So, here I am at the end of the week and I haven't really accomplished much on this chapter. It is frustrating and annoying. Especially because I was all ready to do great work earlier in the week. Well, ok, maybe not really ready until yesterday. But I was totally ready to work on Friday. But, Thursday night I got a terrible migraine. I took this new medicine, which worked eventually, I think mostly by knocking me out completely. The down side (as opposed to all the up sides of migraines like intense pain, nausea, and light sensitivity) was that I was groggy and dopey all day yesterday, and woke with a fair bit of headache still. So, I didn't have the majorly productive day I had hoped.

Despite this, I did manage to get some reading in. I picked up this book that I read (or skimmed) years ago, and got through a little bit of it. It is pretty old, but does some interesting things in terms of political alignments in the 39th Congress, which is the one I'm studying. So, it was helpful, but just felt like I didn't have much to show for it in the end. Writing is so much more rewarding than reading in that way.

Today, Spousal Unit and I woke up early and cleaned the house. Dang, did it need it! From the smelly rotting flowers on the dining room table to the days of leftover dishes in the kitchen to the six inches of dirt on the floors-- our house most closely resembled a sty. It has just been too hot in the evenings to clean at all. At least that is my excuse. Then we went to the Farmer's Market and got food for breakfast from the Mostly Macrobiotic vendor. It was amazing -- french lentils with rosemary, brown rice with sesame seeds, string beans and olives, marinated carrots, greens with poppy seed dressing, peanut-lime noodles and corn fritters with chipotle aioli and ginger-miso soy sauce. Yum. Now, I'm in the Cage, which I have been avoiding for weeks. All of the books I need are in here, so I bit the bullet and came in. It too closely resembles a sty, only without the smelly food, because the last time I was in here I just shoved things onto the shelves to get them out of the way as I tried to wrestle chapter 2 into the ground. I think one of the tasks today will be to return this to a state of usability. The other task is to read some more in this book that I was working on yesterday. But, before I do those things, I'm going to read what I have in chapter 1 as is, and do some tinkering and pruning. Reading and cleaning can wait. I'm going to try to write first.

Luck to all dissertators who are working on a Saturday -