Twins, revisited

This past weekend, a cab driver in New Orleans took a picture of me and my twin sister Joy with his phone because he said he’s never had twins in his cab before.

“You probably have and just don’t know it,” we said.

But he insisted that we were the first. And he’d been driving a cab for ten years.

He even made Joy move her hair a bit off her face so that we had the same hairstyle for the photo, to make us look as twin-like as possible.

I had almost forgotten what it was like to be I.D.’d by strangers for being a twin, since it’s now been a year since I moved back home to New Orleans from South Carolina without Joy.

Sure, I remember the more extreme stories of strangers noticing us (which I wrote about here...and here), but I forgot what it’s like have people in checkout lines and cashiers and CAB DRIVERS notice that we’re twins and ask questions.

I forgot how everyone smiles when they hear that our names both start with the letter J.
That one I don’t understand.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAVE THE SAME STARTING LETTER ALL THE TIME PEOPLE!! WHAT'S SO FUNNY??

(At least our names don't rhyme.)

But it was actually more fun than I remember.

It was fun showing Joy off to my new co-workers (NONE of which fell for her pretending she was me....ugh)

And it was fun laughing when the hippy, tattooed cashier at a wine bar asked us if we were twins, not because we look alike, but because “ya'll have the same air about you.”

In addition to the impromptu cab photo shoot, we were called out as twins by TWO lead singers in two different bands. (holla!!! Front row is the best row)

We also wore each other’s clothes, slept in the same bed and laughed at things that no one else found funny, which makes other people super uncomfortable.

And we get to do it all over again next weekend!!

I’m flying up to South Carolina in five days (which made our goodbyes this morning not sad...whew) and we’re going to an AWESOME Halloween party near the beach.

Our costumes? Dolly 1 and Dolly 2 cloned sheep.

I’m sure many cab drivers would love to take pictures of that.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

It’s one thing to tease your girlfriend about something cute like how she gets cold really easily or how she uh...sleeps with a sleeping mask.

It’s quite another to insult her about something personality-related, just to make her feel bad about herself.

There are entire books dedicated to losers like these -- “emotional abusers” who tear down their loving and adorable girlfriends with unwarranted, subtle jabs to their confidence.

Daniel, the guy I dated a few years ago, wasn’t so subtle.

Granted, he was in a bad mood at the time and was the POSTER CHILD for the “misery loves company” movement, but still.

Ugh.

Daniel and I had a three-year, off-and-on relationship and during one of the “on” times, I invited him to my house for a Labor Day party.

He was my proper boyfriend at the time and I was excited. An hour after the party started, I started to wonder where he was.

“Where are you?” I texted.
“Coming,” he responded.

I frowned. It was irritating that he wasn’t even close to being on time to his own girlfriend’s party.
Heaven forbid if I had asked him to bring the keg or ice or something.

When he finally came over, almost two hours late, he announced that he had a terrible migraine headache and headed for my room to lay in my bed...alone. In the dark.

My friends gave me weird looks as I said I’d be right back and I walked into my room to check on the situation.

He was in pain and pissed. How fun for me.

But I was nice about it. I gave him a washcloth (and, uh, my sleeping mask) and said I’d be back in awhile to check on him.

When he didn’t emerge 45 minutes later, I walked back into my room.

“You talk too much,” he said immediately when I walked in, washcloth over his face, still laying in the dark.

“WHAT?” I said.

“I’ve been listening to you this whole time talking to your friends in the kitchen. And you talk too much. And everybody thinks it’s really annoying and I’m the only one who can tell you.”

“WHAT?” I said again, super hurt.

Daniel had hit my insecure button and I suddenly felt like the worst human being on the planet.

IT'S TRUE!!! I almost wailed into a downward spiral. I'LL NEVER TALK TO ANYONE EVER AGAIN!!

But then I snapped out of it.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “So...the THIRTY people at my house right now for a party all think I’m annoying?”

He didn't respond.

"And YOU'RE supposed to be my reality check?" I asked.

I suddenly laughed about how ironic it was that I was being told I was annoying by someone who was laying in the dark by himself with a washcloth over his head.

Is someone who comes to a party and lays in bed alone the whole time not annoying himself?

And since when did he speak for my friends??

Not surprisingly, we broke up, and I moved on to dating people who actually like me and the things I have to say.

My advice to anyone dating an “emotional abuser?” Imagine him alone in the dark, with a washcloth on his face. And then try to take him seriously.

