Friday, February 10, 2006

the peaches and herb party

after spending hours this evening at my office in preparation for tomorrow's festivities, kat and i boarded the bus at 9 p.m. and sat sluggishly on the 22, exhausted and barely able to spare the energy to open our mouths and speak. until kat asked me about a mutual friend who lived in the neighborhood our bus had us venturing through.

"whatever happened to kate?" she asked. "i haven't spoken with her in over a year. do you ever run into her?"

sure, i'd seen her a couple times. kate had lived with us for a few weeks a couple summers ago, but unavoidable circumstances had driven a wedge into our relationship.

"it's been awhile," i replied. "i don't think i've seen her since summer."

the conversation launched us into a discussion of all those people who just disappear from your life. one minute they're in your call log as the most frequently dialed number, and the next, you're contemplating deleting their name during your annual cell phone clean-up.

seriously, what happens to those people?

on the bus, kat and i made a list of people who we thought it'd be most awkward to visit with again, people with whom we'd been estranged for years, people who we'd met for lunch and never seen again. and we decided to invite them to a peaches and herb party.

we wouldn't invite anyone we currently kept in touch with. just those old strangers. to make it really awkward. not just a little awkward, but a big awkward so no one could avoid the elephant in the room. and we'd all have to wear nametags with the picture of what we had looked liked the last time we saw each other. of course there'd be a bonfire because during those long pauses, you'd want to be able to stare into the fire and pretend like you were really thinking deeply about what the other person was saying, though really you'd be searching desperately to find some kind of common ground so it wouldn't be any more awkward than it was already. to top it off, kat suggested we serve peach schnapps and other herbal refreshments to calm everyone's nerves.

reuniting does not always feel so good. but why avoid it? we say, have your own peaches and herb party and get all the awkwardness out so you can get on with your lives. ours is slated for the end of june. if we haven't talked to you in the past year, we can't wait to see you then.

1 Comments:

At 2:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't wait to see pictures of THAT party! Yikes - I run far far away from awkwardness.

 

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