Procrastination is the Greatest Nation

Well, this hasn't gone so well, has it? Some weekend soon I'll sit down with the stack of books I've read and actually write the reviews I said I was going to write, thus escaping from the cloud of ignominy and disgrace that my procrastination has cast over my lazy head.

Shortly after the beginning of the new year (when I blithely resolved to read 50 books and review them for the Masses), I did both a very good and very foolish thing: I resumed work on my dissertation. Good because it's important to have a career and spark your passion; foolish because it significantly cuts down on blogging time. It is probably also decimating my self-esteem and giving me carpal tunnel/a hunchback, but that's another story.

My days now look like this:

1. I get up and procrastinate with the internet and NPR
2. I go down to the library to expand my mind/footnotes; I manically refresh my favorite gossip blog to see if Lindsay Lohan/Miley Cyrus/Mel Gibson has done anything shocking
3. I eat a sandwich in the park with brazen and predatory pigeons and read a novel (see, I'm trying!)
4. Repeat library
5. I go to the gym in an attempt to make my clothes fit
6. I negate good works at the gym by eating dinner
7. I put lotion on my feet, watch one of the several Masterpiece Theater/BBC dvds that I have checked out from the public library, and marvel at the fact that my long-distance relationship has turned me into a total spinster. At least I do not crochet and have only one cat.
8. Exhausted with Library and Spinster-ing, I read a chapter or two of the above novel and think despondently about my lack of blogging before drifting off into fitful slumber.

So there you have it. And I'll let you in on a little secret: this is not the first time I've had a blog and not the first time I abandoned a blog after just a few posts. But this time is different, this time I will not walk away, this time I will finish. It will happen!! (That nifty little rhetorical device of pairing three parallel statements is called a tricolon, by the way, and Cicero thought they were totally sweet.)

Here's a list of the books I've read so far this year. It's a poor substitute for reviews, I know, but I hope it will satisfy for now.

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily - Lauren Willig
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn - Robin Maxwell
Mademoiselle Boleyn - Robin Maxwell
Great Cases of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
Lush Life - Richard Price
The Lady and the Unicorn - Tracy Chevalier
My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
An Instance of the Fingerpost -Iain Pears
The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown (yes, I know...I am heartily ashamed)
Through a Glass Darkly - Donna Leon
Willful Behavior - Donna Leon
Dressed for Death - Donna Leon
A Sea of Troubles - Donna Leon
Possession - A.S. Byatt

I also read about 6 issues of Real Simple but I don't think that counts.

Reviews to come I swear!!

(Image: Caravaggio, The Penitent Magdalene, ca. 1597, oil on canvas)