Surreality Check

The Tauz hit a milestone this year.

Ten years ago, I graduated from Susquehannock High School.

'98!!

And the people who graduated with me were going to get together at our Ten-Year Reunion.

Now, as near as I can tell, it seems like the Class Reunion was invented by some sadistic asshole who wanted to brag about his awesome job to all of the people who had made fun of him during puberty. The event is set up to be like a Progress Report to Your Former Peers. And that sooo doesn't sound like it could be any fun.

There are a lot of ways to feel about reaching this kind of a milestone in one's life, and I'm pretty sure I've felt 'em all in the past few months.

First, I felt old. Like I've been around forever. I think moving back to York after college amplified this particular feeling. I see people I know all the time, because I grew up around here. And when I see these people, we hold conversations that reference events that happened ages ago, and that makes me realize how long I've been alive.

Next, I felt unaccomplished and self-conscious about what I've done, career-wise. But then I realized that I truly enjoy my job, and I'm pretty good at it, and I make a decent living on top of all of that, so I'm above the average on that issue. Plus, it's pretty cool to say that I work in TV. Most people think that's cool, and I'm not about to correct them.

And then I felt excited. I know some didn't reach this stage after hearing about the impending reunion... but these events are not for everyone. I have to admit that at one point, after I'd missed the cutoff date for sending in my RSVP, I had come to peace with not attending. But after randomly running into some classmates who dropped a (surprisingly effective) guilt trip on me about not going, and talking to my Mom about not going, and thinking forward to the future guilt trips I'd have to endure from other friends who HAD gone, I decided to shoot off an email to make sure it wasn't too late to register, and then dropped my check in the mail.

Turns out, I'm glad I went.

It was an absolutely surreal evening.

It was weird at first.

No. That's a lie.

It was fuckin' weird all night. Definitely a strange feeling, walking into a room full of people who you basically grew up with, but who may or may not recognize you.

My problem, though, is that my mind is rigged to remember faces and names. I'd say, 93% of the time, I'm the guy coming up to you in the restaurant/grocery store/amusement park and saying your name with a question mark at the end of it. I usually follow that right away with my own full name, so as to alleviate the awkwardness of the fact that you probably have no idea who the fuck I am. But I pretty much recognize everybody, all the time.

So walking through the room, seeing everyone and recognizing everyone, and not knowing the protocol, I felt like I had to say hi and catch up with everyone as I came upon them. I didn't want to offend anyone and just walk by them, and I wanted to show each of them that I didn't hold grudges or anything dumb like that...

But I didn't get very far through the room at that pace. And by the end of the night, I'm pretty sure I had accidentally snubbed some people who I definitely would have liked to (at least) have had a chat with. So I'll take this opportunity to publicly apologize to anyone who felt I snubbed them at the reunion.

I'm sorry.

Drop me a comment and we'll catch up, super-promise.

I'm also disappointed in myself for taking such a paltry amount of pictures. And it became evident to me way too late that I didn't take pictures evenly throughout the night. Three here, four there, one here... and none all over the place.

Here are some of the better shots I took:
(All last names have been left out, in order to keep them from being added to the Google searches of their names, in case any of them would not like just anyone to stumble upon the following pictures. Just as a precaution, is all.)


Me enjoying a hug with the ever-lovely Wendy!



Ashley looked awesome for the big event.



Gretch is gonna kill me for posting this one, but the shot was just too irresistable to resist... Ashley, Gretch, and Jessica, with Brenda hovering behind/above them.



Flipper and Tom, muggin'. (He's apparently from the West Side of Shrewsbury.)



Alana lookin' fine with The Tauz at her side!



When Tom stole my camera, I told him not to take any pictures of his genitals. You can actually feel the disappointment in his eyes, here.



After multiple failed attempts at a picture with Mr. and Mrs. Ryan "Rhymes-with-Kegger"... a helpful classmate snapped this one of us.



I then tried to snap a pic of myself with said helpful classmate, but I totally didn't wait long enough for the camera to flash. This shot is the result of my impatience: Marci, Ashley, Mandy (all seated) and Chris W. (headlessly standing).



The twice-aforementioned helpful classmate (George F.) was eventually rewarded by having his picture taken with The Tauz, after sharing a laugh at my moment of dumbassery.



Mandy is awesome and I miss her! It was very good fun reminiscing about William Faulkner and other dirty mnemonic devices we and our study group came up with to help us pass Mrs. Schultz' English mid-term and final.



Ziva (formerly known as Jamie) the dance phenom strikes a pose with her goofy classmate from back in The Day.



And last, but not least, these two share a last name, and Mandy wanted a picture with her "sibling". First Tom looks goofy...



...and then sincere. Aww.


But then there were the ones that I (due to my late-onset A.D.D.) didn't get pictures with.... These are just some of the people I caught up with during the night.

