[written on the train on the way home, ca. 4 p.m.]

I made the train with little time to spare this morning, sweat beading up on my hairline in the hot sun as I waited on the platform for the train car door to open. I was grateful to get away, for my husband had embarked on a frenzy of preparatory activity, nervous about being stuck in the house with the nanny, who has a tendency to pin one down in conversation, making it difficult to enact a graceful exit.

AJ, however, was caught up in my husband�s actions. The two of them were dragging out the toys that lay forgotten in remote corners and thus were like new again. They filled up his wading pool and assembled an army of bath toys to guard it from intruders while they worked. While my husband was checking things off a list, hoping that 8 hours of K. would be 8 hours of fun for AJ and not 8 hours of TV, AJ was simply turning every container he could find upside down. The resultant chaos was a little more than I could handle as I attempted to put my own mental chaos in order in preparation for what I hoped would be a productive day in the archive.

Alas, my quest for productivity was thwarted. I arrived at the archive to discover that it is no longer opening at 10 on Wednesdays, but at 1. It had crossed my mind to double check their hours on their website, but I was in a hurry, so I didn�t. The combination of the heat, my immediate frustration and my general frustration with my work of late put me on the brink of tears. I retreated to the garden behind the museum to lick my wounds.. I sat beside Abraham Lincoln and across from a spectacular garden for a while, and watched various people milling about the park � an elderly couple with walkers, a woman jogging with a stroller, a passel of tiny children who appeared to be roped together in some fashion, flanked front and back by their teachers, and all singing �Six little ducks that I once knew�� as they walked by. It was a beautiful day. There were flowers and a lake and happy children. I shook myself out of my funk and took myself out shopping and treated myself to a book and the world�s most enormous iced cappuccino, certain to cut further into my research time. Life was looking better.

I arrived at the door of the archive at one on the dot and then it took another 45 minutes for them to track down my materials, so I only had a little over an hour to work. At least what I found was fairly useful. I�m looking at an orchestra�s press clipping scrapbooks from the 1920s and �30s. When I did my first pass through the materials to assess what was there and in what kind of order, it appeared that large chunks of the early years were missing, but it now appears that the pages are just mislabeled and in the wrong order. The scrapbooks are in terrible condition, with pages that disintegrate as I touch them. Each day of research leaves a little more of the material missing. I am doing my best to make up for my offense by transcribing most of the articles in the scrapbook. It can be tedious work � transcribing program books is the worst, because they are all almost exactly the same, but the slight differences are the things that are important. But it can also be fascinating. I found an article today that described in detail one of the orchestra�s rehearsals, for example, which is going to help me breathe some life into a passage about their repertoire and preparation. Living amongst archival materials as I do, I have a very clear and vivid picture of the people I�m working with, and the sounds they made when they played. I really want to communicate that to anyone who might bother to read my dissertation if at all possible. I know these things aren�t the important part academically speaking, but it is what makes it interesting to me and hopefully to others too.

There�s something about the process of transcribing (an activity necessitated by the poor condition of the materials � no photocopies permitted) that allows the material to sink in better. I am a fast, touch typist. It is totally possible for me to transcribe something from eyes to fingers on the keyboard without processing it mentally � I can think about something else. That�s how I got through hours and hours at tedious temp jobs at various points in my life. But when you do pay attention, there�s something about the physicality of making a transcription that provides greater ownership of the material than just a good read.

There is also a sense of urgency that reinforces my memory when I�m working in archives. My time is limited. I must chose carefully and work fast to get through what I need to get through. Somehow the brain knows how to sort and file the materials to make them available for later recall.

My day improved significantly when I did NOT miss my train home. I cut things a little closer than I probably should, in the interest of milking every possible minute at the archive. Then I couldn�t find a cab. And when I did find a cab, it was driven by the only sensible and law abiding cab driver in the entire city of Chicago, which means that instead of cutting people off and zig-zagging through crowded streets at alarming speeds, he drove all the way down Clark Street, stopping for every light. I gave him an enormous tip, as is my general tendency with cab drivers but also because I was afraid he might make change at the same speed as he drove, and sprinted up the escalators and slipped onto the train just before the doors closed.

I should now be home in time to dismiss K. for the day and play with AJ for a little while before dinner. I love coming home after days away from him. We�re always so happy to see each other. But I also love the freedom of not having to think about him for a few hours. I hope that doesn�t sound callous. But even when my husband or K. is watching him, if I�m at home, A part of my brain is always taking care of him. When I�m away, I can concentrate. I can feel like an individual, an island entire of myself, just for a little while, before becoming a piece of the continent once again.

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