Four hours sleep last night, most likely due to paranoia over missing my cab ride this morning. I brought my alter-ego Dillinger to teach my morning classes, where he spent the better part of three hours glowering at the kids writing in-class responses, softly stroking his pencil-thin mustache.

"What are we learning from this?" one of my scholars spoke up.

"How to stay on my good side," Dillinger responded, helping himself to the erstwhile student's water bottle. "And a guarantee to live until graduation."

"Are you going to grade these papers?"

"What do you think?" he snapped back.

Afternoon classes weren't much better, so I cadged a ride to the mechanics. Paul Towers, local math teacher extraordinaire, favored my ears with a litany against his ex-wife the entire twelve miles to the station. Dillinger didn't bother to feign polite interest, moodily staring out the window and affecting a distasted air.

"I tell you, being married for ten years, you forget what it's like to be single," he was telling me. "I only got two girlfriends, though. Guess I'm slowing down."

The arrogant little prick. If he only knew. My social calendar is bursting apart at the seams. If I can get the Spice Channel free again tonight, I might stay up past eight-thirty.

The good news: the car is running again. Like new, if you ignore the wear and tear on everything but the glove compartment.

The even-better-than-good-news: the whole deal only cost me $50. A walk in the park. Dillinger celebrated by drinking a bottle of wine he found where I usually keep the drain cleaner. Hopefully I have not mixed the two inadvertently; right now I'm sacked out on a sofa that for some reason won't stop spinning around, watching a West Wing rerun that, for some reason, doesn't have any picture. Either that or I'm losing oxygen to the brain.