2002-06-16 - 12:21 p.m.

Well, I can't not write about this, or I'll be telling people the same story all week. People have been happy for me since last Saturday, with my date-type thing I had planned for yesterday, so I know people will want to know what happened with it.

First of all, I've been watching the weather reports since Tuesday. Kind of silly, since your average weather report is pretty unreliable more than a couple of days ahead of time, but it's not like looking at five-day forecasts takes very long, so of course, when I was online, and started to wonder about it, I'd go find one of those forecasts. And of course, they all predicted rain all weekend. Sasha had told me she goes there to see that band every week with her parents, and had gestured in the direction of the band, which, while I never saw who her parents were, had given me the impression that her parents were connected with the band in some way. Which told me that, if it rained, then the band wouldn't play, and she wouldn't be there.

But the week had been going very well so far. Just, everything seemed to be coming together perfectly for me. I just knew it was going to work. Somehow, whatever the weather, whatever happened with the band, I was going to go, and it was going to work out.

So, yesterday afternoon, I was watching the National Weather Service's local Doppler Radar, and watching the rain edge past Boston, almost gone by the time I left the house at 1:30. So I was convinced the rain was going to stop in plenty of time for the band to play and for Sasha to show up.

Apparently my meteorology skills are not what they were. A nasty, cold, light, drizzling rain fell all day. It seemed like it was never going to stop.

At seven thirty, I was at a mall in Cambridge. I decided to go at 8:30, which was earlier than I'd been there the week before, but about as late as I could imagine myself walking around, killing time and pretending I wasn't just walking around and killing time, waiting for a decent time to go to Harvard Square. I'd already killed about five hours walking around book stores, getting a haircut, eating, trying things out at the mall, like a neck massage machine that I really want to buy, finding a book of things recovered from Douglas Adams' computers after he died, and riding around on the subway reading "Brave New World." Finally I gave up, and headed to Harvard Square.

I actually got there at about 8:20. Took out my ever-present towel, put it on the cold steps, sat on it, and took out the book, reading more. Decided I'd wait until 9:30 before giving up. And that's just what I did. I read through about ten pages in that hour, because every time someone walked in my direction I looked up to see if it was her. It wasn't. There were plenty of people who looked like her, especially out of the corner of my eye, but none actually were her. Finally, the waiting and cold were too much, and I had to go. I kept walking in the general area, just in case, but no, as expected, the band never showed, so she didn't, either. Oh well. I can just wait another week. Instead, I just went to the Coolidge Corner theater and got my head messed up by "Metropolis." I hope the weather's better next weekend.