August 2, 2004
Given how poor my memory is, especially when I'm having a few beers, I'm going to start writing stuff as I think of it during the weekend. Pictures will go up Monday night in all likelihood, Tuesday night at the latest.
Saturday, 10:10 AM: A lot more people showed up at Jillian's last night than I thought would, and as an added bonus I even remembered a lot of them. I was kinda nervous coming in that very few people I knew had said they'd be there; I tend to do the blending-into-the-wall thing when I don't know anybody.
But anyway, I was there for about four hours (the smoke started bugging me at about 11) and got to do some catching up. A lot of people are married and/or have kids, even more than it seemed like from the Yahoo group. Given the amount of baby/young-kid pictures floating around I started to feel like I was in the minority for not having a podling.
There are also more than a few people getting degrees right now, and that's great -- knowing how much trouble I had coming out of East, I was afraid some others who were supposedly not as smart as me would have passed on college.
Oh yeah, about that whole "smart in high school" thing... I had to learn the hard way that it doesn't necessarily carry over into real life, or even college. Anyone out there who didn't go into massive debt for a history degree just to not use it, congratulations: You're officially smarter than me. I know everybody's just being nice to me, but I don't get paid to take the SAT over and over again :)
Anyway, thanks to Patty, Tanya, Heidi, Keith, Daniella, Dan, Larry, Brett, Alyssa, Melissa, Thom, Jenny, Angie, and everyone else who I forgot I saw last night -- you can join me in blaming the beer if you're not on the list. Blaming the beer is much better than admitting I have a memory like a seive :)
Saturday, 12:15 PM: I just watched Grosse Pointe Blank a week or two ago. I wonder: If I tell people I'm a contract killer, would any of them give me a pen or tell me it's a growth industry?
Saturday, 11:10 PM: The reunion dinner was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I was afraid I'd feel like I was on the outside looking in (this is me, after all) and wind up wasting my time, but it turned out really well.
I was mostly just catching up with everybody since I haven't spent any serious time in town in a decade, but after an hour or two it felt really normal, instead of like it was some special occasion. People didn't even seem to mind when I ran around pointing my phone at everybody :)
All I want to know is, when the hell did we all become grown-ups?
I've decided I want to go to the picnic after all; I want to spend a couple more hours with everybody before I go back to Pittsburgh, and get more pictures for the reunion page I'm making (it'll be up at jasonfleshman.org/ehs2004 by Monday night).
This is turning out so much better than I thought it would. I'm really glad I decided to do this.
Sunday, 7:40 PM: I'm back in Pittsburgh now, and I'm currently uploading the pictures to the site so I can get the page ready. All that's left to do is caption the 33 pictures I took at the picnic and it'll be ready to go.
The picnic really drove home how many people have kids. It's incredible how many people have three or four, let alone just one. Most of them were well-behaved, too. One pair of brothers (I think they were Melanie's) were playing at the water fountain, and the younger one decided he wanted to drink from the spigot on the side. He stuck his face under and told his older brother to turn it on.
Two seconds later, he was running crying for his mom. As an adult in the area I probably should've done something before the kid got a faceful of water, but it was too entertaining to pass up :)
Anyway, a few people were kicking around the idea of having an informal mini-reunion every year, since the Yahoo group would make it pretty easy to do so. And Patty wants to have a 15-year reunion instead of waiting until our 20th in 2014. Both sound like really good ideas right about now.
