I go to change the batteries in my wireless mouse. I already have the new ones laying out on the table, and as I try to get the second old one out, it pops out of my hand and lands on the table, knocking into the others and mixing them all up. Now I don't know which are my old batteries and which are the new ones. This is the kind of day I'm having.

I think I am a bad maid of honor. Today I was doing bridal things all day with my mom, and it left me terribly grumpy. We were shopping for shower favors for half an hour before we decided we're not really make-it-yourself people and we could order something much cooler online. We also picked out thrifty invitations for the shower and I got my dress. None of these on their own are stressful things - buying dresses and cute paper products are actually two of my favorite things to do - but somehow the blizzard that we had to keep walking and driving through managed to dampen my spirits, along with the recurring realization that Lindsey and I have vastly different tastes, and I needed to pick things with her aesthetic in mind instead of my own. I was actually finishing a card with registry info to go into the shower invites when my mouse stopped working and the battery thing (I almost wrote 'fiasco,' but I don't want to be accused of speaking in hyperbole) happened. So. I'm choosing to take that as an omen and retire to Danny's for an evening of wii. Because I do that now?

some things i've been meaning to write about and a surprise visitor

There is a lady bug in my house. It just flew onto my computer screen. It is December. And I know I shouldn't harbor bugs indoors in the winter, but I don't want to kill it; I'm glad that it's here.

I seriously thought about picking up a chap-stick I saw laying on the sidewalk yesterday, cutting off the used part that had been on someone else's lips, and keeping it. How gross is that? (For the record, I left it on the ground. No promises about next time though.)

Last week Meijer started playing Christmas music, and while I was walking down the dairy aisle, a song from the Hanson Christmas album starting playing, and I knew all the words. I didn't sing along, but I must have looked a little weird as I couldn't stop grinning, and if I were a stranger looking at me, I would wonder what this girl found so funny about cottage cheese.

Now the lady bug is crawling through Daisy's fur. Daisy wants it to get off. It's by the base of her tail, so she can't reach it but keeps turning in circles trying to see what's tickling her anyway. The ladybug only has two spots on its back; I think it's one of those faux lady bugs like the kind that were swarming all over Markley in the fall of 2001. This makes me a little friendlier toward the thought of killing it eventually. It just crawled under the printer. Perhaps it heard that (because don't we all talk along to ourselves as we type, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do during every IM conversation of You've Got Mail?).

And speaking of Meijer, while I was checking out in the express lane (that same day, after the Hanson song was over) I couldn't help looking at the items of the man in front of me. I was in an express lane, but not the U-Scan; I don't use that one when I buy produce. Anyway, the man in front of me was buying these things: one XL frozen 'supreme toppings' pizza, a gallon of Gilby's vodka (I thought they only made gin...huh), a gallon of OceanSpray pink grapefruit juice, a pack of cigarettes. I imaged the night he was about to have, and felt a little sad about it. My basket, by the way, was probably just as depressing as his but in an antithetical kind of way; I was getting apples, peanut butter, and milk. While he was going home to eat like a hard-worn construction worker - as his attire suggested - I was going to eat like a 5-year-old. Fantastic.

I'm only here writing this because I don't want to study for my final.

Maybe the lady bug will drive to Allendale and take it for me next Tuesday...if Daisy hasn't eaten it before then (the lady bug, that is, not my final).

W.F.o.t.D.

Warm Fuzzy of the Day:

Hey Miss Taber!

I wanted to let you know that I've spent the last 55 minutes trying to memorize "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens, a poem that I picked to perform tomorrow in my interpretive reading class because I remembered it from your whiteboard last year! I hope all is well, and I hope to see you soon!

All The Best,
Student X

(A note I found in my facebook mailbox this evening)

Since I'm sick of looking at those spinning wheels, it's time to put something else here. Actually, I've recently experienced a break-up of sorts, and I probably should talk about it in a balm-of-hurt-minds, cathartic kind of way.