Daniel may be long gone, but what’s still near and dear are each and every one of my friends -- you know, the ones who can’t bring themselves to tell me how super annoying I am.

Asshole.

P.S. I look way cuter in that sleeping mask than he does.

-Jenny

Y-M-C-A

I used to go to the gym four times a week because it was right next door to my work and I could go at lunch or during a slow afternoon.

As such, I was in banging shape, which has gone by the wayside after only a year of moving to New Orleans with its fried everything...topped with remoulade sauce.

The day that I noticed my SHADOW was larger than it used to be, I decided to go back to the gym regularly.

Also, I'm motivated by my Halloween costume, which will look better with more defined abs.

I will write about my new New Orleans gym soon, which is at the University of New Orleans, home of many awkward exchange students who think the gym is where you pick up American women.

And who lift weights with Adidas shower shoes. WITH SOCKS.

In the meantime, here is a re-post of my experience at my old gym in South Carolina, a post I deleted when it went viral among YMCA employees after someone googled “YMCA” and emailed it to all his/her co-workers.

(I know because I have a site tracker. Yes, I’ve been watching you people.)

Since I was a newspaper reporter at the time, I got spooked that my blog would be discovered and I'd get yelled at for mocking a business I covered for the paper, so I deleted it.

Here it is again.
Happy Friday.

---

I’ve been a member of several gyms before, but the YMCA in this small South Carolina town is…an experience. 



Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone looking to be left alone. There are far too many children running around for that.

I also wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is bothered by older women in the locker room standing around naked chatting about church.



Yes, naked. Like naked naked! And they act like it’s no big deal, leisurely putting on their underwear after water aerobics.


I’ve also seen an older co-worker in her panties (yikes!!) and a higher up at the YMCA who I had interviewed for the newspaper that day, wearing a thong. She’s 50.



“It was great talking to you today!” she told me, in her thong, as I came out of the bathroom stall.

I looked up at the ceiling.



I don’t know how these women have no problem stripping down right there in front of everyone, and here I am changing in the tiny bathroom stall hopping on one foot trying not to drop my MP3 player in the toilet.


Maybe it’s a generational thing.



Naked women aren’t the only obstacles at the YMCA. There are also children, lots of children, running around the locker room, asking what you are doing, what your shirt says and other odd questions.



“What are you doing, shining your shoes?” a little boy asked me yesterday as I sat on a bench wiping my wet feet with a towel after a lunchtime swim.



Little boy, I’m not even wearing shoes. I politely smiled, wondering where he learned about shoe shining. Thankfully, his mother came to shuffle him away.



I joined the YMCA because it’s right next door to my work and has a swimming pool, but I soon learned that the pool is rendered useless on Thursdays because that’s “children’s day” and someone always pees/poops/throws up while swimming and the entire pool has be drained and no one else can swim for the day.



The trainers at the YMCA are no better than the children.

I experienced this on the first day when I was sweaty, gross and parched.



“Excuse me, do you know where the water fountain is?” I asked a trainer, panting.

“No, we don’t believe in water at the YMCA,” he said.



I took him seriously for a moment and gave him a look of defeat before he showed me where the fountain was.



Another, trainer (who I think is gay but talks about his wife all the time) routinely perches on the ledge of the front desk.


“Hiiiiiiiii, how are you?” he asked me one day as I swiped my card.

“Good," I said. "How are you?”

“Not guilty!” he squealed.



I singed up for a free personal training session hoping to learn how to use new weight machines.


The trainer assigned to me was thoroughly confused by my request.
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.


“I’m just looking for a new routine or circuit of machines…” I trailed off.

He blinked.


“I just want to get a new routine," I said. “Hey, how about this machine?” I pointed to something that looked like a Bowflex.


“Yes, you can use that.”


“I don’t know how to use it. Can you show me how to do some of the exercises?”


“I mean, what are you looking for?” 



They have a scale in the women’s locker room (yes, some women weigh themselves naked on it) but it’s one of those sliding weight machines, where you move the big block over to the 100-pound mark and then slide the little ticker up top.

While it’s fun to slide, it gives you a three-pound range instead of telling you directly how much you weigh.



The gym’s only digital scale is in the middle of the weight room, where all the boys work out. It’s OK, I told myself. No one is paying attention.



I stepped up to weigh myself one day and a trainer quickly came up from behind me almost knocking me off, peeking at how much I weigh.


