After Math And Post Facto Draws

I'm ready to call my run at the LAPC a qualified success. Winning 300 buyins in a tourney to start doesn't hurt. I was running fairly well for the remainder of the tournaments as well, though the satellites and the main event ate into my bottom line. The last couple weeks weren't great, and were mostly a lesson in how lucky you need to get to make a big cash, which is hard to absorb when your first big tournament goes so smashingly. But in the span of a month I did a staggering number of things I've never done before. I've played with some pros without curling into a fetal ball, even bluffed them out of pots I needed to win. Played higher limits than I ever have (the difference really IS just the bet size). I've been in a set-over-set-over-set hand. I've walked into a bank with a laptop case lined with a few bricks of cold, hard cash and subsequently freaked out the personal banker; I think her read on me went from "nice young man" to "probable drug kingpin" in the span of two words. I've called bets that, whatever their chip consequences, were essentially for $10K and $20K, and been right both times. I've heard my wife shout "It's not gambling!" at my mother, in response to my mother's probing question about my presumptive "gambling problem". All that said, I'm craving familiarity now. I left Commerce tonight earlier than I'd planned, because I realized I'd rather get home to my wife than spend another second in an increasingly weird limit game. I have a much healthier bankroll now, and I plan to use it, but I'm not hitting the tournament circuit anytime soon (and I don't have the bankroll for it anyway). I looked over the schedule and structures for the WSOP and couldn't get excited about them - the LAPC events had a better blind structure, more starting chips, and similar level times. So after a month of living, breathing and dreaming poker, I have no idea what the "next step" is. I've got several unpokerish projects that have languished overlong, a trip to SXSW in March, and a need to decompress my head. Also I think I'm getting a cold. I've never been good at making a long story short, but longtime readers already knew that. Do keep watching this space, but don't expect a whole lot from it in the near future. I have a life to reconstruct, a wife and three cats who've missed me, and an appointment at the DMV. It's all about the priorities; suddenly I have more options than usual and I'm going to need a little time to explore them.