keeps providing me incorrect information about its location.

I remember a chapter in a book by Fredric Jameson called Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, one of many “theory” books I read in grad school, in which he spoke of cognitive mapping. If I remember it correctly, he used the concept as a kind of emblem for postmodernism and individuals living in confusing worlds in which it was difficult to orient oneself. (I could have that wrong -- the memory is dim.) I recall there also being a section in there somewhere about Las Vegas and its disorienting architecture, too.

Anyhow, those who build houses and buildings or plan towns and cities don’t really need to work that hard to confuse your humble scribbler. Who becomes ever more humbled whenever he’s forced to remember his way back somewhere following any journey requiring more than two turns.

I feel like Sweetie’s doing an okay job working out her new space, but I still feel more than a little disoriented in mine. Part of me wants to walk the entire 15 acres every day, just to reinforce the idea that I am actually “living” on it all.

But another part of me knows I might get lost!

2009 WSOP, Day 9: Count On It

Another 14 hours or so in the Rio yesterday, live blogging for PokerNews the second day of Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha. Day started with 99 players, and the idea had been to play down to the final nine. But we knew we wouldn’t be getting there by 3 a.m. -- the time beyond which according to Rule No. 96 no non-televised Day 2 will extend.

(Actually, the final table of Event No. 10 is on the schedule to be streamed live over on Bluff today, but I’m not sure if that will be the case or not.)

We started at 2 p.m. yesterday. After two levels (by 4:30 p.m.), we were down to 66. Took four more levels, with an hour-long dinner break in between, to get to 33. That was about 10 p.m. A couple of levels later we were at 20, and at 1:30 a.m. we were down to 18. Then we didn’t have a single bustout after that.

So there will be 18 playing down to one today. Just as we were counting on a long one yesterday, we’ll be doing the same today. Barring some decision to carry this sucker onto a fourth day (doubtful), this one is bound to last into the wee hours, for sure.

Not sure how many were following our coverage last night, as I’m guessing most were more frequently checking in on Phil Ivey’s successful quest to win his sixth WSOP bracelet over in Event No. 8, the $2,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball. We were occasionally looking in on that one, too, often checking the live blog as well as Bluff’s streaming of the event once it got down to heads up between Ivey and John Monnette.

Those who did follow our coverage of Event No. 10 were able to track the event very closely, as we had a couple of bloggers (FerricRamsium and myself), and three solid field reporters (Mickey, Neil, and Mark) -- plenty of eyes to capture much of the action. Mickey has a particular ability and predilection for chip counting, and so we were able to keep those figures accurately updated throughout the night.

At one point in the evening, Mickey was asking me about where he could see B.J. Nemeth’s WSOP photo blog over on PokerRoad. Someone had told him there was a picture of him on there, and he wanted to see it. I told him where to go -- just click on the “PokerRoad Nation” tab on the site’s main page and go to “Photo Blog” -- and soon he found his picture.

As Mickey was looking at the picture of himself counting chips during a break at the final table of Event No. 6, the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud event, I noticed him lean forward with his pen and again start counting the chips on the screen. Couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him going back over his work.

I quickly tapped the shoulder of FerricRamsium, an excellent photographer as well as blogger, who was sitting on my other side. I told him he had to get a picture of Mickey, and he obliged.

We got a good laugh out of the pic. As I told Pokerati Dan, who wandered over to our corner of media row somewhere around 2 a.m., it’s a conceptual piece.

“What do you mean?” asked Dan, a bit incredulously.

“It depicts the postmodern condition,” I explained. “We are watching ourselves -- or trying to, anyway. Mickey’s double-checking of his work is an emblem of our constant uncertainty, our need to reestablish meaning for our lives and our inability not to second-guess...”

Dan shook his head. “Someone has been working too long,” he responded. I persisted. “The conceptual depth of this picture is so extensive I cannot possibly explain it in... in... in 140 characters.”

Dan laughed and went back up to his spot on the other end of media row.

I was just kidding around, but I thought again of that maddening question Twitter keeps asking us, over and over and over again: “What are you doing?” And the empty box that appears underneath. How do we fill it up?

Hopefully with something fun and meaningful. I know that’s how I filled it last night.

See how I answer the question today by following our coverage of the final two tables over on PokerNews.