“It’s going to be waaaaay more than that after Easter dinner!” he screamed, loudly, laughed and walked away.



I used to think that going to the gym was simply a matter of walking in and working out, but no. Not at my YMCA. Their new motto should be: If you’re not feeling uncomfortable at least twice, we’re doing something wrong!


It makes me miss Gold’s Gym, where everyone ignores you.



Maybe I’m not being fair. Maybe the YMCA isn’t all bad, it’s just not my ideal work out environment.


I don’t have children, I enjoy being left alone to work out and I don’t see why I can’t weigh myself in private.


In the cardio room — a true testament to the community — the TVs are always on to Glenn Beck or the hunting channel. Neither of which I find motivating.



I also hate coffee, and the YMCA offers complimentary coffee that I have to walk by on the way to the locker room. I usually hold my breath.
(I do, however, appreciate the note above the coffee maker saying, “No coffee in the weight room.”)



When my twin sister, Joy, was at college at Louisiana State University they had a beautiful state-of-the-art gym with a women’s only section (can you imagine!) a “Big Dogs” gym (where Joy noted that’s where the guys make “a whole bunch of sex noises”) and the “Average Joe” gym, where the, average Joes work out.



Now, that’s my ideal workout environment!! Everybody segregated to their own areas, no children, no old ladies in panties.


Nobody heckling you when you weigh yourself.
Plenty of water fountains for everybody.



And no shoe shines.



-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

As it turns out, guys reading their girls’ diary is pretty common.

TOOLBAGS.

After last week’s entry, I was told by several girl friends about how their boyfriends also took it upon themselves to read their inner most thoughts and feelings without permission.

Among those, the story of Brian reading my friend Alyssa’s diary is by far the best.

Because Brian didn’t just read her diary. He wrote his OWN entry for her to find, and made notes throughout the book.

Brian was nuts about Alyssa, but not like the cute expression.
He was actually nuts.
Certifiably nuts.

As such, when he found her diary one day when she was out running errands (found it lying on top of a bookshelf under other books topped with a figurine and blocked by a picture frame), he flipped out.

OK, so maybe the diary was more of a burn book for all her ex’s.

As she describes: “Each guy had a page to himself which summed up the good and bad in the relationship.”
(HEY! IT’S HER DIARY SHE CAN FORMAT IT HOWEVER SHE WANTS.)

Brian flipped out about the number of ex-boyfriends that she had written about.
And he flipped out about the entry Alyssa wrote about him entitled, “Reasons Brian is crazy.”

(Crazy people really hate the “C” word.)

One reason Alyssa listed?
How Brian was so jealous and angry that one night he thought another guy was hitting on her when really the guy was so drunk that he just kept running into her...and everyone else.

Despite her telling Brian the guy was just annoying and drunk, Brian picked him up by his ears and head butted him at the bar. There was blood.

Someone more sane reading that may have self-reflected about how that was an over-reaction.
Not Brian. He didn’t see anything crazy about that, and he decided that Alyssa was the crazy one.

After getting a cryptic, "You think I'm crazy...You are crazy! Don't ever call me again," text an hour after she left the house, Alyssa knew he must have read the diary.
Yet, when she came home, it was in its place, seemingly untouched.


She checked her laptop-nothing. She looked for something that could have set him off-nothing. Then she looked over at her diary and took it off the shelf. 


To her horror, Brian had added THREE PAGES entitled, “Let's Talk About Crazy..." and listed 30 examples of how SHE was crazy and he wasn’t.

“He had written me into my own bash book,” Alyssa said. “Pretty funny stuff.”

Not only that, but he took a highlighter and went through the entire book commenting on other guys’ pages and placing CHECK MARKS where necessary.

Then, as if it couldn't get any worse, Brian made his own list of all the ex’s she wrote about and took to his MySpace page to find the guys and let them know exactly what she had written about them.

(He also added his own details).

OMG.
MORTIFYING.

And then, because he was obsessed with the idea that she was cheating on him, he hacked into HER MySpace page and messaged the same guys saying, “thanks for the other day, it was great seeing you...by the way when was that...I can't remember??”

...hoping one of them would say that it was last weekend and then he could “catch” her cheating on him.

A plan which never panned out.

Two days later, he broke into Alyssa’s apartment (using a hidden key) only to leave a note on her kitchen table to tell her that their relationship was over.
 


“Right...who would ever think this guy was crazy????” Alyssa recalls.