It happened over Thanksgiving; my relationship with my cell phone ended, and I'm taking it pretty hard. I mean, we met in college, which everybody knows is a pretty intense situation as far as social networking and relationship building goes. We were together all the time - during class and going out on the weekends. It was there through that killer student teaching semester and then after graduation when I wasn't quite sure where I was going or what I was doing. But lately, things between us had been a little strained. The connection was getting weaker, the energy was low almost all the time, and the whole thing just felt kind of old and tired, like there was no mystery left. I mean, I knew those buttons and menus so well that I could dial in the dark, or one-handed, or even with mittens on if it came to that. That's how close we were. But it wasn't enough. I knew that fateful morning, when I woke up and found a blank screen staring at me, that the spark was finally gone for good. That was the end of it. And even though I had seen it coming for a long time, that instant it sort of felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

I've got a new phone now, but things are still awkward between us; sure it's thinner than my old phone, but that just means it's harder to find in my purse. And it feels different when I hold it in my hand and press it up against my ear. It's going to take a while to get used to each other, that's all. You don't just walk away from a four-year relationship, even if moving on means internet access and a built-in touch-screen mp3 player, whole and unscathed. Soon enough I'll be able to look back and remember the good times. For now, I'm just taking things one voice mail at a time, and that will have to be enough.

Can someone put this picture on a tshirt for me, or would that just be asking for unwanted leering? I suppose it would look nice as a nifty throw pillow or tote bag too. (Don't look too long or it will make you a little nauseated)

And while we're speaking of optical illusions, I almost think I'd prefer this one on a tshirt. Much more hip and edgy (if optical illusions can every be described as such...)

A Kind of Mediocre Thanksgiving Break Debriefing

These long breaks always make me feel obliged to retell as many Stories of What Happened as I can, but those things are (almost) never as funny to read about as they are to actually be in, plus there are plenty of pictures on facebook to allow the reader to recreate most of the weekend in his imagination. In this recreation, the following images-slash-story lines must be included: pirates, cougars, bulls' testicles, scrabble, long johns, whiskey, not going to breakfast after all - sorry scott!, mark wahlberg's penis, a fifteen-foot sushi roll, spooning, and Bop-It (If others who were there feel this list is incomplete, they should add on via tha comment box). The previous sentence notwithstanding, instead of particulars, I am simply going to report that though my sleep patterns over the holiday were practically inverted as well as severely truncated, I feel remarkably refreshed as I sit here at the end looking back. For five whole days, I had my life back to I spend time how I wanted instead of how some daily schedule dictated by The Man. I was also surprisingly productive as far as grading and grad-schooling goes. Who would have thought? In conclusion, I still love stuffing.

What I Did At School Today

Today and tomorrow are professional development days at school. This year we're focusing on technology, and somewhere along the way, between two key-note speakers and four break-out sessions, I learned about this crazy, new-fangled notion of 'embedding' things into blog entries. (I also started a wiki. If you know any word puzzles that would be fun for high schoolers, please share them with me.) But I digress; here is my first attempt at embedding on my own.

Somehow I've managed to land myself in a deluge of Shakespeare this month. This week and weekend in particular I will be reading four(!) plays for various grad-and-high-school-related undertakings. Othello and Macbeth will be (or have recently been) taught to the kiddles, and The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream have some strikingly tenable threads binding them to James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, which I will attempt to unpack and elucidate in a competent (or at least coherent) fashion by the beginning of December (sidebar: if anyone out there is a scholar of the Venetian Jew and has insights on the character of Shylock demanding to be shot in my general direction, they should not feel compelled to quell said impulses...). You'd think that the upcoming break from school would be a perfect time to immerse myself in this project, but the same days I should spend in academic seclusion happen to be the ones on which everyone will be home and ready to play. I think there used to be a version of me who was a pretty deft time-budgeter. We shall see if she's still in there somewhere.

might and yes

I want to go to Ann Arbor to see Julie, and Scott, and The Darjeeling Limited. And I want to visit Emily and Aaron in the Cracker Barrel, and I want to do lots of other things. I like my job and my grad class, but when I have to grade a mountain of papers and read a pile of novel and write some things, and it's conferences week so between that and class there was (almost) literally no free time this week, I start feeling a little suffocated and consequently whiny. School all day and grading and planning all night and weekend aren't a good way to spend the next twenty-five years. I will (brace yourself for a trite cliche) wake up one day and be old and tired and empty. Then again, this is only one week. Maybe I should just get over it already. Anyway, if I grade papers and read my novel alternating every hour until 11 tonight, then get up in the morning and wash, rinse, repeat, I might be done by tomorrow evening (might). And then the 'weekend' can begin and things will be okay. Yes.

