I was hoping to write a real diary entry today, one with content AND Entertainment Value�. Alas, my head is totally in getting my conference paper completed, and were I to delve into another subject, I�m sure it wouldn�t be long before you started reading things like, �According to Adorno�, �progressivist philosophies� and �patriarchal hegemony.� But I will spare you. Yes, I am THAT thoughtful.

Actually, the paper is going quite well at the moment. It�s nearly finished and I think I�m going to be able to get it down to the timeframe without too much trauma. I had a couple of setbacks today, however. When I finally got around to looking at the tentative paper schedule published in the conference newsletter last week, I discovered that there were dates attached to my title that I have no recollection of putting there. Not only that, they were completely wrong. They were taken from a single section of the abstract and didn�t encompass the whole period I�m writing about. Moreover, the name of the group I�m talking about, which contains an archaic spelling, was �corrected.� I e-mailed the person in charge of the proceedings, but apparently the program is already at the printers, so I�m going to have to make some kind of announcement about the error and I�m going to look careless, even though it wasn�t my fault. Grrr.

The second setback isn�t so much a setback as a notification delay. Both the people with the film I want to show and the people with the film-showing equipment e-mailed me to say that they�re still working on getting what I need. Not showing the film would not be the end of the world, but it kind of brings thing to life in a way that I just can�t do verbally.

I�m trying to force myself to abandon my work for an hour or so to go for a run in the woods somewhere. Although the weather is still summery, the breezes have taken a turn for the autumnal, bringing oak leaves showering down like rain. It smells wonderful outside, the warm summer smell now tinged with the nut sweet edge of winter decay. Or so I hear. Here in the basement office, it smells more like damp laundry and cat litter. Yeah, I�m not sure what I�m waiting for either. Time to dust off the running shoes.

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