I know, I know. I�ve been remiss. I�ve been slacking. Would you believe the dog ate my homework? No?

Well, chalk my absence up to the mountain of laundry that marks the official end to every vacation. Stinky laundry. Stinky laundry imported from a part of the country where we all sweated a lot and then jumped in a body of water we shared with fish. Blech.

But also, I�ve been wallowing in my own nostalgia and have thus been in input rather than output mode. It all started with my unofficial high school reunion on Thursday. It�s my 20th. I went to four high schools, so I don�t have a lot of loyalty to any one place and would be most unlikely to attend an actual reunion. And if I did, it is even more unlikely that I�d choose the reunion of this particular school, although it is the one from which I graduated. But on Thursday night, there I was, shoes off, in a Midwestern backyard with eight other high school friends reliving past events and catching up on each others� histories.

There was C., the person with whom I did once and probably still do have the most in common, although we do not, as a rule, stay in touch. She lived across the street from me. We were both into music and writing and, in the interest of simultaneously breaking out of and reinforcing our geeky personas, were occasionally to be found spray-painting mathematical formulae and quotes like, �Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!� on a local wall which was usually the repository of such scintillating prose as �Jim luuuvvs Judy,� and �Kilroy wuz here.� She and I have run into each other repeatedly since high school, but it�s even more surprising how many times we could have run into each other but didn�t. We went to college near each other and, our sophomore year, commingled our belongings in her ancient Volvo station wagon and drove out together. It was the occasion of one of the events which has made me consider that a benign deity might in fact exist. We were running out of gas, far from anywhere. The car finally sputtered to a stop as we climbed a hill, at the top of which was a large inn that looked a little too much like the setting of The Shining. Desperate for help, we walked into the inn, finding it deserted. Finally, after yelling for assistance, we wandered around and found our way to the kitchen, where someone informed us that there was, in fact, a gas station at the very bottom of the hill. We returned to our car, C. driving, me pushing until we reached the crest, at which point I jumped in and we rolled down, coasting to a perfect stop in front of the pump, without the aid of a brake. C. is an actress and playwright now, recently married and living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a block or two from my ex-boyfriend�s old place. Her husband S. attended as well and hit it off nicely with my husband by talking baseball and correctly pegging him as a lifelong White Sox fan rather than the Cubs fan that most non-Chicagoans will assume.

There was JP, with whom I probably spent the most time. She and I had one of those argumentative friendships, because we were both bossy. Her parents, raving liberals in a conservative land, hit it off well with mine. JP and I were both editors of the school paper and literary magazine. She�s the one who has held the group together, being an avid correspondent and a person who likes to keep track of what everyone is doing. If it weren�t for her, the gathering would never have happened. A former special ed teacher, she now stays home with her two kids, the oldest of whom is AJ�s age. AJ and her son A are kindred spirits, I think, and were happily engaged in assorted games throughout the party. Her husband E was gamely keeping an eye on the kids so we could chat.

S., our hostess for the evening, was my partner for Model U.N. in high school. Together we represented Cambodia at a conference on the very weekend that they turned into Kampuchea, coming up with such thought-provoking tourist slogans as �Wander Kampuchea, Land of 10,000 guerrillas!� We thought we were hilarious. S has been spending most of her time working tirelessly on behalf of her two autistic children, as well as fighting for services for countless others like them. She�s an inspiration in many ways. I hardly had a chance to talk to her husband K., a social worker, but she seems to have a steady partner to help her.

JL was always the one who was prone to make overly dramatic statements about herself. She seems now to have converted this tendency to her children, one of whom, we were informed, is (at age 9) being groomed for the Olympics. JL is someone whom I�ve always had trouble spending time with one-on-one (although I once accompanied her family on their summer vacation to Florida and had a wonderful time, despite the rain), but the group would not be the same without her and it was good to see her again (although I won�t speak about her husband, who was actually fairly offensive on several counts).

LA was the class behind us, not really part of the group, but she knew us all and she stopped by to see me. She and I were first introduced, via our mothers, while still in utero. Our personalities and lives are quite different, but she is one of the kindest, warmest people I�ve ever met, and it was nice to see her, albeit briefly � she left early for a previous engagement.

LM and I worked together at the local crappy-clothing store close enough to our high school that I could stay for extra-curricular activities and still get to work on time. We were paid a pittance and forced to listen to muzak all day, but I liked feeling useful and we at least got a discount on the crappy clothes and were, thus able to achieve some much-desired wardrobe independence. LM was good friends with JG, whom I didn�t really get to know until after we graduated. When I was applying to grad school years ago, my university flew me out to check the place out. LM and JG let me crash with them in their tiny one-bedroom apartment in Chicago�s Lincoln Park. LM is now a mom of three, living in the deserty west. JG is an unemployed (by choice) nurse, mom of two boys, one a little older, the other a little younger than AJ, living just 20 minutes from us outside Chicago.

Finally, KL, another one I got to know better the summer after graduation, is now working at the company where her father once worked with my father. My greatest memory of her in high school was when she was robbed at gunpoint while working at Taco Bell � an experience that still haunts her. She, like me, is the mom of one boy, although, as she was the first of our crowd to marry, her son is now entering the eighth grade.

There was nothing earth shattering that happened at our gathering. We talked for hours, drank wine, ordered pizza, sent the husbands and kids home, drank more wine, ate cheesecake, and went home. But there is something so reassuring about a gathering of women, particularly after the passage of a significant amount of time � I had not seen most of these people in at least 15 years. There is strength in numbers, in time, in shared histories, if not shared lives. We found ourselves falling so easily into conversation again, wondering how it could be that so much time had passed, how we had not stayed in touch better. We all left with promises to write, to call, to visit, promises we secretly know we are unlikely to keep, because old habits die hard, because although absence makes the heart grow fonder, out of sight is out of mind.

So this evening I dug out my old yearbooks, wondering if there were any signs of future connection. I was met with a slew of signatures, some by people I don�t remember, others by people who had slipped my mind. There�s the flamboyant signature of my senior prom date (who was equally flamboyant, as I was informed on the dance floor before we tangoed diagonally across it, thus beginning my history of dating gay men). There are cryptic references to inside jokes. There is a lot of bad hair. There are two phone numbers from cute boys and one marriage proposal. The signatures of the group of eight are indistinguishable from any of the other signatures. They offer little insight, for the most part. They are vague except where they are cryptically personal. �Remember the joke we played on Jeff? That poor guy!� read one. Who�s Jeff? What did we do? �I love you like a favorite sister� read another in an entry that was actually intended as personal but, because we were high school students, does not read that way. I�m sure I took it to heart at age 18, however. I took everything to heart when I was eighteen. But what is it that still holds us together? Is it just the sheer force of JP�s will? Or is there some inner mystery that we can�t explain? I�m inclined to think that at this point, it�s a desire to retain our own histories, to remember who we were and who we are all at once. But if it were that alone, surely my yearbook full of images and scribblings of days long past would suffice. In any case, it�s nice to know that some friends stick around, even when you don�t. I vow to reform.

This entry has been a blast. You�re great friends. We�re graduating. WOOOOO! LYLAS. Smell you later.

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