And then a step to the right. I'm back from Flashback Weekend and my head is still spinning. Besides the fact that visiting my in-laws is already a step into an alternate, back-in-time universe, I also went to my 20th high school reunion. I. know.
In the car on the way there, I stumbled onto every Greatest Hits of the 80s station there was. Scan ... "California Girls" (David Lee Roth version) .... scan ... "Manic Monday" ... scan ... "And We Danced" (Hooters, baby).
I ate one meal that consisted entirely of frozen yogurt (just like my entire 8th grade year) and another one made up of Pop Tarts (just like ... never, my mom refused to buy those).
I stayed in a king jacuzzi "suite" in a roadside motel. Skee-zay. The jacuzzi was in the corner of the (one) room, two feet from the bed.
Mostly I just tried to wrap my mind around the way things change. The way that huge subdivisions sprout up in my once-tiny hometown, seemingly overnight. The way that our old Roy's is now a souvenir shop. The way that the convenience store I once rode my bike to looks so seedy I'd never let my kids in.
And yet all the people are exactly the same. They look the same, sound the same, hang out with the same clique they did 20 years ago. One woman I swear I never spoke to in four years of school gave me a big hug, called me by name, said how happy she was to see me. What is that about?
You're spaced out on sensation, like you're under sedation
Let's do the Time Warp again!
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11 comments:
Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I think time warps some people's memories about high school.
Oh my! I think of how much time it took to do 80's big hair and wonder when we had time to do schoolwork.
We live 3 hours South of the Dells and so I have tons of memories from vacationing there. I always wondered what it would be like to grow up in a town that is truly small but is such a vacation hotspot. And it really HAS blown up in size this past decade!
I can't wait to hear all the details!
But I agree - reunions are warped. Kyle's been making plans to play golf with guys that he didn't even speak to at the 10-year reunion, let alone in high school.
Oh my word--those songs! How can we forget so many things but remember THOSE?
Love the image of the hugger. So random.
Ahhh, reunions. Good to go, remember, and feel good about moving along, isn't it?
my 20 year is next year...and the 10 was exactly as you describe, with this high voltage friendliness yet no real change. it freaked me out. but, being the social whirlwind i am, i'll probably go to the 20 just so i can sneer at it nine years after it's over. :)
20? TWENTY? OMG - wait... holy crap, my twenty year was last year and no one organized it so I didn't have the chance to be hugged by the folks that ignored me every day through high school. Doesn't time change perception?
Our big reunion's coming up in 2010.
I'm a little nervous. But I figure we've all got to have matured since high school, no?
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall! Bizarro world? Maybe.
Dude, you had me at hello.
When I saw that one line from Time Warp in my little BlogHer list of links, my heart started a-poundin'.
Did I know that we were kindred survivors of the 80s? I graduated in 87, and the Time Warp, David Lee Roth, Oh OH OHHHHHHH!
Sadly, I went to an all-girls high school so our reunions lack a certain something, but I did go last summer, pregnancy and all. Mostly I marveled at the size of the diamonds some of my old friends were sporting (which is what comes of growing up in L.A.) and how some of the gals who seemed like they'd never amount to anything (they won't read this so I can say it, but seriously, you know the type?) had become super-fancy queens of big name techno-businesses while I became, um, er... JUST a writer.
Anywhoooo. Thanks for the time warp trip back to the absolute joy of John Hughes movies, the old MTV, the young Madonna, and lots and lots of aqua net super hold.
I loved going to my high school reunion, but it was weird how things were so different yet the same. Actually whenever I visit my parents (about once a year) I have a tendency to get lost because a store will have changed or another store will have gone up and it throws off my sense of direction.
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