It's Physical Education, not Gym

Today got up to 50 above, so that's a range of 80 degrees over the last five days. I don't know if I preferred the freezing temperatures exactly, but now its all slushy and gross outside.

On Saturday, we didn't get home until 4 a.m. Woo! It was good to finally get out some. Our neighbor Glen and his nephew James (in the Indian way, which means he's Glen's first cousin once removed to me) took us bowling in Harlem. I didn't even realize there was a bowling alley. It's past town limits. We went into this bar, and there was a door marked "Bowling Alley", but it was locked. The bartender unlocked it for us and we got a private bowling session. Then we were going to go to the one-screen movie theater in town, but when we got there, they said the projector was broken. That's too bad, because they only show movies for one week there. But luckily I had called up Jon, our grocery swain from the week before, so he invited us back to his house to watch Dodgeball. Jon is 23 just like me, and works on his Dad's farm and at the grocery store. And yet he owns his own 2-bedroom house. He bought it for $20,000. I was amazed that you could buy a house like that for so low. I guess not many people want to move to Harlem. It used to be a stop on the railroad, but now it's just a farm town. All the white people are moving out too, because its right off the reservation and the Indians have been moving in. I didn't realize people still had attitudes like that. Jon was so happy we called him, because there's no one his age in town (who's not married with three kids), plus we are four fine women. He said he usually hangs out with the Hutterites on Saturdays, and they're like the Amish. We kept him up until 2, and he had to go to work at 5, but I think he thought it was worth it. Then we went to an after-party at one of Glen's friends, and we found out where all the people our age hung out. About four guys were circling around Donna, including one who was married. I feel like I should literally bring a stick to beat the guys off her, but she handled it herself fine. I didn't drink because I volunteered to be the designated driver, but everyone else was so drunk I kind of caught the feeling from them.

Now we're just wondering when the Sisters will hear about our wild night. Nothing stays a secret in this town. And yet, even though people are incredibly open to me about their slip-ups in the past and things my family might keep secret, I still don't feel like I really understand this town yet. I guess I'd have to grow up here. Plus Indian culture is different than American culture at large. But people understand that we don't really know what we're doing all the time. It reminds me of what Barb was telling me about her boyfriend's family. Eddy is from Kenya, and his father was glad that Barb is white, because in the past, Kenyan men would come to the U.S. to study and marry and bring home African-American women. And most of them were miserable, because the other women in the town would expect her to know how to behave just like them, because she looked like them. Whereas if she were white, everyone would know at a glance that she couldn't know the "proper" way to behave.