Devil Inside

There are times when I feel like I'm two people.
And that's not just because my time is being divided up like tiny pieces of quiche (ham, cheese, sausage, yum), thanks to two increasingly cute little girls who unfortunately have decided that any time outside their parents' arms sucks. And there's only so long I can wear one of those Bjorn pouches without feeling completely emasculated.
And Harry Potter still remains near, but not to, the end. In fact, a basket of laundry has remained unfolded for three days. It would take me 10 minutes to do it. I have not had that 10 minutes available to me. I also haven't blogged much lately. Thanks for noticing. Oh and I have a Pokerworks article to do soon here. Have I done it yet? I have not. Poker? Ha. One short session a few days ago; it was profitable, but just barely after a stupid push in a CASH game with TPTK.
Further proof that all that crying and all those demands have punctured my brain like swiss cheese came when I wanted to slime the tires of our jogging stroller so Jayden and I can continue to go for short runs and walks around the hood. A goat head punctured one of the tires, and if you've never run into a goat head, it's a small weed that releases seeds with the sharpness and size of a Ninja Star. So I'm sliming the tires, and part of the fun is unscrewing the "core" out of the valve.
Of course, I was doing this on our deck, and the "core," about the size of the top of a ballpoint pen, falls off the screw and rolls into the cracks of the deck and down into a dirty grave.
Sigh.
I make a brief attempt to crawl under our deck, but the only person who can fit under there is Jayden, and I consider it for a second before realizing that sending a toddler into a confined space without the ability to follow clear instructions would probably not earn me Father of the Year.
So I think. Ouch. Then I feed a twin, and inspiration actually strikes, as maybe the fussing jars a nerve ending in the cortex or something. I have a long steel rod I use to clean my trombone. I have chewing gum. I have a glue gun that I can coat said gum to make it extra sticky.
It takes a good half hour, but I rig the contraption up and manage to snag the small silver piece. Triumph! I am a genius!
And then I wash the gum off the rod.
And the silver piece disappears.
I am not a genius.
Fighting the urge to throw Jayden's high chair through our kitchen window, I retrace my steps. Nothing. Did Jayden take it? I wonder but I do not accuse. Did the twins take it? No, they are 10 weeks old. OK.
I finally remember the sink. Ah ha! I fish around the drain and pull out several disgusting things before my finger grazes across a piece of silver. It could be. It might be. It is!
I quickly screw the silver piece back into the stroller's air valve and finish up with the stroller.
Now, all this time, my second person was shouting at me to destroy things, throw something, maybe kick the dog or something. I ignored it, of course. But why does that second person even exist?
Why, for instance, would my voice ring through my head as I was running a 10K race Saturday? Why would it tell me to slow down? Why would it, in fact, even urge me to stop and walk?
Yes, I was uncomfortable, even miserable at times, but that's part of the pain of running these races. I wanted to run in 48 minutes, about a 7:45 pace, and I was accomplishing this, but all the while, that little voice spoke to me, telling me to stop, to quit, it's OK, just walk for a minute to catch your breath.
Why? Isn't that good for me?
Look, sometimes that little voice is a good thing. It's saved me a LOT of money on the poker tables when all I want to do is be a little aggro maniac (those of you who know my play will laugh at this, but now you know how effective that voice is). That little voice makes sure I don't eat a carton of ice cream every night or do something stupid like yell at my kids when all they want is my attention. It pushes me, ironically, to go for a run when it's cold or raining or hot, and it gets me up in the middle of the night when the girls are crying for food (well, that and my wife, a master at the push-push-until-he's-awake shove).
But sometimes that voice can be evil, so damn evil. It also urges me to push my chips in the middle with a hand like TPTK and eat what I want and to yell at my family.
It's not an angel on one side and a demon on the other. I'll never be an angel, but thoughts of, say, serial killing aren't in my blood either. But Friday, when I climb Longs Peak, a monster that will put me on the trail at 1 a.m. and probably take me 14 hours to complete, for the 15th time, I'm pretty certain at times I'll have to silence the Devil inside.