Pool School

I suppose there’s a metaphor for life lurking in every sport.  How else do we explain so many sports movies? I mean after Rudy and Raging Bull the sports movie machine coulda stopped yes?  But then there was A League of there Own, Cinderella Man…I could go on but I digress.

I swam competitively for a number a years but never did I make as many ah-ha moment connections in all those years of starting blocks, bi-lateral breathing and flip turns as I did in my 45 minutes of pool playing. Felt table, cue balls, triangle thingy. Playing pool.  Maybe it’s just that I’m playing pool with a grown woman’s perspective and frame of reference whereas I was swimming pools as a youngun and a teen.

I’m no expert pool player by far–about a thousand 100 meter pool lengths away from being an expert.  But I’ll say this.  I have the makings of being not half bad.  I didn’t play competitively, just did a couple of rounds of clearing  the table.  Each time it took me about 5 minutes less.

Now, the following aren’t Eckhart Tolle-Oprah-scream-worthy ah-ha moments, (if you’re into that sorta thing) but they did occur to me during shooting:

Focus:  When you intensely zero in on your shot/goal and put your energy into making it happen–more often than not it happens.

Put in the work:  Sometimes there were shots that required stretching and bending and I soo didn’t feel like contorting.  But, you guessed it, when I got on tip toes, stretched across the table and went after a shot in less obvious ways, it usually paid off.

Stick-to-it: Stay with the shot.  The times that I had the perfect shot lined up but was too hasty and over confident in my approach, I didn’t sink the ball.  The times that I focused, put that focused energy into the shot and followed all the way through? Sink city baby.

Be resourceful:  That square chalk thingy that the cool pool guys/gals in the movie rub on the end of the stick –its actually very useful.  When I just felt like no matter what I did the stick wasn’t hitting the ball squarely I grabbed the chalk and (probably more vigorously and theatrically than necessary) I got to rubbing.  Next shot? Sunk.

Pray: Some of the shots looked impossible.  But I focused, put in the work, stuck with the shot, used the right resource, whispered a prayer and…missed. Big. But I made the next one 😀

You get a book! You get a book! You get a book! You get a book!

Day’s 32-35

We lost “The Voice”.  Whitney’s music had a special place in my heart.

And now, the books:

1.

This one has the needle moving on my I-wanna-read-'er scale

 

2.

For the budding scientist!

 3.

Oprah puts the O's in books!

4.

This one measures about a 4.5 on the wanna-read-'er-scale

 

There were some good looking books on this list!

 

I blog your pardon! Rude much?

If you’re not a blogger you can ignore this scathing indictment.   Oh yeah, its scathing.   But if you are a blogger allow me to bend your ear for a moment. You can bend it back when I’m done.

OK.  I thought I was gonna be able to keep on truckin’ without saying anything but I’m gonna hafta get it off my chest. Yes,  I’ve always looked askance at ‘netiquette’. **If there was a ‘whiny voice’ font I’d be using it here** —>Don’t all caps at me! Your subject line wasn’t descriptive enough! Blah, blah! blah!

Hey! If you’re that sensitive you don’t need to be out here on these interwebs.  You need go hang out with that chick from ‘Mean Girls’ who was all “I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles and we’d all eat it and be happy” and the two of you need to work on getting tickets to the Oprah show…  Well seeing as that ship has sailed I guess Dr. Phil will hafta suffice.  **Shrug** What are ya gonna do?

Antyway back to my rant.   While I think netiquette is just a tad  much, I do think that fellow bloggers should recognize the plight of our ilk and act accordingly.  We’re all in the same boat.  We’re all writers who pour out bits of our soul in the blogoverse and then pretend to be blasé about whether we have an audience or not.  No not all of us are trying to achieve the blog world domination status that this sista has  managed.  But we do want to know that on occasion a person takes a look at our word craft and says “Hey! I like the cut of his/her jib (or nib if you will)! I like it enough to “like” them!”

I get it.  It takes time and energy to get a blog noticed and it doesn’t happen over night.  But here’s the thing that I’m getting at.  If I exerted the energy to like something you authored, it seems only right you should return the favor.  You’ve already noticed me!  I’m right there liking your stuff.  Take a gander at mine!  I’m sure there’s something there that you can like!  What?  Do you have strict quality control for your likes?  What are you the Anna Wintour of  “likes”?   What  are you on a “likes” budget? Don’t even get me started on not reciprocating subscription requests.

Ok.  I  realize I probably origami-d your ear.  Sorry bout dat.

But about my rant, everybody’s thinking it.  I just said it 😀

Origami Yoda says "Blog respectfully padwan".