Reunion: an epic drama in three acts
Nov. 30th, 2005 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishAct the first
Friday night
I laughed as I said it: this is my situation
It's not pictures or privilege, it's just self-preservation
The reunion planners decided to organise a pre-reunion reunion at a bar in Arlington. Now, having shelled out the $70 for the reunion proper I didn't really feel a need to go somewhere they'd charge me for drinks, so I tayed home. Afterwards, though, Katie Wanschura (hi Katie!) and Mo and Tony Arancibia and I all met up at Scott Michelman's house for ice cream and conversation. (Later -- much later -- to be joined by Jeff Firestone, who apparently couldn't drag himself away from the bar.) Good times; as I think I mentioned last year (year before?), there are some people who, when you finally catch up with them, can make the years just fall away. Finally got out of there around two-ish.
Act the second
Saturday. Lunchtime
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
And I got nothing to hide
Satyrday Christine Bosker ('Li') put together a Winter Guard reunion lunch thing, to which I was invited despite having been a guard groupie at best. (I ran for guard during marching band season my senior year; the person choosing runners for winter guard quite intelligently decided that I would be creating more problems than I solved and left my name off the list.) Finally got to meet Katie's Shannon, and talked more to Jenn Vinson and Todd Parnell than I had in the last ten years if not more. Met Jeff Harper's lovely wife whose name utterly escapes me. I'm sure the food was good but I have no recollection at all of what I had to eat. Learned that several folk there had chosen the far wiser path of showing up to the free bar-night the night before instead of paying the exorbitant fee. Well, duh. Have to remember that for next time.
Act the third
The same, that evening
We act empty and innocent, but we are fueled by distortions
Of lives led in discontent, trading misfortunes
The reunion proper was held in the Waterford, a fancy reception hall that used to be the Fair Oaks mall movie theatre. As Scott's mother observed on Friday night, it's disconcerting to walk in among the glitter and the fountain and the swank and think "you know, the concession stand used to be right over there." Saw a lot of old friends, a lot more old acquaintances, and still more people that I either didn't recognise at all or didn't particularly want to recognise. Failed to drink $70 worth of alcohol. Spent a surprising amount of time talking with Christine. Watched a slide show featuring absolutely no one I hung out with. Caught up with Justin Werfel (or vice versa) near the end of the evening; he's one of a number of people that I really should have known better in high school and should make an effort to keep in touch with. (Consider this a reminder for same.) Notably absent personages included (in reverse alpha) Jana Schwartz, Sarah Schwarm (now married), Michelle Roth (-Klein), and Jonathan. Ah well.
Coda
And I drove out of there with no one behind me
Feeling funny and free
. . . I dunno. It served as a good reminder that high school wasn't all I keep romanticising it to have been. (Watching the old cliques re-form as clumps at the main event was amusing, in a subtly frightening way.) Also that a lot of my friends were either two years older or two years younger. If I had it to do over again I'd save the $70 and go to Jenn and Todd's instead. But then I've always been partial to smaller gatherings.
Friday night
I laughed as I said it: this is my situation
It's not pictures or privilege, it's just self-preservation
The reunion planners decided to organise a pre-reunion reunion at a bar in Arlington. Now, having shelled out the $70 for the reunion proper I didn't really feel a need to go somewhere they'd charge me for drinks, so I tayed home. Afterwards, though, Katie Wanschura (hi Katie!) and Mo and Tony Arancibia and I all met up at Scott Michelman's house for ice cream and conversation. (Later -- much later -- to be joined by Jeff Firestone, who apparently couldn't drag himself away from the bar.) Good times; as I think I mentioned last year (year before?), there are some people who, when you finally catch up with them, can make the years just fall away. Finally got out of there around two-ish.
Act the second
Saturday. Lunchtime
I have no need for anger with intimate strangers
And I got nothing to hide
Satyrday Christine Bosker ('Li') put together a Winter Guard reunion lunch thing, to which I was invited despite having been a guard groupie at best. (I ran for guard during marching band season my senior year; the person choosing runners for winter guard quite intelligently decided that I would be creating more problems than I solved and left my name off the list.) Finally got to meet Katie's Shannon, and talked more to Jenn Vinson and Todd Parnell than I had in the last ten years if not more. Met Jeff Harper's lovely wife whose name utterly escapes me. I'm sure the food was good but I have no recollection at all of what I had to eat. Learned that several folk there had chosen the far wiser path of showing up to the free bar-night the night before instead of paying the exorbitant fee. Well, duh. Have to remember that for next time.
Act the third
The same, that evening
We act empty and innocent, but we are fueled by distortions
Of lives led in discontent, trading misfortunes
The reunion proper was held in the Waterford, a fancy reception hall that used to be the Fair Oaks mall movie theatre. As Scott's mother observed on Friday night, it's disconcerting to walk in among the glitter and the fountain and the swank and think "you know, the concession stand used to be right over there." Saw a lot of old friends, a lot more old acquaintances, and still more people that I either didn't recognise at all or didn't particularly want to recognise. Failed to drink $70 worth of alcohol. Spent a surprising amount of time talking with Christine. Watched a slide show featuring absolutely no one I hung out with. Caught up with Justin Werfel (or vice versa) near the end of the evening; he's one of a number of people that I really should have known better in high school and should make an effort to keep in touch with. (Consider this a reminder for same.) Notably absent personages included (in reverse alpha) Jana Schwartz, Sarah Schwarm (now married), Michelle Roth (-Klein), and Jonathan. Ah well.
Coda
And I drove out of there with no one behind me
Feeling funny and free
. . . I dunno. It served as a good reminder that high school wasn't all I keep romanticising it to have been. (Watching the old cliques re-form as clumps at the main event was amusing, in a subtly frightening way.) Also that a lot of my friends were either two years older or two years younger. If I had it to do over again I'd save the $70 and go to Jenn and Todd's instead. But then I've always been partial to smaller gatherings.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 01:15 am (UTC)My email address hasn't changed in a few years, but if you don't have it, it's on the TJ reunion website, along with my new last name, which I'm trying pretty hard to keep out of my LJ - I'm slightly more privacy-minded than usual these days since I'm going to actually finish grad school and look for a job pretty soon, and I'd really prefer that google not find my LJ... Not that I post much... I mainly have a journal so that I can have a friends list. And on that note, I friended you.
Congrats on your graduation, and good luck with your job search!
!!!
Date: 2006-01-14 03:15 pm (UTC)Best of luck with your own job hunt, and it really is good to be back in touch with you. (I'm far better about LJ than I ever was with email.)