Memorial Day weekend--so far

It's been a warm and busy weekend so far. I've managed to proof read and correct four more book chapters (just two more to go--the last two required little corrections but I don't know if the final pair are as clear). But I've also found time for fun.

Yesterday was Evan's birthday and celebrations continued into today. To mark the date, we went to Sriprathai last night for always amazing Thai food and sat outside in the garden. Six of our friends were able to make it, others were out of town. Evan's gifts included amazing letterpressed cd covers (and a mix cd) from our artist friend, Adrienne, who has her own Etsy store. I'm going to photograph them and post a link tomorrow, if time permits.

After dinner, we went bowling. Evan won both games (I never knew he was such a good bowler). I'm terrible but managed to avoid coming in last, more by luck than anything else. Back in grad school, we went bowling often (partly because there's little to do in Wisconsin and partly because it seemed so delightfully camp and retro). Wisconsinites take their bowling seriously--alleys were pristine and any infractions of bowling etiquette were fiercely policed. As a clueless English girl (I'd previously bowled once), I had no idea what to do. Hurling a ball seemed tough, risked making a noise that would alert somebody to come over and yell at us, so I'd run up, stop, gently drop the ball (maybe push it in the direction I hoped it should go) and then watch it lose momentum and slide into the gutter. Occasionally, it would slowly stay in the center and hit the pins, which would gently wobble and finally, maybe collapse. Whatever happened, my friends found the results hysterical. I saw no reason to change. In the interim years, I've never been back in a bowling alley.

Bowling in Queens is different. Nobody cares if you drop balls, or make a noise. As my friend Alyssa rightly noted, there's so much going on in NYC, people just learn to filter some of it out. There also doesn't appear to be the same bowling culture. I had a little bit of beginners luck, but before long, my old tactics failed--gutter ball followed gutter ball. I'm not in my early 20s any more so somewhere in the middle of the second game it hit me: if this isn't working for you, try something new. So, for the first time ever, I remembered what I'd been told and ran up and actually threw the ball (and looked ahead rather than away). 9 pins fell. I couldn't aim well enough to get the spare, but for four of the remaining five frames, I got 9 pins, and even the final 5 was better than a gutter ball. So I guess there is something to this aging=wisdom thing.

Today, we worked a little more, had brunch with Alyssa, dinner in Astoria with Evan's parents and cleaned house. Tomorrow, it's brunch with Ben and his friend Brynn, followed by a matinee of Sex and the City 2. Yes, we know it's bad--Ben already blogged about how terrible the reviews, previews and posters were--we've read the reviews, the word of mouth from trusted friends has been terrible. We've even asked why are we doing this? But I have to see it for the next book anyway (even if just to say its a terrible footnote and a perversion of the feminine ideals I'm writing about) and Ben has to blog about it--if for no other reason than his might be the funniest and smartest final word. As camp afficianados, we only intended to laugh at it (the original series was amazing, the films have been a greedy, wrongheaded and mindless perversion). But this may be beyond even our best efforts at some kind of recuperation/mockery and be the worst kind of bad--tedious, inept and embarrasing. I'll report back on that tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you haven't looked at the reviews, they are highly entertaining. Personal favorites include Salon's, Rex Reed's New York Observer review and the review in New York Magazine. If I have time, I'll add the links tomorrow.