One of our better seminars this year was about the 9/11 memorial, and in the course of reading this and that about it, I came across this idea: That memorials to horrific events should not be erected too soon, that even bright-line tragedies should be viewed and understood from a distance of some years before we try to memorialize them. That’s not to say al-Qaeda will improve with age, only that time tells, and it may be telling us something different about 9/11 in a few years.

Of course, this is Manhattan real estate we’re talking about here — in other words, a long mellowing isn’t possible — but it’s an interesting idea to consider. The one clear criticism of the Oklahoma City memorial I’ve read is its lack of context, that still-grieving families simply refused to allow a memorial that gave any significant presence to the event’s perpetrator, and so you can visit it without learning a thing about Tim McVeigh, the anti-government subculture of the mid-’90s, and what it led to. Those who don’t remember the past, etc.

And so it goes with Columbine. As the anniversary journalism passes through, I’m amazed at the persistence of the bullying myth, which I thought was discredited years ago. Evidently, though, lots of inattentive Americans still believe the teenagers behind that massacre did what they did because they’d been picked on.

Slate has a much better look back today.

In keeping with one of the great themes of my life — If It’s Happening, It’s Not Happening Anywhere Near Me — I must take note of this.

I went out for some final-week Fellowship last night, and stayed out clear past 11, a curfew imposed more by my early-rising daughter than by my own circadian rhythms. But because this is my life and not that of a person lucky in such things, I was in the grown-up section of Ann Arbor and not the student neighborhood, and hence, I missed the Naked Mile.

OK, I’ll admit it. I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been wandering the campus, kicking piles of leaves and brooding. Not to mention indulging in the traditional end-of-term rituals — big gatherings at restaurants with pushed-together tables, and cookies and soda in creative-writing class, along with the festive announcement that the teacher’s husband won a big Hopwood award. The heat of last weekend has abated for more seasonal temperatures, but I’m back on the bike again, which always gives me an excuse to stick around; the last mile is all uphill, and I look for every excuse to avoid it. But! Quadriceps! They’re emerging from the winter fat again, so it must be true: The world is coming to life again.

Yes, but it’s dying, too. Today’s was the last Daily of the term, or close. The graduation issue was steeped in nostalgia, prepping the kids for the most important emotion of the rest of their lives. I’m trying to stave it off; the most valuable piece of information I got in the last week was news my fave history prof will be teaching a summer-term class starting the first week in May, which I’ll be able to attend at least a little of — War in the Modern World. I won’t be a Fellow past Thursday, but I figure no one will care if I slip in the back of the lecture hall for a few weeks. I suspect lots of people do this, and as long as they don’t turn in blue books or ask lots of questions, it’s probably possible to get a fairly good seat-of-the-pants education this way.

Someone could make a movie about this. Oh, I forgot: Someone did. A lousy one.

This weekend was our near-final obligation to the Fellowship — playing host to next year’s prospective Fellows, who had their interviews this weekend. While they marched in one by one to face the fearsome Committee of Eight, we sat in the living room with smelling salts and cool compresses for their anxious, fevered brows.

Although, I must say, hardly any of them seemed even the least bit nervous, at least not nearly as nervous as I was a year ago. I remember leaving the interview room, getting a plate of fruit salad and a tall cranberry juice, and just staring into space for about 30 minutes. Then I walked around town in freezing temperatures, went to Zingerman’s, bought nothing, walked back to my car and drove home. I ate lunch in Jackson, of all places, at a Cracker Barrel, of all places. I spent three weeks chewing my nails to the quick. Then, the phone call that changed everything.

So the year is dwindling. But there’s still hope for the warp in the space/time continuum that freezes the clock forever on this unseasonably warm April weekend, when I still have a key to the house and I’m still a current Fellow. Not much hope, but you never know.

Speaking of that warmth, is there a better place to watch spring arrive than a college campus? The temperatures go above 75 and the Diag fills with pretty young people, playing hackysack, having class outdoors, proudly showing winter-whitened flesh for the first time this year. (Note to self: Never buy those shorts that have MICHIGAN written across the ass. I’d have room for several more states back there, including NORTH CAROLINA.)

I don’t get Howard Stern. My mind is as filthy as anyone’s but…I just don’t get him. Granted, I’ve never given him much of a chance. Fort Wayne is as far from Stern Country as you can get, but parts of his show used to run on the E! channel, and I think I get the idea. Still don’t get him. But it’s a big country, and there’s lots of stuff I don’t get — “The Passion of the Christ,” Star Wars/Lord of the Rings in general, Tom Clancy novels, books by CEOs. Live and let live, etc.

That said, what’s happening to Howard Stern — the fining by the FCC, which is starting to look like a vendetta — is flat-ass wrong. You can’t argue that the public’s airwaves are being polluted when Stern is so hugely popular with…the public.

Roger Ebert, the hardest-working man in showbiz, gets it about right today, I think.

OK, I just thought of something Stern does that I do think is funny — when he asks Playboy Playmates questions about American history. Sample:

“Who won the Civil War?”

“We did!”

“Who’d we fight?”

“Germany?”

…the weird move to Florida:

Erin Rivera was looking forward to breakfast with Disney characters while at the vacation resort with her husband in June 2000.

