I don't care as much about bowling

I don't care as much about bowling as I used to.

There was a time – I've mentioned it here – when I would see a woman I thought I'd like to go bowling with, make up some idealized fantasy about the kind of person she was, fall in love with the fantasy, then be shattered and heartbroken when I discovered she wasn't like that at all.

Later, I would meet a woman I thought I'd like to go bowling with – I've also mentioned this here – and my mind would immediately flash-forward to the scene where she's at Flip's with her girlfriends, dishing about a bastard I was. And probably about what a lousy bowler I was.

Now, I see a woman I think I'd like to go bowling with, and within about 15 seconds, my mind has wandered somewhere else: noticing how blue the sky is, or the music on my iTunes, or thinking about something I read in a book. (I'm currently reading How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Don't ask me why.) Or sometimes I just zone out.

I assume part of this lack of interest in bowling is just age. Men, I've read, lose interest in bowling in their later years.

But I think part of it is also attitude, or what some might call 'the practice.' I hesitate to say that my mind has expanded, because that sounds so pretentious and Timothy Leary-like, but I don't know what else to call it. A lot of things that seemed important in the past seem less so now.

If you look up at the sky, it just goes on forever. Literally forever.