Grand Funk Railroad

There's just no better word for it: I'm in a funk.

I think the principal cause is sleep deprivation. Although I'm grateful for the PokerNews gig, trying to write about events at the World Series of Poker that conclude somewhere between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m., and have the writing done by my deadline of 8:00 a.m., means writing at literally the worst possible time of day for my alertness and creativity. I have tried everything I can think of to get my sleep-wake cycle adjusted in compensation, with massive failure. The result is not only way too little sleep, but it coming in fits and starts, and at completely inconsistent times. That is hard on the brain--including the emotion-laden temporal lobes--and likely makes all the other troubles feel a lot worse than they otherwise might.

What other troubles, you ask?

Well, there's the fact that I seem to have inadvertantly put in serious jeopardy a friendship that has long been a source of indescribable joy and stability in my life, and I am at an utter loss what to do about it.

There's the fact that what little poker I have been able to squeeze in lately has been unfun and unprofitable.

There's a massive logistical problem about what to do with a lifetime of accumulated stuff--the 90% of what I own that I didn't bring with me to Vegas because I had no idea what my situation here would be or how long it would last. I have postponed and ignored that problem about as long as I can, and now have to deal with it, though no solution seems feasible.

There are mounting financial pressures.

There are concerns about family members ailing.

There is the unpleasant fact that my friend Cardgrrl will be retuning to D.C. in just a few more days, after a delightful but all-too-short month in town, and I keep thinking about what a letdown that will be. (Because, you see, it's not enough to burden myself with today's woes; I also feel it is necessary to throw onto the pile some anticipatory unhappiness.)

The total effect is best described by the term anhedonia--the inability to experience pleasure. I have a block of open, unscheduled time, and start to click through what I might use it for. Ordinarily, it's an exciting prospect, because I can choose between a bunch of things that I enjoy, and any of them will make me happy. But these days, the things that usually bring me pleasure all seem to have lost their interest for me: playing poker, writing this blog, watching my favorite TV shows that I've taped, Netflix movies, the dozens of hours of poker TV programs I have stored on my hard drive, all the unread books on my shelves, calling a friend for a last-minute get-together, etc. My reaction to each of them is just a bland, "Meh, not interested."

This ain't normal.

But I've been through such periods before--I suppose everybody has. Past experience says that it will pass, and things will resume some sort of acceptable contentment and routine again.

So please forgive my recent silence. It will be broken at some point, and I will once again move from the aberrant state of depression to the normal state of grumpiness.