last night was my 10 year high school reunion. after leaving high school i always described the town i grew up in as kind of accurately displayed in such 80s movies as weird science, or 16 candles. it was a rich town, and had rich people, yet you still had your blue collar workers from times prior to reganomics. while i wasn't taking any clothed showers with kelly lebrock or selling whiffs of molly ringwald's panties, i was....well, you see where i'm going with this. at first the reunion was a little overwhelming - i had no idea i retained so many first and last name combinations. and for the most part people still looked the same, if not better. it dawned on me, however - this wasn't a 'high school' reunion per se, but a childhood reunion. these people were our lives growing up; the people we spent the most time with that weren't family, the people that shaped us the most. while the reunion was very high school oriented with the class colours and pictures from those badass hair days of the mid nineties, i found myself remembering stories about people from elementary and middle school. it got me thinking about how much these people had effected my development as a person, and maybe how i contributed to other's. i talked to leslie, a girl who lived down the street from me, a girl who i knew since she was 4 and i was 5. as an interesting side note, her brother is blowing "scientific glass" - that's beakers and viles and test-tubes and the like. i looked at my own personal bully from high school, terry, and i was reminded that he had people picking on him as well, just as i had done my fair share of picking on people throughout elementary school. of course, i stopped somewhere in middle school...i guess it just takes some people longer to grow out of that sort of thing. i saw my super-hot crush from sophomore year, the proverbial girl that floored me everytime she was around. i never really approached her last night because i really had little to say, and i'm sure that went both ways, as did the appreciation of that most likely. i was reminded of the only phone conversation i ever had with her in high school - she spent the whole time laughing out loud at fresh prince of bel-air, a TV show that was on at the time, while i tried to get a word in edgewise. i'm not bitter though - although it's one of those moments that sticks with you through the years it actually turned into a good story through college and beyond. on lighter notes i got to tell my 7th grade crush about how i wrote her initials in pen on the sole of my sneakers while riding the school bus home. she in turn showed me a picture of her 8 year old son. i got see another guy i was friends with who clearly,...we needed to hang out somewhere other than a high school reunion, and there would have to be a whole mess of drugs and musical instruments involved.

so i guess it all made a lot more sense to me when i was leaving and a girl named betsy stopped becky and i on the way out to chat a bit. she had moved to our town in 8th grade, and had no trouble fitting right in with the popular girls. she was friendly, really pretty, and for the most part outgoing. but last night she told me how it was hard for her to fit in because our town was so clique-y and not very welcoming to those who came in late in the game. this, is absolutely true. so true about my hometown that it actually begs to be the definition of madison, ct. she went on to say how awkward and insecure she felt in high school, and everybody was lame in their own way back then. dude, you don't have to tell me. i'm 29 and i still feel that way when interacting with gas station attendants, bartenders, my girlfriend, and pretty much anyone who doesn't share my last name. so now i'm intrigued to talk to those people i graduated good ol' danny hand with but never really talked to in high school or the reunion and find out what their up to. i was kind of surprised at the number of people who told me they visited my website after seeing it in the e-vite. so hopefully some will make it down to here and drop me a line.

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