It was a lot of fun. I love bowling. I suck at it, but I love it. I used to be really good, I don't know what happened. I used to be good enough that I didn't even embarrass myself when I bowled with computer scientist (CS), and he even took bowling as a PE credit for college one summer. He took bowling and billiards - needed 2 PE classes to graduate! Why? What the hell? I needed a PE class too. I took self defense - it was a lot of rolling around on mats and meditation. Question: Why do we still do PE in college? Shouldn't college PE go the way of those manners/embroidery/pleasing-your-husband-after-a-long-day-at-the-office classes the womenfolk used to have to take? It's college. We GROWN. And half of us are doing college sports. Probably don't need to spend 3 hours a week playing kickball anymore. Especially when you're playing kickball with half your team hungover from last night's rager. So good for CS for taking bowling and billiards. If you're going to make me take PE I'm going to take the most ridiculous PE you offer, and really, you're practically asking for it by offering ping pong.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Being terrible at bowling. How terrible, you ask? Like, 38 pins terrible. That's right. I knocked down 38 pins, out of all those rolls, and one of them was a strike. How did I get a strike? I said I didn't used to suck so badly. It must have been one of those amnesiac clarity moments where you remember your name for a split second and then go back to forgetting that you killed somebody. Or pretending that you forgot you killed somebody. Either way, I don't trust amnesiacs.
But I got to hang out with DP, which was wonderful. We sucked at bowling together, but she has an excuse that I don't have - carpal tunnel and 8+years since the last time she bowled. Last time I went bowling was this summer, and she still beat me the first time. CS got to meet everyone though, and I got to meet some voices I only knew over the phone, and I got a fun new nickname at the office! Can you guess what it is?
38. They call me 38.
And I got some gift cards for being the worst bowler ever! They were pity gifts. I can't tell you want they are, because I'm re-gifting them. You'll know what they are if you are lucky enough to be the recipient. Or unlucky enough, depending on whether or not you're offended that I wasn't going to get you anything until I was handed some gift cards for free.
By the way, how do you tabulate bowling? What is the DEAL with those strikes and spares and extra roll at the end? You get three strikes in a row, your score stays hidden until you mess up, and all of a sudden you have a zillion points. Ridiculous. It's the same in football. Six points? Seven points? One point field goal? Two point field goal? Screw it. Scoring sucks. It breeds self esteem issues in people who are bad at sports. Or people who are bad at figuring out how you tally sports scores. And people like me who are bad at both would prefer to sit aside and overdose on bowling alley nachos than dive into the fray and emerge 45 minutes later with a nickname like 38.
I'm kind of bummed I was so terrible, even though the night was fun. My body disobeys my brain, and I hate it. I would get up there and say to myself, "ok, we know we're slinging our arm to the left and it's going straight to the gutter. So, let's straighten out the wrist this time." And I'd feel my wrist go straight and I'd aim for the arrows on the lane like you're supposed to, and the ball would go right to the gutter. CS would tell me I swung it left, and I KNEW I felt my arm practically bending itself to the right to send it a different direction. My mind is right there doing exactly what it's supposed to do but my appendages are total snot balls about it, like rebellious teenagers who turn up the My Chemical Romance too loud and write bad poetry while their parent (my brain) is screaming through the bedroom door about doing homework or some other totally lame shit.
I've always been that way, to my great shame. It must be so GREAT to be good at sports. I sucked at karate. I couldn't jump, I couldn't kick, my arms wouldn't do what they were supposed to do, but they fooled my brain into thinking everything was going great. It's only when I look at pictures or video of myself later that I realize how ridiculous I looked.
sigh.
I strained my ankle tendon the other day. I think it's the Achilles, if ancient greek artifacts are at all accurate. Far be it from me to check a medical text. Painted clay pots were good enough for my ancestors, dammit, and they're good enough for me. But all I did was stand on my tip toes to put something on a shelf and I felt it go rat-tat-tat-tat! and now it doesn't hurt and my foot motion capabilities are completely the same, but every now and then it shudders a little like it's having a bad memory. Both my knees make sandpaper noises in my ears when I go up stairs or crouch down, but I blame that on the karate and how I had to jump up and down and run around on a cement floor without shoes for 5 years. Right when my legs were growing the most, too. Bummer. That's gonna be some surgery in about 30 years.
I'll just have to console myself with being good at brain things. I'm very good at brain things. Like...like....um....math logic science history physics random, useless trivia. (The thing on the end of your shoelace is called an aglet.)
And reading. Music?
Know what I'm good at? Cooking. Planning on how to move from one house to the other, and packing up stuff. I'm good at budgeting. I'm good at making other people feel happy and whole. I'm caring! I'm punctual. You can trust me usually. Just don't ask me to split up a dinner check. Or figure out a bowling score.
We shall bowl soon. I'll keep score.
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