updating my profile for the high school directory

After receiving two notices in the mail from my high school urging me to call an 800 number and update my profile, I finally called.

I wasn't sure what they wanted. It's not long until reunion time, so maybe that's it? Although, in a tiny private school with 35 kids in my graduating class, no football team, no prom and certainly no committee to arrange such post-school activities, I am not sure the school'd be hosting a reunion. (Plus, why an 800 number? What about the Internet, folks?)

So I called the 800 number, armed with a short list of lies of my career successes, which of course I had no intention of using. After getting off the phone with the woman, I thought perhaps I should have lied:

No, I don't have a permanent address right now... No, see, I just moved, and will be moving again... Er, uh sure keep my dad's address. ... Why yes, I have earned a degree since finishing high school. Two actually. Thank you, yes, thanks. Well, yes they are both in journalism, but one's a masters.... ? Yes, just graduated... well, really I graduated nine months ago... Um, well, no I don't really have an employer. Yes, two degrees. No job. That's right. You can put freelance writer on there, but there's no address to include. That's right. No, no husband or kids either....

No thanks, I don't think I will be ordering the $75 collector's edition directory then.

Couple that experience with the reality that the grace period for grad school loans is almost up. Nine months. Soon I begin the monthly payments. I knew it would happen, but as I was filling out the forms and seeing all those numbers with dollar signs next to them, it still kind of felt like fake money. I just got to go to back to school and not pay as much and how cool is that? "It's an investment in your future," my father told me, and sure that made sense in a nebulous, worry-about-it-later, character-building kind of way. Oh crap, now I have to pay that back.

****

Is it just a coincidence that reggaeton is all over the radio these days? Was it there before, and I didn't notice it until after I spent two months completely submerged it in? Is it kind of like when you learn a new word and then hear people use it all the time after that?

Either way, it's everywhere and I am not complaining. I know, some of my friends who have spent time in South America reject the fast paced Latin dance music, and others I know have a negative association with it, as it is connected to an often exclusive culture in the states. But I welcome it with open arms. It brings me back to the cobblestone streets and musty strobe-lighted discotec of Copan.