Ugh. I am a horrible person. For the next 24 hours I do not deserve anybody's trust. This weekend I was supposed to look after my friend Marianne's pets, as she was going out of town. You know, walk and feed the dog, feed the cats and rats and fish. Guess who did not give them a second thought this weekend? ME. Jesus God F'ing Christ. I realized it this morning before I had to go out for office hours and I felt like the biggest shit ever. Just really horrible. Because it's not just like I forgot to do a favor for a friend, it's like several living beings that someone loves were placed in my care and I completely forgot about them. Like, if Yuka had forgotten to come feed my snake when I was away, I would have been pissed for that very reason. Someone goes hungry because, welp, I just forgot. Ugh.

And so I came over today while Marianne was at work and the kids were at school. I apologized formally to the pets as I fed them treats I bought for them, gave the dog an extra-long walk, and left a note for Marianne telling her I obviously owed her a chunk of my free time. It was good to see that the pets were totally okay. Still, when the realization hit me you wouldn't believe how terrible I felt.

If butter were a vegetable, and it were cross-bred with pickles, Kalamata olives would be the result. That is to say, they are amazingly good.

McSweeney's Internet Tendencies recently accepted a couple short pieces of mine for features on their website. They're not up yet, and I don't know when they will be, but I am deathly excited that the McSweeney's editors seem to like my style. I'll put links to them once they're up.

Oh yes. I wanted to finish writing about the rest of the stuff from the party Saturday night.

First I need to explain my history with Noah:
I met Noah through Alex in April. Noah did tech for a play Alex was in at UC Berkeley. We met at a cast party Alex had at his house when he wasn't living with his dad. Noah and I hit it off, having a spirited conversation about scarves, Douglas Hofstadter, and theatre. All truth told, I thought he might be gay, otherwise he had a really girly crush on me. Turns out the latter was true.
At the time, I had been dating Joe (not J) for about four months. Joe and I were having rocky spots (which would lead to our imminent breakup). Noah and I started hanging out because he was cool, we enjoyed a lot of the same things, and he had the time when I did. Part of the trouble between me and Joe is that he never seemed to have the time for me. An absentee boyfriend who rarely called. It was a big problem. Also, he had this sort of on-again, off-again pattern that was really wearing on my nerves. But otherwise, ha ha, I was still in love with him. One night when Noah and I were hanging out in Berkeley, we went by Joe's place to see if he wanted to hang out. I wanted to Joe particularly much that night; I wanted to kiss him and I wanted him to be my boyfriend. You know that feeling, when you just really want someone to be there? He wasn't there. Feeling kinda let down, again, we just let a note saying that we stopped by. Noah and I went back to my house and decided to watch a movie. We crept closer and closer, and when the movie ended, we were kissing. He ended up spending the night, and while we never went very far, we did a whole lot of what we did.

You needn't tell me that I made a huge mistake. I know I did. Because as stated earlier, Noah had a huge girly crush on me. What I wanted to make of it was, Look, making out was fun and it was an isolated incident, we're not going to ever do it again and let's not make an issue of it. What Noah did with it was, Oh, I'm in love with her now, how tragic that she has a boyfriend. Now as I mentioned before, breakup with Joe was imminent, and it happened a few weeks later. Noah did not stop hoping for a relationship in that time. Unfortunately, I did not in any way want Noah as a boyfriend. I got with him that night because I was lonely and disappointed, and Noah was there when my boyfriend was not. That's not how he saw it. He continued wanting a relationship, and I kept having to say in many different ways, Look, there will be no relationship. I had to do this many times; apparently one of Noah's stronger traits is perseverance. And god, it was so awkward for the longest time. And he didn't want to take a break to get over me, no, not noble Noah, he could handle being friends--except he couldn't. It took him a while to get used to the fact that I didn't want him, but he did, and we're still good friends. BUT--I know for a fact that if I were to give him the cue, any day any time, that he would come running for it. It's too bad. He still gives the cues that he's for me.

J picked up on those cues Saturday night. It didn't spoil anything, and we had a great time together, but as we were saying goodbye, he asked me how long I'd known Noah. I told him since April, and he seemed a little unsettled, and I asked him if he wanted me to tell him about it later, and he said yeah.

It felt good that he asked about that. It means that a) he's paying attention, and b) he's comfortable enough with me to ask about it, and from the way he asked about it, c) he doesn't jump to conclusions. He really is So Great.

4:03 p.m. 2003-10-20