sticks, balls, pucks, etc.

I tried a new thing this weekend!

I wouldn't call myself a mini-golf regular, but I go often enough...maybe once a season. On Friday I scored a pretty sweet victory over my date at Golfland, so on Saturday, of course, we had to go to a real driving range...just to put me in my place.

I'm often averse to trying new things because I hate being told, scrutinized, criticized, and also generally sucking. But as it turns out, I'm pretty okay at firing off balls with a crazy bent stick. Using a 7- or 8-iron (who knows!), I managed to consistently thwack the ball out to the same 100 meter mound...without shattering my wrist or the club! My left hamstring got all tense, though, and I felt like I had tennis elbow in my left arm. Still, being decent at something the first time you try it is an Awesome feeling! I honestly don't know how I ever stuck with snowboarding, because that first day was so incredibly embarrassing.

There's something bizarrely satisfying about what I will euphemistically call "precision sports" - sports in which you have to get a particular object into a very particular place - e.g., darts, pool, bowling, mini-golf, archery, skee-ball. If I were to compare them to contact sports, I guess their appeal lies in the lack of direct competition and also the zen/robot/sniper state of mind you use (even when under the influence!).

Oh, but speaking of contact sports, I went to my first hockey game this week. Call me a poser, because I'm jumping on the bandwagon now that our team is #1 (fuck yeah Sharks!). Even better than our team being awesome and full of hot, burly (but not TOO burly) men who remain mind-bogglingly graceful (yet manly!) on the ice, I got free pizza because we scored all over Tampa Bay. How sweet is that?! Football can eat a dick.