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Epilogue: Apart from my strong desire to see American Reunion, the timing of the fourth (theatrical) installment in the series once again dovetails with real-life circumstances charged with emotion. Next year will be my 20th high school reunion, an event I do plan on attending, particularly since I did not go to my 10th. That fell upon the third weekend of August 2003, while I was in the midst of the events described earlier. And although my best friend was fervent in her desire to get me to attend, I opted for another friend’s wedding that was a late addition to the same weekend. And though I believe I made the right decision, there is a part of me that wonders what if I had gone and when asked “So what’s up with you?” took a sip of some frou-frou drink, made a slightly dramatic pause and launched into an impossibly tragicomic tale of transgressive sexual shenanigans, all-night soul-bearing phone calls, and the exhilarating/terrifying feeling invoked by taking a scorched earth strategy to everything I thought I knew about myself. After which I could pause again and ask “And . . . how are you doing?”


Postscript: But the reunion is a year away. The more relevant news is that another installment of the American Pie franchise is on the big screen and I am once again (almost) a homeowner, for the first time since 2005. If you are reading this on the evening of April 12, 2012, I may have just finished signing the title company escrow documents, meaning that on April 13th, my wife, my son, and I will be given the keys to our first home together.

Post-postscript: And the final ironic capper to it all? (C’mon, you knew there had to be one!): Last weekend, I had to contact my ex-wife for the first time in five years, to get her to give her verbal assent to Sallie Mae, thereby granting me the ability to make lower payments on the spousal consolidation loan we took out in 2002. The last time we had any contact, in 2007, was for a similar reason: I had to prove that I was the one making that payment so that it wasn’t counted as debt against her and her husband as they got approval to buy their first home together. We’ll remain tied together, even in divorce, for the next couple of decades or so.

“And like the book says, we may be through with the past. The past is never through with us.”

Next time: I kick off a rock n’ roll summer with the psychedelic 1968 feature that put a self-inflicted nail in the coffin of the “pre-fab” answer to The Beatles. Come back here for some Head. In 30 days.

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