Hunter Reunion Part 1

This weekend is the 10 year anniversary of my graduation from Hunter College High School. click here for the most lackluster website ever (okay, maybe not ever, but it's definitely a competitive candidate)

Tonight there was a "Young Alumni" event, which I would have ignored entirely had Janak not invited me directly. Janak is among the handful of people from my high school with whom I am currently friends. I say currently for several reasons, one of them being that we weren't actually friends at all in high school.

The event was at a bar near my house, one I would never have entered of my own accord because, like nearly every other bar in my neighborhood, it's a loud, tacky establishment full of inebriated young wall street denizens. (Bonus: someone called the cops after the bar staff attempted, repeatedly and to no avail, to chuck a drunk and belligerent woman into the street).

Anyway, long story short: I sat for several hours (facilitated in part by the fact that Frank and I missed the performance of Theatre By The Blind's production of THE RULES OF CHARITY by John Belluso due to a series of farcical mishaps) with a group of men, the majority of whom I haven't seen in 10 years, and found the entire experience utterly fascinating. I didn't recognize a couple of them at first and several were people with whom I barely exchanged two words during our entire high school careers.

On the way home I marveled at the following things:

1) We've all turned out to be pretty different people, but there's a strong feeling of kinship.

2) These people are outstandingly reflective and articulate.

3) One of them knows one of my close childhood friends (Jesse, a musicologist currently in Boston, soon to be in the Bay Area - you should all meet him and his wife, Daphna!) and is about to start a PhD in musicology. We talked ourselves in circles about audiences, tempo, values, aesthetics, and intuitions...

4) Rachel - it's too bad we didn't know that Jason O. has been living in Tokyo for the last 5 years. He'll only be there for a few more months, but you two would have a great time chatting.

5) Rachel - I really miss you.

The official reunion is tomorrow.