In which I already fail at being brief.

Today was hands down my favorite day at work so far. Three reasons.

1) I started a super fun new project that consists of me looking at the collection of paintings here and writing mini-descriptions and interpretations for the website. Unclear if I'm actually knowledgeable enough to be doing this, but they trust me, so...I'm going for it. Which leads me to point two...

2) Today was one of those days where I pretend I'm smarter than I actually am. Every Tuesday, there's a colloquium where two fellows (out of the about 10 doing research here) present what they've been working on, ask for feedback, and talk about how awesome their forthcoming book will be (which will, indeed, be very awesome and read by at least the twenty of us in the room...success!) Nevertheless, this was my second one of these, and I've decided the best mode of attack is to cross my legs, sit up straight, casually drink my coffee, and nod when seemingly appropriate. I seem to fit in just fine. Goal for next week's meeting: speak. I'll let you know how that goes.

3) I made a new best friend. He doesn't know it yet...but we're gonna be pals. He's kind of the archive master here, and knows so much (and has been here so long) that I think he was best friends with Ben Franklin at some point. I work outside his office, and he's the go-to person for my Friday project (more on that on...Friday...). As soon as he discovered that our historical interests are pretty much the same (print culture), he took me into his office and sat me down. After a conversation that literally lasted two hours, he says: "Here, read this book for your project on Friday. My wife wrote it. It's pretty good."

I walk back to my desk, book in hand. Five minutes later, he comes out of his office...


"Do you need some reading for the train?* Here, take my first book. I wrote it in 1985 before I knew anything. I think most of it's right."

Best friend.

*Note: He thinks I take the subway to get there. I'll have to somehow bring up my intense walking habits soon.

Last but not least, the AHFOD (awesome historical fact of the day, in case that super cool acronym hasn't caught on...): This old cooking book (from 1810ish) and plaque were sitting on my desk all day long, so I felt the need to report on it. It's a cookbook for "coffins", which at first I thought was just plain bizarre, but later discovered that "coffin" is the old school way of saying "pie." Much less creepy. The name changed sometime in the mid-1800s...thank goodness. And as a sidenote about pie (and about one of my favorite writers), Mark Twain's favorite food was huckleberry pie (coincidience? I think not..) and he would typically eat half a pie a day. Fun party fact!

Till tomorrow!
Casey