I'm wiped out after another hectic week. I spent every day except Tuesday at our customer's site in Silicon Valley, slaving away in a cube farm, supposedly performing the final installation and testing of the application we've been developing for them since Christmas. Unfortunately, I discovered a huge mistake that we'd made, and, after a day of humming and hawing over the phone with my boss back in the office, we had to tell our customer that we had yet one more week of work to add to the project. It seems this thing will never end.

The one positive note is that late Friday, in a conversation with our customer's project-manager, I discovered an enormous opportunity for my company to sell these people more software. If it pans out, it could be a multi-million dollar sale. And will I get the commission? Not a chance, but maybe my flag will fly a little higher.

My spirits have been on the low side this week. It wasn't just the daily facelessness of Silicon Valley, but also a few other little social incidents that conspired to knock my already shaky ego. I went to a party on Saturday at Cecilia's. As usual, her best friend, L, was there, with his entire entourage. Way back when I first met Cecilia, L and I had an on and off again thing going. But it ended awkwardly, and, since then, despite our strong, mutual interest in literature, and a similar sense of humor, we've never hit it off as friends. And now, there's just something difficult, for me at least, about encountering him.

At the party, at one point, I entered the living room to find L and many of his friends seated in a big circle, chatting. It was an uneasy entrance, since I was the only one standing up, and there were no more chairs, and, of course, everybody stops to look at the newcomer. So, as L sat beneath me, I engaged him in a fitful conversation, feeling every awkward inch of my six feet five, as everybody else just sat and listened. Thankfully, the conversation around me soon became general, and a seat opened up. And then L said loudly, in a joking manner, that he and I "used to be friendly". I laughed it off, and said, we're still friendly, just not friends, but it just made me feel unhappy, and shortly afterwards I said my goodbyes and left.

Such an incident would have washed right off me had I not already been feeling at a low ebb of self-confidence. Sigh. I feel I'm too old to be still subject to moods like this. But I unfortunately inherited my mother's worriesome, reflective disposition. I think the event that brought me low in the first place, this past week or so, though, was disappointment with a guy I'd met recently. For the first time in a long time, I'd met a guy who excited me. We'd had a great date, and I was looking forward very much to meeting him again. But things went sour, and he played that well-worn game of initially proclaiming interest, and subsequently not following up. He cancelled our second date at the last minute, then we played phone tag for a week, and then he just didn't call when he said he would. I waited a couple of days, and then sent him an email saying, in effect, I can read the tea-leaves, but if he could email me back telling me what caused his lack of interest, I'd appreciate it. He didn't offer me the courtesy of a response. Of course, this is a blow. Not so much because I'd expected great thing from this one particular guy. But because, for once, I'd opened up for myself the tiniest doorway of hope, only to have it slammed on my fingers.

I do, however, take one consolation from the experience. It's nice to learn that I can still get excited about somebody.