As I’ve mentioned, myself and a couple friends get together a couple times a week (at least) to play pool at his home table. This week, he had family over so had to cancel. Not to be dissuaded from my recently re-acquired taste for the cue sports, I decided to use that time to re-acquaint myself with the pool hall I used to frequent… appropriately called "The Pool Room".

It was a blast. I really had forgotten how much fun that place can be. I started out on the 9′ tables, just warming up practicing my stroke, and practicing my side-pocket shots (a common weakness). It never really clicked, and I got a little frustrated. About then, an old friend by the name of Ray showed up, so I turned in my rack and went over to the 7′ bar boxes to shoot with him. More people I used to hang with showed up, as well as some I’ve only recently met. Ray beat me in the worst of ways… game after game after game was his. Oddly enough, though I’d have been frustrated and even angry about it any other time, I just didn’t care. It was fun just to hit the balls around again.

I did catch my stride later on, though, after Ray left. While playing 9-ball with the wife of our local cue-maker and a friend of hers, there was a stretch of three or four games, right before I started getting tired (it was 11:30 or so) that I could not miss. I made some really nice long-table thin kick shots when left badly by one of my opponents, but when I was shooting, I never had a hard shot… my position play was in rare form. Weird thing is, 9-ball has never been my game. :)

I’m looking very much forward to going back… I just hope I get a job soon so I can go w/o feeling guilty about plucking down so many quarters. ;)