Knocking Down the Pins

Textbook and Bowling Scores

As another long week draws to a close, I find myself reflecting more on positives than negatives. Grade-wise, I was able to get a 94 on my Biology test (with a 9-point curve), a 94 on my Ergonomics test (with a 5-point curve), an 87 on my second French test (no curve), and a 78 on my Psych Research Methods test (for which I REALLY think there should have been a curve). I am almost caught up on my French homework, and I am fully on top of all the reading in the rest of my classes.

The overarching theme, if one can be found, for this week has been about trying to put out feelers and make connections with people around me. First, I'll touch on the frustrations. Professors in the Psychology Department at NCSU are apparently not the most communicative bunch of people in the world. This comes as a shock only because it has always been my contention that people who are drawn to psychology tend to be over-sharers. Psychologists are supposed to be the touchy-feely people. We're supposed to want to tell everyone everything and be willing to listen as everyone else comes to cry on our shoulders. Why then can't a single professor email me back within a WEEK when I try to set up appointments to talk about doing independent research work for PSY 499? You'd think they would love to sign up suckers like me who are willing to devote hours of our lives to reading research studies and doing data entry for little more than course credit and the vague hope that maybe, just MAYBE, we will look 2% better than some other dumbass when we apply to Grad School. My advisor informed me that I shouldn't get too discouraged by not getting an email back from the professors I contacted and recommended that I continue to be persistent. Anyone who knows me should be aware that persistence isn't my problem. Finding that fine line between persistent and stalker is where I'm a little less comfortable. I'll send out follow up emails next week and see if I can make any progress in getting my PSY 499 done.

Toppling the Pins

A few weeks after I began bowling with Chris and his friends, Joe began bringing along a friend of his named Elizabeth. It should be noted that Joe is not dating Elizabeth, nor will he every get a chance to date her. That said, he is as protective of her as though he were pounding her nightly and twice on Saturday!

Elizabeth is a 22 year old, petite, sandy haired girl with glasses, a cute ass, small perky breasts which she plans to enlarge over the summer, and a thick nasally back country accent that makes you want to stuff a ball gag in her mouth to save your ears from the shrill. And, in case you were wondering, sure, I'd like to have sex with her.

You may already be seeing where this is headed, but let me add that Elizabeth is also into law enforcement, guns, country music, trucks, and really shitty action movies. Translation: She's likely a hard core conservative. And, while I did have a one-night stand with a conservative once, I have no desire to have a romantic relationship with anyone who can't appreciate Barack Obama for the delicious ebony god-among-men that he truly is!

Unfortunately (isn't there always an "unfortunately" in my stories?), because she's cute and conservative, I enjoy doing little things (flicking her ponytail or making lewd comments) to annoy her. Think of it like the boy in third grade who picks on the girl he has a crush on. Sure, its immature and stupid, but then so was voting for the McCain/Palin ticket! Here's where the problem developed: Rather than coming to me and telling me to stop, Elizabeth decided to complain to Joe and Chris. Of course, for Chris' part he couldn't care less but it creates a situation of divided loyalties. To make things easier for Chris, I agreed to sit out on bowling next week and let things cool down a bit.

I don't understand why I get so much joy out of antagonizing people. It isn't as though it serves a functional purpose; invariably it alienates me from people I enjoy being around. And it isn't like I can't be friends with people I disagree with. Some of the people I like the most are people who never cease to annoy me!

Sometimes I think of what I do as an initiation rite. The people I call friends are the ones who went through the antagonism and chose to stick around in spite of it. They are people I can respect because they have proven that they aren't two-dimensional and they don't see me as two-dimensional. For me to consider you a friend means you've successfully entered a pretty exclusive club.

Still... Club enrollment is down these days. Perhaps I should consider lowering the entrance requirements a little bit.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof.

Picking Up a Spare

I went bowling last night with Chris, the guy who helped me with my spark plugs a few months ago, and two of his friends. I hadn't been bowling since Ex and I were still dating. In fact, the one time we went bowling was actually the last date we went on before breaking up a week later. I'm not an especially great bowler (I can bowl around 100 on a good day), although I do have my own ball from when I took a bowling class in college back in 1993. I have a thing about touching other people's sporting equipment, so any sport I plan on playing more than a few times is one in which I own my own equipment. I have my own pool cue, by the way.

I had a really good time bowling with Chris and his friends, a heavy set guy with a peach-fuzz moustache named Joe, and a tall average sized guy with a shaggy haircut named Beckett. All three of the guys are under twenty years old. None of them were particularly good at bowling, either, although they kept playing as though they knew what they were doing. All were fond of throwing heavy balls and curving them as hard as humanly possible. Consequently, alot of their hooks ended up in the gutter! For my part, I like a lighter ball (mine is only 12 pounds) that I can bowl straight as a laser and better focus on my accuracy. My biggest problem with bowling is that I can never seem to capitalize on a strike or a spare. My next balls after each always seem to gutter or only hit one or two pins. It would be nice to pick up a spare every now and then.

We bowled for over three hours, and during that time Chris and Joe got into an argument about god-only-knows-what that really brought the mood of the evening down. The argument lasted for at least 20 minutes, perhaps as much as 45 minutes before subsiding. We all continued to bowl, regardless, and my score actually improved with me ending the night with a 127 (I beat all the other guys with that). Of course, during the argument, I made attempts at trying to calm the situation down. Trying to pull as much as I could from my psychological studies, and personal experiences in therapy, I attempted to get Chris and Joe to see things from each other's perspectives and try to understand what was motivating the other's behavior. I encouraged each of them to rise above their pettiness and put the argument behind them so that they could enjoy what was left of the evening. Nothing seemed to help, as these two just wanted to keep digging into each other's skin, figuratively speaking. Even though Chris and Joe eventually ended their outward shows of hostility it was clear that, by the end of the night, they were still holding grudges.

This is where it gets interesting, at least to me. As a final bow to the evening, Joe left before the rest of us were ready to go. While doing so, he picked up the bowling tab for ALL OF US. Joe had already sprung $20 for pizza, which mostly he and I ate, and THEN picked up the $30 tab for all of our bowling. Even Chris was flabbergasted by that move. I'm not sure if Joe was trying to show that he was better than Chris by having done that, or if it was one of those angry, spiteful tab pickups that I've been known to do in the distant past. Perhaps you've done something similar. You know those nights where nothing is really going your way, and you just want to get it over with as fast as possible. So, rather than taking the time to behave rationally you just fork over all the cash in your wallet to the service person and leave without even stopping for your change. It's the sort of rash thing that young men are somewhat typical of doing.

At any rate, it was nice to get out of the house and spend time with other people for a change. I'm fairly certain that Joe and Chris will smooth things over in a day or two, since they've known each other for several years. And, even though the guys are all young enough to technically be my sons, I had a good time feeling as though I was, after a long time without this feeling, surrounded by friends. And it's always good to have spare friends around.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.