Thank you Facebook for saving me hundreds of dollars on the travel costs for my high school reunion that I no longer need to attend. Everything I want to know I can find out from the comfort of my padded leather office chair. The weight gain, the homely children, the crows feet, the receding hairlines, the obvious breast augmentations that will be categorically denied, the dead-end jobs, the aborted degrees, the dashed childhood aspirations, the disciples of Elizabeth Taylor, the high school romances that imploded in college; the high school hook-ups that resulted in wedlock and legitimate births in adulthood, the realization that what comes around goes around is a myth, the relief that good things do happen to good people, the fantastic dye jobs, the successful careers in helping professions, the obnoxious vacations, the detailed accounts of grocery lists and dinner menus, the amazingly talented kids who speak Chinese, Spanish, win chess tournaments and lead their team in soccer goals (oh yeah, those are my kids, but there are probably other talented and accomplished children as well), and, then of course, all the shockingly reactive political opinions on healthcare and immigration from conservative parents, who were once horny, aimless teenagers whose only concerns were hanging out at the local mini-mart, hooking-up with upperclassman and going to beer parties on the cliffs after Friday night football games.
Oh, how times have changed, but really not that much. The past is just one mouse click and thousands of miles away--precisely where it should remain.
