Part II : Footwork First, In Everything…Bowling Ball Chamois…Approaches & Dropshots…New Bowling Shoes…Balls, Bubbles & Backspin…Her Sweet Three-Step Approach…Ten-Pin Tennis…Wheaties Without Milk…Get The Protractor Out…Cross-Training & Physical Therapy…It’s All In The Sausage
Phoebe,
It’s raining today and I’ve got the giggles. I don’t know if it’s Moon and her rising tides, the Vonnegut I took with this morning’s toast, turnips & coffee, or if it’s because pure unabashed absurdity has become so normalized, but I’ve got the giggles again and everything is beginning to rhyme. It’s like sea-sickness, but with giggles instead of nausea. It could be the Fresca. According to the can it’s no longer carbonated, it’s “Sparkling.”
Where the hell have you been? Gads, we miss you. And I’m in desperate need of rudeness lessons. I’ve not had any since 101 and I’m rusty. Kindness could get you canned and politeness will get you in trouble these days. What has changed? Well, eating Wheaties without milk really sucks but I’m not here to complain. Nope, I’ve only come downtown to sign the book. Or the box. Whatever, just give me a Sharpie & wind me up. I wanna get to work, volunteer, help solve some problems, or at least get eyes on and identify them, help with research if I may, do the lawn care & gardening, whatever I can do. I can cook. I’m a slow reader but I’m so extremely careful when I’m not being careless. I became dehydrated and malnourished there for a while. I got lost in the research and ran out of air. Fell asleep in The Library. It happens. I got hurt. Tennis elbow. I know that’s no excuse. I’m learning. I’m here playing table tennis. It’s prescription, as part of my rehab for the injury I sustained in the 8th frame of the third game in Wednesday night league play when I was subbing on The Gutter Gals, Lilith’s team. One of their big guns was out for surgery. So it may be a slightly misdiagnosed case of Bowling Elbow, actually. All I know is that it hurts. And now, after all these years, I have to be careful of how I pick up heavy objects because this appendage doesn’t work right any more from the elbow down. I knew the risks but it was League Play, so I stuck it out for the team and rolled through the late frames knowing that I had ripped a tendon off the bone and it was curling up with the muscle in my forearm. It cost me. (Although, I think we came in 3rd that season and I now have a shammy, felt-soled shoes, a Lebowski essay on flattops & rugs, and a 15-pound left-handed bowling ball rolling around looking to strike if the need should arise. You can’t sell these things so I’ve built a cannon.) I thought it had finally healed but I re-aggravated it this past winter in a cooking accident. Gravity again, this time conspiring with the solid cookware, a Le-Creuset-knock-off Dutch Oven. I went to lift the coated iron lid off a hot batch of Sweet Italian Sausage Pasta Fagioli in order to add a little salt and pepper, some freshly minced cilantro and parsley, and then SNAP!, that sinew on my elbow let loose again. My Pickleball career could be over before it ever gets going. But that’s okay because now I’m playing table tennis in PT and learning how to tank more pain. Pickleball’s fun and all but it’s a lot of volleying and the balls don’t smell half as good as in tennis. I’m a base-liner at heart. My game is in the backcourt. I prefer returning over serving and I love a good passing shot and painting sidelines with fuzzy oval topspin. The angles get way too obtuse at the net. So for now it’s table tennis; tight lines, fine angles, and wicked spin. And a lot less ground to cover than tennis. I miss tennis but it’s so hard on socks, shoes, ankles, and elbows. Sawing through good cat-gut gets expensive too.
Sure, I miss the smell of fresh Penns in the afternoon but in Ping Pong I’ve learned so much about backspin that I never knew! I used to think it was rude and awkward, a Slice the device of a pusher. I was wrong. I only ever used backspin as defense, to block and backpedal and scramble and buy recovery time to get back to the T, the center whence I preferred to rally and conduct business. But that’s all I knew of footwork and backspin in tennis. I never learned to properly use it offensively. I never learned the Approach as I so rarely come to the net.
But I’m here now. Volleying. Thank you.
Be the ball.
Down Love-Forty,
Wait, whose service?
Yours, Forty-Love,
Gotta bounce,
Giggles,
PSL
Photo by Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash.