As someone pointed out recently on Facebook, we are now living in the era depicted as the far-off future in the Back To The Future movies. Weird, huh? Remember when July of 2012 seemed like, well, twenty-plus years away? Man, time really does fly, and nothing reminds you of it more than attending your 25th high school reunion.
That’s right, the weekend I’d been dreading and dieting for — sadly, Project X went out the window and stayed out most of the weekend — happened last weekend, and the good news is, I survived. Actually, I had a blast. I didn’t attend my 20th reunion, so, I don’t have a frame of reference here, but, my tenth sucked ass. Seriously, it was terrible. Everyone was showing off their degrees, their fancy new jobs, and just like everyone else, all I wanted to do was win the “Most Unusual Career” award.
I know it sounds stupid now, but, I had recently sold a couple of scripts and I was obsessed with winning that stupid award. And then I won it and nothing changed. Nobody cared that I was a professional motion picture screenwriter except me. And, honestly, even I didn’t care that much at that point. It was so lame. And on top of all that, the actual event was super boring and they didn’t even play 80’s music!
So, when the 20th rolled around and we already had plans to be in Graceland for Elvis Week 2007, I figured I wasn’t missing much, so, we skipped it. The people I know who went said it was pretty lame too, so, I guess people were still preening and trying to one-up one another. You know, by like lusting after cheesy awards and shit. How embarrassing…
But by the 25th, well, let me tell ya, nobody cares what you do or where you live, all they wanna do is party down and reminisce about the old days. There are no more egos, almost everyone is fatter (thank God!) and way older looking than you remember, but, seriously, the best part about it was that nobody cares about any of that high school bullshit that used to seem so damned important. All that mattered last weekend was that you were healthy and alive, the rest of it just kind of faded away in the ether like smoke from a clove cigarette.
Another cool thing about the weekend is that there were actually two separate events on Saturday night. The official 25th High School Reunion and a smaller, less-formal multi-year gathering organized by the drama mags at a bar downtown. I was never in drama, but, my brother and many of our good friends lived and died by the drama mag code of honor, so, we ditched out of the official party early and headed downtown to join the fun.
We missed everything but the tail end of the official drama mag party, but, luckily, caught up with the gang just as they were heading to the “after-party” at the home of one of my oldest childhood friends. So, we hopped back in the car and headed to Safeway for booze — we bought wine coolers for old times sake, and lemme tell ya, time has not been kind to Bartles & James. Seriously, cough medicine has more subtlety of flavor. Yikes! — and then descended upon Susan’s house in a swarm.
The party itself was kind of a blur of laughter and crazy drama mag antics. We ate, we drank, we talked and even though I didn’t get nearly as drunk as I would have liked to — um, hello, I am a father now — spending time with people who knew you when was kind of magical. It really was…
Of course, getting back in sync with real life once we returned home has been brutal — let’s just say it’s been a long week with lots of sleep-deprived temper tantrums, fits of rage and screaming, and that’s just on my end –but, sometimes, the memories of a really amazing weekend can get you through anything.
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Stay-at-home-Yeti 