We Ready!! We Ready!!

This was the unofficial anthem of North Miami, c/0 2000...and I just dated myself...lol. *sigh*

I remember right before (or was it after...god I'm getting old) they announced that we were to graduate/had graduated, the student body all 600+ of us started chanting, "We Ready!" But in actually, as we chanted this aloud some many years ago, how many of us really were 'ready'?

This past weekend, North Miami c/o 2000 celebrated our 10 year reunion since we embarked upon the world, free from the rigors of mandated schooling. What would we do with ourselves? What would we make of our lives? Would we really and truly be ready to face each other in a decade to find out? My former classmates and I did just that, convening to swap stories, compare notes, see who looked great, who did not, and gossip about who's done what, who hasn't done shit, and all the rest of it in between.

Honestly, I didn't know if I was really ready myself. I was a little nervous apprehensive scared indifferent being that the few of the friends I've kept in touch with weren't going to be there. And since I wasn't exactly Ferris Beuller, I wondered who would I be excited to see, or who would even be excited to see me.

I mean really, who would be excited to see me if all you remembered about me were these eyebrows:



Lawd, Heavenly Jesus, grab a tweezer and hear my prayer!! For this child knows not what she does! :(

And I really didn't. Poor me, circa 2000. SMH. Not. a. frickin. clue.

Oh, the wisdom of retrospect. So ten years later, I knew I GOTS to do better. And I did. I went got those eyebrows waxed, found a baaaad dress, with cute shoes, and had my face beat, HON-NEY!

Not too shabby, eh?? I knew that when I walked up in there, I'd rather it be "Damn what happened to her. :)" not, "Damn, what happend to her. :( "

Well, for that matter, I knew I'd gained small ground in popularity, only in that they had superlative nominations of which I was nominated for not one, but TWO categories. One being "High School Chemistry" which I shared with my boo, (i.e.: the cutest couple award--and we're pretty frickin' cute if you as me *wink*), and the other being "Facebook Fiend," self explanatory, oh the shame. With that being said, I lost both times. The first category, the chance of winning was...zilch. Nominated along with us, (or the category we were thrown into so that they'd have someone to run against), were Yrvens & Rita, who won cutest couple...in high school. Yeah, they were still as popular then as they are now, and well, if you've been together that long, they should've won. And the fb fiend...I accept that defeat with pride, though the monetary award would have been nice.

Anyhoo, the biggest surprise of the night was that there were no surprises. After watching such movies as "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion", and "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" I guess I had some ill-conceived idea of what was supposed to transpire: hot shot jock/head cheerleader marry & look like trash, geek turns into Brad Pitt with Bill Gates money, class clown still clowns, wallflower turns into a knockout beauty, etc. But there was none of the sort really.

It was held at the Signature Grand in Davie, a nice, swanky-ish location, everything looked nice, and those that attended did not disappoint. I found myself being much more outgoing than I ever was in high school, using those latent social-butterfly skills that hadn't matured until just a few years ago. It was good to see that everyone looked great (or at least made the effort), and seemed to have something going for themselves (though, no one really asked much more than a generic, "How're you doing?"). Besides in this facebook age, it doesn't take much digging to find out what's REALLY going on with most of us anyway. Frankly, the "how're you doing" question is redundant as, most of us already know the answer: This one had a baby. This one's getting married. The other one is standing in line at Walmart frustrated because the lady in front is using pennies to pay. Mood: heated.

No secrets. No mystery. But still worth attending, and enjoying. I would've stayed longer at the after party if I didn't have to go home to finish writing a paper. (Ugh, a procrastinators work is never started done. :-/ ) But overall not bad, no regrets....except maybe it's not seeing my high school crush (boyfriend be damned!! lol...j/k love!) Chris Mercado. Oh, so adorable & dreamy.