Alumni Sites

Normally I would provide a link at this point, but in truth I'm not really interested in sending everyone to the personal hell of my high school alumni website that I've just been on. Dutifully I added my email address, if for no other reason than maybe someone that I actually know might wander in there curious like I was and see me and drop me a line. I learned and implied a few things about my fellow high school classmates by my visit though, and I thought I would share my observations.

1. The more information there is available about a person in your alumni directory, the more self-righteous they will probably be. This includes people with more than one child, who've lost weight or turned from 'nottie to hottie', who are still with the same person you last saw them with, are tremendously successful, and spouses of military folks.

2. People with little information on the alumni website probably still live in the area, and weren't very interesting in the first place. I decided to place myself amongst these people when I added myself because I didn't really care to give everyone a free pass to my blog that I dreamed of blowing up in an enormous fireball of self-expressive hate while in high school.

3. People who were truly and genuinely interesting in high school will be AWOL, since they either have better things to do than lurk around people they probably couldn't stand any more than me or they are probably dead. It's always strange that corollary, I don't know why but most of all interesting people are dead. It stands to reason that it holds true for people I went to high school with too, but I can't remember most of them so how would I know?

I can barely remember some of the people I went out on dates with in high school, and yet there I was dutifully looking through the listing like I would see something incredibly compelling. My father claimed that I should have gone to my ten year reunion a few years ago, but I still can't see why. Maybe it's because when I look through those pages of people talking about their lives I don't feel any sort of association with those same notions. Yes I feel older occassionally when I start to look at how big Phoenix is getting, but I certainly don't feel like a 'grown up' particularly. I'm not sure if I ever want to either, they seem so...deadened. "I married Tom, we're in BFE Arkansas and can't be happier with our three kids and two dogs." Maybe I'm just not cut out for that shit.

Maybe it repels me because I secretly desire something like that? Well, not married to a Tom - but you know what I mean. Domesticity seems like an easy life for me, the perpetual diplomat. Do what my wife suggests and bring home a steady paycheck, watch a little football before I go to bed at night. Ugh. It almost sounds like giving up. I think I would crack under that kind of day to day tide of familial responses, or worse I wouldn't crack and the light would go out in my soul and I'd be left with whatever passes for domestic bliss before you fall asleep watching the evening news each night.

Normally I'd close this sort of entry with something witty and clever, but I don't know what to say anymore. I feel exposed right now, like someone disapproving might be watching. My conscience? Perhaps. Who knows, and let's hope I never have to find out.