you may not know this, but i like to bowl. i don’t do it often (do you KNOW how expensive bowling is these days? here in nyc it can easily be a $50 outing… total insanity!) and i’m woefully, embarassingly bad, but i like to bowl. it’s become kind of a special-occasion thing over the years. we went bowling for my 21st birthday, i once threw a surprise party for Bear at Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village, we went bowling on a visit to California, on a visit to Arizona, and the night before my brother got married (the wedding party headed straight to from the rehearsal dinner to the bowling alley).

did i mention i’m not very good? i mean it. this is one of the few endeavors in life i thoroughly enjoy despite having no skill for it. maybe it’s because bowling’s really a social thing….you go up and throw the ball (in my case, kind of closing your eyes and tilting your head and *willing* the ball not to go into the gutter), then you sit back down and keep talking for another 10 minutes, occasionally cheering loudly for a teammate. you don’t even have to keep score; the machine does it for you! you can eat, drink and bowl a the same time, and (i’m not ashamed to admit), i think the shoes are kitschy-cute. i’ve always dreamed of having my own bowling ball and shoes, not to mention a cute bowling shirt with my name embroidered on the front, and a bowling glove for my right hand. obviously i watched a lot of Laverne & Shirley growing up, but that’s not the whole history of my bowling-love; my mom was always in a bowling league when i was a kid, and my toddler years were spent in the Meadow Lanes nursery. grandma was a league bowler, too, and although i was ALWAYS impressed when she showed off her winnings (trophies, and didn’t mom & grams even win satin jackets one year?), it was sometimes a wee bit frustrating (for both of us, no doubt) to bowl with her because she’d try to show me proper form then get increasingly dismayed when i couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t get it right. i still twist my wrist in a crazy way, but i hear grandma’s voice every time i let loose the ball.

lest you think i’ve dragged eric unwillingly into this crazy world of rented shoes and slippery floors, i want to point out that not only did he take a bowling class in college, but he won a trophy at the end of the year (anyone want a bowling-pin with some congratulatory writing on it? we’re redecorating soon…)

all this is my way of explaining these pictures. of course we went bowling in Cape Cod.

[i'm not just a bad bowler, i'm also a bad dance-dance-revolution player (but the choreography to The Reflex was pretty fun) and a very determined ski-ball player.]