Well, that was fun.

There were a lot of people I didn’t expect to remember me. Or, I was afraid they would remember me all too well, and hate me because I did something horrible to them in college that I’ve long since forgotten. But all the encounters were pleasant. I had to get used to everyone calling me “JP” again. I got a lot of business cards. Apparently that’s the thing to do, now. I should have made some business cards for myself, with “Certified Life Changer” as my profession. Or “Racounteur & Man About Town.” Or “Full-Time Drunk.”

A couple of people asked me when Speed Of Sauce’s second album was coming out. More than a few people didn’t recognize me without long hair. I learned that absolutely everyone who ever went to Lawrence University is now residing in either Chicago or the Twin Cities. So I spent most of the weekend saying, “We should get together before I move away from Chicago” or “We should get together once I move to the Cities.” I saw women on whom I once had crushes who have since been married or divorced, gained weight or lost weight, remembered me or didn’t remember me.

I gritted my teeth through every “what are you up to now?” conversation, but I was eternally grateful that I was able to tell people I’m going back to school in the fall. I would have been in much worse shape if I’d had to spend the weekend saying, “Oh, I’m just languishing at a day job I hate, from which there seems very little prospect of escape. Also, I’ll be thirty next year.”

I was housed next door to my freshman-year dorm room. At night I could hear, through the wall, the ghost of my 19-year-old self weeping. Everything still smelled the same, too. It’s amazing how much our nostalgia is driven by the olfactory elements: the stench from the dross of the paper mills wafting up the river; the study lounges in the library evoking all the pale-yellow Penguin Classics I’d only made it halfway through. I walked drunk through every dorm I’d lived in and tried the doors on my old rooms; they were all locked.

Pictures here. It’s mostly boring shots of dorm hallways and campus buildings, stuff that won’t be of much interest to anyone else. But I guess that’s how it goes. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about reunions, it’s that none of this is the least bit unusual or special, except to me.