So, someone once gave me some advice about my acknowledgment page of my future dissertation: start writing it the first year of grad school, otherwise you'll forget to thank someone important during the crunch time after the (successful) defense and before turning the revised thesis into the grad office. This seemed like super bad advice to me; writing acknowledgments for a project that I only have a 50-50 chance of finishing really seems like tempting fate. I did, however, start keeping a list of names of thankable professors, librarians, archivists, colleagues, etc. The list keeps growing, bit by bit--so far, no one I've added has made me angry enough to get themselves deleted from it.

Okay, all of this is just to say that I added one name pretty early on, with a phrase reminding me why I'm grateful to this person. Since that time, I've jotted down another reason, and another, and then another. And this week, I added another reason to the list trailing Beth's name. She totally bailed me a few days ago. It's a long story that can be summed up with the phrase "Susan failed to plan ahead," but the real point is this: I had only one day--Monday--to take photos for a paper I'm reading at a conference this weekend, and no camera. I was in a complete state of panic Sunday night when I realized I didn't have the equipment I needed in Illinois. Moreover, I was really resistant to Catherine's suggestion that I call around and try to borrow it from someone.

I finally caved, called Beth much too late for good manners on a Sunday night, and asked if she could lend me a camera. She instantly said, "Sure! No problem!" And not only did she lend me the camera for my work on Monday, she graciously offered to let me keep it so I could use it while I was in Los Angeles this week. Between my work in the archives, and my trip to the Getty Center this afternoon, I've accumulated more than 300 digital photos, all thanks to Beth. My talk for this weekend would have been impossible to deliver without those images from the rare book room. Less important, I suppose, are the photos I took today, but I'm still happy to have them. So, thank you, Beth, once more. Remember, you're supposed to be thinking about where I'm taking you out to dinner when I get back to Champaign.

Stupid Blogger. Now I remember why I don't post images here anymore.