I had my last class this week, and Carolyn was really, really complimentary in conference (she said I was a "whiz" at revising, which would serve me well). Also, it was confirmed that I can work 30 hours a week at my current job for the summer, which means I will be making more money, working less hours and commuting about one tenth the distance than last summer.

The short commute is good because not only did gas prices hit 2.15 here this week, my air conditioner is broken. Again. It seems to be a different (and of course very expensive) thing than last year. And it has approached 90 several days this week. At least last year it was still in the 60s most of the time I was driving around without the AC. So basically, I now have to decide if it's even worth it to pour another thousand or so into a car that's already 10 years old, has 112,000 miles on it and will have to have the tag and title transferred from Oklahoma to New York if I keep driving it. At this point, I'm so frustrated I'm about ready to cut my losses and get on with it. If I end up moving to the city and having a job I can reach on public transportation, it might not be worth it to have a car anyway.

To complicate things, when I called my parents about this last night (mostly because I just wanted someone I could vent to) I found out my dad thought the cost of fixing my busted passenger door was included in the $500 I told him was for fixing the steering column. Despite the fact that he called me almost every day after I got the car back and I expressly told him EVERY TIME that I hadn't even had anyone give me an estimate for the door. Anyway, now he wants me to get an estimate and go ahead and file with our insurance (when he thought it was $500 total he didn't think it was worth filing, after our deductible and figuring in the amount the premiums would go up). It would have been easier if the theives had trashed the damn thing after all. Grrrrrr.

Do you all remember my friend Matt Matros? I think I mentioned something about him a while ago, how he plays seriously competetive poker as his summer job? Well he came in third in this huge tournament a few weeks ago and won somewhere around $700,000. Enough to pay off his student loans and buy a condo in Brooklyn. If you get up really early, you might have seen him on ESPN2's morning show -- he did a bunch of others, but I think they were mostly New York local stuff. He also is getting a book published -- a poker book, but still. I'm happy for Matt, and he's been really low-key for a guy who's been all over the news, but it's not a very easy thing to hear when you have no permanent job, failing transportation, and no poker-playing skills (or any other kind of skill that will make me $700,000 in one weekend).

I've also been spending the week trying to clean out the third bedroom so Ann will at least have that part of her promised space when she moves in in two weeks. I was feeling really good because I had found some undergraduate willing to take the huge heavy bedframe and box spring I was using when I first moved in, but at the last minute he found somebody closer to his new apartment with a set and decided to take that. I think I'm just going to call the Sanitation people to come and take it away.

I haven't really written anything in weeks, which always makes me edgy. But right now my head's so full of other things I can't even form sentences or plots or characters or any of the things that will normally compel me to pick up my notebook and start writing.

I had a really nice time in North Dakota, I guess that counts for something. Minneapolis-St.Paul is my new favorite airport, because they have cool food -- A&W, Auntie Anne's, and The Good Earth. My family made me play volleyball and basketball, but it was actually really fun. I need more people to make me do active things. And it was just nice to hang out with my whole family in a place where no one could run off to hang out with their friends or have to work or run errands. We don't get to do that much anymore.

I graduate in exactly one week.

I leave for Alaska and Alex's wedding in 13 days.

Did I have a good week or a bad week?