Last night I hung out with people I hadn't seen in 15 years. Is that crazy or what? That's more than half my life. Technically though, it was just Mike W I hadn't seen in that long. The last time I saw Jenny was 13 years ago, before she left for college in Boston and the last time I saw Cara was 11 years ago, on the shopper shuttle at UC Santa Cruz. But you get my point. Incidentally, Cara and her roommate Rebecca can verify that people are indeed allowed to run around naked at UCSC. I didn't make that shit up!
Glasses of wine in hand, we reminisced about our years at Palms Junior High School in Los Angeles. It's funny how you think you've forgotten everything until you talk to people who were there too and it all comes flooding back. How we were all in band and our teacher Mr. Piteski had a wooden leg (and malaria, Jen added.) How our English teacher's godson was that baseball player Eric Davis and how all the boys were in love with Loni Anderson's daughter, who taught English. How Cara got pantsed by a guy in the middle of the quad, and her underwear came down also, thus earning her the nickname "Panties" when the story inevitably followed her into high school. How everyone hated our Logic teacher Mr. Kravitz (old angry white man, no relation to Lenny). How the main thing they remembered about me was that I was in love with Sebastian Bach, the lead singer of Skid Row.
Mike W: You were going to marry him.
Me: I still am. This guy is just a bump in the road.
Don't worry, Geo laughed. He knows it's not the rock stars he has to worry about, but the famous chefs.
Mike and Cara, all of us, me and Jenny.
Cara remembers details about events and people that are just hazy thoughts in the back of our heads. It's amazing. She was busting out the full names of our classmates. Most people are lucky if they can remember the first name of the guy they spent three hours talking to at a party last week. She remembered that my parents were really strict, and wouldn't let us go anywhere except to the grocery store down the block. So that was our whole world whenever she spent the night. She reminded me of the time we grabbed a tape recorder and ran around interviewing random people, to send to our friend Risa who was away at ballet camp. I think the butcher and produce guys gave the funniest interview (*insert obligatory "fondling melons" and "handling meat" jokes here. I would pay serious money to hear that tape now. She also reminded me of the time we pretended we were on one of those shopping spree shows. Yes, we ran up and down the aisles wildly flinging boxes and cans into our cart... then abandoned the cart, bought a bag of Cheetos and left.
Just so you know, Palms Junior High is apparently called Palms Middle School now, and the gym shirts say "P.M.S." Hee.
The night was a lot of fun. It was as if the years between us had never happened. I think by the end of the night, whenever I looked at them I was seeing them at age 13. Could have just been the Shiraz. Just kidding, I was on my best behavior. Not too much sarcasm, not too much political incorrectness, no copious use of the word "fuck" and I didn't beat on anyone with a vibrator. I didn't want to freak them out after not seeing them for 15 years. That's for next time. I don't like to hit people over the head with who I am, I prefer to sneak up on them. Slipped up a few times and possibly gave them an indication of my true character, but covered it up by stuffing bruschetta in my mouth. That always works. Of course, they may be reading this so I'd be outed anyway.
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