Saturday, October 15, 2011

Dream reminder of high school reunion

Today is an anniversary reunion of my class at Stuyvesant High School. I have never been much of one for reunions before, especially when they are at posh clubs and cost over $100. But this time I was reading all the posts on the Facebook group, and actually getting a little interested. Unfortunately, by income level right now is too prohibitively low to buy a ticket, but a fellow alum offered to pick up a couple of tickets for those of us in my condition

Since accepting the offer, however, Life has gotten in the way of my remembering. I shot a documentary at the Pennsic War, got a new job, performed in the Faux-Real Theater's Oedipus Rex, and have been dealing with trying to get the money owed me by my last job. Earlier this week, however, a Facebook post reminded me.

But what with all the excitement around the NY Comic Con and reprising my role from last year in today's encore performance of "Oedipus Rex" on Roosevelt Island, it slipped my mind again. Then this morning my alarm clock went off (way too early), so I re-set it for two hours later and went back to bed.

This time I found myself in a classroom-type situation, filling out a form as a couple of women sat at the front of the room behind a table. They were advisers of some sort, and we were going over what we did in high school. Then I would go to the end of the table and take a photo of an arrangement. The arrangement included a book with a picture and short piece of text highlighting the alumna's high school career, a book mark with a picture and another bit of text, and some object that fit in somehow (memory getting hazy). There were only about 3 or four alums in the room, including me.

While I was taking the picture for myself, another female adviser, one who was sitting at a desk beyond the opposite end of the table, said to one of the alums, a fellow I knew from my homeroom back at Stuyvesant, "It says here you were present at two homicides in high school and didn't report wither one of them."

"I thought that was taken care of," he replied, in the kind of voice one would expect from someone who got caught in a bad situation that wasn't really his fault, he had to pay a high price for, and now had thought he had finally put behind him.

I said "Come on, that was 25 years ago. Give the guy a break!" As the adviser and the alum argued, I looked down at the book and saw that his page talked about how his life had gone bad. It included a quote form him?:" Yes, I had some chances, but IO blew it." I decided not to include this in the picture.

The bookmark was much more positive, highlighting his good points and not mentioning the homicides.

Then I woke up and remebered that tonight was the night of my high school graduating class reunion.

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