My 25 year – Yes, I said it –Bronx Science High School Reunion.

Okay, it’s been 25 years and I admit it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll wear the shoe bag saying so around. Sorry. They seemed nice but when you live in LA it’s death to wear something saying it’s been 25 years since you’ve been at a hirable age.

Lots to say and for the first time in I don’t know when, I went to sleep at about 3am so I’m tired and also seem to have lost my voice yelling over the 80’s songs that were playing all last night. But not to worry, readers. I haven’t lost my “writer’s voice.” But I have to do this quickly as my 81 year-old father has dial up or a computer connected to a styrofoam cup, and I only have 30 minutes of internet in this Starbucks 2 blocks away from him and 5 blocks from the most fabulous candy emporium on the planet.

First, I have to say, thanks to the diligence of our homeland security, I am not allowed to bring perfume from LA to NY, so on my way to the reunion I had to duck into Bloomingdale’s and get a shpritz.

On the 5 trains and 1 cab I had to take to my reunion, I had some thoughts and concerns. Could I lose the 10 lbs I needed to drop between Union Street and Fulton? Answer: No. No trains go to Fulton. I had to take a cab from Chamber Street the second time I went there. I left my father’s house, saying goodbye to him through the styrofoam cup at 4:30 and arrived 1 hour late, at 7pm to my reunion. But, to be honest, I had entered Bronx Science as a new sophomore, so perhaps it was appropriate to miss an hour. But on those trains/cab I wondered who would be there, who I’d hang with, how people would look, how I would look once the 10 lbs was left in the cab…

Buddhist saying: “Half the things you hope for don’t happen, half the things you fear don’t happen, so just let things happen.” I did.

I hoped we’d have name tags with our name and old photos on them and we did. In the beginning, I looked at them to see how people changed and by the end I just went up to people showing them mine and just grabbing theirs to see who they were. It was honest, fun and surreal. People who looked like strangers would grab each other’s badges, smile, look at your face, find the old you in there, and then go, “Of course,” squeal and hug you.

Observations about name badges: Many people looked better than they did in high school, many people looked similar but without an 80’s haircut. I unfortunately still had a 70’s hair cut in the 80’s. (My cousin Rona, when I was 13, taught me how to part my hair in the middle, wing and feather it. Sometime in the ‘90’s she had to do an intervention and tell me it was time to stop.) Some had lost some hair, or gained some belly. Best part: A lot of people didn’t have to look at my badge to recognize me. Many said I still looked the same! Thank god that cab is carrying around my 10 dropped pounds!!!

Wondering if I’d have people to hang out with: Some people grabbed me and told me I was the reason they were there. That blew my mind. Especially as this happened at the entrance, and I hadn’t eaten since my father made chicken soup (that he’d planned the making of for days) at 1pm, there were almost 200 people I sort of knew and a coat check and photo booth. Very overstimulated.

The people: Were wonderful. I left feeling so happy, warm, cocooned, sad that it was over, unfortunately exhausted and didn’t go to the pancake place or some other bar after. Hope a good time was had. By those party animals or mothers who never got out, that did. There might have been one or two people I still felt intimidated by as I had in high school, but whoever made movies about how reunions are so stressful or crushing to the ego, didn’t know our school. Most everyone there revolutionized the computer industry, many were married for 10 -17 years, were so sweet and gracious and really amazing. People told me how funny I was and still am, and how they had always and still believed in me as a writer… There was this warm, beautiful support that I have to hold onto and bring back with me. In some ways we still saw each other as the 17 year-olds we once were, in some ways we got to be that way again. As we looked at each other, we saw the potential that was there then and never left. And that was crazy beautiful.

Craziest stuff – Being told “You still have beautiful eyes” and the odd conversation with someone who I never knew but who always thought I was funny, telling me how she and her husband bonded over their wish to be cryogenically frozen… Also, why did I forget all social norms and when seeing people with no body fat or men with muscles, I had to poke, prod and feel them, forgetting all rules of propriety?… I was given a little flash drive I hope TSA doesn’t arrest me over, but apparently it contains stories written making fun of our awkward physics teacher. Little did we know, he was the president of NAMBLA. (North American Man-Boy Love Association) True story.… A lot of people told me how much they LOVED my facebook posts, and the best was an old friend saying his wife was a fan. So weird/good to have a stranger ask me how my trip to Greece was. She said she really enjoyed my life. I need to a little more, I think.… And finally, knowing you could not lie about your age in this room.

I bought a nice sweatshirt. I lost mine and now that I’m older, I don’t have to worry about getting my ass kicked for riding on a subway through Harlem with a shirt that says “Science” on it.

There was a moment, where someone said, “Damn, I need a Starbucks” and I suddenly said, “We never said that in high school.” And another person said, “Or Google.” And I said, “Or did our homework using the internet.” That I think is when I really felt the bond and kinship to these people. And a little old. That’s what gave me a sadness to leave. That these were the people who understood me, or a piece of me., even if we had different lives and/or never were friends before. All of us, in that one room, were the same age, and though we might live all over the world, for a moment in time, we accessed a moment in time that defined us. And it was a room full of that. In Los Angeles, I can always find older people, or those that grew up loving Leif Garrett or who also had to have the comb in the back of their pocket surgically removed by their cousin along with the feathered hair, but last night it was more than that. Many of them live on the east coast and still have that east coast life (plus Starbucks and Google), but for me, there was a feeling. In this room, we all had that shared experience, that life, that time. Even if these people hung out with those people, and those were the people who wore scarves, and those were the skateboarders… I just mentioned how Danny and his truck never served Starbucks though he did go on our senior trip to the Bahamas, and everyone there got it.

And that - was beautiful.

So to the Bronx Science Class of ’86, I thank you. Those who were there, those who weren’t and especially those who organized it. To that wonderful, incredible community we are, inside, connected by invisible threads- even people I actually met for the first time last night – some who I never knew but told me I had always made them smile – just looking at you, being with you, feeling that something we had and will always have… is worth stating my age on this thing they invented (or one of you invented) called the internet… and will stay in my heart forever.