Tao of Pauly

Reunion Friday

I have a ton of shit to cover, and I'm going to do it all in one post, just like one of Iggy's uber-Guinness-fueld posts... I shall attempt to ramble on and on until I run out of time to write.

This weekend is my 10th year college reunion. The dreaded Emory Weekend featuring a concert from fellow Emory alums... the Indigo Girls. Yep, a decade ago I barely graduated from Emory University. And you know what? I'm not going back. I've only been back to Atlanta a few times since then (and yes... it was to see Phish). Am I bitter? No. Was I beat up by bullies? Nope. Was I ridiculed in front of my peers? No. You see, I had a blast in college and had some of the best times of my life. I also met a slew of great people, some of whom are still some of my closest friends. So why am I not going to my reunion? Simple. I have seen pretty much everyone I have wanted to see over the last few years (with one or two exceptions) so why bother bumping into people I don't want to engage in idle chit chat with?

Because people that go to reunions are the types of people I have no desire to see whatsoever. I'm not the geeky guy who got rich with adot.com and now has a trophy wife to show off. I don't have three kids, a dog, a new Volvo station wagon, and fistful of baby pictures to brag about. I'm not there to exact revenge on one of my mortal enemies. I'm not going to show up an ex-girlfriend. I couldn't care less if some chick who had a crush on me a decade ago... still carries that around to this day. For fuck's sake, I never climbed Mt. Everest. I did not fight the Taliban in Kabul. I don't have a fancy business card and I never attend alumni functions. By no means am I embarrassed of what I accomplished. I have four novels, two screenplays, a popular blog, and at least seven or eight future novels filled with my exploits over the last few years. I am sincerely proud of my life. In fact, I think I certainly had more fun that 99% of my fellow graduates. And I feel that very few people had a better time in college than I did.

I'm not a stuck up person, I just decided that I'd rather avoid all the nostalgia and continue to live in the present, instead of getting caught up in the past. It's not like I'm 50 years old or something. People who gush about their 10 year reunion, are the some folks who write "family newsletters" with their Christmas cards. I remembered Senior Speeches at my fraternity house. So many guys were bummed out that they knew their fun time was up and how they would miss the good old days. That bothered me. If the best days were behind me... then what's the point of living? That night set the tone for a serious of disagreements I had with friends on the future of our friendships. Whereas I moved on and left Atlanta, a handful stayed behind... pretending to be in the real world, while still living in that post-college mindset. And they thought I was fucking off in NYC and postponing the eventual insertion into a 9 to 5 world. They had it backwards. I was living life and striking out n my own... in the biggest city in America, while they were hiding behind the comforts and coddleness of post collegiate life. I was determined that all my great stories/wild times would never cease at the age of 21. I can name a handful of guys I went to school with who peaked out at age 20 and since then... they are the most boring people on Earth. And they're only 31. I'm so fortunate that I'm 31 and I'm still hitting high points in my life. I seriously believe that I had more fun in my later 20s than in my late teens. Poor saps... they gave up so early in life. So why should I commiserate in their doom? These are the same types of people who try to put me down my covering up their obvious collaboration of the Pussification of America by consistently uttering the phrase, "Some of us have real jobs, Pauly. Are you going to be doing the same shit when you're 40?"

And you know what, some of us have balls, too. They're just jealous that they never had the stones to take a chance on life, instead of hiding in constant fear. Man, I hope I'm still alive in a decade, writing everyday and partying to dawn snorting designer drugs with soused girls in Las Vegas and Miami that are half my age and laugh at all of my jokes. Hey cool guys with real jobs... give me a call in 2014, when you are bored out of your tits wandering around Pottery Barn on a Saturday morning with that ball and chain of yours, and I'm going to be pulling the pubic hairs out of my teeth wondering what color G-string I'm going to get my girlfriend for her 20th birthday.

OK... so, Haley had a few interesting things to say about my reunion. She encouraged me to go... for networking purposes. She had a valid point. You never know who might be able to hook me up with a literary agent. However, the few people I know from college who are in the entertainment industry practically fucking annoyed the shit out of me in college... and I was either so friggin' drunk that I slurred my speech more regularly that Larry Flynt, or I was so stoned out of my tits or hopped up on mushrooms... so even in those inebriated states, one can only imagine how annoying those people were.

Now, flash forward... so you want me to stand in a corner of the new art museum on campus, dead eyed sober, and actually carry on a fake discussion with someone who uses the phrase "power yoga" and "Cosmopolitan" in the same sentence, and name drops incessantly while answering her cell phone six times in your four minute conversation? All because she gave me a hand job once in the library? Does that mean I'm obligated to talk to every girl I hooked up with in college... and pretend to be remotely interested in her job and career, while, let's face it, I'm trying to replay the more tender and sexually explicit moments of our history?

"Hmm, well marketing is a tough business, for sure," I'd mutter, thinking about that the youngest female Executive Vice President at Mutual of Omaha got drunk one night on 14 Jell-O shots then went down on me while my roommate was sleeping.

Even I couldn't pull that off with a straight face. Haley kept prodding me. She kept insisting that even the writer in me was curious to see how everyone turned out. Again, another valid point. I wanted to see who got fat and who got skinny. I wanted to see which ugly girls got hot and which hot girls got knocked up and are now fat. I wanted to see if the really freaky kids turned out normal and if all the normal straight edged kids came flaming out of the closet. I want to see which girls married guys for money, and which girls married guys for love. Then I recalled that I didn't have to go back to college to see those things.

Of course there's always that longing to see people who've see you naked. I'm talking about those selected girls who allowed me to deposit sperm samples in their mouths... and on their chests... and on their chem notes... I always had this fantasy of running into one of my ex-girlfriends at an Emory reunion, somewhere in the middle of the big field with all the other well-dressed alumni sipping wine and mimosas and bragging about how awesome their lives are. And of course, like the fuckin'-cunt-ass-whore-hell cat-bitch-slut-heart breaking-ball-buster that she was, she'd smugly introduce me to her husband, most likely a cardiologist from Johns Hopkins or something typical like that. And I'd punch him in the shoulder and blurt out, "Lucky dog, you, Dr. Doolittle. That wife of yours chugs one mean cock! I'm lucky that I was just the second guy in my fraternity house she dated. God know what she must have felt like," as I demonstrated making a huge hole sign with both my hands, "after she blazed through and dated every guy in my fraternity and most of the guys from SAE next door."

Sure, 53 lovers is not that insane an amount to have... but when you banged that many guys before the Clinton administration ever started... then you know you got yourselves a hardcore sexual deviant on your hands. And no, you can't have her email address.

I wish I had more time to write and ramble, but I have to go. I'll quickly sum up my thoughts on some other stuff...

Friends blew ass chunks. Of course it's TV and Ross gets the girl. In real life, some asshole gets to bang Rachel and Ross gets stuck being the friend whom she cries to when the asshole ditches her. That's reality TV....

Abusing Iraqi prisoners has been getting alot of air time in the press. Actually I think we're wrong for making a big deal out of this. It's a war folks. Those people should be grateful they didn't get fuckin' killed. We at least had the decency to let them keep breathing. So who gives a rat's ass if some spoiled apples in our military got a little crazy and fucked around with some naked dudes and took pictures for their friends... these are our enemy... soliders who were promised a $100 for every confirmed kill of one of our GIs. Some of those soliders will tell you the recent stories of abuse were still a cake walk compared to what Saddam did to millions of people he tortured and killed. Get a grip folks, war is hell.