Project ideas for 2004 have been inundating me for the past week or so, and I'm feeling mighty dizzy from the deluge. I'm a person who has too many ideas, and it can be a curse. Focus on one at a time is what I strive to do, but it's so hard when detailed plans for each new project flood my cranium.

Right now I'm honing in on reading two new definitive biographies of Harriet Tubman, one entitled Harriet Tubman: Road to Freedom by scholar, popular writer, and authority on Civil War women Catherine Clinton, the other, Bound for the Promised Land, by historian Kate Larson, who landed a contract with Ballantine for this rendition of her PhD. dissertation. I have not read either book yet, but am eager to do so, since they will authoritatively sift fact from fiction and transform how Americans view Tubman.

I'm reading American Woman by Susan Choi. I'm fifty pages into it, and have discovered that so far it is a book that requires concentration. In other words, it's not ideal for reading by the light of the television set. My problem is that after dinner Ken, Sophie, and I all sprawl on the family room couch. Sometimes I watch a movie, but lots of times Ken watches his shows while I read. There is a comfy couch in the living room, but Ken and Sophie give me glum looks if I abandon the family. That's all very well, but if I'm reading a book like American Woman, I struggle along with the convoluted prose and dense, overwrought passages. The only thing that has kept me reading is that the book has received good reviews. I'd like to see what the fuss is about, if I can hold out.
Any thoughts out there on how I can better manage this situation? Are earplugs more comfortable than the torture aids they were back when I was trying to sleep in a college dorm?