Zac Efron and I: 17 Again!

Seeing old high school friends has a way of making you feel 17 again, right? Sometimes in good ways. Sometimes in bad ways. Yesterday, I experienced both.

The day started out great. I got to see one of my very best high school friends for the first time in at least 10 years! C and I were inseparable for a good chunk of our high school days. Especially senior year and the summer before. That summer, each morning, the first one awake would call the other to discuss how we were going to spend the day. Usually that meant driving around in her CRX listening to Journey, trying desperately to look old enough to buy cigarettes. (We thought if we carried car keys into the mini-mart it would make us look old enough. Generally, it worked.) Then we'd lay out by the pool at my house. Or hang out just watching TV and talking until we had to go to work. We even worked together that summer, at Domino's Pizza, as "phone girls". (Hee hee. I try not to think about the things I saw at Domino's that summer when I order pizza from there.)

After we graduated, C went away to school, while I stayed closer to home for a while. We stayed in touch and had a brief reunion when we both lived in Tahoe for a time. (She even worked at Harrah's too!) But after she left Tahoe, we lost touch, until she found me on Facebook a few months ago.

Yesterday, finally, after months of trying to get together, we met up for lunch. We had the best time! It was like no time had passed at all. Her kids (6 and 3) were looking at us like we were crazy, but we were screaming and laughing like a couple of teenagers. (By the way, her kids? The cutest ever! So sweet. Her 3 year old daughter even let me hold her hand in the parking lot on the way to the car. Which made me feel better after my visit with J and her son last weekend. Granted, he was sick, and I have cut my hair, but shortly after my arrival J's son asked her where the "other" Miss Moo was. Hmmph.)

My visit with C is the best of what Facebook can be for us oldies. Reconnecting with a long lost sister. I had thought a couple of hours would be plenty of time for our reunion, but 4 hours later I was totally running late for Reunion Saturday: Part Deux; my friend K's wedding.

K and I were sort of tangential friends. You know the kind, where you sort of run in the same circles but not exactly on purpose? I was always closer with her sister, H. But K and I had our friend S in common. S and K were best friends since childhood and S and I became close in high school when we worked together at the Tummy Stuffer. (I moved to Tahoe with S a couple of years after high school. Sadly, S passed away 6 years ago. We all loved her dearly, and she is well and truly missed. Now that I think of it, she deserves her own entry, and I will definitely get on that soon.) Later on, after high school, K and I were roommates for a few months when I first moved back to Southern California. We didn't exactly end our living arrangement on the best terms, but when S died we made our amends.

Anyway, K and I reconnected on Facebook. (Where else?) And she was kind enough to invite me to her wedding. She didn't say if I could bring a date, so I braved it on my own. I had no idea what to expect and I was running late after my reunion with C. I arrived after the ceremony, hoping to sneak in to the reception, but K saw me and the first thing she said to me? "You missed the whole thing!" Whoops.

While it was good to see K, (she'll never change, she'll always be a little bit bossy) there were a couple girls there I had not expected to see at all. (Here comes the part where feeling 17 again can be not so good.)

I'm running out of initials for this unexpectedly long-winded and complicated entry, so let's call these girls X and Y. X and Y are sisters. X was in my graduating class, Y, the class ahead of ours. I also worked with Y at the Tummy Stuffer. (My very first job, it was a sandwich and yogurt shop. Worked there for 2 years. I loved it. It was kind of the cool place to work back then. Owned by a really young guy, managed by an even younger one. They only hired cute girls to work there, so when I got the job, I felt pretty cool.)

X was always kind of a mean girl in high school. She had this way of looking at you and just cutting you down without saying much of anything at all. She was popular and considered pretty, although, I always thought she kind of looked like a pug, with her face all smushed in. (P.S. It still is all smushed in.) Y was the nicer and the prettier of the two. And remains so to this day.

X was such a bitch to me last night. I couldn't believe it. I walked up, said hello, and gave her a hug. What did she do? Walked away. I felt so small, like an unpopular teenager. The whole night, while the rest of us high school classmates caught up, X completely ignored me. Y was lovely, and totally caught me up on what she'd been up to these past 20 (HOLY CRAP!) years.

What Y didn't tell me was this juicy little tid-bit that someone else passed along last night. (I feel a little bit bad posting gossip on the web, but seriously? I have maybe 4 readers here. And only 1 of you will have the slightest clue what I'm talking about.) Turns out that 4 years ago? X and her high school boyfriend had an affair! They're both married, with children, and I know it's horrible, but can't I feel a little bit of schadenfreude at this???? Both spouses apparently found out, but I guess both couples reconciled.

Anyway, so I felt all insecure and teenagery last night. All because some stupid girl, who by the looks of it, is just a miserable person, didn't talk to me. I guess I'm over it now. I can't help but wonder what I ever did to her. I can't even remember the last time I saw her, and I'm fairly certain we were friendly in high school. Oh well. Thank God I'm not 17 again; 36 is so much better.