Hello again, welcome back.
It’s starting to feel like fall outside in Florida, and by that I mean I was able to put on pants without sweating completely through the crotch. How exciting! To celebrate, I opened up the sliding glass door to the house to let in a little cool air and then five minutes later closed it because that was enough for me, thanks.
My girlfriend and I went bowling this week. I receive weekly membership emails from said bowling alley, which I treasure. Nothing is as good as a membership email. Quite often they provide valuable information, like which style of tater tots I can expect that week (toppings galore, baby) and they also let me know about deals on karaoke and trivia night. The bar offers several specialty cocktails, like the “scooby snack” and “sunshine state sangria,” which I find VERY classy. The theme of the bar is “Brooklyn.” I am not sure how they decided on that theme, because it is a bowling alley in Orlando and it looks very much like a bowling alley in Orlando, but I trust them with my life, so I will let this slide.
We bowled five games. Here is where I admit that even though I love bowling, I will never be very good at it. To me, the greatest part of bowling is drinking beer from a pitcher while listening to top forty hits from 1996-2003; therefore tossing a very heavy sphere down a slick sidewalk in order to hit something is just the very fun cherry on the already sweet ice cream sundae that is the game of bowling. I have never scored higher than 110 points, and to me, that is absolutely fine. For some reason the speed that I accrue when I throw the ball falls somewhere in the realm of 6.9 MPH (nice), which only gives enough traction to tap over 1-2 pins. It’s amazing. I have no idea why I bowl this way, but it’s one of the greatest things about me. I will never stop.
The bar at this bowling alley is generally packed with the greatest people in all of Central Florida. During trivia, I overhead a man ask if Rudy Giuliani was a brand of wine. Buddy, I wish!
A bowling alley bar is a great place to make new friends and we did exactly that. One of these new friends spontaneously bought both of my books! 10/10 stars, no notes.
Then we drove home and found this waiting for us:
Lola had dug a sweet potato from the kitchen bin and eaten nearly half of it.
I have to admit that I was impressed. This dog is twelve years old and has a total of five scraggly tic-tac teeth in her entire head. How long had it taken her to gnaw so much off this rock hard potato?? How charming (less charming the next day when she barfed some of it up next to the rug, but that’s okay, we all felt a little hungover). Keep living the dream, Lola!
In other news, I am still working on novel edits. They are due back to my agent tomorrow, so of course I am writing you all this newsletter instead of finishing them. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
Once again, here are some things I liked this week:
Queer Word Searches at Autostraddle - these are very fun and gay and a good way to avoid work
An excerpt from Thick City by Katie Jean Shinkle over at Lambda Literary - holy shit, this was good! Made me really think about the different ways that time can work inside a narrative
The birdbath I bought from the hardware store; sometimes we get cardinals
Cinnamon brooms; they make your house smell like Michael’s Crafts
Brooklyn Bar South at the bowling alley; incredible, my new favorite place
Hope you’re feeling good, champ. Talk soon.
Love,
Dad
I love the "sometimes we get cardinals." I like seeing cardinals, but blue jays are assholes.
One of life's great joys/terrors is coming home to your pets having gotten into something they shouldn't have.
We walked in the door the other day and our youngest cat, Ku, had used her half a brain cell to - somehow - turn on the garbage disposal.