Noodles and dumplings last night. I am quickly becoming a dinner genius, just as I became a breakfast genius when I started buying Total (which lays claim to a ridiculous amount of vitamins) and Honey Bunches of Oats. There seems to be a critical oversupply of Honey Bunches of Oats. It's on sale everywhere, sometimes in weird varieties I'd never heard of.

Oh, and I saw a car accident.

It was weird. I'd spent a few hours in the library and even gone up to browse through the books. The UChicago has several libraries, many of which contain the same books, so until I figured out the system (earlier today) I had no idea why I couldn't find what I was looking for.

Looking for Ralph Ellison (but really looking for Joseph Heller, had I stopped to think about it) I stumbled upon a bunch of Prof. Dintenfass' books quite by accident. Donated by Saul Bellow, apparently. I'm not in the mood to read them now, just not interested enough by the titles I guess, but maybe later.

Anyways I kept browsing and was hit with a wave of depression when, time after time, the books were not where they should be. I finally left the darkened library a half hour after closing (the Seeley Mudd library is a fortress in comparison) and walked home. I'm about fifteen minutes north of campus, a bit further than I'd like but, oh, just wait until my parents come with the Rockhopper!

An SUV ran the stop sign into a busy street and was flipped on its side right in front of the local fire station and an idling patrol car. No one seemed to be badly hurt, but the crash was magnificent. Brought me back to those lazy Sundays, keeping a loose eye on NASCAR. Except this was less than a block away.

Well, that cheered me up, and I was high as I kite right through to my noodles and dumplings. I don't know if it was relief that, without the Deathtrap, I'm exempted from such dramatic mishaps, or just a bit of schadenfreude at the thought that other people, most people, have more serious problems than I do. Maybe it was the thought of participating, even tangentially, in something important.

I suppose it's all a bit morbid, or creepy. I confess that I felt a bit guilty about feeling good after an accident, but I can't really come up with a good reason why I should. No one got hurt, the careless driver got the worst of it, and there were emergency personnel literally right there, ready to respond.

Looking around, I got the feeling that my reaction was hardly atypical. Maybe this proves Graham's theory (or was it Manney's?) that innocent bystanders are the most guilty people of all.