Apologies for my long absence! I hope no one has given up on me utterly because of it. I offer up this explanation by way of apology:

My March was filled to brimming with conference-going, which demanded an unusual level of, let us say, non-blogging work from me. All of this culminated at the beginning of April with a sprightly (if inconsistently so) popular culture conference, where I learned many an interesting tidbit about Battlestar Galactica (would that I had gotten there in time to hear about Freud, the gaze, and the Cylon body). No sooner was that conference finished than I spirited myself across the Atlantic (with the aid of a major airline) to London, where I have now been suffering from feeble internet access (I can only find a wireless signal if I crouch on the bathroom floor) and a terrible dearth of free time for a week and a half now.

I must admit to feeling rather smug and virtuous about the busyness of my schedule since I have arrived, especially since this (my non-teaching, dissertation-writing) year of graduate school has been largely characterized by the most profound sloth. I have been lounging around my apartment (or my boyfriend’s apartment on the West Coast, or my parents’ house in DC) like a figure from a medieval allegory of the seven deadly sins, unable to move from the couch except (barely) to feed myself, pick up the TiVo remote, figure out why the wireless router is tormenting me with dysfunction, or fetch a new book. Whole days go by without my catching a glimpse of the outside world. College counselors should serious consider photographing me for prophylactic campaigns about the dangers of graduate school.

But, before you send a flock of life coaches to rescue and rehabilitate me, rest assured that travel has hoisted me forcibly off the couch and back into life. I have spent some part of virtually every day since I arrived in London working on my dissertation (chapter 3 of 4, baby!) at the British Library, the most incomparably work-inducing location I have ever frequented. Most mornings and early afternoons will find me there (I admit that I am taking time from my studies there currently to type this up), after which I go traipsing (well, more like manically rushing) off to the theatre in the afternoon or evening (and, on four exhausting occasions, both).

Determined to be more virtuous about blogging (by typing my entries up in Word before transferring them to Blogger, in the hopes that I will then be able to make use of the brief flashes of internet-access lucidity I get in my flat), I counted up all the things I had done since arriving here 12 days ago that I want to blog, and found that I had 21 entries to write (12 live performances, 2 films/DVDs, 3 exhibits/historic house visits, 4 books). So I had better hop to it, and do the best I can. After all, I am seeing two more plays tomorrow.