I recently returned from my 30th high school reunion in Bryan, Texas.  It’s the third reunion we’ve had, and I’ve been to them all.  For some reason, whenever one of these portentous events looms on the horizon,  there’s never any question in my mind that I’m going to attend.

I’ve enjoyed all three events, but had a particularly good time at this one. It’s puzzling because I have many, many friends in my current life who consider the fact that I go to my high school reunions at best quaint, and at worse ill-advised and borderline pathetic. 

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this issue.  Why DO I enjoy these reunions so much?

It’s not because I’m one of those people who live in the past.  I’m not.  I don’t have to look back on high school like a former star athlete who’s never done anything else worth doing in the years since graduation.   

On the other hand, I did really have a good time in high school.  My school was large enough that the chances were good you could find a group you felt comfortable with.  Getting good grades was hip in my day, so I was friends with all the kids in the “college prep” classes, as well as the speech and drama nerds and, of course (and most importantly) band members.

I did manage to have a wonderful junior and senior year, considering all of the activities I was involved in.  But this isn’t why I love going back to the reunions.

And it certainly isn’t because I miss the town.  On the contrary, I haven’t lived in the town, even for a summer, since the year I graduated.  I never liked the town, which I felt was small and boring.  I did a lot of driving around town in the couple of days before the reunion.  It’s now medium-sized and boring.  So it’s not geographical nostalgia that brings me back.

And it’s certainly not because I’m still friends with a whole pile of folks I graduated with.  Sure, I love seeing them and I wish them well.  But I’m probably current with less than ten of them.

So why then?  Why was it so much fun to go see how much we’ve aged, to see the formerly gorgeous folks look like any other 48 year olds?  Why was it fun to see all the couples who are still married, like homecoming queen and head cheerleader Jamie and football player Larry?  Like Most LIkely to Succeed Walter and his still-lovely Sara?  Like resolutely intellectual John and Lynne?

Why was it so much fun to see Rissie, looking like a million dollars and currently head of the parole board of the state’s largest prison?  Or Sherilynn Jenkins, dangerously attractive and doing PR for the local university?

Will I see many of these folks again before the 35th or 40th reuion?  In most cases, sadly, probably not.  But that doesn’t really matter.

The value I think these types of events have is that they are a ceremonial way for us to honor our past while celebrating our present.  We all get to show up and say, “Hey!  I’m still alive and kicking, and you knew me when!” 

Whether we’re real estate moguls, like Sam, or doctors like Caroline and Pat and Ed, or local business owners like Stanley or whatever the hell it is that I am, going to the reunion is a way of marking how far we’ve come.  It’s a celebration of our survival, our common history, and our hopes for the future.

Finally, the greatest thing about the 30th reunion is that thirty years has a way of washing away all, and I mean ALL, bullshit.  There were no cliques, or old feuds, or rivalries, or racial or economic or even political boundaries.  After all these years, what we had in common loomed much larger than what our differences were.  That was a nice feeling.

What breaks my heart is that in this era of political scapegoating and division and polarity, we can’t all realize as a country that the same exact thing is true of us as a people.

I’m so tired of waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and realizing that I don’t see how I’m going to pay my taxes or next month’s bills.

I love my work.  I mean specifically my role as a software trainer in law firms.  I’m paid splendidly, I’m treated like a movie star, I get to travel, and, well, I’m damn good at it.

Four full days of this work is enough to pay my exhorbitant rent.  Seven days of work a month will easily pay all my bills and keep me in groceries.

I also love my life:  my apartment, my neighborhood, my lifestyle (which is NOT fancy . . . I just live in an expensive city!)

The only problem is:  I don’t get enough of it!! This is no one’s fault; I love working with the folks who book me.  And I don’t need to work a LOT more.  I just need to work a LITTLE more.

Since I have no control over the legal work that comes my way, I need to have a realistic supplemental way of making money.  Ideally by doing something sitting at my computer. 

Here are some of my current ideas:

1.  Investigate medical software training (I have a good lead for this).

2.  Write questions for game shows.  This is not as far-fetched as it sounds, since I’m actually highly qualified to do this.  Plus I have a connection or two in the industry.

3.  More computer tutoring?  (Cringe.  I really don’t enjoy doing this, plus it’s a lot of driving for not very much money.)

4.  Medical Records.  I’m hot and cold on this idea.  I think it might take more training than I’d like, and I’m not sure I could do it at home on my own time.

Dear Reader, I’m placing this problem in YOUR capable hands.  What do YOU think I should do to shore up my income?

One rule:  No suggestions can include me becoming a full-time employee.  I simply cannot do this.  It nearly killed me the one time I tried to do it.  And when I say nearly killed me, I am being quite literal.

Say you’re walking onto the set of a new game show and the host is someone you’ve never heard of.  Here’s how to pick him out from the crowd milling about the bagel table:  He’s the best looking person in the room.  That’s why he’s the host.  If the show accidentally hired a gaffer who was better looking than the host, then either the gaffer or the host would have to be fired.

For generations, Westerners referred to the lands and people of the Far East of Asia as “Oriental.”  This term meant nothing more than the opposite of “occidental.”  Oriental means east.  Occidental means west.  Nothing more than that.

Somewhere along the way it was decided by the PC gurus that “Oriental” was somehow offensive.  I still haven’t quite figured out why.  What is racist about a direction?

But no one can fight the intertia of PC, I guess.  My problem lies with the term which was chosen to replace “Oriental.”

You know the word I mean.  Asian.  It has become a very hip word.

The trouble is, it’s not nearly specific enough.  People who use the word “Asian” to describe a person do not mean to say that this person is from the continent of Asia generally.  They mean that the person is from the far eastern Pacific Rim of Asia.

Guess what?  Pakistanis are Asian. So are Iraqis.  So are Indians and Israelis.  All Asian.  But you never hear someone from Iran or Lebanon described as Asian, even though they are just as Asian as someone from Vietnam.

So either give us back Oriental, or come up with a better term than “Asian, ” if you don’t really mean “Asian.”

I’d suggest use of the term “Pacific Rim, ” but of course that sounds way too much like a gay porno title.