You may be tired of hearing me talk about the weather, but I am not at all tired about the weather we�ve been having. Keep it coming!

I spent a couple of hours this morning in the pool. The unheated pool. I hope I burned a few extra calories trying to stay warm, because my feet were actually blue when I got out. I do, however, feel extra virtuous. AJ and K. are at the pool now. I can pretty much guarantee that the entire lesson will consist of K. and the swimming teacher trying to wheedle, coax and plead with AJ to get in the water. Whereupon he will insert his toes, shiver all over and say, �I want to go home!�

Having recovered from the Arctic chill, and lamenting the hours lost while working yesterday in a windowless room, I am camped out on the balcony with my laptop enjoying the sun, the breeze, and the twittering of the birds. Even the aroma of my next-door neighbors pumping out their septic tank is not getting me down (yet). And in any case, it is somewhat ameliorated by the scent emanating from the huge vat of petunias at my feet. Life is good. Now if only my dissertation were done.

I reach these points with increasing frequency where I can�t see how I can possibly finish. The energy I get from doing archival work � the immediacy of primary documents � is combined with the realization that there will always be more to read. And then I have to find ways to convince myself that I will know when I have read enough. But what is enough, exactly? I am quite certain that I have written enough � I�m rapidly approaching 300 pages. But what if the one book/article/archive I choose not to read is the one that changes everything? How can I be sure that my work is worthwhile? This is, I suppose, the difficulty with working in an area with virtually no research precedents.

[Click back if you missed last night's latish entry in which I try to understand figure out why I like Chicago]

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