AJ appears to be in an upswing today � bordering on manic in his cheerfulness. It�s like the sun has burst out from behind the black cloud of the last few weeks. I can hear him now, upstairs in his crib chattering away. Apparently his three favorite stuffed animals � Little Peep (a duckling), Flopsy (a rabbit) and Mr. Bear (I assume the species of this one is obvious) � are having an animated conversation about the alphabet and which letters are the best letters. They are also playing hide-and-seek and talking about their mommies.

I had to take AJ to get his hair cut this morning. I always dread this, as AJ always screams and wails and shakes like a leaf through the whole process. He�s totally fine with getting jabbed repeatedly with vaccinations, but show him a pair of scissors and he comes unglued. But today, while he was scared and at first refused to take off his hat, he came through with flying colors. Perhaps it was the fact that there was another little boy, possibly a year older than he, in the chair next to him. Or maybe he just thought the stylist at Fantastic Sam�s was cute. In any case, he sat staring pensively into the mirror the entire time. Afterwards, we went to the library and checked out about a hundred books � no matter how many we have, it is not enough. There are never enough books for AJ. Usually he wants to play games or play with other children at the library, but today he just wanted me to read to him, book after book. And then we checked them all out and read them again when we got home.

I, on the other hand, feel like there are too many books these days. I cannot keep up. For pleasure, I�m in the middle of Jhumpa Lahiri�s The Namesake for my book group meeting next week (I am loving it, as I expected, for I loved The Interpreter of Maladies). I still haven�t had a chance to crack my Christmas books, Jonathan Letham�s The Fortress of Solitude and J.M. Coetzee�s Elizabeth Costello. Right now I�m up to my eyeballs in remedial Women�s Studies. At the moment I�m plugging away at A History of Women in America, a classic from the �70s by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Weissman; and the fairly new Gail Collins book America�s Women: 400 Years of Dolls Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines. As soon as I�ve made enough progress in those, I�ll be adding Rupp and Taylor�s Survival in the Doldrums. I always feel a bit adrift when I�m veering so far from music in my work, although that�s part of what I like about what I do too. I don�t do very well with pigeonholes or even with specialization. I like to see where the wind takes me. American Studies is one of the few areas that seems to permit that kind of commitment to specialty or methodology, at least within the realm of musicology. In any case, all three of these books are extremely readable, for which, after my recent slog through German philosophy, I am extremely grateful.

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