ten years didn't do much

the high school reunion went down as expected. out of a class of some 696 (give or take a few), i'd day about 150 packed a cozy country club party room. at first mostly at the door-- likely stalling on actually going in-- and of course, at the bar.

right around check-in time (ri and her hubby, c, who were kind enough to give me a ride, forgot their tickets in the city and had to turn back) i had this text message exchange:

"have you left yet?"

"no, ri is driving and she's running late. why, are you there?"

"yeah, just checked in."

"are there a lot of people already?"

"yeah. but not the good kind. hurry up!"

that was with nika, who is the hybrid kind of family-friend who also intersects with your personal life here and there. six months older than me, she hung out with my parents before i did. we touch base every once in awhile and i get the lowdown about people i didn't know very well from school. it's funny, because by the time i got to the place, she seemed like she was doing just fine. i guess the right kind of people showed up, and several of them asked for her phone number and twirled her around the dancefloor. people who she said wouldn't have given her the time of day when we were in school.

walking around that hall was a little surreal. faces and nametags jumped out at me like dead bodies at a wake sitting straight up in their coffins. it was creepy, but familiar. i'm good with names and faces, but not necessarily together. so i'd catch a glimpse of someone and then spend 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was that cool girl in my gym class or that annoying cheerleader who would keep one leg on top of her desk in class so that pretty much anyone would take note of the orange underthing she had on under the uniform.

mostly everyone looked the same. well, to be perfectly honest, the women had fared much better than the men. they were sleeker, better dressed, better coiffed and looked the same if not more trim. the guys all seemed a little chubbier with hairlines a little farther back than they were a decade ago. granted, we can get away with a lot more in terms of flaw-hiding than the guys, but still.

there were exceptions, however. this broad who continually pissed me off in seventh grade-- namely for being an allaround snooty beeyatch as well as taking credit for singing the harder part in our duet during "the music man" (which she was supposed to sing but couldn't hit the high notes, so i had to switch parts) pretty much doubled in size. and then there was the one girl who lost control of her breasts and allowed them to lead her around that evening in a flimsy contraption that had to have been held together with doublesided tape. one guy even said, "dude, i'm GAY and i can't stop staring at those things." the but everyone else looked nice.

there were even a few eyebrow-raising moments, like when the boy one of my friends pined over for nearly all of senior year psychology asked one of us, "hey, who's that girl over there?" even though it was painfully obvious he knew very well and was trying to play it cool. i found that a pal from speech class works about a block from my office, and we may meet up for lunch sometime.

we schmoozed, but i ended up sort of sticking to my peeps. i'm not sure if i would have been more friendly if i wasn't starting to feel the deathflu take over, but i sure wish i had. because as cliquey as everyone was in highschool and even today, i think people were making an effort. those who had existing ties, like being neighbors or teammates or mutual friends obviously had an easier time mingling than those who ogled each other on the bus or cracked jokes in the back of english class. but there was a friendly vibe, even just a smile and nod as you walked by. most of us survived. most of us are pretty happy with where we are. and as kaiya put it at the end of the night, "you know, we were all really different and separated in high school. now, not so much. we're all pretty much the same."

maybe it'll take another ten years to really be true.