06.28.04 - 6:15 p.m.

The Kerry fundraiser was fun. Last time I'd seen Trent was Halloween 2003. We were all in the Castro and him, me, and this girl Edie got separated from the others, and we ended up taking refuge from the crowd in a bar. I hung out with him and Edie for a while but eventually felt like a third wheel and left in search of Az. As it turns out, Trent and Edie hooked up that night for the first time, and they started dating, and eventually moved into together! It was funny to hear them both tell me this story many months later, at a political event in their home. "We were always like 'remember that boy who was there that night? yeah, who was he?'" I took a bow, happy to have figured into their lives in a small but memorable way.

Over dinner we learned that they're moving to Vietnam soon-- Edie won a Fulbright. She's the second girl I've met in the last month or so who's won a Fulbright to south-east Asia. Both of them told me it's totally doable, although their areas of study-- public health and feminist jurisprudence, respectively-- are somewhat removed from my own academic concentration (boozology). But the wheels are slowly turning.

It was a busy weekend. At Maya & Peter's engagement party up in Mill Valley, I tried my first oyster. It did not exactly light my loins on fire. I think people just say oysters are aphrodisiacs because they're slimy and fishy, not unlike... well you know. It's one of those foods that requires a lot of effort for very little reward.

On Sunday I bought a car. 99 corolla. I took it for a test drive but I have to admit, I didn't do every test recommended by some of the more elaborate checklists. I tried very hard not to crash the car while driving it, because I'm not sure what the etiquette is if you crash a car while test-driving. Can you just