I�m all about business today. I�m clearing my desk right and left of old projects festering and taking up far too much of my mental space. Begone!

And so, I thought I�d take this opportunity to address a little diaryland business as well.

First of all, for some reason quite a few people have added me to their buddy lists of late. I�ve tried to respond individually to everyone, but things have been a little nuts around here. If I missed you, mea culpa, and consider yourself thanked. I�ve been loving some of the new stuff I�m reading � the best part about having new readers is having new things to read.

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We interrupt this morning�s business to communicate the oh-so-girly shriek that just emanated from my less-than-businesslike mouth as I looked up from the screen and found myself face to face with a spider dangling from an invisible thread attached to the ceiling over my desk. I am not usually especially squeamish about spiders. However, I am now firmly convinced there is a nest of them in my hair. I can pretty much guarantee that I�ll be itching for the next hour at least. And also that I�ll be coming down here with a vacuum and dustmop as soon as humanly possible. We now continue with our regularly scheduled programming.

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Yesterday, for instance, starflowr96 wrote a lovely little essay, inspired by finding a picture of her husband as a baby, on being confronted with images of her in-laws at a different time in their lives. After reading her entry, I found myself thinking frequently of similar photos of my husband�s and my own childhood scenes as a window into our models of parenting.

My parents were terribly young when they had me. They married when my father was 21 and my mom just 19, a scant few weeks after my mom�s college graduation. I was born less than two years later. I�ve always loved looking at those early photos. My mom, a fairly small person, is nearly dwarfed by the large teased hairdo that was de rigeur at the time. My father looks so young and athletic. One or the other of them is nearly always on the floor playing with me. One of my favorite photos is of my dad doing push-ups with me at around age 2 lying on his back �helping.� They are younger and energetic and more hirsute than they are now, but it�s reassuring to note very few changes of importance. They were then the people I know today, minus a few decades of experience.

I don�t believe I�ve seen a photo of my husband with just his parents. When both parents are pictured, there are generally a lot of other people as well � his three siblings, assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. Their family is very large and very close. My husband is the youngest by a number of years in his family of four children. Most of the photos are of my husband alone, a favorite being one of him at age 2 or so wearing a low riding diaper and holding a baseball bat over his shoulder. He looks so much like AJ in this picture that I look at it often. But it�s the photos of my husband�s father that are particularly compelling to me because I never got to meet him. He died of cancer when my husband was in college. I look at those pictures and try to figure out what kind of father he was and wonder how it relates to the kind of father my husband is turning into.

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The next item of business involves the comments in my profile favorite�s list. I�m delinquent. I�ve been trying to get those all filled in, but I�m slow. If you haven�t got one yet, please don�t be miffed. I just haven�t found something that seems emblematic yet. Some diaries are more easily boiled down to quips than others.

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Finally, a question. I�m not a huge surfer of diary rings, although I�ve subscribed to a few. But I�ve been wondering if there might be a place for a diarists in academia ring. Would any of you out there who fall into that category be interested?

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The meeting is adjourned. I will attempt to write a more substantive entry later, although the nanny's off and my husband�s heading into Chicago for Book Expo today, so if I manage another post, it will probably be late in the day.

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