Playin' With The Queen Of Hearts

I AM THE MASTER OF FREECELL (all rights reserved).

Do NOT listen to my friend Kathy, as she is not the Master of FreeCell, and she WILL be stricken down for her arrogance.

Shortly after taking my new position with Salt Lake Community College, my boss's boss was promoted and so, consequently, was my boss. I was not promoted as I am inept at best and only have a rough grasp of the English language and how it is used in feats of communication and persuasion.. Most writers, like me, are just a collection of dusty catch-phrases loosely wrapped around a series of plot-concepts. We are usually killed off after fifteen minutes into any given movie.

Even romantic comedies.

However, with promotions flying faster then they do in Richard III this left a gaping hole immediately above me. This is the position, I am informed, that normally delegates all work and writing efforts to me, the . . . ummm . . . writer. Since I have proven in the past to be a less than trustworthy leader (think the Donner party but with a whole lot more tragedy), I have been left to my own devices. They say that idle hands are the Devil's workshop, but since I have a finely honed ability to turn even the most well-ordered structure into a bastion of chaos, my idle hands (not to be confused with the terribly pathetic movie Idle Hand) have become:

THE MASTER OF FREECELL.

For those of you who don't know (and how could you NOT!!), FreeCell (yes, that's the correct spelling) is a card game loaded onto most computers under the "Accessories" file. In truth, this file was originally called, "Time Sucking Devices I Know My Boss Doesn't Want Me to be Playing With" but I understand that wasn't really marketable.

This game falls into the common lexicon of Windows users with Mine Sweeper (a much less exciting game that makes you feel bad by killing a smiley face when you hit a mine) and Hearts (wherein Pauline, Michelle and Ben, three ruthless sluts, crush your fragile card-playing ego). FreeCell is Solitaire with a solution. The primary difference is that you get to see all the cards and then go quickly insane trying to free the Three of Hearts.

I'd like to say something profound at this point, like that FreeCell is a direct parallel for life. You know where you want to get to, and you know what you have to do to get there, but you have to manipulate things in a very delicate balance and in just the right sequence in order to accomplish your end. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes this is hard; and sometimes, just sometimes a soul is so sad that it can't leave the land of the living . . .

But that's just Balderdash (all rights reserved).

In truth, FreeCell is a time sucking black hole into which my little ship, Palomino, has fallen (bonus points for naming the captain of the Palomino). If has sucked my will to live, and plagues my dreams at night (ok, not all my dreams. But those are generally un-publishable). I keep trying to place a six-seven-eight run onto a ten-nine split with only one cell still free.

Sorry (all rights reserved).

If you've played the game then you will understand what a terrible mental Twister (all rights reserved) this game is.

It's not that I don't have anything at work to do. Quite the opposite. I am very, very busy. Just call me and ask me. But I am busy in the classic tidal flow sense that every good (or even bad, you be the judge) proposal writer knows. Some days (or weeks) you have so much work that you may well drown beneath the profitable opportunities, other times . . . not so much.

This is exactly like FreeCell.

Sometimes the cards move so fast that you can hardly keep up with them, other times . . . not so much. And given that mastery of FreeCell, as stated by the ancient Zen master Lao Tsu, will give one both an insight into the mysteries of life and severe eyestrain, it seemed a good way to spend my time.

Otherwise I would just write editorials.

Or worse, poetry.

But being the MASTER OF FREECELL is no easy task. It takes dedication, a willingness to risk all, and above all lots of extreme laziness that is difficult at best to equal.

But I have never been a quitter.

Even when I quit smoking I didn't quit. I just postponed by next cigarette for going on five years.

And especially when it comes to laziness, I am NOT a quitter. To emphasize this, as I have written this rather short and pointless peice, I have already stopped several times to pay the joy that is FreeCell, get some lunch, take care of a few errands, be a brat to a good friend and take over the world.

It's had to be the MASTER.

So harken not to the twisted words of my friend Kathy. She knows not where for of she speaks.

Nor can she place a phrase like "where for of" in normal usage.

I am the MASTER OF FREECELL.