I just woke up from a terrible dream where I was trying to play Scrabble but I couldn't. I kept forgetting how to spell words, and taking too many tiles, and soon there were six J's in play, and I had 45 letters piled up on my tray (all of which were metallic and black, so apparently my subconscious is harboring some kind of anxiety toward industrialism?). I think my dream (I just deleted 'nightmare' because I didn't want to sound so dramatic) was born out of the empanadas, sangria, and chocolate truffle cake we had a San Chez last night, so maybe it was worth it. Also, I'll bet this is my brain telling me it's been too long since I've played Scarbble, and now it's reverting to the only me-time it has to revisit fond memories. Because other than when I'm sleeping, my brain has pretty much been occupied with school and grad class - but mostly school - for the past two months.

Except, of course, for Chicago last weekend which had many highlights, one of which involves my nose ring falling out without my noticing, forcing me to scour (metaphorically) the floor of our hotel bathroom at five in the morning, retrieve it, and jam it back into my face. I've never taken it out before, so, had I been less sleepy (and maybe a little less inebriated), it probably would have been a bigger, scarier deal than it was. Besides for things like that though, Grand Rapids is pretty quiet until one of your comes to visit.

I do have one important and good piece of news: you can stop signing in before coming to see me. I think I'm safe again.

This week in class the kids podcast and really liked it. I almost had a heart attack dealing with all of the technical troubleshooting that I'm pretty ill-equipped to cope with, but next time I'll be much more on top of things. I finally met success on my quest to find bronze (colored, not made of) shoes for Emily's wedding, and my grad class is reading Last of the Mohicans which I'm preparing to force myself to finish this afternoon (as the real function of the blog as a procrastinatory tool finally emerges). This is why I don't update as much, I suppose; everything feels mundane yet urgent and hectic, which are perfect conditions to convince a blogger that she has nothing to write about. Anyway, if my nose ring falls out again, I'll be sure to check in with an update.

Lastly, is anyone else counting down to the end of Daylight Savings Time? I'm totally jonesing for a fall-back. In fact, I might just add two hours back in to my life instead of one. For some reason, this fall I'm feeling particularly entitled to gratis free time.

Go get a grapefruit.
Peel it.
Section it.
Freeze it.
Eat it.

Thank me later.

checking in

wow, where did that month go? that's ok, i never really liked september anyway. october is where it's at. i'm just popping in for a minute to report that i finally figured out who my english professor reminds me of. every tuesday night, i sit in class for three hours learning from the doppelganger of sue johanson of the canadian phone-in smash hit 'talk sex with sue johanson.' and it's awesome.


(miscellanea: meredith is coming home this weekend for the heritage hill tour, rockford boutiques, indian food, and general jolliness; we are podcasting next week in english 11 - the web may or may not be ready for this jelly; next weekEND is emily's chicago bachelorette weekend extravaganza; ormond is kind of awful)

and this...

It is with strange malice
That I distort the world.

Ah! that ill humors
Should mask as white girls.
And ah! that Scaramouche
Should have a black barouche.

The sorry verities!
Yet in excess, continual,
There is cure of sorrow.

Permit that if as ghost I come
Among the people burning in me still,
I come as belle design
Of foppish line.

And I, then, toutured for old speech,
A white of wildly woven rings;
I, weeping in a calined heart,
My hands such sharp, imagined things.

-The Weeping Burgher,
WS

I just got back from my first night of grad class, and I kind of need to talk about it. Not the actual content stuff. That was nice, once I got over being terrified for the first half hour while we did introductions and I thought maybe I'd forgotten how to think like a smart person. It's fine though. By the time the three hours ended, my anxieties were assuaged.

So, back to my trauma. First of all, I was late. Not for lack of planning, but kind of for lack of planning. I wanted to get there early to find the room and get a good seat and do other silly, former-over-achiever kinds of things, so I left my house forty minutes before class started. The drive to Allendale is about twenty miles, so I was sure I would get there in plenty of time. Except that my class started at 6, which means I left home at 5:20, and it kind of slipped my mind that this would put me smack dab in the middle of rush hour traffic, trying to traverse the mighty beast that is Downtown Grand Rapids (AND Walker AND Standale, which were actually worse that GR). So I didn't make it there in twenty minutes; it took about fifty. I walked in to class ten minutes late and sweaty and puffing from power walking from the parking lot (commuting is lame, btw), all the way to the classroom. But. But but but. This is where the story actually starts to get so bad that it's funny.

