It seems that the tensions have pretty much died down here for the moment. Leslie gave a great follow-up to what she said yesterday. She was a great instructor to have this week; after each person's story was critiqued, she gave the author a kitschy toy out of her grab bag (I got a one-eyed dinosaur-looking beaked monster that shoots sparks from his mouth and rolls along a surface when you zip him along the friction wheel under his feet).

Since it was Rudi's birthday today, a bunch of us went to Qdota's, a Mexican place down on Grand River, which has the biggest burritos I have ever seen in my life. A little pricey, but very tastey. Afterward, a few of us walked down to a used music store called The Grand Wazoo, and I picked up the Snatch soundtrack and Disengage by Circle of Dust for less than twelve dollars. Everybody else wanted to head back, but I walked on to Barnes & Noble to look for the audio CD of Coraline by Neil Gaiman, and was only partially successful since they had it on cassette. Since I've seen that the CD has some extras (including a few Dave McKean sketches) and since I prefer CD to cassette, I held off. I did find the mass market paperback of Galveston, the World Fantasy Award winning novel by Sean Stewart.

On the walk back, I noticed that many of the shops on the MSU side of Grand River had set up tables and made the marked-down merchandise available and conspicuous to walkers-by. I couldn't help but walk through mountains of MSU apparel, shoes of all sizes, FDNY shirts, and textbooks. It felt like I was back in New York City, visiting my sister and walking through a sea of merchandise to get where I was going.

Leslie is giving one more class tonight, on Voice, but other than that, I have no idea what's planned. I'm guessing a game of Mafia will break out; it would be cool if we could persuade Leslie to play. Tomorrow we're having another reading, one I'll be participating in, to be followed by margaritas and hand-made pizzas. I'm thinking I'll read "Songstress", "Going Home", and "Bored, Dammit", since my other work is a little too long for the twenty-minute format.

I was up until 1AM again last night. I am so sleeping in tomorrow. I may just go to bed early tonight.