August 22

1.  Chess.  I’m on a losing streak, having lost eight out of ten games since May.  If you’ve ever dreamed of beating someone in chess, you could always challenge me, since my luck (or else my attention) appears to be elsewhere.

2.  Anastasia.  On the other hand, in a move of pure lovableness, Anastasia slept on my chest right under my chin last night for an hour and a half while I was reading.  She started out curled up in a ball and slowly unrolled until she was draped across my neck.  Now I understand why people wore furs, because the two pounds and eighteen inches of ferret made me really hot.

3.  God.  I woke up to my alarm this morning, intending to get up for church, but instead slept another hour and a half.  Sorry, sorry.  I’m glad God isn’t much into lightning bolts these days.

4.  Dreaming.  I did manage to have a really bizarre dream.  It was loosely set in a house where I used to live as a child, but the group of people with me–or rather, whom I was indefinably among–came from a book called The Magicians by Lev Grossman, which is a very strange book indeed.  One of the party had just been bitten? or poisoned? and someone else was asking him what he wanted on his gravestone.  He chose the epitaph from the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, which goes something like “Died saving his family from a destroyed sinking battleship.”  And then we all went down the hall and got on a train and then I woke up.

Chess and the Resurrection

I woke up this thunderstorming Easter morning (very early, for my husband and I are going to the Early service, the one before Sunday School, arranged so that the CEO visitors would not feel cramped) with the hope in my heart that God would notice my humble, obedient piety.  Possibly with a reward in mind.  But whatever.

As I sat down at the computer to double-check the service time (8:15a.), I noticed in my inbox an email from the chess site where my friends and I play.  But this time it did not say “It’s your turn against anni–!”  This time it said “You have lost a game (checkmate).”

Checkmate!  Checkmate!  I did not see this coming from anywhere.

In a scant twenty moves, I lost to a team of queen-bishop-bishop.  And the sad thing was that I noticed the possibility of what became the final move; but I did not see the checkmate in it, thinking that I would be able to move my king out of the way.  My loss was due to sheer inattention.  Sadly, this devastating news came after yesterday’s resignation to my other opponent, which causes me to wonder whether God really intends for me to play online chess.  Whyfor, if I actually appear to be getting worse?  Surely this is not his purpose for my life.

I hope that this morning’s sermon is a) worth getting up for and possibly b) inspiring, since my ego could use a little encouragement at the moment. *tongue-in-cheek*

[This is why I have a tag called “irony” – so that no one will be horrified at my insenstive superficiality.]

Happy Easter!

On Chess

Alas that I have had little success lately in my games of chess online.  Behold:

• 30-Jan-09.  Lost to tedbru.
• 27-Jan-09.  Lost to annikah.
• 09-Jan-09.  Lost to tedbru.
• 04-Jan-09.  Lost to tedbru.
• 17-Dec-08.  Lost to annikah.
• 10-Dec-08.  Won over tedbru.

The perceptive will realize that I haven’t won a game since the tenth of December (except for the three or four I won during the Christmas holidays, playing in person).  I’m not entirely certain why this is, though I’m quite unhappy about it.  Perhaps I base my moves in part on the body language of my opponents?  Or perhaps the online setting doesn’t feel as real and needn’t be taken as seriously as a physical game?  Or (it can’t be) perhaps I’m getting worse?

Chess is a game of logic and strategy, requiring knowledge of the abilities of your pieces and of the ability of your opponent – there are no cards or dice to sully the game with chance.  If you lose, you’ve been out-thought.  If you win, you’ve really won.  I like the purity of it, the moments when all your careful study and calculation locks into place.  If he goes here, then I’ll take him, and he’ll take me, and I’ll move so, and he’ll have to move so, and then I’ll have him. I know few of the nuances of offense and defense, the balance of power, the foray into enemy territory or the laying of a subtle trap; but the little I know of it, I like well.

‘Queen’s gambit’ really means something to me who has done it before.

It’s not the recent losing I mind especially; though it would be foolish to deny that I had much rather win, I really do love just to play.  But this apparent sign that I’m not playing as well or as earnestly as usual makes me a little disappointed in myself.  Mental self-discipline is always something to strive for: no matter how much you have, there is more to be attained.

Well, then.  I will be thinking harder this time around.

*snickers evilly*