Today: I want to get through the section on manhood and work, and I would LOVE to get through the section on manhood and citizenship. Then that leaves the historiography of civil rights and citizenship to slog through so that I can make clear the distinction between civil and political rights that the members of Congress are making. But, that is for another day. Today, I need to write about the ways that work, economic freedom to contract, and property ownership are central to ideas about manhood in the 19th century.

Goal: 1. Manhood /Work completed, 2. Manhood & citizenship begun.

Well, I didn't finish both sections that I wanted to finish. But, I did finish the first section on manhood in relationship to family. It was like pulling teeth to write that section. Some days, I have a lot of words -- a lot of ideas to follow those words. Then there are days like yesterday, where I can sit all day in the same place, staring at the screen for hours on end, frustrated and thoughtless. And where everything I write looks inane and pointless, so I delete it and start again, and then that too, looks inane and pointless. But, I got some stuff down on the page. We'll see what it looks like today. Could be crap, could be brilliant. One never knows. (and, of course, there is never anything in between.)

In those moments of seriously down time, I must confess to having surfed the web a bit and played more than a reasonable amount of solitaire. It makes me wonder if, ala Bridget Jones, I should record my "solitaire units" as a measure of how much I'm actually playing. A good friend who is also dissertating has confessed to having a bit of an obsession with solitaire as well. I sort of suggested we make a pact to delete the programs from our respective iBooks, and she said, "yeah..." with a half-hearted kind of response, and then I think we both thought about it and seriously decided that neither of us was ready to take that step yet, so we carefully and quietly let it drop. Does this mean we have a problem?

And, also, if I'm really telling the truth (which I DO NOT want to do -- far preferring to keep my failings to myself, thank you very much) around lunchtime I took a couple of hours and watched some Buffy. Guilt, guilt!! Oh, the shame of not working every single instant! (But, it was season 6, my favorite...) Spousal Unit has suggested that without down time there can be no up time. He's very zen. And, I know he's probably right, but that doesn't relieve the overwhelming guilt of having not been completely productive every single instant yesterday.

Unrelated rant -- I'm re-reading Dune before I go to bed at night and for the first time am disappointed with it. I have read it a number of times before and I would have placed it in my top 25 favorite books of all time, But, somehow, this reading I'm finding the dialogue stilted, and the action boring. I'm not sure what this means about me and my state of mind right now, but there it is.

Day 1 Wind-up: Pages written: 2, Sections completed: 1, Solitaire games: ~1 hour, Buffy time: ~2 hours. Exercise: Huh?

I am sitting in my study on the back of the second floor of our house and I am about to go mad. Because it is Memorial Day, Neighbor #1, (An alcoholic sanitation engineer with a dog who tries to kill at me whenever I open my UPSTAIRS window, and who possesses the following dead items in his driveway: car, truck, refrigerator, bicycle, mop, ladder, and a bunch of stuff under a tarp that I’m not too excited to know about) has set up an outdoor party complete with blaring country music. Now, I have had my share of loud outdoor parties, and far be it from me to disparage the music of my roots, but even the beloved iPod cannot compensate for this distracting noise.

I have written one paragraph on the history of manhood and family. (Anthony Rotund’s “American Manhood” and Stephen Frank’s “Life with Father.”) I need to have lunch, and then finish this section of the chapter. I have been working on it (ostensibly) for 2 months. And have gotten nowhere. It has to be done by the end of the day. Wish me luck…

In an ongoing attempt to finish a dissertation that just won’t end, I’ve decided to post a daily account of my progress (or lack thereof.) As any of you out there who are completing a dissertation know that something like this is, of course, the best and most easily justifiable way of procrastinating doing the actual work.

A little bit about my project: I am writing a history of the use of the word “male” in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. I am arguing that 19th century ideas about manhood and voting rights intersected in 1865-1866 as Republicans sought to enfranchise African-American men. Ironically, and not so accidentally, this happened at the exact moment that the woman suffrage movement began requesting the right to vote nationally. Thus to prevent the accidental enfranchisement of women, black and white, Congress adopted gender-specific language in the Constitution for the first time in its history.

It is a cool project. I was very excited about it 8 years ago, I was really into it 5 years ago, still fairly interested it 3 years ago, but I’m damned tired of it today. I’m ready to be done. And, more importantly I got a miracle of a job (more on that later) that starts this fall and I absolutely have to finish before I begin or else I won’t be able to hold onto this miracle.

I have been in graduate school since 1994. Which, for those of you who don’t know, is a bit like trying to give birth for 9 years. I feel perpetually on the verge, never able to be permanently involved in anything. Graduate school is a strange, liminal place where you are not quite one thing, nor are you fully another. It is the limbo of academia. It encourages you to self-aggrandize, and simultaneously to develop equally intense self-doubt and loathing. It is ego-building, and utterly emotionally shattering. One friend calls it “soul killing.” I think this is true, but think that my hysterically witty brother put it most aptly a few years ago: “Wow,” he said, “they should call the Ph.D. Pretty Hard, Damn it.”

I begin this blog with hope that a daily public reporting of my progress and process will somehow make me accountable for the work that I am doing, or not doing, and will keep me on track as I drag myself slowly with my fingernails and teeth, guts and heart, toward the finish line of this intellectual and emotional marathon.