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February 24, 2005
8-ball
I got to observe some good "nine" behavior and get a taste of my way overshadowed 8 wing*** last night. I went out with a friend to shoot some pool. We put our names on the board and waited our turn, got a beer. This girl I know, an aquaintance really, needed a partner becuase they had switched from playing single to partners. So she asked me to play. I said OK, and I had next game also, and wanted to go back to playing singles if we won. Some guy was hanging around her and I started getting bad vibes from him. We win the game, I shot like shit, and put in my quarters to play her one on one. This guy starts bitching that I'm playing two games in a row. So he has a point, but I calmly explain to him why I was gonna play anyway. We play, and I lose in about two minutes, so I put my name back up on the board. All is well.
After a few minutes, I notice someone erased the list, and now I've lost my place, and have to wait for a lot more games to be played out. Now I get angry. So I say to myself I'm gonna confront this idiot guy (he erased the queue). Then I start to fear the confrontation shit. So instead of confronting him directly, I go to the girl, within easy earshot of this guy, and say "Which asshole erased my fucking name off the list? I'm gonna go erase the list again and put my name first". I said it in a very convincing way and gave him a dirty look. After a few minutes, he splits. Now I'm angry with myself for not being direct. It would have probably ended in a bar fight, which I'm sure you could guess I'm not too fond of. And now there is a group of 5 young obnoxious, drunk guys swarming the pool table. My friend plays, I partner up with him, we win, he gives me the table. A couple of wisecracks from the new guys, complaining Im not playing with a partner, I am still angry, but calmly explain its my game, I'll do what I want. Now, I'm not really a good pool player. But suddenly, I make that jump into the Now, and use the anger as a very focused energy. I'm making unbelievably hard shots, and on a combo to bank shot, I call the pocket, and then tell everyone "And its going in!". It was a next to impossible shot, and I "knew" it was going in. Almost every shot had extra snap on it, unless it needed finesse, but everything was dead on. It was un-natural. I was focusing anger into through the pool stick to the shooting the cue ball. And old man took a turn, and my play changed dramatically, my play mellowed, but stayed focused. Then one of the rude guys played again and I missed the first two shots. I remembered the anger, and then only needed one more shot to win. I finally lost to a girl by sinking the cue ball along with the 8. Everyone had given up playing against me. My friend, who knows how I play had his jaw hanging open the whole time. Damn it was fun! I'll never play that well again. The whole time, I was mediating every pool related problem that came up. There was a lot of friction between various people.
Then the night got really interesting. Here is where you're gonna think Im wacked (pun intended). While I had been playing pool, my energy controlled the whole area. I was calm and controlled and fun, but I could feel the control. I'm not used to that. It certainly didn't seem warranted to me, but it was obvious in a subtle way, and it was pleasantly amusing. This girl at the bar had been looking at me from across the room. She was with her boyfriend/husband and was looking at me too much. Her eyes seemed to be asking for help. This couple was sitting about 5 feet from where my beer was sitting on the bar next to my friend. I went over there and was bs'ing about the pool stuff with my friend. She keeps looking at me. Her guy was a mobster. Seriously. Now she's looking at me, and she's looking pretty good, so I'm looking back. But, I'm not exactly going to try and pick her up. Her guy is like a robot, not talking, no facial expressions, nothing, then he does this subtle head and hand gesture, and suddenly this 6'4" 300pound guy in a suit appears out of nowhere and stands just on the otherside of the "L" in the bar, and proceeds to calmly watch me. I'm like, fuck, this IS the Sopranos. After about 20 minutes, I say fuck it and go up to the big guy. I start talking about fishing, but Im searching his face for more than words. He converses back, but he looks both amused and like he is a little embarrassed that he blew his cover. He gets done talking to me fairly quickly, shakes my hand, and gives me a reassurring nod, like "hey no problem". I took it as my cue to go back to my own business, and when I turn around, the couple is gone. The whole time, I felt very calm and in control, amused actually. No, I wasn't really drunk. The whole thing was very dream-like, but it actually happened. Very strange. Feel free to comment, I'm still trying to make some sense out of the whole thing.
***another enneagram reference
Posted by Ocean at February 24, 2005 01:30 AM