The Merovingians

The ruling Frankish family from roughly the 5th through the 8th centuries.

Not just the name of a character from The Matrix, the Merovingians got the got their start as a tribe of warrior chieftains in Roman Gaul, filling the power void left in the fall of the Empire. A mixed bag of tricks, there were some notable bad guys, some saints (Radegund and Clotilde, for example), and some puppets among the lot. The line ultimately died out, and Pepin, a noble bureaucrat, ascended to the throne, starting the Carolingian dynasty.

Why do I mention any of this? Well, I was able to get some reading done today, and the book I picked up was The Birth of France: Warriors, Bishops and Long-Haired Kings, by Katharine Scherman. (I am a bit of a francophile.)

Why is this significant? Because I am finally done with all my papers for the semester! Today was the first day that I was not under some kind of deadline. I slept in, took a long shower, baked bread, caught up with the blogs I read, even tidied up a bit (an extremely little bit.) And I got to read, at length, a book that has nothing to do with school.

Not that I am blameless here. I procrastinated. A lot. I had significant trouble focusing on writing. Not writing in general, specifically this bit of writing (I actually did a fair amount of note jotting for poetry I am working on, but I don't count that as procrastinating.) Too many distractions in the apartment, like baking bread. Or watching the entirety of The West Wing. Or downloading episodes of Charmed from You Tube. Or... well, anything other than writing a paper on the comparison of Solomon ibn Gabirol's philosophy and poetry.