Today has been one of those days where I have had no time to stop and process, but have just run from one thing to the next. I generally try to avoid the chronological summary, but frankly, I think that�s the only thing I can manage right now and I�m hoping trying to get some of it down will help me remember what has happened.

I headed into the conference a little earlier this morning. I was feeling nervous about my presentation and also I wanted to pick up the books I�d bought yesterday before the press tables packed up and went home at noon. I ran into one of the women who�d been on my panel yesterday. She had given a paper on female minstrel troupes and had mentioned a distant relative of mine that I�ve been meaning to research, Lotta Crabtree. Lotta was an entertainer during the Gold Rush as a child and later moved to New York where she was involved with minstrelsy. I�m not exactly sure how I�m related to Lotta. My great grandmother�s older sister, who was known in our family only as �Auntie,� was named for her and I think that it was my great grandmother�s mother that was the link to the Crabtree family, but I�m not certain. We had an interesting talk about Lotta and she told me a number of things I didn�t know about her and I told her I�d pass on what genealogical information I had access too, via my great uncle, the family historian.

Afterwards, I grabbed a coffee and went to my session. The person who presented first was a spectacular presenter. She was hilarious and interesting and a really tough act to follow. This did not help my nerves. But she turned out to be a good lead in, as they laughed at every lame joke I made. And the response was positive � the audience was nodding and responding like they were at a revival meeting. Clearly I was preaching to the choir. One person took issue with one of my recommendations, which I was expecting. After the session was over, he came up to talk to me and it turned out he was from one of the archives I was talking about. He said some things off the record to me about what�s happening there that made a lot of the difficulties I had working there more understandable. He also offered to help me find the stuff I was looking for. So apparently although he disagreed a bit, he was not offended. This is good. I didn�t feel like I fielded questions as well as I usually do, but I think I did okay and I�m glad I went out on a limb with this one. It�s given me a bit of courage. Plus it was nice to have people stopping me in the halls all day and telling me how much they liked it. That always feels good. I also met someone who knew one of the people I�m writing about. I got her email and made plans to contact her when I return. I also promised to send copies of my papers to several other people. I�m going to be busy when I get home.

Afterwards I attended a fascinating session on 19th century orchestras. Well, it was fascinating to me anyway. The session was chaired by an old friend of mine, whom I was able to drag out to lunch with me, thus sparing me from the fate of missing yet another meal. We caught up on our family lives and talked shop a bit. He told me about his tenure process and gave me some career advice. I was heading into an afternoon session on film music when I saw that the woman whose work I cited in yesterday�s paper was sitting on a bench with a book. I walked by at first because she looked like she might not want to be disturbed, but I went back and asked if she had time to talk. I�m so glad that I did. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half, which is, in conference time, an eternity. It turned out she�d been a little apprehensive � �uncomfortable� was the word she used � about my first paper because she felt like it paralleled her own work a little too closely � I was able to show her how that was not the case and also reassure her that I had no intention of publishing this particular paper and that it was a footnote of my dissertation blown up. Once that was off the table, we talked a lot about our work and wandered into more personal stuff as well � our children (she�s my mother�s age), our passion for work, how we don�t understand how people can work on things they�re not passionate on. It was lovely and she agreed to read some of my work for me. But I�m still feeling a little troubled by her territorial concerns. I haven�t read her book in a long time. Was I more influenced than I realized? I don�t think so. But I want to make sure.

Part of the reason for her reaction, I think, is a political difference within academia. PhD�s are more easily heard than most librarians, no matter how informed they are or how well they write. It�s a business built on credentials. She was talking about how hard it was to get her book published. Given how well the book is written, organized and researched, I find it hard to believe that a Ph.D. would have had the same problem.

I�ll have to think about this some more when I get home. I pride myself on my academic integrity. And I certainly didn�t try to hide her work as a source � in fact, I went out of my way to acknowledge it publicaly, not just on my handout�s source list, which is the more typical way to do such things. And yet it�s still bothering me. Is it that I worry she might be right? Or is it just my more general frustration with the territoriality of academia? I myself am extremely territorial � it�s why I picked a project with so few secondary sources. But I also think that there is an incredible amount of work to be done and those of us in this field should ideally be supporting each other. Which is ultimately what happened in this conversation. So why am I still worried about it? Is it because I wonder if I can measure up? Because I wonder if I can hack the pressure of the crazy tenure machine? Maybe.

Afterwards, I called AJ to hear about his All-Star basketball game, which was today. His dad told me they announced the kids over the loudspeaker as they ran onto the court. They asked the kids which school they�d like to pretend to play for. AJ was introduced as, �That 6 foot seven center from Loyola.� Everyone cheered. AJ�s team won and he got a trophy with a basketball that spins. But he was even more excited by the whoopee cushion that he won at his school�s carnival last night. I can�t wait to see him tomorrow.

I ran back to my hotel to drop off my books and sprinted back to the conference to attend the annual meeting. Conference annual meetings are deserving of their own anthropological studies. Although the formats are all more or less the same, they are all quite different from one another in some fundamental ways and they reveal a tremendous amount about the conference culture. This conference has a particularly good meeting. There is a tradition of being entertaining, even for the treasury report. And then there is the annual skit that attempts to get members to cough up cash for the silent auction that funds the student travel fund. They are full of music geek puns. There is always a lot of laughing and groaning. There was even an extended reading of a passage of Jack Kerouac�s On the Road (don�t ask why).

Afterwards, I met up with my friend S. who introduced me to someone I�ve been dying to meet and who offered to help me with my project. Afterwards, S. and I headed across the river for sushi. It was really nice to get away from the hotels and to talk to her one on one, which is not easy to do, as she�s the editor for one of the top (if not the top) university press. People follow her around at these conferences like star-struck teens or paparazzi. They call her at all hours of the day and night. We reminisced and caught up and talked a little shop. Then we went to a slutty prom dress store near the restaurant and tried to pick out the worst dresses with which to scare our mutual friend who is getting married. �How about this for the bridesmaids?� one of us would say while holding up a dress that was completely see-through except for some strategically placed sequins. We found ourselves hilarious. We remembered a similarly silly venture when we were in New Orleans on a choir tour a gazillion years ago. That venture involved hats rather than dresses, but the basic idea was the same.

I�m back in the hotel now. Last night I walked back under a full moon. The streets were mostly deserted. The sound of the ever-beeping traffic lights they have here were oddly comforting. I looked up at the buildings across the street and saw silhouetted in the window of the Arthur Murray studio, a couple dancing, twirling and twirling past the window, their images bent and deflected in the squares of misshapen glass on the ceiling. It looked magical. Tonight is busier and noisier. There is a wedding going on downstairs and the bass is thumping up through the floor. It�s time to pack for home.

[Second entry today. Heading home tomorrow.]

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