After the indoor bonfire, it was back to the dance at the gym.

This time, there were lots of people there, students and alumni, and we all got down to business, dancing. The last dance at the last reunion was in '93, before 80's music became popular again, and alot of the kids were kind of standing around, watching the adults flail like carp saying "What the hell is a Rock Lobster?" Now, though, the 80's is retro and trendy (my God) so everyone was bouncing around like rubber balls.

I had forgotten the main problem about dancing in the cold weather, which is that you are all bundled up and you start dancing and start sweating and start shedding, but since you forgot to wear a tank top under your clothing you just get hotter and hotter until steam blows out of your ears.

The music was great, but wrong, as it was late 80's rather than early, it was music from when I was in college. As I said, if I can remember the video, I wasn't in high school.

You really know when you are getting old when people lump an entire decade together as though there were no difference between '81 and '89, but I was 17 one year and 25 the other, so I think there is a vast difference.

My God, I hadn't danced like that so much since, shit, practically since high school, and the adults started to flag fairly quickly, but we didn't stop dancing. Red faced and gasping, I kept going like an exhausted Energizer Bunny. I kept saying that in about twenty minutes, they were going to have to call 911 and cart us all off to the hospital to be treated for overexertion.

Finally, after an extended dance mix of every single song from the years 1985-1987 (it was like some sort of endless purgatory or music) we stopped and staggered over to the side.

"Let's go."
"But they haven't played "Rock Lobster" or "Time Warp" yet!"
"I think I'm having a coronary."
"Does anyone have any digitalis? Or nitroglycerine pills?"
"I am way too old for this."
"Hey Brad, Andi, what happened to 'Dance? We will not dance! We do not dance!'?"

For they had been dancing like maniacs, maniacs on the floor, you see! Particularly Andi, who is a great dancer, having more than the three or four moves that most of us use in varying combinations.

We stood their for a minute longer, attempting to get our pulse rates back down where they belonged, then Robert insisted on one more dance. It was a Debbie Gibson number, for God's sake, I don't know why that suddenly turned him into a dancin' fool, but we were glad it did, because it was immediately followed by "Rock Lobster" or "Time Warp", the songs that we really needed to dance to!

We only thought that we had been dancing hard before, for these songs we realized that we really did have a little more juice in us after all. All of the kids were very impressed that we all lay down on the floor during "Rock Lobster". They clapped.

"Look, the old dears still remember their choreography, lo these many years later!"

We finally left, me out the door first, actually hoping that the rain had not stopped, because I wanted to feel it cool on my skin.

It was very dark outside the door, and when I stepped out and remarked to nobody, "I think I'm going to have a fucking stroke!" a student exiting at the same time asked me, "Are you a student or an alumni?"

"If I were a student, I wouldn't be about to have a fucking stroke!"

Then we went back to our house, where we had invited everyone for a gathering.

Not everyone showed up, some were in and out, but we had a nice hour or two of sitting around chatting with not the same people as the night before. Sally Ann was there, and Trary, who had as bad a time as I in remembering things. "They did? We did? I did?" she kept exclaiming. But, as she explained, she had two-year-old twins and they suck up all of her brain cells.

I have nothing like as good an excuse.

After awhile, everyone left, and we all were lying about in various states of exhaustion, until it was suggested that we go see what the cool people in the cabin next door were doing.

It took a bit of oomph, but we managed to struggle to our feet and totter out the door. And in the cool people's cabin were...nobody. Well, a couple of people, but nobody that we knew, nobody that we expected to find. They were all down by the lake and had built a real campfire.

Before going down, though, David, whom I had spent 24 hours insisting that I had never in my life seen before, no matter what he had to say about it, found '79 yearbook.

"Here, here is my senior picture."
"Omygod, that's you? I remember you! Hi!"

And it was true, the second that I saw him at 17, I connected that to him now in front of me. "If you had told me that you have V-shaped hair, I might have remembered sooner!"

Then we went down to the bonfire. And it was great. Rob seemed to be in charge, seemed to be the Fire God, because he kept berating the people who would arbitrarily fling a hunk of wood onto it, showering sparks on all and sundry.

And all of the cool people were there, and it was so cool. Rob, the guy who might or might not have been Terry (who was clearly cool by the company he kept, even if we were not entirely certain who he was), Paul, John, Heather, Mikki, Laura, everyone.

I had seen Heather at the President's house early, where she smiled at me and said"Hi!" I didn't know if that meant "Hi, person that I know and went to school with!" or "Hi, absolute stranger whom I am being polite to, because we are standing next to each other in front of the cheese tray!" so I gave a non-committal "Hi" in return. A small discussion of nametags came up, and she pulled hers out of her pocket.

"O, hi, I know you!"
"Yes, I know you do, but you looked at me as though I was a lunatic!"
"Not a lunatic, I just wasn't certain if I was supposed to know you or not. Don't feel bad, I don't remember anybody!"

Mikki I had run into, walking with Andi and Brad to get our picture taken, when we passed a car with a tree that had fallen on it, which turned out to be Paul's. This woman walked over and said that we should change the photo location, that we should all pose with the smashed car.

"Hi, Kymm!"
"Hi...o, hi! Mikki! It's you!"
"It's me!"
"Your hair is so different..."
"Hey, it was the 70's, everyone had perms!"

I sat down beside the fire, not really speaking to anyone, but just listening and thinking. You know how the coolest people in ordinary school are anything but cool years later? In fact, they turn into big dorks? Well, the coolest people at art schools are invariably cool forever.

Today's horoscope:
It's okay to be a bit needy. When you and a loved one take turns being there for one another, you are both more refreshed for facing the world.

One year ago today:
Speaking of being ten years behind the times. I'm so cutting edge.

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