1988 – All About the Hair

Virtual Classmates: Why Facebook is Better Than Your 20-Year Reunion

My 20-year high school reunion is coming up next weekend and I won’t be there. I have opted instead to venture down a virtual reunion road this summer. It’s been fun, don’t you think? I had hoped Classmates.com would have been a little more enlightening, but so far I’ve received more guest book signatures from random grads looking for what – I don’t know, than from actual classmates. I know I should have done this earlier, but since diving into MySpace and Facebook last week, I can honestly say that Facebook beats the face-to-face reunion any day! Here’s why:

- Everyone is more beautiful on Facebook
- Facebook lets you search for whoever you want, and they don’t even know it – do they?
- Once you get bored of Facebook, you simply log out – no excuses, no remorse
- It’s much easier to save face on Facebook when someone hasn’t a clue who you are
- The extent of Facebook communication is probably all you really need
- You can brag on Facebook without having to say anything out loud
- You don’t need to lose 10 pounds to log onto Facebook
- Your husband won’t come into contact with any of your old boyfriends on Facebook
- Your hustband won’t know you didn’t have any boyfriends in high school on Facebook
- Facebook saves you all the guilt you’d inevitably suffer when you realized you really didn’t want to keep keep up with all those old best friends ever who seemed even closer after that bottle of wine at the reunion, but who you realized as soon as the next day at the picnic you have absolutely nothing in common with (excepting of course the whole eighties nostalgia and the wine)
- There are no women in prom gowns looking for love on Facebook (that I’m aware of)
- You can’t be too catty about who’s had what done on Facebook

And best of all?

- You can exploit your Facebook adventure for the creative process! Hell yeah I cruise Facebook and call it research. Yay for Facebook. Friend me, would ya? I like *so* want to be in the popular crowd!

PS – Next week is the last post in this series. I recall promising a picture… ?

Class of ’88: Famous Sehome Alums

For this week’s intallment of the virtual high school reunion (aka I don’t really want to go), I decided to do a little research on our dear alma mater. Did you know we have page in Wikipedia?

We all know about Hilary Swank right? Not sure if she would have been a freshman in 1988 or not. So she’s a big deal, but did you know the conservative radio host Glenn Beck hails from Mariner pride as well? According to Wikipedia he graduated in ’86. So much for believing what you read. Let’s not forget Jon Auer and The Posies, who are going strong.

There’s another note on the timeline that I question: they say Iron Maiden played in the Sehome gym in appreciation for help with a broken down tour bus? Hmm. They say it was October of 1986. Anyone remember this?

I say we populate that wiki page with all our stunning accomplishments – what do you say?

What have you done that you’d brag about at the reunion?

Class of ’88: News You Never Noticed

Just in case you missed current events your senior year, here’s what happened in the months leading up to graduation:

1/8 – Dow Jones falls over 140 points, or 6.85%, to close at 1,911.31. Ouch. I didn’t even know what the Dow Jones was in high school.

3/16 – Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States ala the Iran-Contra Affair. This is the plan where we traded guns for people. Good plan.

3/26 – Jesses Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses to become the temporary front-runner for the party’s nomination, later to be defeated by George H. W. Bush. The Democrats have come a long way.

4/12 – Sonny Bono is elected Mayor of Palm Springs, CA. Arnold Schwarzeneggar dreams of greatness.

5/16 – A report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reports the addictive properties of nicotine rival heroin and cocaine. Did anyone tell the Smoke Hole?

What do you remember that was going on in the world beyond the halls of high school?

High School: The Best Years of Your Life? I Hope Not

I feel so sorry for all those people who believed that crap they used to feed us about high school being the best years of our lives. What kind of terrible lives must these people have had to dole out such wisdom? So if I understand it correctly, if the highlight of your life were the four years you spent in high school, the rest of your life is what? One continuous disappointment?

And what did that little platitude do for the rest of us? Talk about squashing a person’s hopes. This is as good as it gets? If I’d believed that I would have ended it all with a lethal dose of Andre’s pink champagne sometime before prom.

Sure there were good times. Good stories. But it wasn’t all happy days and football nights. Some of us spent those years trying desperately to fit in, had our hearts broken in fifteen places, and realized our parents weren’t who we’d been led to believe. Some of us got lost.

Just ask Jerry, who asphixiated himself in his parents’ garage.

Just ask Chris, who burned himself up in the worst trip ever.

