Alright gurus of NJFBOA. Firstly, thank you for all your help. In my attempts to act cool and collected about all this, I've actually been freaking out as this has come at a time when I have just started applying to jobs, and the prospects are looking bleak.
Anyways, I drained the oil, and this is what I found:
The drain plug:
The drain plug indoors. Looks good to me:
There was a tremendous amount of oily crap in my engine bay. I traced it to a leaky power steering hose. I didn't realize it was getting this bad. I doubt it affected anything though.
Now the oil. What am I supposed to be looking for?
Weird bubbles.
At this point, I should admit, I've never really analyzed my oil before, so I don't know what to be looking for. I saved the oil and the oil filter (which I may cut up later if need be) in case I should be reanalyzing but as far as I can tell, the oil looks black and I see no bronze flakes or metal stuff. Or am I not looking closely enough?