Bowling Trip [Paul]

We went bowling last night, and several of us got to actually bowl, so it's worth talking about here. We, as a system, have some great friends who are really open to dealing with us as a multiple and really accepting. I mean, they ask questions about being multiple and stuff, which is cool. But even better, they accept whoever's out like it's just no big deal. And that's really awesome.

So it was some of those folks we were with yesterday. They are people we know from the club, which is where we're completely out about being multi. The people organizing it have known M and me and Kiara for a while, and maybe some others? And MK went with us, so we felt pretty comfortable being whoever we wanted to be.

M was out when we got there. She said hi to everyone, and she went ahead and started bowling. The friends I mentioned bowled with us, and it was just having fun; nobody was being competitive or anything. Mostly we were sitting around talking, and just happened to be bowling at the same time. They did ask about this blog, which is pretty cool. It's always kinda nice to know somebody's reading.

For the second game, I asked if I could come out. I knew that M would get tired and hurting pretty quick; she's old. But I'm ambidextrous, so I could bowl left-handed and give the right arm a break. Now, I'd never bowled before, I don't think, but I've got access to the 'how-to' files in our head, so I just tried to do the same thing M does, only on the other side. I guttered out the first few balls, but then I got the hang of it and did pretty well alright.

The original plan was that Kiara could come out and bowl the third game, but about halfway through my game she decided she didn't want to. She told me that she was afraid people would make fun of her, or she'd be really bad at it. I mean, I told her these people wouldn't care, but she's pretty stubborn. She didn't want to do it. So after the second game, several people didn't want to continue, and we walked around to see what games and stuff there were in the arcade part of the bowling alley.

When we got back, someone suggested that we could put the bumpers up, and Kiara got really excited and said she would try bowling, if she got to use bumpers. So we set up a third game, and switched out to let Kiara bowl. After her first frame, though, the bowling alley people put the bumpers down. And when one of our friends asked about it, they said bumpers only for kids. Kiara got really pouty about that, and almost started crying, but she managed to get through it and play anyway. And as it turned it, she almost beat my score, so she had nothing to worry about!

So yeah, we had fun. But it would have been really weird for someone watching that didn't know we were multiple. See, M bowls kinda normally. Right hand, and rolls it down with a fairly standard amateur kinda roll. I did pretty much the same kind of roll, only with the left hand. And Kiara holds the ball upside down from normal, like she's dangling it off of the two fingers, and rolls it down underhand. And she throws it a lot softer than me, and I throw it softer than M, I think. M bowled a 91, and I got 62, and Kiara got 58, I think.

But I know watching from a distance we've all got different body language and everything, too. So it probably looked confusing. But because the people with us know all three of us, we all got a turn, and it was really comfortable and easy. It was a fun night.