These two guys I went to middle school with, to elementary school, guys who made you laugh, who seemed to have everything – didn’t make it. And no reunion would be the same without them.

Class of ’88 – I Secretly Wanted to Wear the Little Skirt

Firecracker firecracker boom boom boom, the boys got the muscles, the teachers got the brains, and the girls got the sexy legs- woo, we won the game!

Welcome Class of ’88 (and friends). I’ve heard from a few of you that you’re enjoying this little trip down our virtual memory lane. Feel free to say hi in the comments! Everyone wants to know what you’re up to! Feel free to share a secret. Or two.

My secret wish? It’s not pretty, but it’s true.

Before we moved to the ‘Ham, I’d tried out for, and been placed on the flag and rifle team at Ferndale High School. I would have wielded a wooden faux gun on my shoulders. I would have swung a flag with purpose. But we moved (again).

At the beginning of Freshman year at Sehome I thought for sure I’d be a cheerleader eventually. When school started I learned that cheerleader-hood was closer than I’d imagined. You had to be a senior to be a cheerleader, but there was a pipeline system. You had to join the Pep Club. How fun did that sound?

I walked perkily into that first meeting where the smell of tempera paint hit me. Various not-so-popular girls kneeled on the white linoleum tile painting on wide swaths of colored butcher paper. Go Mariners! Beat the BHS Raiders! Ruck the Faiders! Unfortunately I was way too cool for this. I soon gave up the fantasy of being a cheerleader to those girls who were willing to serve their time.

Then for a fleeting moment junior year, it seemed there was another chance to be a cheerleader. Apparently I wasn’t the only cool girl to forego the pep club route. No one wanted to be a cheerleader. Tryouts were coming up and there was some doubt as to whether our class would even be able to staff a full squad. We were that cool. School spirit lagged under the influence of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club. It was just not cool anymore to be mainstream, to be a cheerleader.

A friend and I joked that we ought to try out, because we would – of course – make it. It would have been SO easy to beat some of those pep squad girls with their pageant hair and mitchy-matchy barrettes. It would have been such a lark, a joke. Except for that little moment, maybe a day, maybe a week, that I entertained the thought. You can bet the minute I would have gotten my hands on that cute little polyester skirt there would have been no turning back. While working the pep squad was decidedly uncool, wearing the outfit, having all eyes on me as I walked down the hall on game days would have been intoxicating.

In the public version of this little fantasy, my friend and I would deny the honor upon receiving it, perhaps an awful snub scene in a school assembly. As if we’d have had the guts. As you can guess, we didn’t try out. Who really wants to stand outside in the cold on Friday nights and pretend you’re interested in a game you know nothing about anyway? And how could I have thought I could represent the school when I was barely making to class?

No, the cheerleader route was not for me. But it might have been fun. Every once in a while I still cue up Toni Basil and work my inner pom squad. It’s enough. Now, if only I had the skirt…

Highschool: If You Had To Do It All Over

It’s time for another installment in the Class of ’88 Virtual Reunion!

We’ve reminisced about music and movies, and I’ve got you all caught up on my life in the past 20 years. I know you’d all pierce your own nipples before you’d relive it all, but I’m curious – if you could go back armed with these past 20 years of wisdom, what would you do different? (Differently?)

I would:
-not wear so much makeup.
-be in more plays.
-not quit the concert choir.
-be a cheerleader.
-finish that paper in College Writing.
-date high school boys.
-take the SAT.
-go to class.
-buy stock in Aquanet.
-write it all down.

Oh what a freakish student I’d be! I’m especially curious what the people who did all these things wished they’d done. So give it up – what would you have done?

Class of ’88: So What’ve You Been Up To?

There is only one person from high school I have stayed in touch with. And even her, not so much. But lately, yes we have become good friends again. As for the rest of them… how did that happen? We all moved away, moved back, got new friends, jobs, loves, kids, etc.

In preparation for the reunion I started Googling like mad to find my old friends. Even as I write this my creaky mind is hopping back to 3rd grade, to 4th and 5th and I’m realizing there are actually quite a few people I’d love to see.

But then there’s the whole catching up thing. How do you cram two decades worth of Christmas letters (oh yes, I am that girl) into a quick catch-me-up? I would dread it. It would be like the several times we’ve moved (or thought we were) when I walked around for two months telling my story of where, when, and why, only to be followed by more of the same in my new location.

