it is coming to 8. my ovid paper is due at 11. it only has to be about 1800 words so I can get that out in 3 hours alright, if i can think of what to say. i can't, however, think of what to say, though i've been trying for the last 12 hours or so. i can think of endless assorted bits of observations from too many different points of view none of which i'm particularly interested at pursuing closely or am even able to pursue beyond its most superficial levels, and of course i'm trying to put a bit of everything in which is terribly disorganised and confusing. you wouldn't think it would be that hard to write on things that flee in ovid. but i haven't managed to find a sort of thesis that links everything together. and actually i realise i haven't got much to say about things that flee. there aren't, i realise, too many things that flee in ovid either. fleeing innocent females victims of male power, hunters turned hunted reversals, and erm fleeting objects of desire unpossessed which is really more faerie queene than anything else. all of which requires too much theory none of which i know. very ill-equiped when it comes to theory. i can see random aspects of things very quickly, using theory, but i can never sustain an in-depth analysis of anything it's just sort of flitting around pointing things out in part because theory is a bit of a playground for me picking up glass and saying let's see what this looks like through this, and then i chuck the shard and find something else to do. it's darn near impossible for me to carry through a sensible meaningful reading. i'm too superficial for that. increasingly i think i'm ill-suited to the academy and what i would be much better off at is the sort of mulisch/calasso type of meditative pattern drawing writing which is not without massive amounts of research and work but a different way of presenting the same material which nohrnberg calls wormhole writing (stick coincidences and patterns and a mixture of different ideas down one side and see what comes out on the otherside) i am in a panic i need help somebody. one idea to write a paper around. take one of my many little ones and say stop changing your mind do this. and then i shall be well. now i'm flailing in a sea of armed venuses and roman empire and anti-virgil and erotic gazes and apollo the elegiac lover and fleeing women turning into art objects all of which needs to be weeded out. all i have is a list of random ruminations which works as just about anything else but fails entirely as a paper. i always knew i should start my papers 2 days early.