We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Back from the reunion, dear readers, and I promised stories!

Overall, I must say that the reunion was more fun and not at all traumatizing like I imagined, and I’m very glad I went because I think I’ve laid rest to a few of my neuroses – it’s about time!

As you know, I had worked myself up into a near panic over the horror of going to the reunion by myself.  And yet, in the end, I was actually really happy to be there on my own and to be able to talk to everyone I wanted to without torturing somone else!  (Case in point – my friend A.’s husband spent most of the evening by the bar getting progressively more drunk.) 

And even more than feeling ok being there by myself, I felt genuinely ok being single.  It was good to see people, and it was good to catch up.  Most everyone looks great (the girls more so than the guys, actually), and seems happy with whatever they are doing.  But listening to everyone talk about their lives, there isn’t anyone I’d want to switch places with, for all the husbands and babies and all that.   There isn’t anyone I’d rather be than who I am right now.  Which is not to say that my life is perfect – it is a work in progress, of course – but it’s my own.   And I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

On another note, at the risk of sounding narcissistic, several people told me I looked great, and for once I believed them!  I don’t even mind that I was sort of nerdy in high school because I’d so much rather look better in my 20’s/30’s than have peaked in high school.   (On a related note: they were showing videos of school assemblies from our senior year, and in one of them I and the rest of the cast of Steel Magnolias, which I had a lead role in, had to do a little dance in front of the WHOLE SCHOOL to “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”  I was mortified watching this.  I was such a dork, I was wearing a totally fugly sweater, a black skirt and black tights.  Oh, how happy I am not to be in HS anymore!)

Anyway, the most entertaining encounter of the evening was with a guy named KM.  Before my mom became a professor, she was a 5th grade teacher at a different elementary school than the one I went to, but one that fed into the same high school as mine.  So one class of my mom’s students ended up being in my graduating class.  One such guy was KM.  My mom loved him, and I thought he was totally cute in high school, but he never ever gave me the time of day. 

This weekend I was showing my mom the Facebook photos of some of my high school friends and some of her former students, including KM.  She requested that if he were at the reunion, that I get a picture with him.  (I thought yeah right…I’m going to ask a guy who barely spoke to me in high school for a photo.)

Later in the evening, A. and I were getting a second drink at the bar when a guy we didn’t recognize started chatting with us.  (Not to digress too much, but this guy was in the running for the biggest douche in the universe prize.  He kept appearing all night with such winning lines as “I’m a corporate lawyer and a professional asshole.”  No shit, Sherlock.)  Anyway, I asked him whose husband he was and he said no, he was a friend of KM’s.

Right.  I spotted KM and smiled, and he gave me a quizzical look like he was trying to place me and I figured that was that.

But later in the night I was in a circle of people and KM snaked up behind me, started running his hand all over my back, and said “You look so beautiful.”  Then he told me that he’d seen some pictures of me on Facebook, and commented, “You just got back from a trip, right?”  I responded with, “Oh yeah, I saw some pictures of you too.  And your really cute girlfriend.”  Then he got all weird and was like, “Oh, that;s just a girl I used to date…it’s complicated.”  (Who puts pictures of an ex on Facebook?)

He came up to me several more times, his eyes looking more glazed and drunk by the minute, touching my back and saying I was beautiful.  He was like “we need to catch up!  Give me the update!”  But of course, when  tried to ask what he was up to, he’d give totally evasive answers like “Just living the dream!”  Then he’d say “we should go to a quiet corner to catch up…we keep getting interrupted.”

It was such a funny feeling, to have a guy I used to think was so hot (and who is still quite good looking) be trying to put the sleaze moves on me, and I just stood there thinking “Ugh, pathetic.”

I figured I might as well make my mom happy so this wouldn’t be a total waste, so I asked KM to take a photo with me along with another of her former students (who is now a math teacher and football coach at our high school and is totally the wholesome young teacher who all the girls must have crushes on).  KM then launched into, I love your mom.  If I could date your mom, I totally would.  Your mom is such a panther.

A PANTHER?

Yeah, you know, a panther.  30 to 39 is a Puma.  40 to 49 is a Cougar.  50 to 59 is a Panther.  And 60 and up is a Silver Panther.

Oh holy mother of god.  Yes, he actually called my sweet, innocent mom a Panther.  Happily, her other student was looking suitably skeeved/horrified.

I told my mom this and she cracked up.  If I had known he was like that, I would never have had you talk to him, she said.

I wonder if she’s flattered to be called a Panther?

Flashing Back

These are scary times, dear readers.  Politically, economically, things are more than unstable.   I’m sure at some point I will write about all of that, because you’d best believe it’s been on my mind.  But for now, I am going to try to stay in denial and write about a different time in my life.  Because in a few days I will be traveling in a time machine, back to 1998.

That’s right – I’m talking about my ten year high school reunion.

What was SF like in high school, you ask?

I was smart.  I was awkward.  I was dying to fit in.  I wore baggy sweaters and flannel shirts my freshman year because I wanted to be like Angela Chase on My So-Called Life.  I was boy-crazy.  I was in theater.  I had long straight hair and bangs.  I studied a lot.  When I was 15, I tried to befriend the popular girls by going to JV basketball games with them.  I never became a so-called popular girl.  I didn’t swear, drink, or have sex.  I hated doing anything athletic.  When I was 16, I thought I was in love with a boy who was Mormon and I went to church with him.  When I was 17, I dated a boy from the “wrong side of the tracks” and took him to prom with me.  He dumped me in favor of a girl who would put out.  When I was 18, I fell in love with C.  When they handed out joke awards in the drama department, I got the “Sorry I’m such a sweetheart” award.  I wanted nothing more than to be swept off my feet.

My, my, how times have changed.  But sometimes, I still feel like that Oregon high school girl.

