The other day I startled myself by referring to a carbonated beverage as “pop” without thinking about it.

Today the heat was in the 80s and the humidity was in the mid-to-high range, weather that would have made me whiny and irritable in California, but I actually said, out loud, “If this is the worst we’re going to get I’d say this is a pretty mild summer.”

The sheer exuberant number of souped-up loud-engined street racing cars, megalithic pickup trucks, SUVs, and other behemoth vehicles of all kinds all over the streets of Ann Arbor no longer surprises me. Michigan is the Motor State, after all. (Some Michiganders’ driving habits, though, I’ll never understand.)

Ignorant and/or moronic letters to the editor that appear in the Ann Arbor News that would have automatically inspired a fired-off scorched-earth acidic response when I was living in San Francisco no longer faze me. Live and let live. Or something like that.

I’ve lived longer in Michigan than I’ve lived anywhere outside of California: as of July 23, it’s now been almost eleven months. (The only other place I’ve lived outside California was England, but that ended after nine months.)

I honestly no longer miss California much. Most days, anyway.