My head is in nine places at once today so this is likely to be a scattershot entry.

AJ is officially on vacation. The last of his classes was this morning. We spent the morning making a card for his teacher, on which he asked me to write:

Dear Miss R.

I love playing with you. I love when we play with flashlights. I hope Santa brings you lots of toys.

Miss R. is his favorite teacher (and mine too). She�s putting herself through a college degree in early childhood education by teaching gym classes to preschoolers. The kids adore her because she gets right down on the floor and plays with them, but she totally lacks all that annoyingly fake perkiness that seems to be de rigeur for preschool teachers. On the drive to class, AJ held on tight to his card saying, �I can�t wait to give this to Miss R.� She was (fortunately) equally excited to receive it.

Aside from Christmas and AJ, I�ve been doing a lot of reading. I�m in a refueling phase for my dissertation � something I�m hope will remedy the lack of real writing that has been taking place lately. For the diss I�ve been reading up on the early history of vaudeville, rereading (for the umpteenth time) Levine�s Highbrow/Lowbrow, rereading (and rediscovering how remarkable a book it is) Sophie Drinker�s Music and Women and a number of things of a more or less theoretical bent that I�m finding annoying, particularly given the frivolity going on in other areas of life at the moment. I find myself taking refuge in Dreiser and Cather, both for the diss as well, but much more soul-satisfying. This is exactly why I enjoy cultural history so much. On my nightstand, from which work-related books are banished (in an effort to stave off my chronic bouts of insomnia) are Zadie Smith�s White Teeth (I feel like I�m the last woman in the world to read this book, but I�m thoroughly enjoying it, so better late than never), the 2003 Best Essays collection, which I have mentioned once before. I am savoring it slowly. I particularly enjoyed Donald Antrim�s �I bought a bed,� a meditation on his response to his mother�s death. So artful and poetic. Also on the table: a very overdue copy of The Book of Salt (a fictional account of Stein and Toklas as seen through the eyes of their Vietnamese cook; a fun read, rather more lightweight than I had hoped), The Girl who Played Go, (which I must confess I picked up primarily on the basis of its appealing size, shape and cover. And while it looks good on my nightstand, I have not yet started to read it, although it looks interesting.), and Jeanette Winterson�s Written on the Body � one of my favorite books and long overdue for a reread. Sometime in the next week Louisa May Alcott�s Little Women will appear there too. I reread it every Christmas. It�s a personal tradition that goes back to when I was a kid and I couldn�t sleep the night before Christmas. I originally picked it because it was the longest book on the shelf in my room, and I knew that I probably wouldn�t finish it before I�d either fall asleep or find it time to get up. It also begins on Christmas Eve, so it seemed particularly appropriate. Now that I�m old enough to find a good night�s sleep more valuable than presents under the tree, it serves to remind me of my reading history and of the things I love.

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