Ghostbusting

Well, part one of the high school reunion went great. We met up at the bar in the hotel where most people are staying. I got there at around 5:45 in the evening and hung out with everyone until about 2 in the morning. Except for running across the street at some point to get some quick food en masse, we spent the entire evening in this lounge adjacent to the bar. We each were given a nametag that contained our name next to our high school yearbook photo. Kind of embarrassing, but since everyone had one, it was okay.

I think about 25-30 of us showed up last night — some much later than others, given the diverse schedules of airline flights. There was a surprisingly large number of people in from the San Francisco Bay area; I wouldn’t be surprised if San Francisco came in a close second in the vote for the reunion location.

There were some people I’d expected to see and others who were total surprises. Among those who showed up were Attractive Jockboy, the source of many a nighttime fantasy back in high school, and who I don’t think I ever had a single conversation with back then, but whom I wound up chatting with comfortably for quite a while last night. There was also Tall Cute Quiet Boy, whom I had a big obsession with/crush on back then, and who copied one of his mix tapes for me once (I still have it). Turns out he’s married. He lives in Brooklyn and he seemed sorta shy and uncomfortable last night. I think he barely cracked a smile.

There was also the guy whose older brother was a good friend of mine when I was a sophomore and the older brother was a senior; I idolized the older brother so incredibly deeply, and we acted in shows together, and we got to be really good friends that year. The older brother is about to move out to San Francisco with his wife and daughter, where he’s going to be a feature reporter on SF’s local NBC news affiliate. When I saw the younger brother last night, for a second I actually thought it was the older brother.

I was surprised by how much easier it was to talk with people last night, men and women both, than it was back in high school. For the most part, it seems that the cliques have melted away and we’re all adults now. For the most part. There were still moments when some of the formerly popular people were talking about things and looking at photos from 8th grade, which I couldn’t relate to at all, because we didn’t move to Japan until I was in 10th grade. (This wasn’t unusual — when you go to an overseas high school, there are always families coming and going.)

I feel like I exorcised many old ghosts last night. It felt wonderful and liberating.

We were going to meet up for a Central Park picnic this afternoon, but the weather is crappy, so instead we’re all just going to meet up at this restaurant for dinner, where we have a room reserved, and where we’ll eat and drink and look at a slide show of old school photos. It should be another blast.