Today has been filled with some of the best kind of procrastination-- that which makes me feel productive, but it's still distracting me from deciding on a topic for this paper (thesis? what thesis?).

     This morning: lounging in bed with the hubs, then oatmeal pancakes- yummmm.
      Morning-ish: groceries aren't going to shop for themselves, and it's so nice out! Let's walk!
      Okay, need to work. Email check, apply for an internship, quick blog check... you know what's hilarious and good for hours of the most entertaining procrastination? http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ gets me every time. Speaking as a former cake decorator, you really have to be cognitively impaired or making a "please fire me" statement to be responsible for some of those gems.
     Slightly later: Oh, hubs, allergies got you down? I'll run and get you eye drops! I've already written part one of an outline/idea list, and probably need a break anyway.
     Okay, back home, and gonna get working... what's that, out-of-town best friend? You're coming home and want to coordinate a visit over Mother's Day? I should make some calls and organize.

Yes, of course I'm embarassed by how I seem to literally require a good six hours of procrastinating before I can get started. It's just that [cue the excuses, complete with imaginary violin music] I have no idea what I'm doing. In undergrad classes, the professors talked at length about ideas/themes/some kind of lens with which to view the literature. In this grad class, Materialism is the umbrella theory, but there has not been a single class in which we've synthesized the readings. Each week is like its own island. For this paper, there's zero direction. We can focus on any early modern work, and our papers must be ~20 pages. Maybe some people like this kind of freedom, but I feel like I'm drowning in it. I'm sure I'll look back on this as a *proper* grad student and shake my head at my pathetic inability to just pick a topic without having mini panic attacks (or resorting to starting a blog, for crying out loud), but for right now I've got apprximately one part of an outline. But hey, my professor's under crazy deadlines, and our papers aren't due until 72 hours before he needs to turn in grades. Maybe he'll never notice...