trouble with a capital t

I've recently taken up pool, and it's been trouble all the way. I've started smoking, drinking and swearing (second-hand, by association and if you count the past tense of "flick"). But aside from that, it's pretty much Sunday school straight down the line.

It started when we were at a pub and Sharon (of prior-blog pokie-betting fame) decided to teach me. I'm not exactly sure why, but I have a feeling that she might have been extremely desperate for a fourth.

Most people, you see, don't think to pick me first for anything involving eye-hand coordination or geometry, much less the two put together. I am the girl who got three hits in four years of playing softball and whose own best friend laughs mercilessly and uproariously when watching her do jazzercise. I am also the girl who has not had a math class since junior year of high school, and actively seeks to block out every traumatic memory of Mr. Lykins' geometry class, though still ends up reciting "copy over the diagram and the given information in step one" in her sleep. Oddly enough, this highly catchy phrase did not actually aid my pool playing skills at all, and, being as it is the only element of my geometry class I remember clearly, there isn't much left to work with.

So, the fact that despite these monumental setbacks Sharon actually allowed me to play on her team is a tremendous testament her extreme kindness and depth of character. Either that or her relative level of intoxication.

But in any event, having secured my participation she set about the first and most monumental task: channeling all my rambunctious energy into one very small white ball. And, seeing as it was the day before Halloween, I was already halfway to festive mode, which in this case meant a ladybug costume with antennas. She had her work cut out for her.

Amazingly, though, it emerged that ladybugs can be remarkably restrained creatures when their pool playing skills are at stake. This one buckled down and paid attention: she held the stick this way, then just a smidge that way, then back again a hair this way; she aimed; she listened to the gauge of her necessary concentration of energy (gentle, medium or lots); she learned when to take her turn and she shot not with reckless abandon as many had feared, but with such steadfastness of purpose that she inevitably sent the balls scurrying in precisely a direct line a foot away from their targets. However, the mere fact that she had sent them with steadfastness of purpose and not rambunctious energy was sufficient grounds for all present to rejoice, seeing as they had, at least, stayed mostly on the table. She was deemed a promising pool player on the spot, simply for not doing cartwheels across the table. It was a grave accomplishment.

What was even more remarkable then, was the fact that somewhere around game two or three, the ladybug actually managed to deposit one of the appropriate (appropriate!) balls in a pocket. The amount of rejoicing then reached epic highs not even surpassed by Australians who've just been given a new public holiday. Pretty much the entire pub stopped and cheered and promptly queued up to shake her hand. Quite possibly they had never before seen a ladybug play pool.

Spurred on by my clear margin of success in the pool playing field, as well as continued compliments that I had precisely the perfect fingers for pool (as well as piano, another endeavor at which I repeatedly, despite said fingers, fail miserably) I returned a couple weeks later for Round Two.

Round Two was fantastic. It consisted of three games, and though I lost two of them, I managed to multiply my ball-sinking skills per evening eight-fold. Yes, eight-fold! It seems the girl Kim is actually better (if this can be believed) than the ladybug Kim, and somehow sunk eight (appropriate!) balls. As if that were not incredible enough, two of these eight came off two separate breaks (a new use of this word, meaning "to begin the game with a bang of exploding color, and possibly a shriek of excitement") and a third came from a behind the back shot!! Not to mention, my fingers still looked pretty snazzy, too.

And that brings you pretty much up to speed with my pool-playing experiences of late. It seems that pool actually is rather diverting, and not too terribly troublesome. At least not with a capital T.