In Media Res

This is advice often given to writers these days. It's the latest publishing gimmick, and now the darned habit is bleeding over into episode tv. The shows are starting with -- say someone getting fired. Then they go back to before they got into the trouble that got them fired.
I don't like this as a regular thing. Every now and then is okay, but not two or three shows in a row, and not as even a semi regular opening. (It's okay as a tag or ad, if it's a program that has used that format regularly.
There are a couple of shows that I now turn off if the new episode starts with the story's climax.

For what it's worth, I think it's also bad writing advice, unless well done. Beginner writers often ask "Where do I start?" For years the obvious answer was to start at the beginning. It often takes a lot of writing and reading to decide when the beginning of the story is, but it's a place to start.

Notsomuch in today's publishing market. Today we are advised to start the story near the end and tell it all as a flashback. (Another style of writing that has to be well written to be readable.)

Sorry, major media. A good read or a good program has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In that order.

whose time is it anyway?

It's that time of year again. Time to change the clocks from standard time, to savings time. We know have eight months of savings time, and four of standard, so I'm wondering how the time setters define "standard".

It used to be that time changed the first weekend in April and the first weekend in October. Then they made it the last weekend in October. Now, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the dates selected, and that makes it more difficult than it needs to be.

I don't question that they can do this. Clocks are man made, and standard or savings time, the time zones and titles were man made, and even originally created by big business. So it's certainly within their province to manipulate the o'clocks to their benefit in any way they wish.

I do wish they'd do so within understanding of the common man, and that the language would reflect the changes they are making. (See above reference to standard.)

What they call any time really doesn't matter. The sun rises according to its schedule, whatever o'clock Big Chief CEO calls it. The birds migrate, the frogs croak, the cows need milked. According to time, not the clock.

Let's all remember that time is not about clocks or calendars. Time is an entity in itself, and let us flow with it. Because we have no choice, yes, but also because it is and we are.

computer troubles

 I got my old desk out of storage. My desk is a lovely corner desk, with lots of nooks and slots and shelves and doors and I was sooo happy to finally have it back.

I shut down my computer -- it was working well -- and, once it had shut off, I unplugged it and then unplugged the stuff off of it. My monitor, mouse, printer/scanner, speakers. I very gently moved the thing into the other room so it would not be tipped, bumped, knocked or dropped in any way by the rearranging of the desks -- out with the little, in with the good big one.

Once the moving was done, I hooked everything back up and plugged everything in, turned on the computer, and it came on and informed me that Windows had shut down improperly and for me to select a choice: two safemode options, a return to last good date and start windows normally. No matter what I selected -- and I tried them all -- it keeps going back to this screen.
Someone came and looked at it for me. The drivers are missing. I dunno where they went or how. I do know there was no improper shut down. I do know it wasn't jolted in any way. No one seems to want to believe that, but it is so. I know. I treated that tower as if it were more fragile than a hewborn baby. (Not that they are fragile -- they aren't -- but we're programmed to treat them that way)I suppose it copuld have got a virus or a worm or something, but I don't know how it snuck in if so. I have -- had -- MacAfee, Norton, and AVG.


There is some communication glitch with my repair team, and I am seriously considering just trying to get a new (to me)one. However, with just this one exception, it will cost money that I do not have.

I had all my writing on that computer, very little of it backed up. The bifg things, yeah, but as you all know, most of my writing is small stuff. Forty plus years of creation blinked away. If any of you have copied anything, please let me know, and be patient if I can't respond right away. The local library has only one computer for the public, and I can't wait for hours at a time. Not with Rex as he is.

Bear with me, please. I don't know what to do or how to do it or why it happened (not that that matters, except I'd like to know so I won't do it again). All I know is I have been stranded in solitary solitary.

fat getting fit

Why do the ads for exercise equipment keep using the already fit in their commercial? Only part of it can be that that's a subliminal message/goal to the prospective customers. Why not use people who really need their equipment? (It worked for Jared and Subway.) That's who they are selling for, isn't it?

Probably not. The people who are fighting fit usually have more disposable income. They spend money, not just on healthier foods, but on all the equipment and on the fashionably fit togs that are also a feature of the ads.

 What they don't tell: Many times their equipment isn't made for the truly overweight. There are weight limits on the things, usually around 250 pounds. Now, 250 is overweight for most of us, but the people who will most benefit from the products very well may see 250 as a goal to get down to.

There's also the ease of use aspect. If you are lighter, you can make that equipment sing, hum, fly! You can get it going and it goes, goes, goes. If you are around the 250 limit, just getting it to move can be a problem.

If the ponytailed blonde can whiz by on a walker, and the muscle bound guy can pull those elastic handles with ease, it's because they don't need to. Also because they have already done most of the work needed to get the benefit of the products.

No matter how easy it looks for the young and fit, it's work getting there.
It's work getting it started.
It's not easy work, and it's not quick work. But, as the advertising models know, it's good work, and gets easier as you go along.

Make sure it fits, and know, before you start, that you are worth the effort.

time to go outside

I think it's getting close to spring. Yesterday we were wakened by tornado sirens and high winds and lightning. Today was filled with sunshine. (Never mind that it is supposed to snow again Sunday.) I was out doing yard work.

