anywhereisbetter

This week, I received notification of my high school reunion via email. “Weplanreunions.com,” an online company that apparently plans high school reunions, would like me to log on to their site and enter my mailing address and phone number so that they may send me a formal invitation once details have been decided upon. Isn’t finding my address their job? What do they get paid to do? Maybe I’m just being stubborn, but somehow I feel like they should figure it out themselves. I’m on a lease. I have mail forwarded to my home. I am not hiding from anyone. I’m sure they can track me down, and I’m curious to see if they do. Is this wrong of me?

The email did, however, have a link to classmates.com, with which you are undoubtedly familiar. Inspired (if you could call it that) to check on the status of my graduating class, I logged in to the profile I had nearly forgotten I’d set up. Here is what I have discovered:

- I recognize less than ten names on a list of hundreds.
- Of the names I recognized, I could place faces with only half of them.
- Of the faces I remember, I remember liking even less.

Am I really so repressed as to have forgotten all those people? I’ve mentioned before that my high school experience was less than ideal, but wasn’t everybody’s, to some degree? In any case, it’s hard to imagine having a good time reminiscing about the old days when the old days entailed running away from mobs of kids bent on kicking my head in, coming one false move from expulsion, and doing my best to fail classes like photography and drama (my success rate in this endeavor was a solid 50%).

I’m sure that plenty of people I disliked have become perfectly respectable, even affable characters with no interest in kicking my ass. But is the fact that we don’t hate each other anymore really reason to go back and see how they’re doing? I don’t think so. And what about all the girls on whom I had huge, frustration-inducing, ulcer-producing crushes? After all those hours logged pining, surely going back and seeing them would be of some value. Maybe. Probably not.

With these points ruled out, I have decided that the only good reason to go to such an event–besides the prospect of an open bar–is to see the teachers that helped me avoid dropping out. But of the four that I regard as having a real impact on me, two have retired, and one is dead. And do teachers even come to these things? It seems like having to go every single year would be more than a little monotonous. I wouldn’t go.

I guess there is one other reason to go: everyone loves watching someone else’s tragedy. My life ain’t perfect, but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at. I’ve got some great friends, I’ve done some pretty cool things, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather live (okay, maybe Paris or London, but nowhere in the States). Most importantly, I’ve avoided obesity. Call it schadenfreude, but I wonder how many in the Class of ’95 cannot make the same claim.

Now I just sound like an asshole, so I’m going to change the subject.

Five anonymous quotes from this week, taken out of context:

1. You should fuck a stockbroker the next time you get a chance.
2. It’s organic, man.
3. Don’t you have some bucket sitting to do?
4. We’re dancing onstage, and she starts to take my shirt off.
5. I don’t care what your sexual preference is, you still look like an asshole.