Gavin Parrish:  

Another Year, Another Thirty: Reunion canceled due to lack of interest? I have to laugh to think of it: Anyone could have predicted the outcome purely by my High School attendance record. Today is June 8, 2009. About one year ago there was a message regarding a 30-year reunion and an area to sign in to show interest. I gave a definite maybe as life was tumultuous for me at the time but also sent an email to the person coordinating the event offering to make some contributions seeing it through to a success. It was a matter that given sufficient reason I would just make conditions right to see it through, barring loss of life or limb. I waited for reply. And waited. And waited. A year having now passed I began to suspect one was not forthcoming but did not rule out that perhaps a spam filter had sent the message to its doom. So, I logged back on here, looking for and not finding the original thread nor any pertinent messages or dialog on the topic. It was as if it had simply vanished, or that senility has set in early for me and I had imagined the whole thing. 'Why might this be?' I thought. Always considering myself a bit of a social pariah during my school days, was it possible that the mere threat of my attendance was enough to send my former contemporaries dashing madly to the hills, seeking escape from such awful fate while screaming 'cooties!!!' as a warning to others? Or perhaps it is just endemic to who we really are as products of the society and time in which we came of age; perhaps we simply don't give an airborne copulation. Regardless, it would appear that some of the wisdom of Neil Young has escaped us: Having opted for burning out as favorable to rusting, we have nonetheless faded away. Today may have been the very day scheduled for our reuniting but someone apparently ate the trail of breadcrumbs, so that cannot be confirmed. Meanwhile, I hope you all find yourselves well, even if I AM a social pariah. ====================================== 2008 Update: The Cynical Life. NOTE: This is not about Paris Hilton, though it COULD be... It's been a few years since I last rambled on here and all I can say is it has been an absolutely crap-tacular time! Were it not for the confines of space I might go on at great length all the vagaries of Life as we know it and as I have experienced it -- as if any of you really cares... But since the space is limited I will sum it up in as few words as possible (something I am not normally given to do). Life is a cynicism in and of itself. It is one thing to be cynical about life but it is another when one realizes that Life's opinion of you is quite the same. In other words, Life really couldn't care one way or the other if you participate in it or not. It will go on despite you. So, a cynical approach to life actually puts you on an equal footing with Life; a footing of mutual disregard. But to all there is an obverse as well as a converse, and sometimes a PERverse as well. In that this is a family-friendly website I shall for once abstain from indulging in the latter and focus on the two former (but still make mention of the phallic phonetic similarities to the word 'focus' and another word in common use that still defies all reason why for all its popularity it is still considered obscene.) The con-or obverse of cynicism toward life (which depends entirely on one's point of view) would probably be Zeal, and I strongly caution you against having it! Life will never approach YOU with zeal, as illustrated above. So why would you give something you can never get back? Indeed, after a few unsuccessful attempts at zealotry, vim and vigor the battering you have endured is certainly enough to drive you to cynicism. A much simpler approach is to begin at the end and be as cynical as possible at all times. One is much more likely to be a successful cynic and die happy than he is anything else, and it's a far easier course to follow; one which requires next to no effort whatsoever. In Hollywood this is known as 'cutting to the chase'. We we all born bald, toothless and happy. In an ideal world we might all die in the same manner. Would that we were so lucky! Very few of us are and going from the number of world-renowned brain surgeons listing Buckey Valleye as their alma mater I'm suspecting the number of our own is far below an already below average average. So, embrace your inner-cynicist! Wear it proudly on your sleeve (you know, in the place your heart used to be before some wretched spouse or two tore it out and stomped on it, leaving it to lie in the middle of US23 or some equally-unforgiving stretch of highway, or worse yet, the middle of Klondike, Horseshoe or Pollack Rds. (Taking cynicism one step further toward the nth degree would be the heart in miscellaneous bits spread across all of the above. The nth+ degree of cynicism might involve an identical set of circumstances but a separate and severed portion of the body most familiar to Lorena Bobbit, but mentioning that might also turn the topic to the per- rather than con- or ob-verse, so I'm not saying it. And if you thought of it without me so saying then, shame on you!) ...Expand for more