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Excuses | Dec 17 2001

I never intended to read her journal. This is important. I did not enter her room with the intention of finding her journal so that I could read it. Admittedly, this does not exonerate me of anything; however, I believe that my lack of premeditation places the crime in a somewhat less serious category.

So goes excuse #1.

Excuse #2: She did not need to leave the journal in plain view. Again, I don’t mean to claim that I was justified in reading it; far from it; I mean only to say that had she not left the journal on her night table, I never would have read it. The logic here is that, again, I did not seek out the journal but rather fell prey to its temptations.

I am not, I hasten to add, blaming the victim. The victim is innocent and I am guilty. My point, however, and I realize that I have already said this in several ways, is that I am not in the habit of reading people’s journals and that it took an unusual circumstance to get me to do so.

A bit of exposition. This happened over twenty years ago, while I was spending a few weeks in a different city, visiting an old friend.

Actually, wait, there’s excuse #3: I was young and didn’t know better.

But to continue. My friend had a roommate Molly, and Molly was smart and beautiful and artsy and so naturally I developed a little crush on Molly, who, it seemed, developed a little crush on me. Right. So one day, after all this nearly unbearable build-up, me and Molly kiss—or make-out, I suppose—which while great isn’t really so great in the sense that it doesn’t seem that anything happens. We kiss for a time and then stop, and that’s pretty much it. After that, Molly’s interest in me seems to wane, although it is difficult to tell for certain because Molly is a hard read and I feel too shy to ask.

The next day Molly leaves the apartment and I go into her room to find a book to read and instead notice her journal on the night table. Right.

This moment is the key moment and yet I have nothing to say about it. I saw the journal, told myself I shouldn’t read it, decided to read it anyway, and sat down to read it, first noting its exact position on the night table.

Excuse #4: I only read the parts that related to me.

Actually these excuses are not excuses but diminishments. I mean to whittle my crime down to its smallest possible size, like in that game one plays where one takes a little piece of food and splits it in half, then splits one of the halfs in half, again and again, until the thing that remains is but a crumb, or even less than a crumb, and basically disappears.

I began from the entry marked with the date of my appearance in Molly’s household and read through to the present, skipping her reflections on other people and other events.

Here I learned, or confirmed, two important facts:

  1. Molly was immediately attracted to me, just like I was to her.
  2. Molly felt very little while kissing me, which surprised her but which she nonetheless considered an unassailable truth.

There were no revelations in any of this and yet it was a great relief to know for certain what had happened. I replaced the journal on the night table and began looking for a book to read.

Whatever book I found, it apparently failed to capture my imagination (excuse #5: I was bored), because the next day I read Molly’s journal a second time to see if she had added anything.

By my way of thinking, this return trip falls into a different, more serious category, for I now knew how Molly felt and thus had no excuse (excuse #6: I didn’t know how Molly felt) for reading her journal.

Excuse #7, apropos of nothing: People do worse things.

Excuse #8: At least I’m being honest about it, for the most part.

At any rate, Molly had in fact added a bit more: she was experiencing a surge in her feelings for me and was wondering if a second round of kissing might be in order. This was thrilling yet confusing, as Molly hadn’t done anything to indicate such feelings in person. Guilt struck (excuse #9: I feel guilt and thus cannot be considered a monster) with the realization that I now knew something I wasn’t supposed to know. This is in contrast to the first reading, which merely confirmed certain suspicions.

Perhaps due to the awkward circumstance of knowing Molly’s secret, I did not kiss her that night (excuse #10: I suffered for my crime), and then the next morning I returned to her journal for the third and last time. Here is what I found written there:

Michael, I know that you are reading my journal because I am reading yours. I don’t want to do this anymore. Truce.

Excuse #11: She was doing it too for christsake, so fucking shoot me.