I've always felt that the goal in life should be to become the kind of person who would have horrified your whole high school. So what am I doing at reunions, actually enjoying myself? My Class of '81 20-year was the best party I ever attended.

Really, it was. Maybe this is because most of us were forced to leave that little rust-belt town in the '80s and it felt like we got our town back for one night. I think it was because we were genuinely curious about each other, in a deep way. None of this empty how-are-the-kids banter, no "pointlessness." Our internal similarities outnumbered the differences we thought were so important in high school.

I'm still convinced I came off like a dork anyway. What the heck, I learned that these high school glamor-bunnies were just as dorky. And it's just CUTE to see your third-grade classmates all dolled up in suits and cocktail dresses. Surreal. Unbelievably wacky. I had a ball.

Reunions are supposed to be where everybody brags and sizes each other up. Really? Actually, the few people in the room who seemed to be putting on the dog were kind of pathetic. The rest of us were just honest. Life kicks everybody in the pants. If it doesn't, you end up with the same mullet and stupid smirk as in high school--hardly anything to brag about.

I learned that what I told myself in high school and only half believed--that it didn't matter what they thought--was completely true. And they didn't walk around for 20 years wondering what I would think, either. There is one distinction, though. At 38, you can definitely tell who has taken responsibility for their choices and who is still pretending it all just happened. Happiness is making choices and owning them. I think you should show up at the reunion as fat as you are, as gray, as defeated -- but by golly come as a grown-up who accepts yourself.

By the way, though, I did get invited to the "cool table." And didn't sit there. By the way, Brooklyn isn't the cool table of life. It's where all the high school dorks end up, and it's great that way.

Highlights of the evening included dancing with my third-grade crush; making up with the girl who had taunted me mercilessly and agreeing to meet for drinks when I returned to town; hearing another girl apologize for doing all those bad things to me, including egging my house; and listening to a homeroom-mate confess his deep senior-year crush on a girl, to that girl and his wife, and dancing to "Homeroom Angel" with him. A 25-year reunion had the priceless moment of the football player and cheerleader reuniting, cute as ever together, while he told her eagerly about his new fiancee, plans for a new job, and so on. The fat kid turned out to be the hottest looking guy there, married, with four or five kids. I spent most of my time talking with the most popular and pretty girl in the class, who really just seemed to want to sit out where it was quiet. In looking up some "lost" classmates for the reunion committee, I found embarrassing divorce papers of the wiseguy I slapped for sexual harassment in 11th grade. And OK, I got my moment of pride when the boy who had lived down the street from me kept glancing my way. Was I pretty after all?

I wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was anything but "pointless."

. . . that this game of Republican politics was played with icky symbols, Peggy "Morning in America" Noonan? That it has lacked substance? That it was a religion rather than a rational approach to things? Is your only complaint that it lacks a moving power to entertain, a cathartic plot? You oughta see how it's playing out in other neighborhoods, babe, where people have more to talk about than Tina Fey. Like, groceries and health and keeping their kids in school on less than three jobs. Yeah--ouch.

The War on Drugs has not been a failure. It has been a resounding success in what it set out to do, which is what all wars set out to do:

Shore up the social hierarchy, racism, and other important distinctions that keep us all from killing each other randomly

Keep the population living in fear

Stamp out "heavy metal" and "psychedelic" music

Perform cathartic sacrifice of "undesirable" groups who carry the mainstream's projections of sexual license, laziness, and so on

Avoid any kind of "transcendental" awareness not shown on TV

Strengthen order in society; keep all those lawns mowed, for instance

Simultaneously, boost underground, black-market industries run by gangsters -- useful people sometimes, especially when you need an assassination or a prostitute

Destroy culture, which can only lead to calls for change in who runs things

Crush the economies of low-earning peasants in foreign countries who might take power

Support our "friends" abroad (dictators, military strongmen, torturers)

Force youth to conform

Divert "coolness" for retail marketing purposes, depicting the hipness of drug use without actual drugs in advertising -- rebellious jeans, visionary "think different" computers, life-in-the-fast-lane sports cars, risky video games, and, well, sunglasses

Support the prison industry, bringer of "jobs"

Contribute to other industries: aircraft and guns, pesticides, rehab, medicine, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, Disney movies and/or porn

Get votes in Red states

Keep the working class feeling happy, tough and tattooed with videos of busting bad guys in the mean streets

Prevent black Americans from gaining power, while letting in an occasional Hispanic who talks tough on law 'n' order

Halting the growth and sale of garden poppies

. . . For all this, $50 billion a year is a bargain. Compare this to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars' dismal record on these points, and I think you'll agree.