And on Saturday, I’ll be going to some new restaurant/bar in Eugene that I’ve never heard of, and I’ll be seeing a lot of people who haven’t seen me since I stopped being that girl.  And even though my life has come so far since 1998, when I think about going back and seeing all those people, I feel like maybe I haven’t let go of all those old stupid high school insecurities.

(Random non sequitur: I am watching Fringe, and Joshua Jackson is even hotter now than he was on Dawson’s Creek.  Rowrrr.)

Anyway, I know that the mild dread I feel about going to my reunion is silly.  I have a good life.  I have great friends.  I have a good job.  (I’m a frickin’ lawyer in Los Angeles, man!) 

But there’s that needling part of me that wishes I were …well, while I’m being honest, let’s be honest… less single.  (Or maybe supermodel gorgeous.  That would work too.)  I know I’m going to be meeting a lot of husbands and wives, and seeing a lot of baby photos, and even at the same time that I know that things happen in their own time and blah blah blah, I still have that slight feeling of Why isn’t that me?  And it will be even more exaggerated because instead of, for example, Facebook, where I can look at the husbands and wives and babies from the comfort of my couch, I will actually have to face the reunion alone in a sea of couples.

*Shudder*

Now, of course, I signed myself up for this, so I obviously feel that the pros of seeing some of the people I am excited to see outweigh the cons.   And at the end of the day, it will probably be fun to a degree.  I just need to remember this isn’t high school anymore.

I mean, I’m grown up now…right?

Vacation Recap Part Two: London

So I left off my story, dear readers, in the gorgeous Lakes District with M.’s wedding celebration.  On Monday, we had to check out of the house, so the party was officially over and we had to each go our separate ways.  We had lots of goodbyes, lots of hugs and well wishing and exchanging of email addresses.  And then I was off to London!

In London I stayed with RL, my roommate from freshman year of college who I had been dear friends with throughout college but had fallen out of touch with a few years ago, for no reason other than laziness.  Last I saw her, she was living in San Francisco.  So I was plenty surprised when earlier this year I found her on Facebook and discovered she was living in London!  It worked out perfectly and it was great to see her.  She’s one of those people who I can always pick up with as though no time had passed.

She met me at the train station and we chatted as we walked along.  I knew vaguely from what she had told me that she was living with two guys, but I didn’t know much more than that.  It wasn’t till I got there that she revealed one of the guys was her boyfriend.  And better yet, they had been roomies for more than 9 mos before starting to date.  Craziness!  Things became more than a bit awkward because as soon as we arrived, they went in the other room and started having a heated argument.  About?  None other than the fact that he refuses to put “in a relationship” on Facebook.  Just another reason that Facebook, despite its awesomeness in rekindling old friendships, can be the devil, my friends!  (Btw, I have to take her side on this one.  He kept saying “it’s childish.”  Well, I can understand not being on board with Facebook to begin with, but if you’re in, you’re in.  Don’t be all Shady McShaderson about it.)  Anyway, the BF didn’t come out to dinner with us either night, so we ended up speaking all of 5 sentences to each other that left me underwhelmed.  But on to other things.

The day after I arrived, RL had to work a full day, so I headed out to explore the city by myself, armed with my camera and my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook (a tourist?  who, moi?)  I had a lovely walk all along the South Bank of the Thames from across the river from Westminster Abbey to Tower Bridge.  I went to the Tate and saw an exhibit on surrealist art, which I loved.  I also checked out Piccadilly, St James Park, Buckingham Palace (from the outside) and Trafalgar Square.  All in all, I was totally enchanted by London– such a vibrant city, fantastic architecture, so much history.  Here are a few photos:

That night, RL and I met up to go out for some (much-anticipated) curry.  She took me to a street in London that is famous for its many Indian restaurants.  She told me as we were walking from the tube that the many restaurant guys would try to convince us to eat there, and that we should look for whoever gave us the best deal.

The guy in the doorway of the very 1st restaurant told us he would give us 25% off, and make us free drinks.  Tempting, except that there was not a soul in the place!  Um..yeah.  Moving on.  But just as we moved on down the road, the heavens opened up and started pouring buckets down on us.  We were half soaked before we even got the umbrella open!  At the next place, the guy offered 10% off.  RL, ever the bargain hunter, told him we had gotten a 25% offer at the other place.  He was dismissive and not too eager to earn our business.  As we were turning away, another guy came out from the same restaurant to play “good cop.”  “I’ll give you 20% off, but don’t tell my friend there,” he said conspiratorially.  We were wet and starving, so we shrugged and decided to eat there.

After waiting for what seemed like forever, we got our food and chowed down.  (The food was definitely good, but not better than what I have had in LA.  Oh well!)  We only managed to eat about half of it, so we politely asked the “bad cop” for a takeaway box.

“We don’t do takeaway,” he said rudely.  “Just finish your food here.”

RL and I were stunned by this.  First of all, who doesn’t do takeaway?  Second of all, we had just seen  someone pick up a takeaway order.  So we waited until bad cop went out for a smoke and asked good cop for a takeaway box and the check.  Sure enough, we were soon leaving with our leftovers, which we couldn’t help but wave in front of bad cop’s face as we left.  Score!

We didn’t really check out London’s nightlife because RL was tired from work both nights (and, I suspect, wanted to finish the Facebook battle before we left for Paris — but didn’t).   So, no smooching of any Brits to report.  But overall, I loved the city, only with the exception of the rude Indian restaurant guy and the small matter of the dollar being so weak I could cry.

Next, on to Paris on the Eurostar!  But seeing as how it is 2:30 am and I need to actually make an effort to fight my jetlag (I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 1:30) it will have to wait till tomorrow!  Part Trois coming up…