It's amazing how little people can change over ten years, though their lives are drastically different. Yesterday I attended my ten year high school reunion. The most enjoyable part of the whole experience was making people try to guess who I am. While most of my classmates looked exactly like they did in high school, I do not. I have, fortunately, overcome the unfortunate experience of looking like I was twelve, as I did ten years ago. In fact now, I can sometimes even pass for twenty-one. Please, no comments about how lucky I am to look young. I am fully aware that I will appreciate it later, but right now, it does not work to my advantage. But enough about that.
The day's events started with a barbecue at the park. I arrived to find only a few people so far, all of whom were actually responsible for planning the event. This was despite the fact that I intentionally showed up about five minutes late so that I wasn't the first person there. And still I was there before people really started showing up. I walked up to the event organizers and they looked at me as though they were about to tell me that the area was reserved and then one of them recognized me. They were actually quicker than most, possibly because they have seen a more recent picture of me since I did post a picture on classmates.com. I found myself talking with a girl whose name is also a month. We had a couple of classes together and she was always kind to me in high school, but we didn't exactly travel with the same crowds. Most of my friends were actually a year behind me in school. While talking to this girl, I found out that she also had younger friends in school. We chatted until more people began to show up and we started to great them as they arrived. After about 20 people had showed up, it was time for the food to begin. The guys (spouses and fiances of the organizers) brought over the hamburgers and hot dogs and dug in. I sat next to the girl with a name like a month and across from culinary school drop-out. On my other side was the child of one of my former classmates that I didn't recognize until someone else said his name. Apparently this was mutual because he sat next to me for a half an hour talking to all of us before he finally looked at me and said "Jeni Hardie!!! I finally figured out who I was talking to!" That was probably the most amusing moment of the entire barbecue, though I did get a lot of looks of shock from people who didn't recognize me until I took my sunglasses off.
A short time after the most amusing experience of the barbecue came the most awkward moment of the entire day. I was sitting at the check in table with the girl with a name like a month and who should appear but Momma's Boy, aka my last boyfriend from 9 years ago. Yes, I know it's been 9 years, and I do no wish things had gone any differently, but there's just something about seeing him that just made me feel so bitter. The thing is, he knew what I was going through at the time we were dating. I told him that I was cutting myself, and he called me a liar. He made no attempt to help me-- he told me that what I was doing was stupid (I won't argue that point, but at the time, it really didn't help) and that he just couldn't deal with it. Needless to say the relationship did not end on good terms, and what I did afterwards did nothing to help my memories of him. At any rate, when he came to the table to check in with his wife (who was actually one of my friends from the class of 1998, poor soul) she came to talk to me while I pretended he didn't exist. Fortunately for me, it seems that he didn't recognize me either. I spent most of the rest of the barbecue talking to Renaissance Girl (Momma's Boy's wife) and the wives of two guys I've known since kindergarten (who also happen to be a couple of my class of 98 friends--yes, a lot of people I know married each other!) After I'd been talking to them for a while, Momma's boy came over, looked at me and said "Holy crap! Jeni! I didn't recognize you with your dark hair," and then he sat down with Renaissance girl, which I took as my cue to go talk to somebody else. I chatted with Culinary School Drop-out for a little while, he introduced me to two of his three kids. The barbecue wrapped up and we all began to leave, only to meet up again in the evening for the dinner and dancing event.
I had purchased a new outfit for the dinner event when I went shopping on Friday. I went home and relaxed for an hour or so before it was time to start getting ready for the evening event. I gave my hair a good dousing with hairspray and unsuccessfully attempted to curl it. As is par for the course with my hair, despite spending an hour with a curling iron, all I ended up with was straight hair with curled under ends and a little bit of extra volume. I know some curly haired people would pay good money for hair as straight as mine, but it truly is a nightmare trying to curl this hair. At any rate, I did my hair, I put on full makeup, which you all know I very rarely do, and I got dressed for the party. Once again, I was one of the first to arrive. This time, it was good to be early because there were a lot of jokes about "the chicken or the fish" and it was just rather entertaining.
Jewelry Seller asked me to sit at a table with her and her husband. Also joining us at the table were Baby Voice and Goalie Girl along with their husbands. We had one more open seat at our table which was being reserved for Madame President. She didn't show up until dinner was nearly over. Dessert was already being served when she arrived, along with ES Bully. The dinner was nothing special. The salmon was good, but not great. The risotto was awful and our whole table laughed each time the servers returned to the back with another pile of yellow mush. The dessert made up for the risotto that tasted of dirty dishwater. It was a strawberry mousse in a chocolate cup (much like the miniature versions you can find in the buffet.)
After dinner, they subjected us to the utter torture of watching the senior slide show, which was awful the first time around and even more agonizing this time. Of course the people who were buddy buddy with the yearbook teacher/student council adviser enjoyed it, because it was filled with pictures of them. The rest of us who did not go drinking at Pyramid Lake with the yearbook teacher were lucky if we even had ONE picture in the slide show.
Next, we opened the time capsule (which was apparently created at one of the Pyramid Lake parties, because most of us had no knowledge of its existence).
Finally it was time for dancing/mingling. I found myself chatting with Madame President who seemed really excited to see me, even though we were never friends. Then I moved on to Captain Pompous, whom I've known since third grade, and therefore I am able to overlook his pompous nature. I then went back out to chat with my my class of 98 friends, but before long I was drug onto the dance floor by Birdy, which was rather shocking because he is one of the "popular crowd." He was one of the guys that everyone had looked forward to seeing. Don't think this is going anywhere, because he was totally smashed at the time and will probably not remember that it happened. He may or may not also be married. At any rate, he insisted that I go dance, which I had been avoiding because I felt like I didn't belong there because only the "popular crowd people were dancing". After one dance, he disappeared and I went to go sit by Miss Hawaii (and when I say that, I mean it... she really was Miss Hawaii--and she actually was one of my friends in high school). I talked with her for a little while, but was drug back onto the dance floor by Birdy. He disappeared, but Madame President insisted that I had to stay and dance anyway and Fashion Queen agreed. (Fashion Queen is a girl I've known since kindergarten, we were in Girl Scouts together and she was probably the most popular girl in school every year, and yet she still remained one of the kindest people I've ever met. I cannot ever remember her being mean to even a single person...) At any rate, somehow I ended up dancing for the rest of the night, with people I had been intimidated by in high school. It was actually kind of empowering. I don' know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but it made me feel so good. The evening ended a little after eleven and the girl with a name like a month wanted to exchange phone numbers so we can hang out sometime, and Madame President also suggested that she'd like to hang out sometime. The people who had been my friends before did nothing to attempt to keep in contact. It was rather a surprising outcome. I expected to meet up with old friends, but I never expected to make new friends. It's nice to know that I can still do that...
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