Reunion Hotline

So because I am an anal control freak I decided to take the lead on planning my 10 year reunion along with some of my close friends. Let's just say it hasn't been the most pleasant experience.

About 2 weeks before the event the committee started questioning all of the decisions that we had already made about a year in advance. As it got closer to the big day I found myself fielding all sorts of questions making me a reunion hotline of sorts...

Reunion hotline how may I help you?

• I can't figure out how to use Paypal.
• You picked a horrible weekend to hold the reunion.
• You spelled my married name wrong on the rsvp list.
• We want four hours of open bar instead of one.
• We don't want to use the dj we hired a year ago we want to just play our ipod.
• There are no pictures scanned for the slide show.
• We want you to hand pick out the ham in the penne vodka so it's a vegitarian option.
• I can't figure out how to use Paypal.
• My wife is going into labor can you change the date of the reunion.
• I actually didn't graduate with you - I'm not sure I was invited.
• What does dressy casual mean?

This continued up until the day of the event. I do have to say that it turned out to be a great event. However I only wish I remembered more of it and actually talked to people after standing at the registration table for 2 hours. A year of planning only to get so tipsy that I don't remember much after picking my own ticket for the 50/50 raffle and refusing to pick another one and then going up to a group of guys that I never talked to in high school and just standing there probably swaying while they looked at me funny.

This Reunion queen was in her Holiday Inn bed before the clock hit 12 and passed out clutching her clutch. Reunion hotline is down until 2014.

What does happy look like?

Sooo ever since it was discovered via the internet that my "Mr. Big" got married, my dear friend E was so captivated by the photos that she bookmarked the photographers blog and visits it daily. Right? Who does that?

So a little while back in my occasional facebook stalk I look to see if any photos have changed for Mr. Big's profile pic. (of course we are not friends). And one time when I checked it was a picture of a baby. Which of course made me think the baby was his. I have no idea how this came up in conversation but E says to me tonight - "no, that's not his child" and I of course say -how do you know?

Weellll I saw pictures on the photographer's blog and it can't be their child - just look, she says. So of course I bring it up immediately. And of course there it is - Mr. Big with his wife and his brand new family.

I swear i have never seen pictures like this before in my life that honestly were not actors doing their job posing in a f***ing field. These people are beautiful. Honest to god beautiful. It's the parents, and their three children with their significant others including Mr. Big and the wifey. One couple has two children and the other couple has a baby. All I can say without showing the actual pictures is that it is very "shabby chic" loaded with cowboy boots, old suitcases, buttons, fields, J Crew clothes and beautiful beautiful people. Actually kind of like this but honestly this picture doesn't even do it justice:

So of course after I scrutinized every picture, every facial expression, every accessory (i'm only human) -it made me think...

Is that what happy looks like? Perfect people in a photo shoot? Is that what we should all be striving for? If that's true - we would have a lot of people falling short, including myself. But I guess I don't think that is true.

I guess happiness can look like lots of different things. It can be toasting with your oldest friends in your very first home. Or laughing until your sides hurt on a hayride that is not doing a good job of being scary. Or getting a note from someone thanking you for doing something that resulted in an emotional experience that brought him and his son closer together.

Can J Crew family have moments like this? Of course - I'm sure they do. The bigger person in me would say I hope they do. But do we all have to throw on cowboy boots, play with buttons and romp in some fields to be truly happy?

Absolutely not.