Punching Someone in the Face

Getting out of bed this morning, the eternal clash between good and evil, the id and the superego, was surprisingly painless. Even after an inadvisable amount of Famous Grouse, Red Square and a brief outing to Jesters, my head seemed clearer than it would on a dreaded weekday. My evil sleep-craving side only bartered an extra 5 minutes of snoozing before I slung the nearest clothes on and dragged myself down the road to the student union for karate at 10.30am. In another strange twist of fate, my head didn't even ache, let alone throb and spin into surges of nausea as it usually might. It took a good hour and a half of constant shuffling around transferring my weight from arm to back to feet to wherever before I even felt a bit light-headed. At one point, the instructor even threw out a compliment about my improvement, and when it was time to change partners for the next exercise, my more experienced partner requested that I stay with him as I'd "got the timing down really well". That was too much, and fate was duly tempted into bringing me crashing back down to earth with a simmering bump. During one of many practice punches to his mid-chest level, which were harmless and for the intention of him blocking them, I aimed slightly higher than usual, and my partner compounded the problem by deflecting my fist up even further with his block. He blocked it right into his own mouth. He spun away fairly dramatically, but the blood was minimal and he carried straight on. Of course, I apologised, holding my tooth-dented knuckle into my chest like a sick baby. I have to admit though, that it does give one a certain rush to punch somebody else in the face. And without any rage, as well. Doing it to someone you despise must be wholly satisfying, or maybe I'm just a sadist. He told me that it was also quite painful when I later punched him on the end of the finger and nearly broke that too, but I didn't get a fix from that one.
When I got in last night, in a semi-wasted haze, I loaded $50 onto an online poker site and played on the internet for the first time in three weeks. I'd never do it when I'm sober, I promised myself that work would come first (and to be fair, it has, and I'm enjoying it). I vaguely recall being grossly unfairly beaten in one tournament (the opinion of a drunk man, bear in mind), but then winning another. I believe I withdrew $57 after about 2 hour's play. Not as stinging a loss as some people think the game is all about, with practice it's a solid, skillfull game. In my defence, I looked for a "proper" job for months before finally settling on learning cards. And it's the only time I've ever made roughly £7,000 sitting around in my underwear. And strangely, through no shortage of non-scientific testing, I play just as well when I'm tanked as when I'm not.