Thursday – Class of '87
Nov. 15th, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about my 20th high school class reunion that I went to last Friday. I was pleasantly surprised, and can say that I had fun. I almost didn't, because I almost didn't go. Even as I was driving out to drop my son off at my father's house, I debating turning around and going back home. Perhaps it was because my motivation for going was less than noble. I wasn't looking forward to seeing old friends and catching up. I wasn't planning to reminisce about days of past glory. I was going for one reason and one reason only: I wanted to see who got fat and ugly. For this reason and no other, I shaved my legs and arranged for my son's grandparents to watch him.
"Have fun," That Woman My Father is Married To said to me as I walked out the door, "How long do you expect to be there?"
"It lasts until 1 AM, but I doubt I'll stay that late. Probably no later than 11 o'clock or so."
In fact, I kind expected to stay for an hour or less. I imagined walking in and having no one recognize me, not because I look that different (I really don't), but because I was such a wallflower that I kind of figured nobody remembered going to school with me at all. I didn't expect anyone to say, "Nina? Is that you?" Instead, I expected them to say, "Nina who? Were you in our class? Really? Are you sure?" After a short period of this, and a few visits to the open bar, I planned to skip out and maybe go get a cup of coffee, which I would sip on until I sobered up and enough time had passed that my father and his wife would believe I'd had a rewarding class-reunion experience.
The night turned out to be full of surprises. A lot of people recognized me, most before I recognized them, and hugged me, even. I went to school with some of these people for 18 years in a row and never touched them at all during that time, only to get a bear hug when they saw me last Friday. I suspect the open bar had a lot to do with that. Maybe we all would have gotten along a lot better as kids if the school cafeteria had come equipped with an open bar.
One of the first people I ran into was Christina, a friend from Jr. High and High School who went on to became my first college roommate. After the first two weeks of living together, it occurred to each of us that the other one was a really annoying human being, and possibly the worst roommate ever. It turned out to be a long semester for both of us, but on Friday we became friends again. She introduced me to her husband, Owen, who also went to school with us, and who I couldn't remember for the life of me.
"He was really skinny and had a big round head, he looks way different now," she whispered.
"I don't remember him at all. I'm so sorry. He's very nice, though - I like him," I whispered back.
"It's okay," Chris said, "No one remembers him." It turns out Owen was who I thought I would be.
Owen, it turned out, remembered my face, but had for the past two decades been mixing my name up with someone else.
"This is Nina?" Owen kept saying, as his wife tried to hush him up. "I kept expecting...I don't know...someone else. Every time she talked about you, I kept picturing Sammy Egan's face. You remember Sammy?"
"The stoner chick? I totally remember her!" Sammy Egan was my lab partner in the 11th grade. I did all the work while she amused herself by watching of all the colors and shapes she saw in the microscope. Apparently, the onion cells constantly shifted form and hue in kaleidoscope fashion whenever she looked at them, though they stayed still for me. Because the lines on the paper were doing the same thing, we voted that I be the one to write the answers and down and turn them in to the teacher. I smiled. "No, I'm not Sammy."
"Yeah, I remember you now, but the way Chris described you, I just had the picture of this wild child in my head..."
Christine was holding her finger to her lips and whispering, "Shhhh, honey, shhhh," the whole time, leaning in very close to him and touching his chest with each plea that he stop talking. I wasn't upset in the least that she'd been talking trash about me, though, considering all the things I've said about her in the last 20 years. If she'd told her husband what a living doll I was, I would have felt very, very guilty.
"Turns out I'm perfectly nice, huh?"
"You really are," Owen said. Chris wore a very stressed-out smile on her face, but my own smile was one of delight. I'd had a few glasses of wine by this point, and I found this whole thing incredibly funny.
"Chris didn't like the guy I was dating very much," I offered up, "Frank was kind of a jerk."
"Yes, Frank!" Chris piped in, "I didn't like him. He was trouble."
"He really was," I agreed.
"No wonder we didn't get alone, with him around," Chris said. Thus, we decided to use my ex boyfriend – who wasn't there to defend himself – as a scapegoat for our falling out, rather than acknowledge to her husband that Chris and I are both neurotic and set in our habits, and that both our neurosis and habits clashed in a way that makes us incompatible as housemates.
Catching up with everyone was a lot of fun, but the amazing part was the realization of my whole reason for going in the first place – discovering who got fat and ugly. I'd always assumed that men age better than women, based on the observation that graying male movie stars always get paired up with nubile 20-year-old co-stars young enough to be their daughters. Hollywood has it backwards, though. The women, all of us 38 to 39 years old, looked great and the years had been kind to all but a few of us. The men, on the other hand, looked like hell. The jocks got fat, the pretty boys got bald, and most of them looked like the years had taken them out back behind the barn and cruelly beat the crap out of them with an ugly stick.
