Searching for an audio converter, it all began with a phone call. It was Elana, a Russian girl hot beyond words that I had known in high school with the intelligentsia crowd. I'd called her earlier to catch up, more out of this weird feeling of obligation than want.

The phone conversation was funny and brief...

"Yeah, hey Elana!"

"[my name]?"

"Yeah!"

"[my first name, then my last name]?"

(I only take stalkers by request)

"Yeah, hey Elana. Been years, eh?"

"Oh my God, I can't believe it! Want to go out? We're at the park right now..."

One thing led to another and we ended up at Jerry's Deli, wondrous overpriced rathole that it is. I briefly eyed the 8 dollar chili dog but opted for the far more reasonable 4 dollar garlic bread and a root beer. We exchanged the usual, me asking her about college, her getting married to this slick young Jewish buck next to her, her art major, plans. She had once been Neuroscience but gave it up to pursue oil painting. The others at the table were humanities people too, creative writing and English.

Everyone except Elana lost interest I explained how I got from Religion and Philosophy to Creative Writing to Behavioral Neuroscience and Psych. I couldn't help smiling and making eye contact with her: the girl I'd wanted to ask out my last two years of high school was right before me, gorgeous as the day I'd taken notice from my intellectual insecurities. All of us ended up ragging on one another about theme songs to cartoons, reminicing about all the great shows we had as kids. Thundercats, Gummi Bears, on and on like that right through Perfect Strangers, the Snorks, Out of this World and a host of others I can't remember. Childhood nostalgia, ahhh.

After that they dropped me off right in time for me to get in touch with Adi. He'd been by ten minutes before and had been trying to call all day. Him and this 17 year old Aryan buck pulled up and we were off to load up on lagers and imported beer. They were trying to sound annoyed at being kept from the game, but I knew they were full of shit and we just laughed about small talk.

The quarter finals between Mexico and USA was great with near a dozen drunk adults rooting for the homeland. I don't know a damn thing about soccer but I got by with what I picked up and just workin' on the crowd in general. Mexico was a disappointment, frankly. The guys needed tighter formations, better coordination. USA knew what they were doing before they did. After the game we shot the shit up until 20 minutes ago. Besides stories about how fucked up themselves or their friends had gotten in college, people started getting into one of those "where the hell is ______?" now kinds of phases. I found out alot of people I looked up to were kindof, well, settling. Even Adi, someone I tried emulating in high school, had obviously just tried having fun through most of college. These guys had really lived it...and I couldn't say much.

Ahh but so many laughs, so much shit-slinging. I was one of the boys, yo. All of these memories of high school and junior high passed by me. It was like dragging a shiny buick out of a swamp. I really did do alot just with the people I knew from school.

Thursday's gonna be even better. Get this: I'm going to get paid 80 bucks to drink 40 different kinds of imported lagers and ales by a survey team at Mt. University with Adi...and then...right afterwards...we're doing volunteer alumni security for all the graduating seniors. It's an all night affair at Disneyland...and our asses get a free pass in just for keeping the peace.

See? I get bored and all of the sudden old high school people come in and kick me arse around. Ahhh God I wish I could describe tonight better. It was amazing, fabulous.

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