I picked up AJ�s graduation photos today. He�s wearing a blue cap and gown. He has a small diploma and a very big grin. It is so cute that I am willing to bet cold hard cash that it will make at least one of his grandmothers cry. Alas, my scanner is ancient and doesn�t seem to want to talk to any of the household computers, so you�ll have to take my word for it, for the moment, at least.

As I pulled into the parking lot of AJ�s school, six geese, two adults and four fuzzy yellow babies, paraded through the space next to me in a wavering line. They hopped up the small grass hill to the sidewalk, turned left, and marched down the street, presumably to the pond on the next block.

The whole family was out of sorts for much of the weekend. I�m not sure why. It was a spectacularly beautiful weekend and we spent much of it outdoors enjoying the garden. But AJ was sniping at or ignoring his father and his father was griping at me about it and I was getting complaints from both sides about any number of irrelevant things, which tends to make me pick fights. Last night, after the umpteenth tantrum of the weekend, AJ went to bed early without any stories � this is, at the moment, his most severe punishment and he does not like it at all. Perhaps because we messed with his evening routine or perhaps because of the stress of a weekend of civil unrest, he woke up repeatedly last night. Once he wandered in and asked if we could turn on his music box. Then he came back because he�d lost a favored stuffed animal. Later he woke in tears from a nightmare that ended when he bumped his head on the headboard of his bed. At ten to six this morning he got up to go to the bathroom and the toilet made weird loud noises when he flushed, completely freaking him out (it does that sometimes � it has something to do with the well, but we don�t really understand it. And it�s a little unnerving, even for adults). I finally gave up and got up at that point. AJ, however, went back to sleep for a while and woke up cheerful.

This morning I hauled my computer and books to the local public library, which has finally entered the 21st century and installed free wireless access. I always work at the last desk. Our library is tiny and is all in one big room. This desk is the farthest from the children�s section, so it�s the closest thing to quiet that you can find in this library. I also like that I can see my friend B�s book about the Iceman at the end of a shelf to my left. It�s kind of inspirational, although it does occasionally make me sad that it is never checked out � it�s a very good book. The bank of shelves to my right is all about food and the one beyond about disease, so they kind of cancel each other out. The handful of music books that the library owns are in the closest bank of shelves, although there isn�t much worth looking at.

I spent a fascinating morning rereading documents related to the Seneca Falls convention, suffrage movement and other late nineteenth-century American feminist writings in an attempt to plug the last big hole in the diss. I�ve been putting off finishing this section, in part because it�s so vast and in part because I feel so inadequate � I have wandered quite far afield from music. I don�t know the secondary literature well enough to be certain that I haven�t overlooked something. Still, that�s why I have a women�s studies prof on my committee.

And that is all of the exciting news from the home front. Unless you want me to regale you with stories of grocery lists (where did I put them?) and trips to the market (if I buy daikon, will anyone but me eat it?) and weed-pulling (yawn) and copyediting (are you even still awake?) and vacuuming (don�t you have anything better to do?).

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