So some of my more astute readers (which I assume is all of you) may have noticed that I haven't reported on any writing progress over the past three days. Ahem, yes, well. Yeah. So here's the story. There hasn't been any. Which is only frightening because I now have 6 more days to work on this chapter, and then it has to be turned in. Here's what happened:

On Friday, I went to physical therapy first, and got worked on for a whole hour, which made me sore and weirdly tired. Then, I went to the cage, blogged, sat around, looked at some books, and felt totally and completely exhausted. I think the marathon outpouring of text from the previous two days was finally catching up with me. I did all of the things I did the previous two days, waiting for the lightning to strike, magic to kick in, and my brain to start its daily round of production. It just didn't happen. So I thought I'd type into the computer the text that I wrote the day before on paper. I did a little of that and then my brain rebelled. It just said, No. So, I went home to where Handy Spousal Unit was taking a vacation day to do some construction on his study. Then I lay on the couch and watched Kinsey. 10 second film review: well- made, beautifully acted, interesting, and oddly disturbing. I cried. Then, we watched some of Ken Burn's documentary on the Civil War that I'm evaluating for using to teach with next year. I cried at that too. Which was ridiculous because I already know how it ends. Clearly, I was at the end of my rope. I fell asleep about 9 p.m.

So, the next morning I was supposed to get up, go to the grocery, and make a key lime pie for dinner with a new colleague that evening, and then make it to the library by 10 a.m. -- At which point I was to work until a friend's graduation party at 2. Instead, I spent about 2 hours struggling with bibliographic software programs. (More later on this, I'm sure.) Frustrated, and in a killing mood, and since it was now 11:30, I gave up on the library and went to the store and bought some plant poison to kill the chokeweed that is eeking its way all over my whole garden, stalking all of my beautiful perennials like an evil green python, just waiting to choke the life out of them. Then, I played fairy of death, prancing around the garden and lightly dabbing each evil chokeweed with my poison wand (a paintbrush dabbed into the weedkiller and dotted on the plant.) Then, the afternoon and evening went to our previously scheduled social engagements. Which resulted in one minor sunburn, two brilliant Bocce games, one social success, and one small panic attack when New Colleague revealed he knew far more about my relationship with my first advisor than I had thought, eliminating any hope of a clean slate that I got to write completely myself at my new institution. Academia is a frighteningly small world.

All of this, I think, has made me anxious to return to work -- which is in and of itself a good sign. And, really, I mean, what is progress but the way that we understand ourselves and our own movement from any single point in our personal path to another point on that same path. I was just doing some lateral movement around the map of points, rather than a direct course along a linear path. See, we smarty-pants graduate students can intellectualize and rationalize any darned thing.

Now, I'm gonna go get ready to go to the library, which doesn't open until noon, so I'm off the hook this morning. Have a nice Sunday, folks.