CLASS OF 1989 | 2019 | ISSUE 1
Class of 1989 Scholarship
Emily Boddewyn ’22, New York, NY
We are ALL turning 30 years-young, this year. We are. Thirty years of post-college adulting, so why don’t we meet up on campus this year for our 30th Reunion? Anyone?! Bueller?
In an effort to get us all in the mood, here are some of the suggestions from our O.G. (original gangsta) class secretary, Stephanie Dolgoff—who first penned and posted her list of Reunion rules on our 1989 class Facebook group prior to our 25th Reunion. She has now updated said-original list with some added wisdom for our 30th Reunion.
NOTE: These are only “rules” in the Wesleyan sense of a rule/non-rule/do-what-you-please-anyway idea because . . . Wesleyan. Here are Stephanie’s witty words. Enjoy!
I think we need some new, 30th Reunion (!) rules, or, since it’s Wes, “guidelines for inclusive and inoffensive communal comportment.”
1. No one is allowed to say, “Geez, can you believe how !@#$ old we are.” Suggest: “I don’t know about you, but my years of accrued wisdom have served me astonishingly well!”
2. No one should say “I’m so sorry” when you tell them you’re divorced. Rather: “I never met him/her, but I’m sure he/she was totally unworthy of your obvious wonderfulness. I hope he or she is a good co-parent.” Update: When you introduce your new partner to your old friends, the appropriate reply is, “You know you scored, right? He/she/they looks even better now that he/she/they has put on some much-needed abdominal fat and lost all that pesky excess head hair.”
3. No one is to ask any creative person if he or she is working on a second book/screenplay/multimedia installation/rock opera/[fill in the blank]. Especially not a book. The answer is yes, sort of, in my mind, or not, please shut up. Update: You are especially not allowed to ask Stephanie this.
4. The only appropriate greeting is, “I am so happy to see you. You look fantastic.” You can leave off “But I can’t remember your name.” Update: Now this last part is permissible, because really, who remembers anything anymore?
5. Everyone is to offer his or her name, even if they think the person surely must remember that time they made out after some party sometime, you think, or maybe it was her roommate. Update: Or maybe it was at the 25th Reunion.
6. No one is to be put in the position to justify his or her [update: or their] life choices, and no one should feel compelled to do so. For example, “You’re married? But weren’t you militantly polyamorous in college?” Let it be hereby stated for the record that being a stay-at-home parent officially counts as work and you don’t also have to have a blog about it to be considered worthwhile. Update: F— yeah.
7. Everyone gets to complain about how the current gym is so much better than what we had back in the day, and the student center and the housing, too. Update: And the students. The students are better now than they were then, too. Especially the children of alumni.
8. Agree to dispense with any discussions of cosmetic injectables, hair coloring, or intestinally restrictive undergarments as valid feminist choices. Update: Everyone shares his/her/their dermatologist/colorist/bra-fitter’s personal cell number. And most effective pharmaceutical antidepressant regimen and probiotic supplement. And which foods we are intolerant of. And your ideal CBD/THC ratio. Everyone shares everything, basically, because who remembers anything anymore?
Entirely new adds to the list:
9. Propose we assume we all agree about the state of the government and the state of political discourse and refrain from having any. Even if that’s not true, what the hell is the point?
10. People without children, people with grandchildren, people with children living in their basements and cooking meth . . . No judgments.
11. Everyone should ask about one another’s kid, child, offspring, or loin fruit, as opposed to son or daughter. Odds are good that at least one of everyone’s family is no longer the gender they were assigned at birth.
12. No recording the sounds any of us makes when we try to stand up from our Foss Hill blankets and posting them on social. And no competitive step taking . . . leave your FitBits at home.
Let’s keep this list growing on our Class of 1989 Facebook page; but if you’re not on Facebook, ping a classmate who is and have them add your wisdom for you.
While we might like to include the updates we merely witness from Reunion in the next issue, that’s not how this works. We are not investigative reporters and we’re not on duty the whole time either. We will ask for updates, but we won’t be aiming to surprise you by printing unapproved ones.
Bottom line: Come to campus. Party, connect, eat, have deep conversations, or keep it totally shallow. Your pick. Just show up. It’ll be a better memory with you in it. Registration and more information can be found here: wesleyan.edu/rc. We sincerely hope to see you on campus!
Jonathan Fried | jonathan.l.fried@gmail.com
Michele Barnwell | fishtank_michele@yahoo.com