In the end, I stayed until they threw us out at 1 AM, much to the chagrin of the babysitting grandparents. I never even thought that when I went out with my high-school pals, I might stay out past my curfew. I guess that even after 20 years, some things just don't change.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Have fun," That Woman My Father is Married To said to me as I walked out the door, "How long do you expect to be there?"
"It lasts until 1 AM, but I doubt I'll stay that late. Probably no later than 11 o'clock or so."
In fact, I kind expected to stay for an hour or less. I imagined walking in and having no one recognize me, not because I look that different (I really don't), but because I was such a wallflower that I kind of figured nobody remembered going to school with me at all. I didn't expect anyone to say, "Nina? Is that you?" Instead, I expected them to say, "Nina who? Were you in our class? Really? Are you sure?" After a short period of this, and a few visits to the open bar, I planned to skip out and maybe go get a cup of coffee, which I would sip on until I sobered up and enough time had passed that my father and his wife would believe I'd had a rewarding class-reunion experience.
The night turned out to be full of surprises. A lot of people recognized me, most before I recognized them, and hugged me, even. I went to school with some of these people for 18 years in a row and never touched them at all during that time, only to get a bear hug when they saw me last Friday. I suspect the open bar had a lot to do with that. Maybe we all would have gotten along a lot better as kids if the school cafeteria had come equipped with an open bar.
One of the first people I ran into was Christina, a friend from Jr. High and High School who went on to became my first college roommate. After the first two weeks of living together, it occurred to each of us that the other one was a really annoying human being, and possibly the worst roommate ever. It turned out to be a long semester for both of us, but on Friday we became friends again. She introduced me to her husband, Owen, who also went to school with us, and who I couldn't remember for the life of me.
"He was really skinny and had a big round head, he looks way different now," she whispered.
"I don't remember him at all. I'm so sorry. He's very nice, though - I like him," I whispered back.
"It's okay," Chris said, "No one remembers him." It turns out Owen was who I thought I would be.
Owen, it turned out, remembered my face, but had for the past two decades been mixing my name up with someone else.
"This is Nina?" Owen kept saying, as his wife tried to hush him up. "I kept expecting...I don't know...someone else. Every time she talked about you, I kept picturing Sammy Egan's face. You remember Sammy?"
"The stoner chick? I totally remember her!" Sammy Egan was my lab partner in the 11th grade. I did all the work while she amused herself by watching of all the colors and shapes she saw in the microscope. Apparently, the onion cells constantly shifted form and hue in kaleidoscope fashion whenever she looked at them, though they stayed still for me. Because the lines on the paper were doing the same thing, we voted that I be the one to write the answers and down and turn them in to the teacher. I smiled. "No, I'm not Sammy."
"Yeah, I remember you now, but the way Chris described you, I just had the picture of this wild child in my head..."
Christine was holding her finger to her lips and whispering, "Shhhh, honey, shhhh," the whole time, leaning in very close to him and touching his chest with each plea that he stop talking. I wasn't upset in the least that she'd been talking trash about me, though, considering all the things I've said about her in the last 20 years. If she'd told her husband what a living doll I was, I would have felt very, very guilty.
"Turns out I'm perfectly nice, huh?"
"You really are," Owen said. Chris wore a very stressed-out smile on her face, but my own smile was one of delight. I'd had a few glasses of wine by this point, and I found this whole thing incredibly funny.
"Chris didn't like the guy I was dating very much," I offered up, "Frank was kind of a jerk."
"Yes, Frank!" Chris piped in, "I didn't like him. He was trouble."
"He really was," I agreed.
"No wonder we didn't get alone, with him around," Chris said. Thus, we decided to use my ex boyfriend – who wasn't there to defend himself – as a scapegoat for our falling out, rather than acknowledge to her husband that Chris and I are both neurotic and set in our habits, and that both our neurosis and habits clashed in a way that makes us incompatible as housemates.
Catching up with everyone was a lot of fun, but the amazing part was the realization of my whole reason for going in the first place – discovering who got fat and ugly. I'd always assumed that men age better than women, based on the observation that graying male movie stars always get paired up with nubile 20-year-old co-stars young enough to be their daughters. Hollywood has it backwards, though. The women, all of us 38 to 39 years old, looked great and the years had been kind to all but a few of us. The men, on the other hand, looked like hell. The jocks got fat, the pretty boys got bald, and most of them looked like the years had taken them out back behind the barn and cruelly beat the crap out of them with an ugly stick.
In the end, I stayed until they threw us out at 1 AM, much to the chagrin of the babysitting grandparents. I never even thought that when I went out with my high-school pals, I might stay out past my curfew. I guess that even after 20 years, some things just don't change.
