A couple of days off from real diary entries did me good. I seem to have regained my composure for the time being. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall weekend here. The leaves in the yard are ninety shades of red and gold. The new conservation area adjacent to our neighborhood has finally opened and I went running there both mornings this weekend and saw huge numbers of deer, hawks, owls and numerous other birds that defied my identification skills.

Saturday we packed ourselves into the car early and headed to Evanston for the pre-game festivities at Northwestern. Now this is a quirk you need to know about my husband. He loves watching sports on TV, but he�s not quite as wild about sitting through a game in the stadium. But he loves the hoopla before the game. Also, in case you are feeling impoverished, it�s free and, if you�re interested in getting a jump start on your weekend boozing, every adult who shows up is entitled to two free Goose Island beers. I, however, cannot stomach beer before 10 a.m., so I passed. AJ was a little afraid of the marching band, although he was fascinated with the drums. He did, however consent to having a purple N painted on one cheek. And he loved all of the football-tossing games set up around the area known as �Wildcat Alley.� The event photographers seemed to be all over him (damn paparazzi!). I counted at least ten photographs taken of him, of which he was blissfully unaware. Before heading back, we drove to the lakeside park near the Baha'i Temple to chase seagulls and throw rocks in the water that shone an almost Carribean blue.

Beyond that, I managed to get a little gardening done and quite a bit of thesis-writing done. Somehow, while I was paying attention to my conference paper instead of my dissertation, the morass of chaos that is the chapter currently under revision became incredibly organized, proving once again that I am my prose�s own worst enemy. I spent the weekend fleshing out the introductory portions, where I analyze a series of articles published around the turn of the twentieth century dealing with women performers. They are very entertaining reading and thus fun to write about.

In any case, my academic work has been much less taxing than dealing with all of AJ�s unanswerable questions. Today�s stumpers included �Why is it Sunday?� �Why is 7:00 later than 6:30?� and �Why is Australia farther than Grandma�s house?� I was fully prepared for tough questions from my three-year-old. Ask me to discuss death, terrorism, aerodynamics, or basic biology, I�m right there. But I�m not sure I really know why it�s Sunday. And I can�t really tell you why Australia is farther than Grandma�s house. Surely it was an oversight, a miscalculation of some kind that placed it out of reach of a couple of days� drive. I�m sure AJ will be putting in his request for a general geographical reorganization. Right after he figures out how the zipper on his pants works.

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