a score of 154

I used to be a little boy and something about what I choose is my choice, and let us not forget the killer in me is the killer in you. That song that sounds like the feel of worn denim, your favorite pair of jeans that still fit you, that fucking song - the Smashing fucking Pumpkins one from Siamese Dream. Tonight, I went out with the PIRGers to a bowling alley/dive bar in Middleton, drank some fifty cent beers kindly bought by Bonnie since I didn't have any cash, and then played two rounds of one dollar games. A pretty good damn deal all around. The first game, I got a one something, maybe a 112 - the number I associate with MTV, the station MTV used to be when I was a teen, before they switched from Media General over to Cox digital cable and I had to learn a whole new set of numbers to associate with stations and bowling scores. It was during the second game we bowled, a game (in which I must say) that I was on a roll for the first half of - it was during this game, or the first half of it, that this nostalgic gem was brought out of a shoebox by someone for me, just for me, and maybe Bonnie also, since she sang along. At the end of the fourth frame during this second game, I had a ninety. The PIRGers kept on commenting on how I threw the ball so hard, appearantly not what they expected from Bonnie's gay friend that likes to dance a lot. Austin made some comment about how I was on track to get a 200, and that is when I got off this rumored track, the point at which I failed to knock on wood, where there were no matching socks to be found, clean or otherwise. The Smashing Pumpkins song that made me feel so good was no longer playing, and soon no songs were playing, since they had cut off the music to encourage us to hurry up and leave since we were the last people bowling. The quiet was too much, having people make comments, being able to hear them, not being able to get into the groove of a song and casually throw a ball down a lane, lining it up with the middle arrow, the biggest one, and letting it go, led me to start doing a lot worse. Not exactly bad, but not continous strikes and spares anymore. Music allows me to concentrate, no matter what high school pyschology teachers told me about music hindering concentration. Music allows me to concentrate far more on what I am doing, what I am attempting to do, allows to make that smooth connection between the attempt of and the completion of without excessive frets and worries, a rhythm to work to, to live by even. And so, when that music was shut off and there was the halted attempts at conversation, I could not think, could not interact with anyone without feeling so self-conscious, let alone bowl. There was an overwhelming silence that scared me, louder than the alt rock songs that preceded it, reverbeating through my paranoid ears, craving noise, music, order, and a rhythm to step to, something to hum along to, maybe even shake my toosh to, but more importantly, something to live by, to allow me to think that I am living, that I will always be, that no matter what, that that Smashing Pumpkins song will be played on radios, hummed to, sung to, and bowled to.