edensgarden's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reunion Update She's so mean but I don't care Heading for the nineties Part I �The 11 Reunion: A Weekend in Review.� The party was supposed to start at 6pm on Friday night. Not wanting to be the first one there, and in keeping with my habit of arriving late, I showed up at 8pm. I really didn�t mean to be that late. Not only was this place in the north forty of Snotsdale, AZ, it was on the �other� side of Camelback Mountain*; the side where they are too good for street lights and gas stations and every one drives Lincoln Town Cars. My little car felt so out of place. *As a point of clarification. Camelback Mountain is named such because it looks like the back of a camel. The richest of the rich live upon its slopes. The ��ber-rich� live upon the northern slopes. You must have Level I security clearance, a passport, proof of income and a note from your mother to drive there.� ��Oh, I�m half way there, oh-oh livin� on a prayer�� When I walked in the lobby, who did I see, but no other than Danny Johnson. Every year from the 8th grade on, Danny would write the same thing in my yearbook: �Have a Smurfy summer, stay cool, call me. Danny hasn�t changed much. �Oh, I know you but I don�t remember your name. Are you married yet?� �Well, Dan, it�s nice to see you to, thanks for asking, I�m fine.� Needless to say, Danny was slightly embarrassed, but not enough to make him change his tacky ways. We moved over to the registration area, and were given our name buttons. Emblazoned on each were our senior pictures. I can say that I�m really glad that big hair went out of style, oh so glad. I gave new meaning to the term �helmet hair� in those days. Dan and I were still talking when we walked in to the reunion. One of our old friends shouted out, when she saw us, �Oh, cute, you guys came together.� This is not the message I wanted to portray. ��Don�t stand so close to me�� Never fear, I was saved by Deann my friend from choir. She grabbed me and made sure that Dan and I were not seen alone together again for the remainder of the evening. ��karma, karma, karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go�� I saw so many old friends. It was surreal. We all were the same, but different and grown up. The partiers were all congregated around the bar, the jocks were hanging by the pool and the ping-pong table, the academics were hob-knobbing, and on and on. Evening over, Deann, and some of our other friends decided to carpool together Saturday night. No need to get lost two nights in a row. =============================================== Saturday night came, we loaded up the car and went. My three friends are all married with children. My life is so different than theirs. They kept talking about all the scary things that happen to the female body when pregnant. ***Eden thinks to herself: �Um guys, remember, I have no children. This is making me want to stay that way.� The first order of business, once at the reunion was to take the class photo. They took all of the ladies out first. This was a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because I got to sit on the front row in a chair while the potographer lined the rest of us up. Bad, because it was high school all over again. �AHHHH! IT�S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU!!!! OH MY GAWWWWW!!!� ��Oh girls just want to have fun� In the aftermath, I saw Wes and Eric, my old next door neighbors. Both were there with their wives. The wives had no idea the things that we all used to do to each other when we were younger. In the end we blamed it all on Eric, and his sidekick Dave, our other neighbor who wasn�t there. Ya, Dave, it�s all your fault! The room was decorated in our school colors of blue and red and along all of the walls were tables of memorabilia. Things like school newspapers, the yearbooks, Toro Towels (the towels we used to wave at football games), t-shirts and a tee vee playing the Senior Video. A drawing was held during dinner and a Senior t-shirt and a Senior Video were given away as prizes. I didn�t buy either back in 1991, but I wanted one Saturday night. Just watching the video made me long for the days when George Bush was in the White House and we were at war, oh wait, that�s the way things are now too�And let�s face it, we did have *the* coolest t-shirt. Who wouldn�t want �WORSHIP ME� written on their back. Dinner consisted of the typical dry chicken, a salad made of fancy bitter greens that could only be eaten by drowning them in a sticky sweet salad dressing, and a chocolate mousse, which was actually good. ��When you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says 15 miles to the LOVE-SHACK! Love Shack baby, Love Sha-a-ak, that�s where it�s at!!� After dinner, the DJ started playing 80s music, and lots of it. He did not, however, play Milli Vanilli. I miss MV, I know they were a big fake, but, so are the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. At least MV admitted they were a fake. I made the rounds talking. Most of my former class mates are teachers and insurance agents. Some were married with children, some were not. Some had gained weight, some had not. Then there was some guy that I did not know in school who came up and introduced himself. He said he was trying to meet every one now, since he didn't try in high school. "Ok thanks, and you're also really drunk, so I'll be leaving now." ��Her hair is Harlow gold, lips sweet surprise, she�s got Bette Davis eyes�� Everyone told me I looked the same. This actually put me at ease a bit. I don�t know why, after all of these years, I should still be worrying about how I look for my school mates. These feelings were only minor however. I came to this reunion with the attitude that the life I have is a composite of the choices I�ve made. I am happy with who I am, and what I have become. Take me or leave me. I feel good about my self on my own. (But any of you are always free to pump my ego at any time!) People that were not there: Lisa �I�ve lost my car� Smith, Brad �BS� Weaver, Ben �The smartest person in the world� Strader, Matt �The stud� Davis (who really was my secret crush), The 898 boys, Norman �My hair is not a toy� Tolman, Valerie �Kit-kat, small� Fuller, Jared �I have to sit by you again!!!� Brown and my evil nemesis, Jeff �Get your hands off my fries� Pinkerton. If you are out there, please contact the management. The people I was most happy to see: Carrolyn � we were in the Freshman play together, Eric and Wes, as mentioned above, and my favorite Daryl O. Daryl O, thank you for always making me feel fantastic, and for truly loving me and telling me I�m beautiful inside and out, all these years. If you need a new pair of wool socks to hold your camera in, they are on the way! ��I want to know, what you�re thinking, is there something on your mind? PURE ENEGRY! Near midnight, as we were trying to leave, I was hailed from across the room by a guy named Chad. He said, �Eden, I�ve been waiting to talk to you all night.� This was quite surprising to me. We�d only been friends really in junior high and ended up in different circles in high school. He�s a artist and a very thoughtful person. I�m so glad he stopped me. Finally we left. I was dead on my feet. The evening passed so quickly, but we all decided that 20 year reunions are so pass�. We�re all up for a 22 year in 2013. ��I�m forever yours, faithfully�� I went to my high school reunion. Did 11 years really pass that fast? PS ~~ Did not have to use the spray on hair OR the girdle! 6:54 a.m. - April 23, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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