The thing is, this is a seminar class - very small, you know? Caps at 15, but there are apparently only 13 of us actually taking it this semester. And guess who the shit ass damn hell is sitting right up there in the front row of the class? (this is only going to be interesting to the U of M people, and maybe even not all of them...). It's Lauren Hoffman. In my class. My tiny tiny class of people who are going to get really close and friendly and discussiony for the next sixteen weeks or so. I don't think I need to (or want to, at least) say any more. In different circumstances I would punch her out pretty quick, but we're going to be keeping it business while we're in class. And today she seemed nice enough. Besides, that's all ancient history anyway. Like, we're talking Mesozoic. It's just like fate needed a good laugh or something. Glad I could help out with that one. Guh.

Couple things. First of all, the serial blinker has struck again. I just got back from GVSU orientation where, after suppressing countless yawns while they talked about libraries and buses and tech support, I waited in line to have my picture taken for my student ID card. After the presentations, half the crowd stampeded over to building C and got in line. I was something like thirty-second out of about one hundred. Or something. The specifics aren't important, what matters is that there were a whole lot of people behind me, bored and tired and growing more impatient all the time, and I couldn't take a decent picture. The flash seemed to be perfectly in sync with my blink reflex, which, sadly, I can only consistently suppress by holding my eyes WIDE open like I'm really surprised. I was almost doing that by attempt number five, and the girl was telling me about how flexible their hours were, suggesting that I come back later when someone has adequate time to devote to capturing my open-eyed self. Thankfully, attempt five worked, and I was out of there.

While I stood in line, I had time to admire my surroundings. Maybe U of M has spoiled me. A few people have said things to me asserting that this is decidedly so (something about class called Arrogance 101 required freshmen year...absolute tosh, if you ask me). Anyway, I was always under the impressions that universities were supposed to be places of proud, solemn tradition, places of gravitas, not places with striped awnings, fake palm trees, and indoor faux cabanas. Perhaps I just need to diversify my definitions and expectations a bit. We shall see.

For the past two days we've had tech training workshops at school. This year, my students will create digital narratives and podcasts, among other things. To be able to teach a room full of sixteen-year-olds to do this, us teachers had to learn first, so yesterday I facilitated a discussion that became a podcast, and today I made this little gem (see if you can recognize the parts I lifted from a former blog entry). It's rough and simple, but it was my first try, so judge it gently if you feel the need to judge at all.

And there were even more stories to tell, but a certain Mr. Blair recently got to them first, thus draining all of my narrative momentum. They will wait for later.

Because What You Really Needed Was A Medical Update

Top 10 Things That Seem To Strain The Stitches In A Rather Alarming, Something-In-There-Is-Going-To-Burst Kind Of Way:

10. Chewing
9. Swallowing
8. Smiling
7. Laughing
6. Talking to others on the phone
5. Talking to others in person
4. Flipping my head over really fast to wrap my wet hair in a towel
3. Opening jars with sticky lids
2. Moving heavy furniture around my classroom
1. Sneezing

Clearly in the past three days I haven't had any fun at all.

But that's not really true. I mean, it's "fun" knowing that I'll never have to have my wisdom teeth out again; it was "fun" waking up in the middle of surgery to feel the doctor yanking away at that bottom left one (not that there was pain exactly, but the memory of that weird pressure is enough to start the chills a-rollin'); it's "fun" being able to feel again that rather large patch of skin up by my left temple that was mysteriously numb for the first 18 hours after I woke up; it's "fun" carrying around the aroma of frozen peas in my skin after holding the bag up to my face for hours and hours; and it will really be fun being able to brush my teeth like a normal person (all the way to the back and with vigor!).

The smiling is really the only bad part. I don't mind the ice cream and guilt-free hours on the couch catching up on my New Yorkers and Bravo programming. But the way I keep making myself bleed when I smile is pretty annoying. I guess didn't realize I did that so often and so unconsciously until my face forced me to stop entirely. I went out yesterday and tried going to the bank and the grocery store without smiling when I thanked the clerk, and then of course the thought of how silly I must look struck me as hilarious so I grinned all the way back to the car anyway. My gums must hate me.

There's a good chance I'll be getting scurvy any day now. When I travel, it's hard to work in those fruits and veggies as often as I should. If only hot dogs had vitamin C. And first thing tomorrow morning, while my legs are still throbbing from traipsing around Grant Park for the last three days at Lollapalooza where I scratched my glasses in that irreparable, you-need-new-lenses-because-of-course-you-have-time-for-this-right-now kind of way(and before that I was up north for the Great Family Reunion and at Portage Point with my good friends the Mossings, hence the updatelessness around here and previous hot dog reference), I'll be going under the knife to have all four of my impacted wisdom teeth cut out of my helpless, innocent gums. Awesome. After that I'll have to hurry up and get my grad school stuff all straightened out since I managed to sneak into fall classes at GVSU, and Emily's bridal shower is this weekend, which in itself is exciting, but is made even more fantastic by the prospect of seeing some of my favorite people and trying on bride's maids dresses with them. My life is pretty much a run-on sentence lately, so I'm not going to apologize for all of those guys up there. And know who else uses run-ons? My hero Dave Eggers. Not that that makes it okay. I'm just saying.

