The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen

[austin_dern]

Now, last Saturday, there was a furry gathering. This was for folks in the Grand Rapids area, which is a bit over an hour away because every other noticeable city in Michigan is a touch over an hour away from Lansing. That's why it's Lansing. This was my first experience with fursuit bowling and just my second or third experience with the state's furry community (not counting conventions). bunny_hugger had been to area gettogethers before, although more in Ann Arbor (which turned into Furry Connection North) than Grand Rapids, and we hadn't had the chance to get to anything since we married.

After finding the bowling alley --- we had to walk around the building a couple times because we kept finding paths into other recreational activities, like the bar, instead --- we fell in with a nice couple dozen folks, with pizza and bowling and actually not that many people in costume. Maybe eight or so in some kind of suit, including bunny_hugger, who bowled the second game in suit. That's all right; that was plenty, since such a group attracts a nice bit of clowning around and people in adjacent parties delighted that something this weird and amusing is going on.

One source of hilarity in fursuit bowling is that when you're in suit, you have roughly the same binocular vision, agility, and speed that you have in a coffin. So, yeah, the guy in our party of six who was bowling in costume won. In fact, he was the only one to break 100 in the first game. I bowled a pitiful 67, but at least I tied for the greatest number of strikes, with two. In the second game (truncated by the end of the bowling period) I think I'd gotten three strikes, not consecutively. bunny_hugger beat me with a 90 the first game, but was hobbled by her suit in the second. Also for the second I figured how to change the score computer's background from the ``circuit board'' to the ``jungle cartoon'' setting.

After the bowling the gang went to a nearby Steak and Shake, where we, ever the slight nonconformists, had cheese fries and shakes, and the servers and cashier earned hazard pay. (Just imagine how you split or don't split the check across eight tables and people dribbling in and out over a half-hour stretch.) A pack of a couple dozen furries, some in costume, in a fast food place is great enough, but it turned out this is also a Steak and Shake where some teens go after their prom, so it was several groups of people in odd costume staring at each other, with the more performing-type furries going over and clowning around for photos with a pack of teens, one of whom got excited enough that bunny_hugger and I were afraid she was having a panic attack. No, she was just enjoying the furries-in-Steak-and-Shake coda to her prom a lot.

Trivia: James Gordon Bennet began publishing the New York Herald on 6 May 1835, with $500 in capital, a cellar office, and himself as the only employee Source: An Empire Of Wealth: The Epic History Of American Economic Power, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: The Yugo: The Rise And Fall Of The Worst Car In History, Jason Vuic.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Furries after your prom do seem to be a nice magical closure. The same mostly happens with wedding/furry-convention intersection, though there was apparently one year this was a problem at Califur. I think there's some sort of aspect to wearing formal clothes and having a fancy, fun, well-photographed experience[*1] that lends itself to enjoying people wearing tails and cartoon animal heads.

--Chi
[*1] Which weddings and proms ought to be, I think.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Fair enough but I could not figure out why one would go to Steak and Shake after the prom in the first place.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

What else is open that late?

Late-night food after the formality of the prom is sort of a thign. It was when I went to prom, I imagine it still is.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I didn't go, but folks I knew tended to make dinner reservations somewhere quasi-fancy.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Our prom was catered; but the dinner was at 7pm, the dancing and photos after, and then the late-night hanging out (The 'after party') was after that and mostly at the IHOP. For the people that didn't just go home, drink and shag, anyway.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The thing for us, in Central New Jersey, was to leave the prom and go down to Wildwood to make a weekend, or at least a night, of it. Of course, I didn't go, but then I went stag to my prom, showing that even then I was either self-confident or oblivious to the way things worked. I ended up pairing up with my calculus teacher which is why I have prom photos (somewhere) of me with her.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

As an aside, someone needs to tell teenage girls everywhere that wearing a strapless dress is not going to make them look elegant and ladylike. This is because they cannot resist constantly grabbing the armpits of the dress and hitching it up in a thoroughly unflattering sort of way. They would look a lot more confident and graceful with straps.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You are, of course, correct. I imagine that they think it makes them look adult, without ever noticing that actual adults really don't wear strapless dresses if they can help it.