On playing pool.

They say once you learn something, you never really forget it.

They say when you stop doing something on a regular basis, your skill with it rapidly declines.

They're right, you know. Both camps.

Several years ago, I played pool a lot. I mean, a lot. I'd like to think I was fairly good at it. But ever since I've left New York, there just hasn't been a place for me to play, to keep my skills sharp.

Sure, I played a game here and there in the intervening years. My muscles remembered what it was like; they could replicate shots, my eyes kind of knew what to look for, what angles to hit. But whether it was upstairs in the Grape Room or at a little joint on the strip in Vegas, I never could quite get back in the groove.

Yesterday I hung out with my old pool team. I watched players I knew well and players I didn't know at all get down on shot after shot like I used to, take breaths like I used to, line up and bank and coach and railslide and backspin and plan like I used to.

Tonight I'm in Pericles' basement. Tonight I'm accessing that dusty corner of my brain that really remembers this shit, remembers that you have to visualize the angle and follow the lines, that remembers what spin gives you what leave. And I'm realizing that I haven't been using this all the times I've played in the last couple of years. I've been playing half-cocked, playing without a full hand.

I don't really know what I'm saying, I guess. I just cleaned the table for both sides with two missed shots, and it was easy. I could map things out, measure and leave shot after shot. All I had to do was dig out the old data on how.

It's in there, you know. The things you used to do. Play an instrument, cook a dish, fix a radiator, balance a checkbook, care about another person. You just have to reach back into that cavernous well in your head and haul it back into the light.