Uhhh, for real.
Her diary should be added to his mental health records, for when he will no doubt be sent somewhere for observation.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Even with the complete lack of privacy nowadays, where anyone who is curious can find out every little thing about you, THANKS Facebook and Twitter, one thing will always remain private: A diary.

Wait, let me rephrase that: one thing should always remain private: A diary.

File this in the DUH category: Diaries are not meant for other people to read. They used to come with tiny LOCKS for Christ’s sake.

The reason they are so private is because a diary is the one place where someone can write their deep dark secrets and true emotions without fear of anyone else reading it.
(Unlike an email, the words are not meant to be shared or copied and pasted...or read by Big Brother.)

Which is exactly why some guys really, really want to read them: The diary knows everything.

Is she cheating??? Does she like my best friend? Am I really the best lover in the world?

I know these are all deep burning questions and it’s super tempting to search for the answers in handwritten pages.

But, it’s never, ever, ever OK to read your significant other’s diary, even if it’s sitting in front of you like candy.

Worse than reading someone’s diary that’s sitting in front of you like candy? Scouring someone’s entire house to find it.

That certainly was Steven’s mission when he combed through my friend Abby’s house when she was out of town.

Steven knew Abby had a diary, because when they dated SEVERAL YEARS PRIOR, he was always insecure about it.

Abby has filled four diaries since 1994, regularly writing down her thoughts and emotions and everything else she wants kept between her, herself and her.

Steven and Abby reconnected four years after they broke up, and they both decided there was no reason why they couldn’t be friends, even though it wasn’t a very nice breakup.

They liked each other’s company and it had been FOUR YEARS, so Abby thought they could water-under-the-bridge-it.

But, Steven, naturally, wanted to be more than friends. Abby said he began asking her uncomfortable questions every few weeks like, “Would you ever marry a guy like me?” “Do you enjoy being with me?”

And then the more obvious: “I love you, can we make it official?”

Every time, Abby responded with no.

Steven didn’t seem fazed by her response, and they continued to be friends. When Abby went on vacation to New York last week, she even let Steven house/dog sit.

Before leaving for New York, she decided to hide her diaries from their usual spot on her bedside table to INSIDE A BACKPACK IN THE BACK OF HER CLOSET BETWEEN TWO WINTER COATS, since Steven was staying at her house and he knew they existed.

When Abby returned from New York, she walked into her house in horror to find that the entire place was spotless.

Steven had done some cleaning while she was gone. He cut the grass, he repainted the outside trim...and he tidied up her closet.

Steven hadn’t said anything about finding her dairies when they spoke, but Abby noticed quickly upon her return that he started acting completely strange...like someone who had read her diaries from 1994.

And she nervously checked her closet and noticed that the backpack did look a little...straighter than before.

Abby was suspicious. And it didn’t take long to do some probing about why he decided to clean the house so thoroughly and why he decided to clean the closet, when Steven broke down and admitted his guilt.

He used the unwelcomed cleaning as an excuse, saying he wasn't looking specifically for them.

But apparently, he felt that if he found them, IN A BACKPACK IN THE BACK OF HER CLOSET BETWEEN TWO WINTER COATS, he had full right to read them.

“Even if you found it doesn’t give you an excuse to read it!” Abby yelled.

Yet, Steven’s plan ended up backfiring. Because, another reason not to seek out – and then read—someone’s diary, aside from the obvious invasion of privacy, is you might not like what you read.

“There was a single paragraph blurb about how he has a big belly and a small dick and was totally unsatisfying on so many levels,” Abby recalls.

“But that’s OK, karma’s a bitch he also read pages upon pages of hot sexy fun times with others. Needless to say we aren’t talking.”

Damn. Haha. That’s going to be a good entry.

-Jenny

Rain-cation

If you can’t think of a time when rain ruined an outdoor event, congratulations. You live in a desert. Or on the South Pole.

Because for people who live in this hemisphere, rain has been the demise of at least one (hundred) outdoor events over the years, including weddings, graduation parties, uh...ENDYMION PARADE 2011.

We’re supposed to be smarter than rain, you know, with our Dopplers and satellites and 24-hour weather channel.
But our technology only detects rain a week or so away and things like wedding dates are decided well before then.

Same thing with vacation beach rentals.

Glorious!

No one could have predicted a month before Labor Day that not just rain but a NAMED STORM would blow over the entire Gulf Coast during the long weekend.