Oh, Honestly

So, there's this and this.

Now, I'm not necessarily proud that these things amuse me, I'm just putting them out there in the interest of creating an honest representation of my online persona. It's important to recognize our own weaknesses, and I apparently have a thing for puppet humor and children's books. So what? Anyway, I know I'm getting a little heavy into the Potter stuff with these last two postings. I'll be done after today, I promise. This was mostly just for Julie and Kat anyway, since I know they share my enthusiasm. If these movies and books were coming out during the school year, I certainly would have less time for finding and posting such silliness.

Also, I am most definitely (or at least seriously considering) having the students make and use puppets next year when we read Macbeth, and maybe Lord of the Flies too. So much potential for hands-on (or...hands-in?) learning.

They started jackhammering outside my window at 9:30 this morning. It could have been worse (and by worse I mean earlier) I know, but I was still displeased. This is the week I'm indulging my usually-latent Harry Potter appreciation (because obsession lumps me in with all those other people) and staying up late reading books five and six. I didn't exactly mean to dive back into the books again, but after seeing the fifth movie, I had to go back and see if it was really true that there was no quidditch at all that year. Of course there was. There were actually lots of things that happen in the book that the director chose to omit from the movie, so I'm pretty disappointed with it, and also glad to read the book again, in a sped-up, skimming, refresher sort of way. But anyway, my point is that I was up with Potter until wayyy late, and then the jackhammers wouldn't let me sleep as late as I'd planned. Boo!

In happier news, besides Harry Potter (which kind of counts as fake reading, I feel like) I'm replacing my J.D. Salinger crush with a Dave Eggers infatuation (how many degrees between a crush and an infatuation? "Some but not too many" is what I was going for) and now I'm reading How We Are Hungry, after finish AHWOSG and YSKOV. People have been recommending Eggers to me for ages, so I'm glad I'm finally listening and agreeing. Only, the thing is, I keep buying new books, even as the piles grow perilously around my feet, slowly engulfing inch after inch of precious floor-space in my living and bed rooms. Then again, there's still room in the kitchen. I feel like this might be my Thing in life - that demon I struggle with until it eventually overcomes me on my deathbed and my dying wish is that I'd ever actually been able to finish all the books in my pile, even Don Quixote. Then again, I kind of hope my To Be Read pile never does run out, because the day there are no more books I want to read is the day I'm cashing in my chips and checking out anyway. So Dave Eggers. Those of you who have read and loved Giraffes? Giraffes! should read him if you haven't already. After all, he is half of Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey, so how could you not expect great things?

Other news. Since summer, I've slowly been making my way toward a regular shower-every-other-day schedule, and it's pretty amazing. Do other people do this? I think they probably do, and no one ever told me how much more free time I'd have if I just started washing myself half as often. So far no one seems to have noticed, or at least I've gotten no complaint-type comments about my appearance/odor lately. And this weekend I met a scad of new people, so I hope I was presentable. Usually being introduced to groups of other peoples' friends kind of puts me off, since it creates that whole "you're an outsider because we all know each other and you don't" vibe, but this weekend the people were actually nice. We even had some jokes, which I always consider a good sigh. Jokes and cake.

And Julie came! Julie came to see me a couple of days ago, and we tried to barbecue on my George Foreman grill. It makes me kind of sad to type that, since the George is about as far away from authentic, outdoor grilling as a girl can get, but we had only certain resources at our disposal, and a real grill was not one of them. Electricity was also only one of them part of the time. (I swear to god, all of this construction is going to drive me insane this summer, with my power and water cutting out at will, the water pressure going all wonky, along with my road being blocked off half the time and loud equipment running most of the time. Also, Hi, I'm Kristin, and I'm a compulsive whiner). At least we didn't bake our chicken in the oven like wussies. We did other things too, mostly involving staying cool since Grand Rapids decided to become a sauna recently. At least my third-floor attic apartment did. Where the hell did my cross-breezes go!? Of course they skip out as soon as company comes.

