Don’t Tell A Soul

I can’t believe I was in western Mass. for a month, and I didn’t see a single person I went to high school with. I kept thinking that, any minute now, I’d come barreling down the aisle at Big Y, and bump into someone I once knew. Maybe I’d see an old boyfriend stopped at a red light, or share an elevator at Mercy with someone I hated in 1992.

It was weird to be back in Springfield, with its intriguing mix of the redneck and the thugged-out. I listened to a lot of Rock 102, and spent a lot of time cursing that Garmin doesn’t let you set an Avoidance for “ghetto”. At least they have a Starbucks now, and multiple Indian restaurants, which is more than can be said for the last time I lived there. It’s always nice to be back at first, to visit the places I missed, but I never see anyone I knew. There’s lots of people I’m curious about too! Like, did that girl that my Mom always told me would end up a cashier really do that, or is she a stripper now? What did our valedictorian do after Harvard? And what does that guy who was so hot in high school look like now?

It amazes me how many people are not on the Internet. What happened, did you do absolutely nothing with your lives? You never signed up for a blog, or received even the slightest mention in the college newspaper? How do you live in such obscurity that even Google can’t find you? I was so ready to see you all too, so ready to drop into your lives for a moment, just to satisfy my curiosity, and to be sure to mention I was just visiting. Too bad you missed me.