1) Ryan R. and his lovely wife.
2) Mary Beth and her hubby.
3) Teresa Y.
4) Carol P.
5) Trisha C.
6) Toscha S.
7) Buck (Jon)
8) Andy S.
9) Brian N.
10) Chris W.
11) Shanna and her husband Nick
12) Chris B.
13) Joey S.
14) Brianne (used-to be S.)
15) Susie G.
16) Krista M.
17) Joe E.
18) Evan K. (our gracious host)

..and many more.

Anyways, the entire night, as I said before, was very surreal. It's amazing to see how people progress along different paths in life. I remember being impressed at what some of my classmates chose as careers; some of their titles sound so grown-up that I was taken aback more than once. Like, "Whoa! This chick who played trombone in the band with me is now a freakin' super-smartypants engineer type-person."

Damn.

And keeping that in mind, some of these are the same people who decided to play Beer Pong and Flip-Cup at our Reunion.

Thaaaaaat's right, folks. I believe the going word for that one was... "Classy." My buddy Chris brought the pong balls and cups. He told me that on three separate occasions throughout the night, people called this move "classy".

Say what you will about it, but at least people were having fun, right?

A decent amount of people showed up, too. We graduated in a class of 264-ish and there had to be at least 100 people there, including spouses/dates.

Of course, some looked way better than you'd have expected, some looked a bit worse for wear, and quite a few looked pretty unchanged. I certainly won't name names, but we all know that we have these thoughts, and I couldn't help but turn mine into a harmlessly pointless observation paragraph like this. Mission accomplished.

So, throughout the night, I experienced a few mentionable Small World Moments...

I found out that Ryan R. and his wife apparently live, like, less than 5 minutes away from me.

I discovered that Shanna works down the street from where my college roommate lives in Pittsburgh, and that her husband works in the school district where a former college flame/current good friend attended high school.

And, although not necessarily a Small World Moment, Chris B. told me he checks out The Tauz Blaug "once in a while", which I found to be supremely cool. Thanks for letting me know, dude. I love hearing that people are entertained by my musings here.

In addition to the SWMs, I also found that I have connections to people all over the damn place. The next time I head outta York, I'm gonna have to send out a few messages to herald my arrival.

Let's see... I have to let Wendy know when I head to Hershey. I have to give Shanna and Nick a heads up when I'm in The 'Burgh. Teresa Y. and Carol P. might be notified the next time I head to Philly. Gretch always gets a holler from me when I hit up our nation's capital. And if I ever get out of the TriState Area, Mandy lives out in Schenectady, NY and deserves a visit. Another place I should go is Charleston, so that Chris W. can show me what's fun in that town. He also wants me to meet the love of his life, so I'm sure it'll be good times, whenever it actually happens.

And of course, in addition to those that I haven't really seen in the last decade, I refreshed the friendships I have kept, like Ashley G., Gretchen K., Wendy (yes... you both get double-mentions!), and Tom. I see most of them at least once a year or so, and this totally counted as one of those occasions. It's always fun when we get together, and this was no exception!

Also over the course of the night, I had a very sobering realization: Facebook is winning the war of Internet Social Networking Sites over MySpace, and it may be time for The Tauz to become a dual-user.

Ugh.

As if I don't neglect all of my Internet Presences already... I mean, seriously. I got an anonymous comment on my last entry encouraging me to post this entry... I could guess who it was, but it's not important. It was drafted when you left your comment, Mystery Classmate, just not polished, but it's here, now... a mere two weeks after the described event. Record time!

So, besides the weird self-conscious feelings I mentioned (much) earlier, the only bad thing that happened that night of the Reunion, was the end.

And NO. I'm not going the sappy route and saying that I never wanted that night to end. I know I can be corny pretty often, but not this time, y'all. Fuck that. Although this reflection has been pretty benign, there were definitely some people there that I truly didn't want to see. So to Hell with the cheesy "it was too good to end" bullshit. That ain't happenin'.

No... the worst part of the night was the after-party, because it was at The Hodle, and I can't stand that place. Especially now, since it's a smoking bar amongst a sea of non-smoking establishments available here in good ol' Southern PA. And I know I'm a giant pussy who hates being in smoky rooms, but I'm not alone.

My sinuses don't much like it, either.

With that in mind, I have to thank Wendy for needing a ride home, for two reasons. The first and foremost reason is that I got to hang out with her and catch up a bit, which is always cool. The second and coincidental reason is that doing so kept me from spending too much time at The Hodle.

After visiting with Wendy and her mom and doggy, Justin and Ashley came to get us to come to the after-party. Wendy wasn't havin' any of that, so we hung out at her mom's for a bit and then Justin, Ash, and I left for the bar at about 1:10am.

Many, many of the people from the Reunion were there, and many, many of them were way hammered by this point. On the plus side, I got to chat with Chris and Gretch and Alana and Brenda while the night was winding down. I then ended up shepherding people into cars with sober drivers before hittin' the northbound bricks myself.

So in summary, it was a good night. Friends. Fun. Foolishness. All were present. And I think I did pretty well during this, my first official Progress Report to My Former Peers.

I'd estimate my score to be...about a...

'98!!