It was certainly bad timing for me and my sun-loving friends who rented a beach house in the Florida panhandle, right in the path of the storm.

We nervously checked the weather as the weekend approached and realized that our ability to get tan was slim (and the possibility of getting hit by flying debris was increasing).

Yet, with a deposit already paid for and plans already in place, an impressive 14 of us made the trek from New Orleans to Grayton Beach, Florida anyway.

Maybe the rain will stay off the coast! We thought. Maybe it will move more west and we’ll have clear skies!

Hmmm. Not so much.

But not all was lost.

I did learn something very positive about rain over Labor Day weekend: it has the uncanny ability to get people to bond in ways a sunny beach doesn’t.

For example, it renews your love for board games.

The 14 of us played countless board games over those four days including Catch Phrase, Apples to Apples, Scattergories, Pictionary and Monopoloy.
(although not everyone wanted to play Monopoloy because it causes massive fights over Park Place and Pennsylvania Avenue and whoever owns all the railroads is an A-hole and usually wins.)

My favorite game was Apples to Apples, because you can be creative.

See, you get a list of cards of random things like this:

Danny Devito I love your work!!!

And then a friend/judge turns over another card with an emotion or description on it like fun, happy, glorious, luxurious, superficial, etc. and everyone has to discard one of their cards that fits in the category. (Schlinder's List would NOT be a good pick for luxurious.)

What makes this game fun is that you must play wisely and consider what your friend/judge will find the most appropriate, since they pick their favorite among the cards.

For example, I knew that one friend/judge looooves Mardi Gras, so I threw that card no matter what the emotion card was. I won that round.

This also turns out hilarious conversation among those whose cards weren’t chosen –
HELLO! HOW IS AN EMAIL NOT “SUPERFICIAL!” COME ON!!!

We also played other games not sanctioned by Hasboro, like Never Have I Ever (mom don’t ask) and the ABC game, where you go around in a circle and everyone says a word starting with a letter of the alphabet that fits a particular category.

Popular categories were words that describe sex, drugs and rock n roll. (Acid, butt sex, Creedance Clearwater Revival, respectively.)

We also played an indoor baseball game with an empty box of Kleenex as a bat.


And there was gymnastics.

A ten from the Russian judge!

We were able to venture outside on the beach for exactly 2 hours and 22 minutes one day, and even though it was overcast and quite chilly and the Coast Guard said we couldn’t get in the ocean, we still managed to make the most of it by playing in a nearby lagoon.

Fun in the (non) sun!

But you know what? It ended up being a super fun vacation.
Even with the tropical storm winds and forced bonding.

Much like when a wedding or graduation party is moved indoors because of dumb rain, it ends up being a good time anyway because all that matters is the awesome, crazy people you’re with.


Plenty of alcohol helps, too. Ha.

Thanks to this rain-cation, I now know people’s “never have I ever” secrets and I know my friend Meredith and I are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD partners at Pictionary.
Also, I’ve been meaning to stock up on more photos of me and my friends all sitting in a circle.






We're all winners.

-Jenny

How NOT to plan a high school reunion

Part 1

First of all, let me say that my ten-year reunion this past weekend was really fun. People came that I actually hadn’t seen in ten years, the food was delicious and only one person noticed that I accidentally got drunk and knocked over a trash can.

I don’t remember why I volunteered to plan the reunion in the first place, since I was definitely NOT the valedictorian or salutatorian or a member of any committee whose responsibility that would fall under.

(Unless you count me being the secretary of the classic film club. Which really shouldn’t count for anything. Man, that club was so awesome.)

Anyway.

The thing that’s so different about planning a high school reunion from planning a birthday party (or, uh, a Christmas oyster roast) is that a reunion is a long-standing tradition. Filled with expectations! You only have one ten-year reunion after all. R-e-s-p-e-c-t!

As such, it deserves more planning and structure than simply putting together a Facebook event and hoping someone brings Wii Dance Party to your house (and, uh, a Wii).

No! You have to think about the reunion’s true purpose (catch up with old friends! Reminisce about old times!) and you have to figure out how to make it as painless as possible for your fellow Catholic girls’ school graduates (see: food, alcohol, various distractions).

But I didn’t think of all those things when I volunteered to plan it. All I thought about was a venue and a date.

First, I wanted it to be on the back deck at this bar near our high school because large gatherings outdoors are fun and celebratory and everyone looks better surrounded by twinkle lights.

