...Bang Bang, I am the Warrior. Yes, I am the Warrior... :::wretch::: can you imagine how often we had to sit through this song?? How many perky fucking routines we were forced to witness?? Oh, and not just while it was Top 40, either! No siree, 20 years post-commencement it just had to be danced to and sung and remembered...
Yep, just back from reliving those big haired 80s with many of the 486 age-regulated peers who graduated with me on my 18th birthday, May 27, 1986, from Washington Senior High School. Good thing I was drunk. Make that D. R. U. N. K. almost FUBAR, but not quite, I was still funny (to me) and chipper and lively, kept most of my clothes on, just lacking the much needed social filtering, true to diana form: recognizable and memorable... Ah, but I get ahead of myself before I even begin the story. Excuse, I'm down a few thousand brain cells today.
I missed Friday night's celebration... The band was great and the party was hoppin! I missed seeing Gene Tvreberg; it's been close to 20 years since I've seen my very first and bestest guy friend ever! I hadn't realized how much I miss him, we had amazing conversations (on the phone, hours a night, for years of my life, even though he lived 4 houses away and we went to the same school). To this day I think of him everytime someone sneezes, "goesintight" "comesoutloose" -- oh man! we were 14 and we had sick humor! Again, that faith in the universe to cross our paths when our paths should be crossed; no pushing will bring it along any more quickly and the pushing will exhaust energy needed for things controllable...
So I venture out on Saturday afternoon, to meet Lisa & family + others at the park for the snacky picnic thingie... Pat & Jodi are there as is Anita (safe folks identified) and a multitude of familiar faces but huge overwhelm for me, everyone's talking and mingling and touching and too, too, too many little kids, too wide open a'space, caffeine is only so effective and though I really did want to show up shitfaced drunk, I didn't (the driving thing)... then someone spots me in the midst of my silent paralysis which I was using to talk myself out of jumping off the deep end, and she mistakes my doe-eyed look for sympathy and openness, accepts my lack of storytelling as not yet ready and proceeds to tell me her own heart wrenching tale of pregnancy complications and doctors and diagnoses and loss and choice and death and sadness. I wanted to scream and tear my hair out but I was still frozen, as kids went wild around us without any adult concern, as Hayden proclaimed his boredom, I couldn't move or talk or breathe. Though I must have, I'm sure I muttered something kind and sweet and faithful, I hope she left my side feeling better for having told her tale. It was just surreal. No one noticed my panic. I came home with a giant fountain coke and poured in Crown Royal, I finished it while I got ready and waited for Lisa & Mark to pick me up...
Fortified and stocked with a flask, I paid my fee, got my very slick souvenir magazine and plunged-ish... I hung back at first, feeling way too drunk to be among strangers, the 20 years evaporated and it *was* highschool. Then that lack of negative self-talk paid off again! From the center of that silence was just one question: How do you want them to remember you from tonight?
I had dinner with Lisa's friends, as I pondered, then I found my own!! Kat, Todd, Deb, Mickey, & their assorted partners -- the P.A.R.T.Y. had begun!!! Oh man, those 20 years evaporated again, but this time we found ourselves in love instead of in highschool! We were pretty fucking important to one another, in a big, huge, who-I-am-now kind of way. 20 years didn't fucking matter, we're glad to still be alive, we're glad to be together and we're sad our circle is incomplete, missing those both alive and dead. We laughed, we cried, we got felt up, we smoked and we smoked, we shared, we drank, we hugged, we danced, we remembered, we were grateful! I didn't want the night to end, there were so many new and re-discoveries, different connections.
After the band cleared out, we stopped by the bar where Tony was workin... I had to let them do a drive by -- for goodness sakes, when I knew them best, I was dating a gay guy (at least most of them had met Mitch, which kinda balanced it out). They looked from afar, the place was packed, I just told him hi and we left again. It was sad to say 'bye to Kathy and Maurice, they pooped out on us too soon! It's been a full 20 years since I've seen that chickie, still amazing... dammit! the universe keeps giving me cool reasons to go to San Francisco!
There's a reason alcohol is considered liquid courage, because it is! I went to the "after party party" ... yeah, I was really loaded by the time we got there: my flask was empty, my purse was filled with pounds of orange and black M&Ms (that someone had thoughtfully purchased and saved from hallowe'en) and I was talking to anyone who crossed my path, or more likely, had a smoke with me ;) Mickey and Kristen didn't last long, a long second night of drinking was probably not a good idea. I wasn't lonely long, Todd chaperoned me (by that I mean he laughed hysterically as I said what he wanted to say but was not drunk enough to have the courage) I asked one guy if it was true he got another guy's girlfriend pregnant, causing the marriage between wrong guy and slut, Nope! Wow, I thought so for 20 years, strange. I asked another guy how come he married a woman he's not crazy in love with; he didn't have a good answer, but was a good sport. I talked sweet to the gay guys in the kitchen and introduced them to Todd ;) I got to feel up one girl to prove to onlookers they were real! Later, I was accused of being too hard on the son of our former governor, talking smack about his dad; in my defense, I merely recounted my experience with the man (limited editorializing ::eg::). However, as much as I may have been tempted, I did not call said father a murderer, nor did I intend to make the son in any way responsible for the atrocities created by his father. I'm sure I'll see this guy again, he'll remember me ::bg:: and I'll clarify my intentions. Todd got pretty drunk, he put a $5 in my bra, just so I could say he did it then 23 years after my crush on him began (my first crush on a gay guy! Biology class, Mr. Jackson, 1983), he felt me up. Wooo hooo! Okay, it probably would have meant more when I was 15, but hey, getting felt up is getting felt up ::g:: I found some guy's wallet and he gave me a $14 reward (the only bills he had that weren't 100s) and about 50 hugs because I recovered thousands of dollars he thought he lost; huge karmic payment right there! All this, and I was too chicken to actually talk to Chris Christensen, though I have really cool jr. high memories with him; Jon Harris, too, still intimidated. Strange but true.
Lisa and I woke up her husband at about 5:30 (he was asleep in the car since about 1 am) to drive us home. The sun was rising as I walked into my house... Life IS Good!
