High School Reunion

My have things've
changed in ten years.

An index:

I didn't like U2
so fanatically in '99;
I had no real groove
as a writer, hadn't
even written a single
story as a personal
project yet, let alone
become a poet; I still
thought I'd become
a cartoonist, had spent
a school year doing
a strip for the paper;
I was obnoxious, but not
really in front of
other people; I wasn't
a cat person; had never
been outside of the state
without my family; certainly
hadn't flown; hadn't considered
walking places an hour
at a time rational; hadn't had
a girlfriend, or any real
interest from the opposite sex,
that I was aware of, anyway;
hadn't had anyone say they'd
like to have had me in a
different (more prominent)
role after seeing me perform
on the stage, in front of
an audience; didn't even dream
of cutting my own hair, much
less growing a beard (but as
I've suggested, still couldn't
shave regularly for the life
of me); didn't have real
CD or movie collections;
was forced to abandon comics,
and at the time, thought
it was the end of the world,
bu it wasn't, and I got
back in five years later.

So many things came about
during that time, that I
won't list them here, though
I'd love to; from new bands,
career paths of actors and
personalities, books I read,
the license I still didn't get,
the girls who kept slipping away,
the blow-out at the O.K. Wendy,
working at a video store, a book
store, the short-lived poetry
journal at college, the fight
to keep it alive, two controversial
elections for G Wad B, 9/11,
Mr. Drummond's eco messages
becoming Al Gore's slideshows,
and I began to care less about that;
a black president, growing into
Canadian jokes, a budding relationship,
the Red Sox breaking the curse,
and then winning again, Tom Brady
elevating the Patriots, the rise and
fall of wrestling, the death of
Eddie Guerrero, the death of Chris Benoit;
all this and a mountain of work
still in progress, like everything
always is.

Maine to
Pennsylvania to
Rhode Island (briefly) to
Maine to
Massachusetts to
Colorado.

But I'm not going
to index it.

Where has everyone else been since?