Next, I had to pick a day, which posed several challenges living in New Orleans.

It couldn’t be during the summer, because I didn’t want everyone looking like they just got slapped in the face with a wet washcloth while mingling.

And it couldn’t be in the frigid 50-degree winter either, because no one likes hovering under heaters and that doesn’t make for a good photo.

Then you have to consider that from July to November is hurricane season so you’re kind of crossing your fingers there. And finally you have to plan it around LSU football games, because Tigers beat reunions.

In early spring, I decided the date of the event would be September 17, and then did nothing for six months.

Other than make it everyone else’s problem, that is.

First, I imposed on a fellow graduate the responsibility of letting everyone mail her their checks, because I’m really bad at math and I’m incredibly unorganized.

(Also, mailmen have a hard time finding my basement apartment in which to deliver things.)

Then, my roommate mentioned that her work could cater the party, so naturally I made her order all the food and figure out pricing.

With all that taken care of, I sat back and played on the reunion’s Facebook event page.

That is, until I Googled “planning my high school reunion” and panicked when I was told by Miss Manners that I needed to have some sort of party favor, like at a wedding.

A party favor? I’ve never given out party favors before.

I took a quick poll of my friends.

We initially decided on personalized beer koozies, because you can never have enough koozies or have cold enough beer.

But then a non-drinker friend (I know...can you imagine!...kidding mom) said a koozie would be useless for non-drinkers like her, and shot down my claim that people sometimes use koozies for sodas.

So I decided on getting plastic cups (which we call “Mardi Gras cups” down here) which can be used for both water AND beer, ThankYouVeryMuch, and I’d get them personalized with the reunion date and high school logo.

Three weeks before the reunion, I spent an afternoon designing the cups online (which was super fun) and when they arrived, they only had ONE typo!

Success!

Google also told me that people want to be reminded of high school at their reunion (Really? Why???) and things like a slide show or name tags with senior year photos on them are “super festive.”

I chose a slide show. I solicited classmates to email me photos, and then forgot about it until TWO days before the reunion, when I spent all night scanning.

THE DAY OF THE REUNION, with all the scanned photos in a nice folder, I (illegally) downloaded songs circa 2001 to accompany the show and felt proud of myself.

But then I hit a snag when I realized I had no idea how to get the slideshow from my computer onto the TV at the bar.

Thankfully, my dear friend Meredith offered up her cord that transfers things from computers to TVs and then let me borrow her computer, because I realized two hours before the reunion that mine wasn’t compatible.

As I was picking up the computer and cord, I made my parents and aunt spend their Saturday afternoon tearing drink tickets for everyone.

I thought everything was in place until FORTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE EVENT when I went to the deck to test out the slideshow.

The good news was that my best friend and fellow graduate’s boyfriend had surprised everyone and spent all morning decorating the deck with lights and our school’s mascot.

(Yes, I made the reunion his problem, too.)

The bad news was that when I tested the slideshow, it didn’t work.

I plugged in the cord from the TV to the computer but the screen remained blue. I checked everything twice, ran back and forth to both devices but nothing worked. Then I had a nervous breakdown.

“JOHN!” I wailed over the phone to my friend who works on computers. “I’M GOING TO DIE!”(Dramatic? Who’s dramatic??)

Thankfully, John lived nearby and came right over. He found me on the deck gnawing my face.

In less than ten minutes, he figured out how to change the settings on the computer and immediately, my awkward high school photos came up on the large TV screen.

I jumped on him like a monkey as a thank you, soliciting odd looks from everyone enjoying afternoon drinks on the deck.

I then realized I now had exactly one half-hour to shower and get ready for the reunion, which meant I didn’t have time to shave my legs or check myself in the mirror (hey...just like high school!)

Yet, with the deck already decorated, my roommate already picking up the food, my friends already making the slideshow a GO and my parents’ already portioning out everyone’s drink tickets, I really didn’t have that much to do.

(Except get drunk and accidentally knock over a trash can.)

The moral here is that I’m incredibly fortunate to have such an awesome roommate, friends and parents who are willing to help me with my odd reunion-planning decision.

(This also applies to the awesome photographer, my former co-worker, who agreed to come and take pictures in exchange for food and booze).

So, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU FRIENDS! I absolutely, 100 percent, couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you.

And I’d also like to thank everyone who came, without which there wouldn’t be a party.

Cheers!!

Now someone else plan the 20-year.

-Jenny