Grr. Today I gently detached a wailing toddler from my legs, slogged through a cold, steady rain to the library, and discovered that I had forgotten my power cable. And my laptop had no charge. And I'd left my memory stick with my diss backup at home. As they say in this here blogosphere, headdesk

So back home I went. Toddler required much snuggling, and I had to change my pants and socks and shoes, then I turned around and headed back out into the rain again. This time I packed yet another pair of socks and shoes into my bag, so I wouldn't have to work in wet feet. What kind of day was it? A three pairs of socks and shoes day. My day was so late, I didn't bother to eat my lunch (after carrying it to the library, then home, then back to the library, since there are some rather strict no-food-in-lockers-we-will-revoke-all-your-privileges-including-oxygen-supply-and-the-card-readers-will-give-you-an-electrical-shock-if-you-come-ever-back policies). There are only so many hours when I have childcare, and I must seize the precious sixth or eighth of a day, y'know?

For all the wetness and the walking to and fro and the hunger, did I mention the hunger? it was still a very productive day. I have not been counting words on this blog, but I feel I should do so, or devise some other metric. The tricky thing is that I write a whole lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily count towards any official draft. For instance, today I added a lot to my draft, but I also roughed out something like the next three paragraphs, in a separate document. And what about quotes? I sometimes add quite extensive quotes to my draft; should those words count? Or how about the fact that my current draft is in two parts, in two different documents, one half polished and the other half in deep need of revision?

Here's the thing: I'm writing a dissertation. That's where my energy, especially my mental energy, goes day by day. I keep this blog to track it, but seriously, if I have to expend much mental energy on this blog, it will transform into a competitor to my dissertation, and shortly thereafter I will delete it. You hear that, blog? (That's why your posts have no names, by the way. Can't be bothered. (Sometimes can't be bothered with subject pronouns, neither.)) Get in the way of the diss, and you are but a fart in the flow of the world's electrons. So you know what? I'm just going to count words in the polished part of my chapter, up to the current spot where I am working. As of today, that is 3175 words. Tomorrow (or more likely Friday, since I have some other distractions I must attend to tomorrow) I will be able to begin counting words-per-day.

This got long. Now I am done.