The last two paragraphs could be extensively elaborated, but that delicious summer lethargy is calling me over to the reading chair, where I last left Harry Potter about to do something exciting that probably wasn't in the movie. So back I go. Let this count as my July update. I'll see you kids in August (or, as I like to call it, The Sunday Night of Months. I also usually make a gagging, "blech" kind of sound when I say it).

I should not be allowed to wear black. Or white. Or yellow. (Because, respectively, it shows lint, it gets stained, and it makes me look sallow). Hm. Presently my black stretchy pants and I are covered in lint balls from my just-stripped bed. It's laundry night. I decided this after a big, roach-looking bug appeared practically on my pillow yesterday evening. I'm sure he didn't come from the bed itself, but if my bedclothes are even remotely beginning to attract that kind of crowd, it is way past time for a little detergent. Plus, after a week at the cottage, I have a pile of things that smell like suntan lotion, burnt skin (despite the lotion!), fire, and must. So off I'll go.

I wanted to write because I never write anymore - emails or letters or blogs or IMs - I just seem to have no desire whatsoever to communicate with people recently, and I don't know why this sudden aversion cropped up. I'm not feeling especially misanthropic. Just the opposite, actually. I think it's just that typing reminds me of work, which I'm rejecting in any and all forms for at least the next month. That, and the impetus for writing most of my posts usually came from, aside from the desire to share things with you nice people, the perpetual urge to procrastinate. But who wants to put off reading and playing and going to the farmer's market? Anyway, rest assured that there are things going on in my life - like Toronto happened, and then the cottage, and weddings and concerts and weekends full of things from now until the middle of August are all happening, and maybe someday, if I can think of an interesting way of putting things, I'll write about them.

Today's most pertinent news: I just got a chia pet and named her Penelope. I wanted to call it Agamemnon, but, judging by the udders, it's clearly not a he. Also, thanks to a stick of Big Red I chewed yesterday, my taste buds are burnt beyond practical use. My nectarine tasted like fuzzy wood this morning, and the granola wasn't much better. What kind of chemicals are they suddenly using in gum that my mouth can't handle?! (Also, when my "news" consists of headlines like these, aren't you a little glad I'm keeping most of it to myself?)

Today I really did wish I could teleport. I was late and consequently irritated and impatient as I raced east down I-96 to meet Meredith for late birthday presents and coffee and sushi and things. I didn't get pulled over though, and there wasn't even any delay at the bridge construction where everyone has to get off the highway at exit 84 and then get right back on. No, I didn't get pulled over until after dinner, a few blocks from the restaurant, looking for the on-ramp to take us to Ann Arbor. But a lot of that sentence is superfluous. Apparently I was going 39 in a 25. But who ever actually goes 25 in a 25? Have you ever tried it? I did, today, after the ticket as the cop pulled right in close to follow me for five agonizing blocks after he was done citing me. But we're jumping ahead again. The thing that makes me a little mad is that I think I could have negotiated my way out of this ticket. I mean, I was in a strange town, just leaving the parking lot and still finding my bearings; plus I was driving into the sun so it was extremely hard to find and read the posted speed signs. All of this, coupled with the fact that I've got an impeccable driving record and haven't been pulled over since I was 16 (again for going 40 in a 25...that time it was on Greenbriar and I almost passed out, such was my mortification - even though I only got a warning) and never gotten a ticket before, makes me feel entitled to another warning and a polite send-off. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to articulate any of this information to the police officer, being that when people use stern voices with me, I tend to lose all my logical faculties and revert to submissive worm mode. So he wrote me up ("Only for five over instead of the 14 you were going" he says in the most patronzing voice I've ever heard) and followed me up the block. On the other hand, I'm not too upset about the whole thing since I know full well how often I do drive obscenely rapidly without getting caught, and just last week I rolled through a stop sign for certainly-not-the-first time, and just the other night I accidentally ran a red light (which was strange, because I'd come to a full stop, but then ended up gazing at the light on the next block, and when it turned green I accelerated, not noticing until I was right under it that my light was still blazing bright red...), so with all of these transgressions going unnoticed and unpunished, I guess I can take a hit this time and own up to my five-over speeding ticket. And, possibly the worst part, the whole drive to Ann Arbor (after dinner we were on our way to see Once, which is apparently only playing in one movie theater in the state - one more reason why AA is my second favorite place on earth and I miss it like whoa sometimes) I was afraid to go over 78, which was a D-R-A-G.