Yearbook Friday

The other day I got an email from my friend Damon (who I haven't spoken to in ages and hearing from him, even through Facebook, pretty much made my day), and he made a comment about "the weird shit" he wrote in my 10th grade yearbook (this obviously after reading the first installment of "Yearbook Thursday," which, yeah, I do think that's pretty cool*), so I pulled out my trusty 10th grade yearbook and started looking, and right now I can't find it. Oh it's there alright, but I think he did something sneaky and wrote on one of the inside pages and right now, at this moment, I can't locate it.

So you'll just have to wait until next time.

Today's entry:

Irene!

We've known each other for some time. I think I've known you longer than any of my friends. The amazing thing is, we're still friends. Let's stay that way.

- Jeremy

P.S. Keep practicing your flute! You're the best.

Well, he didn't lie: Jeremy and I met in kindergarten and were friends from that day forward. Maybe in later years not as close as when we played Star Wars with his action figures (not a euphemism) or a game of our own invention, "Cat and Dog" or when his mother would drive us to the beach in her Pinto (until my mother asked her to take us in the safer car - the VW) to fly kites, or when I showed him and Patrick S. my underwear in the garage - but we were friends for many years. I'd say right up until we graduated high school and I think I never saw him again.

That's kind of sad, isn't it.

He was in band with me, and went on to be the drum major, and I'm pretty sure he did really well in school and got good grades and all that stuff, but I didn't know him very well after kindergarten. Though he did write a story, when we were in the 12th grade (in Goldman's English class), about his first kiss, which was, surprisingly, with me. I am sorry to say that I don't recall it. I'm fairly certain it didn't occur in the garage.

(I don't remember what I wrote about. I'm pretty sure it was probably a lie. I tend to lie [with good intentions, of course] about that stuff. Have you noticed?)

Anyway, his mother and my mother at some point cooked up some vision of the two of us growing up and getting married, and while I haven't seen Jeremy since 1990, I have (and my mother has) run into his mom at various Culver City institutions (Big Lots, Tommy's, Tito's), where she always makes a point of telling me how great he's doing (good job, nice car, too many trips to exotic locales for surf vacations). I don't even think I saw him at the reunion, eight years ago. Then again, I might've been too distracted at the sheer and total tackiness of that reunion to have noticed anything other than my need to go out and smoke a couple cigarettes in the parking lot with Adam and Patrick.

Ah.

The good ol' days.

...

I've GOT to find my other yearbooks.

*He also left a comment, which I also think is pretty cool. Hint hint, nudge nudge.