vh1's we love the 80's

as noodles said to me when i saw him for the first time in over ten years, “you look exactly the same.”

to be honest, that’s pretty much true for everyone. everyone looked almost exactly the same as they did in high school. sure, we’re older, some of us are a little greyer or thinner on top. but no one ballooned out like a zeppelin or shrunk down like jared. not that anyone was pre-subway sized to begin with. but, yeah, everyone looked good, and acted pretty much the same as they did back then. thankfully, less dorky.

i was honestly a little worried about how i was going to relate to everyone after having disappeared for over ten years. i mean, high school? who still has friends from high school? who even remembers high school? i do remember the seniors one year putting a nipple on top of one of the domes on the building, but that’s about it. and i remember the smells in the darkroom, but not much else. which might explain things. mmmmmm darkroom chemicals…

everyone was just as funny and hilarious as they were back then, and it was great to be able to settle in and hang out with everyone, to joke and laugh like we used to when we were young. except without the poofy 80’s clothes. and the cuffed jeans.

there was a lot of drinking and smoking and gambling. not by me, mind, you, since i’m an ascetic monk. i did a lot of praying and was in the hotel chapel, trying to confess, although these annoyed couples kept coming in. (side note: at 4:30 in the morning, pretty much the only things open in the casino are some assorted gambling tables, and the jewelry store. honest injun. because you need that store open to follow through with that drunken marriage proposal, right?) we saw a couple of good shows, including the forty deuce burlesque show which was pretty fantastic, and the old school vegas showgirl show, jubilee, which was lavish and funny and amazingly enough, had the highest breasts per minute ratio of anything i’ve seen in vegas. it was a literal breastopia.

it was really a great time and a lot of fun. and it really was good to see everyone and how they’ve all turned out.

after all that, i wonder why did i end up cutting all ties with everyone in high school for so long? not that it was intentional, but after it sort of happened, i certainly didn’t put any effort into trying to reestablish contact with anyone. maybe it’s just that everyone is so far away. if they came closer to me, it certainly would be much easier. besides, it’s much nicer to visit here. honest.

so the reassuring/distressing thing is: you’re basically the person you are in high school. that’s it. you’re done. i hope you like yourself, becuase out of a sample of nine, nine people were pretty much exactly the same. if anything, age just lets you be more comfortable and accepting of who and what you are.

otherwise, you need to move far away and cut off all ties with your past.

oh, wait…

Posted at November 6, 2005 4:25 PM