An unexpected guest arrived today for lunch, from Milan by way of the suburbs, with tales of high fashion and dissolution on Lake Como. His is a very different life, but he seemed comfortable enough sitting at the pine refectory table that now dominates the kitchen.

AJ hijacked him at once, hauling him outside and batting ball after ball into the underbrush for him to chase in his Italian shoes. He was very accommodating.

After he left, AJ played with The Girl Next Door and I filed and filed and filed away articles until I ran out of space in my filing boxes and had to stack the remainder in a box on top. I am now ready to enter them into the bibliography data base. I�m very afraid. The bibliography is already past 1600 sources. Holy Cow, I�ve read a lot.

While filing, I occupied myself with trying to decide whether or not I like the sound of Edith Frost. Perhaps I am the last person to hear of her; I really don�t know. But I stumbled on a reference to one of her songs a day or two ago and was fascinated to discover, when I looked her up, that she was classified variously as Indie Rock, Folk, and Country. That�s my kind of mix. I like the songs a lot � a wildly diverse set of influences, one minute reminding me of Joni Mitchell, the next Liz Phair. Her lyrics are intriguing. Her delivery is unique, and here is where I have trouble, because part of her schtick seems to involve singing out of tune. She narrowly escapes sounding like a bad night at the karaoke bar at times, but at others she is pitch-perfect (both literally and figuratively). My musician�s brain doesn�t quite know how to process this, but it�s having fun trying. If you don�t know her, check her out. My favorite tune so far: �Albany Blues.�

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