One more joy of the virtual reunion – bulk updating. Here goes:

1988 – enrolled in Whatcom Community College
1989 – mandatory rite-of-passage unhealthy relationship
1990 – partied my face off
1991 – got robbed working as a teller at BNB
1992 – met my husband
1993 – moved to Texas
1994 – got married
1995 – lived on Queen Anne in Seattle, good times
1996 – studied my face off, got a job at a top accounting firm
1997 – graduated Magna Cum Laude from UW
1998 – had my son (I was too pregnant to travel to the 10-year)
1999 – quit my job and joined a playgroup
2000 – had my daughter, moved back to Texas
2001 – killed scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas in my house
2002 – joined the thrilling world of tax accounting
2003 – watched a lot of Oprah, started writing
2004 – moved to it’s-not-as-bad-as-it-sounds Arkansas
2005 – had my writing published for the first time
2006 – left the thrilling world of tax accounting
2007 – started this blog
2008 – skipped out on high school reunion

And you? Watcha been doing?

1988 High School Reunion: The Movies

Welcome back class of ’88! Last week we looked at the music. What would we be without our movies. Here are [some of] the flicks of the mid-to-late eighties that colored my world.

Flashdance
I cannot tell you how fast I whipped out the scissors are turned perfectly normal sweatshirts into dancer chic. I won’t lie, the leg warmers had been in my wardrobe for some time already, and had been phased out by Freshman year, but those cut-up shirts – I still do that. And I’m here to tell you, it’s back!

I always had a thing for the male lead (and the restaurant scene – now that was an education… ) Looking back at the promo photos now, it strikes me that my husband bears a strong resemblance! Lucky me.

And then there was the bra trick. Great move.

 

Purple Rain
Okay, so this movie was nothing to rave about, but it made the list for the soundtrack alone. That first year of high school all you heard anywhere was When Doves Cry and Let’s Go Crazy. But did you know that I Would Die 4 U is about Jesus? Prince, that crazy Christian! Wait, was he still called Prince back then? Who cares. The music of Purple Rain likely was playing your first morning of high school. Do you remember?

 

Valley Girl
I’ve already written about Valley Girl. By the time I was in high school it was mostly about Nicholas Cage. It still is. This was the first movie I remember where the nice girl goes for the Bad Boy. That’s not so bad is it? On film anyway… And then there was the alternative music. Loyalty lines at our school were loosely drawn around the Jocks vs. the Wavers. Where do you think I landed?

 

Fast Times At Ridgemont High
This one came out in 1982, but the multiple viewings during the high school years definitely merit it a place here. This movie served as almost a manual of how to behave in high school, right? And who didn’t want to work at the mall? I wanted more than anything to work retail. Wow, what a dream. And to think it actually came true… Again, lucky me. It’s possible that this film’s portrayal of cheerleaders as overly pathetic perk hounds single handedly changed a generation of teenaged girls’ aspirations. No?

So anyway… Were you Judge Reinhold or Sean Penn? Phoebe Cates or Jennifer Jason Leigh?

 

The Breakfast Club
This movie is widely known as the definitive work of the American teen film genre. It’s got it all: love, rebellion, class struggle, and Brat Pack staples Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Anthony Michael Hall. Who knew detention could be so enlightening? And then there’s that lip gloss trick. I dare you to find anyone who graduated high school in 1988 who didn’t see this film – at the theatre!

 

Okay, five will have to do for now. Please add your own in the comments!

Welcome Class of ’88 – Virtual Reunion Tour

I promised you a surprise! And here it is. I thought long and about whether or not to travel the thousands of miles to my twenty year high school reunion. I weighed the pros and cons, sketched out a budget, and consulted Classmates.com to see who I might see in August. In the end I decided that curiosity alone was not a strong enough motivator for me to make the trip.

The rub is that I’d gotten myself kinda psyched for all that 80s nostalgia and trips into Fondmemoryland with old friends. So I started thinking that I probably wasn’t the only one who wanted to enjoy a reunion without all the baggage and travel costs. Hence, the virtual reunion. Whether or not we went to high school together – or even lived in the same state – I’m willing to bet that those of us who graduated in 1988 have one or two things in common.

All summer I’ll be trying to recreate the 20-year-reunion experience here on After the Bubbly. But I need your help! I hope you’ll join in the fun and participate in the comments. And let me know what you’d like to see. (And yes, at some point, I’ll bust out the Big Hair Photo. Just don’t show anyone else!)

Even if you’re not from Sehome or the ‘Ham, you’re welcome here. Casual dress. RSVP unnecessary.