reunited and it feels so good

this weekend i am going to my 15th class reunion. my high school was catholic and near cleveland, ohio, drawing from five surrounding counties. we had a pretty big range of income and ethnicity, but not race, really.

my year, class of '91, was the first year that the school formerly known as notre dame academy started taking boys. so, even though the school was all girls my freshman year, my sophomore year we 90 or so girls were joined by 8 boys and we became notre dame-cathedral latin. cathedral latin had been the brother all boys school that closed in the 1970s, and whose alumni association had been amassing millions of dollars. millions of dollars that poor little notre dame academy desperately needed. those eight boys weren't totally alone, however, because the freshman year that year and of course every year thereafter was about half and half. i sort of think that single-sex education is a pretty good idea, but such was not to be.

one of the guys, joe gambatese, died on his way home from the 5th reunion, which is why we never had a 10th. someone in an oncoming lane had a seizure and drove into him head on. totally sad.

i'm a little bit dreading it, because my nightmare is being in a situation where everyone is talking about themselves, seemingly independently, without responding to what anyone else is saying (pretty ironic for someone keeping a blog, eh?), but i have a free plane ticket, and a little sense of duty about keeping in touch with where you came from. i don't really remember being persecuted by anyone or being especially popular or well-liked or reviled, so i don't really have anything to prove, hoping someone got really fat or anything.

my prediction? i'll get really loaded and have a great time with someone i never really talked to before. my "a"s will flatten out over the course of the evening, and i will get really involved in someone's life, giving advice and saying things like, "you're kidding me. what did you do??!!! what an *asshole*!!!"

some of my main memories of high school are:

the grease spots made my mr. dengler's head on the wall where he would lean. mr. dengler was the english teacher

my best friend in high school jen writing "don't worry, be happy" all over her lunch box

smoking with angela tomsic in the bathroom by the library

alyson sustar being really mad at me for writing a cool poem in senior english. she actually said, "i hate you."

having a designated "black bra day," in which my friends and i would all wear black bras under our white school uniform blouses.

wondering how on earth we could be learning in religion class that we're supposed to give to the poor, even while our very own school was getting ready to spend millions on a new football stadium. can you imagine my teenage outrage? i thought the world had gone totally crazy. it was like an emperor's new clothes-type feeling.

going to denny's a lot.

barfing on my person at a mighty lemon drops concert as a result of taking to much vivarin.