Homecoming.

My ten-year high school reunion is this weekend, and I'm going because I'm a volunteer worker and because I've been both helping organize it and help mock it for over a year now.

On Friday night, I'm going to the homecoming game for the first time since I graduated, for that's the first event where the class plans to gather.

I remember high school. I remember being the football team waterboy for two years. (I became a letterman as a football manager. So I got the letter, complete with a football on it, only it said MGR on my letterman jacket. Later, I lettered in academics and headed the Academic Quiz Bowl team, but nobody cared much about academics at my school.)

I remember the football team locker room and the sight of Nick Overby with his shirt off.

I remember Ms. Davis, my algebra teacher who is still my friend.

The gigantic bookbag I used to carry around. That time freshman year when I had to spend six weeks in a walker. Never having a date to the homecoming dance or anywhere else for that matter. I remember Honors English.

Vic and I were best friends then, and we were about as anti-social and sarcastic as the girls in GHOST WORLD.

I mean, I had friends, and some of my friends then are still very, very dear to me now. The ones I've wanted to keep in touch with, I've stayed in touch with.

But high school, ugh. I didn't know who I was. I was nearly psychotic toward people I wanted as friends. I hated my home life. I didn't like my town.

So this weekend, I'm going to revisit my town, my past and my old acquaintances.