4/2/00

Whew, I survived the party. I even had fun, although I'm not sure I'd want to go through all that again next year. I got to meet lots of new people and see a lot of old friends, though I didn't really get to talk to any of them for more than a couple of minutes. And even though I brought my camera, I only took two pictures all night, and those were both at dinner beforehand.

I was quite impressed with the quality of gifts I received, as well. I'm very hard to shop for, so I always tell people not to bother trying to get me anything, because I probably won't like it. But I was proven quite wrong. So today, I've been wearing the necklace that Trish got me and the bracelets Satya brought, listening to the Nick Drake CD Phil gave me (after I confessed to loving this Volkswagen commercial) and reading the Dave Eggers book which my friends Matt and Christie bought me (incredibly, even though they are friends of mine, they don't have a webpage!).

I got lots of other cool stuff, too, that I haven't used yet. Jay got me a rice cooker. He spent much of the evening last night complaining that I never write anything nice about him, and even tried to talk Beth into writing something nice about him in her journal, so I figured that mentioning his thoughtful gift would be a good start. Lunesse decided to ignore the suggestions in her forum and got me a nice candle with lots of berries embedded in it. I guess the fact that it has berries in it is confusing to some people, because I noticed this morning that there's a sticker on the bottom of the candle that says "Warning: do not eat. For home fragrance use only."

None of the party disasters I had managed to conjure up in my mind actually happened. The place was set up just as I wanted it. The DJ showed up and all the equipment worked. The restaurant where we met for dinner wasn't too crowded. My CD player didn't get stolen out of the trunk of Andy's car while we ate dinner. The weather was good. People showed up and danced and drank and seemed to have a pretty good time. And I didn't sprain an ankle in my new high-heeled shoes.

The crowd ended up being a pretty good mix. It was about half people I know from online and half people I know from school, with a few stragglers who don't fit into either category. There wasn't much mixing between the two groups, although two guys in my class surprised me with the news that they'd spent some time that day reading up on my webpage. I haven't kept a secret of the fact that I have a webpage, but until now, as far as I know, nobody in my class had actually taken the initiative to go find it and read it, so I guess I had figured that nobody ever would. It's not that I mind them reading it or anything, I was just surprised.

By the end of the party, I was completely exhausted. I hadn't slept well on Friday night, having come home from the lab at 6 p.m. and fallen directly asleep only to wake up three hours later. I then watched two videos ("Ten Things I Hate About You" and "Permanent Midnight," both of which were kind of boring) and then stayed up half the night reading. I woke up early on Saturday, too, full of nerves about the party. I puttered around my apartment for a while, talked to my parents on the phone, and then went downtown to go see an 11:15 showing of "High Fidelity." It was pretty good--not great. Most of the really funny jokes I'd already seen in the preview, and none of the characters in the movie were particularly endearing, so I didn't really get drawn in.

On the way home from the movie, I stopped at an ATM to get some cash when an especially aggressive panhandler asked me for money. I'd seen him before and maybe some of you San Franciscans have, too: he's an Asian guy who hangs out around the Opera Plaza on Van Ness. "I know you have a dollar!" he said accusingly, and he did know, because he was peering over my shoulder and into my open wallet as I carried out my transaction. I really wanted to tell him to fuck off, because it was pissing me off that he was standing so close, but I seem to constitutionally lack the ability to be quite so confrontational, so I just told him, "sorry." He then showed that he had no such reservations by calling me a "fucking bitch." Oh well.

After that, I came home, had a burrito, and took a fitful nap. When I woke up, it was time to start getting ready for the party.

Today has been considerably quieter. I talked to my parents this morning and found out that my dad broke his arm earlier today while walking the dog. As my mom pointed out, this has been a dangerous couple of weeks for the Wade family. First my grandfather was hospitalized and had surgery to remove a prostate tumor. Then, while he was in the hospital, his wife fell and cut her forehead and had to have a bunch of stitches. And now my dad's broken his arm.

I didn't really do anything exciting today. I just recovered from my party and cleaned up my apartment, and took a long walk in the park because it was such a beautiful day. I can't believe the weekend is over already. Sigh.

The Forum: are you good at being rude to people?