“I don’t think it was a mistake,” said Rivera, who has a picture of her embrace with the character. “Everybody who goes through my photo album says, ‘Tigger is groping you.’ “

Let’s send up a NN.C cheer for our old friend and frequent co-conspirator Dr. Frank, who has been our frequent houseguest in A2 this year. He just announced he’s off to Madison, Wis., to head St. Mary’s Hospital there, starting this summer. And in that everything-is-connected sort of way, he recently e-mailed:

I can truly tell you that my time in Ann Arbor opened my eyes to the value of living in a major university community, and made me much more receptive to the Madison situation…so…it’s all your fault.

We wish him well. Deb, you’re the resident Cheesehead here. Teach him the secret handshake.

Sometimes life — oh, she is such an amusing gal, isn’t she? Oh, she is. Evidence:

Regular readers of the business page recall the highly amusing breakup of Jack and Jane Welch, in which this smart little trophy wife caught her husband, the titanic ego who used to run GE, playing Hide the Salam’ with an aspirant. Aspiring smart little trophy wife, that is. Forty-four-year-old Suzy Wetlaufer squinched her eyes nearly shut and convinced herself this 68-year-old gentleman was, yes indeedy, her One True Love, and never mind that he’s of the same generation as, you know, her father. That Jane Welch essentially outmaneuvered her genius CEO husband and served up key parts of his anatomy on a platter in her divorce dealings — let’s just say that was one day we found the Wall Street Journal front page a really interesting read.

Well, the ink is dry on the divorce, and now Jack and Suzy are moving their love nest out of Tawdry Town:

It was two weeks before her wedding to retired General Electric chairman Jack Welch, and Ms. Wetlaufer, the 44-year-old former editor of the Harvard Business Review, had plenty to do. There were children to pick up from school and work to be done on Winning, the business how-to book for which she and Mr. Welch received a $4 million advance from HarperCollins in February.

She and Mr. Welch are to wed in a white-steepled church a few blocks away from their Beacon Hill townhouse, followed by a reception at home, in the ballroom. An evangelical Christian rock band will provide the music; Ms. Wetlaufer is a devout Christian.

Oh, but could she be anything else?

Whew. I mean: Whew. Nothing like a few days of more or less solid errand-running and chore-chasing to make you appreciate the last days of the best year of your life. But we have a breathing space now, and what the hell, let’s relax a bit. All I have to do is put a chicken in the oven sometime in the next 40 minutes.

I don’t even want to think about it, but it’s true: This is the second-to-last week. Our last seminar is tomorrow. We graduate a week from Thursday. What’s next, many of you have been e-mailing. The Magic 8 Ball says: Answer cloudy, try again later. When I know, you’ll know. In these last few days, I’m taking advantage of the perks of holding a valid M-Card — libraries, collections, access and, of course, an excuse to spend an hour staring out the window. One of the Fellows was talking about just that the other day; actually he was watching his cats watch the squirrels capering outside the window. “I remember that as a pleasant interlude,” he said, and who am I to argue? No doubt it was.

Speaking of argument: I’m going to miss it. It abounds in an academic environment, although I tried to pick one with my screenwriting prof last night, to no avail — he just barreled on ahead. But I’m sorry, I said it last night and I’ll say it again here: The Billy Bob Thornton character in “Sling Blade” is not a Christ figure, OK? You can’t give him a Bible, a book on carpentry and another on Christmas and say this makes him a modern-day Jesus. (Although, I’ve noticed, that’s how lots of lazy artists work: Look, Madonna’s wearing a crucifix as jewelry, obviously a sly commentary on her Catholic upbringing. And so on.) Cool Hand Luke — now he’s a Christ figure. (Here he is, performing a miracle.)

Meanwhile, linkage:

Back when I was the mother of a little baby and used to torture myself with the Dr. Laura show, I became a fan of its far more entertaining shadow entity, alt.radio.talk.dr-laura — the Usenet group of mostly Dr. Laura doubters who follow the show. Although I haven’t listened to the Toxic Harpy for years, I still keep up with the postings there. It was there I learned that after years of preaching that orthodox religion is the only true path to decency and an upright life, poof she’s no longer practicing Judaism. ARTDL also let me know which college finally accepted pampered D.L. progeny — the mediocre, cultish Hillsdale, located just down the road right here in southeast Michigan. When the Schlessinger spawn dropped out after a mere semester, the posters were all over it with credible hypotheses of what happened. And now they’ve turned up the even more wonderful truth: My God, young Derky is opening a hookah bar. In freakin’ Hillsdale, Michigan. It is to laugh.

Also, a couple of people mentioned that Bob Dylan is now hawking Victoria’s Secret? Slate explains. Points for the headline: Tangled up in boobs.

When I declare bankruptcy, I hope the judge will allow me to name a co-respondent: a radio station in Detroit that’s leading me into financial ruin, 99 cents at a time. You see, Saturdays are all-old school on WGPR, and I rarely get through the day without tracking down some forgotten soul/R&B classic via the iTunes music store. Sometimes it seems they set a short mix on autopilot — I heard Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” twice in one morning a few weeks ago — but every so often they really dig deep in the library, and oh my, but you see then why Detroit is still a cool city, and always will be. I’m talking Motown tracks that never cracked the top 30, Memphis stuff from the Stax/Volt archive. Can’t forget the 103rd Street Rhythm Band, which sort of slipped into the mists of history once top-40 radio fragmented into formats.

Today’s find: “Tramp,” a Carla Thomas-Otis Redding duet that’s simply too wonderful to be believed.

Soon there will be no jingle in my jangle. But I’ll have lots of cool music to listen to.