I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?

Nice finger crossing you guys. The drummer got back to me last night and he's going to crash the reunion sans ticket so we can hang out. If he gets beaten bloody by some sort of reunion bouncer and can't get in I'll just leave and take him to the emergency room. We can catch up there. I hope the cafeteria serves beer.

Here's why I'm sort of ticked that a lot of people I hung out with in high school aren't going to be at this thing. Well, first there's the "Wanna lick? Psych!" part where a couple of people were very into it and a month later backed out. Absolutely their right and not something I have any say in. Except that I'm a Capricorn and a daydreamer so I'd already been daydreaming up the events in my head and the change of cast just ruined the continuity for me. It made me feel abandoned, you know, 'cause in my head the event had already begun and people just went home without me and when I called their cells to ask where they were they were all, "I'm home in my jammies, that party was lame!"

Yes? And? Oh like you didn't know I was a little unbalanced before now.

Hey! The four of you that just mumbled "A little?" aren't getting framed fragments of my asbestos sprinkled shirt from last night.

Yeah, ok, I'm tired and cranky and it's been a tough couple of days and I couldn't even shower this morning so trying to write something well crafted is, perhaps, a pipe dream. Oh well, pressing on!

The other real reason that I'm sorry that some of my homies (heh) are coming is that I live far away and many of them have families and lives and whatnot and it's very unusual for us to all together including spouses and stuff get a night out to mingle and sip a glass of wine and talk about shit that doesn't really matter but that's good to know. My fondest dream is to somehow engineer an open house sort of party in or near my hometown to be held annually on Christmas Eve. There might even be caroling involved if I get the proportions of liquor to humans right. Keep in mind that I own no property near my home town nor is my mother's house a viable alternative. Also, Christmas Eve, despite the party being open house and all, is a hard day to start up a new tradition. I've tried before. The phrase "fell flat" is about the kindest thing I can say about it. So, a reunion is no friends and family party, of course, but someone else has already rented the hall and booked the DJ and gotten everyone to RSVP so why not take full advantage? We'd have each other and we might see or meet some interesting people. Either way it would be a pleasant night out and any unpleasantness would surely be minor and mostly good for an anecdote.

I might be a thousand percent wrong about the unpleasantness, I recognize this. The organizers of the reunion for the class of '85 at my high school only invited the people they wanted to see two years ago. They left out people they knew they wouldn't be interested in including some who lived in the town and could not fail to miss the slight. They tended to be trendsetters in our school and twenty years on they proved that some people really don't ever grow up. Nice trend. Nice to know that I, and several of my very vocal classmates, grew up enough to buck that fucking trend.

The thing is, like I'm sure I've said before, I had a super good time at my 10th. Not everyone there was pleasant, sure, the organizer practically waved me away saying, "Just get out" when I stopped by to thank her for a lovely event but she'd done a lot of work and probably been second guessed by a thousand people by that point so I forgave it. (Notice how I didn't forget, though. Yeah, not so good with that.)

On the flip side, though, I met a ton of people who are doing interesting and cool things and almost everyone was doing whatever they did with a conviction in its rightness. I clearly remember someone I never pictured as a mom being happily 8 months pregnant. One guy was not only doing cool work as a helicopter pilot but filled me in on his brother who was in band with me in HS. Despite being about as different as 2 shared blood people can be those guys had a rough but focused loyalty for eachother that even now makes me tear up a little. It was nice to know it remained intact. Have I told you about the guy who built his own house? And by that I mean built with his own actual two hands. His reply when I commented on .... Oh god I think I have told you all these stories before. Which means, of course, that I'm going to be exactly like the guy at the last reunion who gave his life summation exactly the same way, with the same words...oh, did I tell you about him too? Did I mention that the 10th reunion was when I reconnected with Chili so this is like our sort of 10th friendiversary? OK, sorry, moving on.

Suffice to say I had a great time because I met interesting people. When 3 guys got topless to YMCA I showed myself out to a car whose lights I'd left on and had to make an ignominious return to ask for a jump. Yes, as a matter of fact I did ask just that way. Yes, it did take me a minute to get a reply that was going to get the car started.

To be perfectly frank I'm a little concerned that my story won't be so great at this juncture. At the 10th reunion I'd recently moved back from the UK and was on my way to MI for my tour. I was working freelance and had big dreams. My dreams, the dreams I can talk about in a realistic format, aren't as far along or as flashy as the ones I was fulfilling 10 years ago. I'm keeping in mind that I've done plenty for a legit conversation and if, god forbid, anyone figures out that I was in New York on 9/11 then I can pretty much stop speaking altogether and ride the wave. My real talent, though, is the super zoom fast sum up and the relentless follow up questions. I like to keep the focus on the other people using a couple of well-crafted nuggest as sort of conversational chum if I really need it. As I sat down to write this I thought that why I like going back to these reunions is a lot like why I read blogs, I've read so many chapters to these lives already, I'm just psycho curious to see how it all turns out. Which is my plan.

I've got a hot outfit for the dinner with some strappy sandals and my ivory skirt and a sheer ribbed green blouse in that weird green that looks evil on the rack but somehow looks pretty good on me. I'm going to wear the Tiffany ring I bought myself as a gift for my perseverence at my last icky job and Queen Bee will accessorize the rest. I've had my hair cut and colored and my shampoo evaluated and even bought some big girl fancy foundation and lip liner last night. I think my outsides will match my insides. In a good way.

My dream is that I'll laugh and have fun and maybe dance and that all my friends will secretly show up and we will get the biggest kick out of the whole thing. But even if it doesn't work out that way at all I'm excited to be going and I'll be glad I went because it would be worse not to know first hand. If it sucks I'll just breeze on out of there with the drummer and we'll go to somewhere more like my natural habitat huddled at the end of a bar somewhere drinking beer and then I'll go back to the Bees' and get into my jammies and tell Queen Bee, "That party was lame!"