On luck, hope and dead cat bounces

The funny thing with being in "The Zone" is, you almost never have a genuine opportunity to take advantage of it.

I don't know, nor do I care to recall, how many times I've walked around "feeling it." When all the lights turn green; every last second three point shot rewards you as it rattles home in the bottom of the garbage bin; you find money in your pants and on the street; you glissade the Giant Slalom of expressway traffic, seeing six moves ahead, smoother than Kjetil Andre Aamodt. It is your day and all the planets have aligned, attaching their ephemeral cosmic thread to your nescient ass...

...and it's a dark day at Arlington.

Yesterday was such a day.

You can't force the issue; you can't hold on to The Zone. You also can't give yourself a nickname but try telling that to my friend "Hammer", all 6'3", 148lbs of him. Come on!

But I digress...

Then there is the quiet denouement. When you know it has passed you by but before you are subject to paroxysms of flatulence in front of a pretty girl; the sun once again traversing its ecliptic; the mechanism disengages, light and sound envelop you. You find yourself, once again, down here with everybody else.

Fortuna. She is fickle with her charms; exiguous with her visits.

But when she is with you, it's a good ride.