What I did instead of Blogher09

I crashed the Class of 89 reunion. I have no couth, not a bit, so I not only went to the post-official activities on Friday nite, I also went Saturday after the dinner. I could not help it-- I have not seen some of these people in 20 years. This is the class ahead of me, but in a small town where there are only 400 people in your class anyway, the lines between classes tend to get blurred. There are too many connections to keep it straight.

Once I was there, I realized that I have known some of these people since I was three years old, when we first moved here. 34 years, for Pete's sake. That is absurd. It is amazing how with some of them, it was like no time has passed at all.This is Julie on the left. She lived up the street from me and was my best friend in the whole world when I was little. We did everything together. Including thinking that we invented the word "tallywacker", or at least that we were the only ones that knew it. Now she is a grade school principal. She had a disturbing memory of us when we were kids--we evidently thought closets were good places to keep kids. I am not sure I am against that even now, but I can see why it would be bigger concern for her, since she has kids and is now the boss of them. Good luck in the new job Julie--I know that beneath your nice smiley face, you can be a big enough bad ass to scare those parents that need it.

That is Libby on the right. Libby and I swam together since we were five. Our moms were very close friends too...they played tennis and golf together non-stop. When we were not at swim meets, we lived in the pool at the country club--or in the ladies lounge waiting for our parents who golfed as much as we swam. Libby is now a personal trainer and has two kids. I have rarely seen a normal person walking around with a body like she has. It is amazing. She just did a triathlon two months ago. I wish I could be so disciplined, but obviously, not so much. Libby has turned into an amazing woman, it is really impressive to see how self-assured she is. She also lectured me about the lack of stretching, so now we know for sure that I really did hurt myself last week when I thought I broke myself--and we also know why.



This is Camilla, who I have not seen in fifteen years. She swam with us for a while too. There were several years when I wanted to be her so bad, I thought she was perfect. She is the reason I had the balls to bust up in this reunion--if she could go despite her nerves, then I could too--since that is what it would take to see her. She has five year old twins. She lives between here and Chicago so I plan to see a lot more of her now-- stopping for meals on the way to see Barry, etc.

This is Manzell. I am sure he wrote me my first quasi-dirty letter. Tranae's mom found it and all hell broke loose. I think I was in seventh grade. That is embarrassing just now even thinking about it. He is a great guy though, we run into each other every few years. It is always good to see him, because he has never changed a single bit--he looks exactly the same.
This is Tiff and Leslie. They were on the swim team too--I swear Tiffany has double jointed shoulders, and I can still hear the weird rhythm she had swimming freestyle. It worked though, as she was unbeatable. Les always was better than me at the stroke we were both good at. She had another one too though, so we usually got to swim the same relays--the three of us, and Libby. They look exactly the same to me too, I do not get how that works. I have seen Tiff a few times over the years as her family is still here, but I have no idea when I last saw Leslie. It has been forever.
These two fools are a story themselves. Edward, on the right, is a professor teaching mostly stuff about Muslims in the US, and he brought his very cool wife with him. I don't know how he scored that, let me tell you. He is great, but a one of a kind for sure. On the right is Walt, who is a psychiatrist in Dallas. I could tell a great story about him that we told Barry Saturday nite, but I do not think my mother's heart could take it, so I won't. He had the best camera at the reunion and it made me drool a little.
I do not know how this happened, but again, here is a swimming person. Drew, on the right, was on the swim team too. I noticed at the reunion that the people that I had the strongest reaction to seeing were almost always people that I swam with, so we went back so much further than high school. Now I see from the very few pics that we took that almost all of the pics are them too! The guy in the middle is Tony--we went to prom together and were really good friends for several years. He lives here and has a very cool wife--he did good for himself too.

I just realized something else too--this last pic is one of the ones taken first--so it is not that my hair got flatter as the night went on. It actually got much bigger. I think it was not even totally dry yet in this pic--I cannot blow dry it or it would not fit in the car. I so need to get a style. I look like a sheep dog.

It was an excellent weekend. It almost killed me, of course, as all reunions tend to do, but I should get points for skipping out on the after-party Saturday nite. I was exhausted and could not do anymore--also, my shoes broke and I had been barefoot all night, but that would not have been a safe move at the Mug.

I think Barry had fun too, meeting people--many he had not met before because they have been gone from the area so long, but the ones he did know made him feel welcome. I made him take pics all nite, but evidently not enough, as this is almost all of them.

I was so excited to see all these people. My mom always said that at the ten year reunion people are trying to one-up each other but that is all gone by the 20th. If the class of 1989 is any example, then ours will be like that next year. I did not see any of that at all--people were just thrilled to see each other. It was a lot of fun, and since facebook is so easy, I hope to keep in better touch with people than I have.

The countdown is on for next year!