It smells good outside. Smell is the most neglected of the senses sometimes, but can be the most poignant. An aroma cam bring back a memory faster than any other sensation. It used to be bread baking, but that's rare these days, even as a memory.

Everyone knows the scent of spring. It seems as if we can smell the energy in the air. The wet earth is light with the aroma of green and growing. The wet itself is good clean rain. Even the sunshine has a smell to add to the air.

Go outside, people. Take a few deep breaths. Life is growing, changing, greening.
And it smells darned good.

Talkin' bout that weather

Is it any wonder that people talk about the weather. It never stays the same. Even when it does, like during a drought, there's always the anticipation of change.

There's a belief that people talk about the weather when they have nothing else to say.
Not true, I say. Because usually, when talking about weather, people have plenty to say. They can talk and talk and talk.

And can you think of a better, less pushy way to get to know someone? Do they bask in the sun, or do they prefer cuddling in the cold? Do the pretty pastels of spring brighten their world and mood, or are the more vibrant colors of fall their thing? Can you argue the merits of the seasons with camaraderie, or does someone get angry defending their climate?

And, of course, global warming -- now known as global climate change after the cold and snowy winter -- is a hot topic in the more sophisticated circles. Farmer in the drought or sheik in the desert, the weather is always sure to get a response.
That's why we talk.

Is it Over Yet?

There are daffodils in my flower bed. Bright green leaves. Big fat buds. Clusters of them, pushing out from the covering of leaves beneath the (now melted) snow. I don't know when they got there, but there they are. I think today's rain must have squashed the dead leaves down to let the green out.

And such a lovely green it is.

In the meantime, it is snowing again in Kansas. My niece just posted a picture on Facebook of her freshly shoveled walk. I had to enlarge the pic to see where the walk is supposed to be.

Last week it was March. Windy and warm.
Over the weekend it snowed again, just flurries.
Today it is April. Rain, rain, more rain. And daffodils awaiting.

If only the calendar could keep up with the weather.
But then, we'd be pretty dizzy by now wouldn't we?

How cheap is that?

Now that gasoline is over $3.00 a gallon, even the service stations don't rush to put up their prices. Some few places let their signs fall into disrepair, surviving on convenience customers instead of competing actively for business. Others are looking for new ways to attract the drive-by consumer.

The price signs proclaim 3.09 for regular, 3.45 for diesel, and under those there is often an .89 or .99. Now, it has been a long, lo-o-o-o-ng time since any service station has sold anything for so low a price. What could this alluringly priced item be? Why should I stop here instead of there?

It is coffee.
Gas stations are pricing their coffee on their street signs, in an effort to get you to stop here instead of there.  The emphasis is no longer on fueling your car, but on keeping you going. They know the gas prices will no longer bring you in, but you still need some reason -- any reason -- to prefer their business to the next one down the road. 
So they offer coffee.
Any kind, any style, any size. Well, some places have any size for .99. Others have 16 ounces for .89.

Just like with gasoline, it depends on where you stop.

failure fails to succeed

There is a sign on the wall of the cardiac unit at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati that says. Heart Failure does not mean your heart is failing.

The sign goes on to explain that heart failure simply means that the heart isn't effective at doing its job. (my own words here)

The sign has me puzzled. Not about heart failure, about definitions. How do they define failure? Isn't a definition of failure not effectively succeeding?  Isn't failure not doing one's job?

Obviously, this is not complete and total failure -- it's okay to get help when help is needed. Sometimes, failure to ask for help is more of a personal prideful failure.

The sign is meant to reassure. I know that. But why lie? Heart failure means your heart is failing on its own. We are here to help, and there are things we can do that will help.

Don't say failure isn't failing. Because it is. Even then, some failures are successful. What would they think of that? How will they explain it?

The Longest Month

We know that Nature and man too often disagree, and the month of February is a perfect example of that. February is the longest month. It encompasses the snows of December, the cold of January, the winds of March, the rains (which in February are frozen) of April. Only at the very end, and often only if we are lucky, do we get a hint of the flowers of May.
It is frustrating that our calendars tell us that we are nearly into spring, as we continue daily to battle the blues of a too-long winter. Only four weeks till warmth, the calendar says, as we chop our firewood or buy our fuel for the coldest blasts of the year.
Only three weeks, the calendar lies, until sunshine comes, and the warm, wet winds, as we once again add an extra layer of clothing to keep us warm as we scrape the ice off our windshields. Only two weeks, the calendar declares, until life becomes beautiful again, and we look out our windows at ice sculptures that glitter in the hard sunshine. (Hmm. Hard? And Sunshine? Maybe the calendar is not so wrong as we first thought.) One more week, swears that calendar of ours, one more week and we will be heading out of winter, as the blizzard roars.
After the blizzard, we walk outside, checking for dangers and damages, and what is that we see, just below the stalactites of water hanging from our eaves. It is a different blade of white, tinged with maybe purple, maybe yellow. A flower, not afraid to brave the cold and the snow. It breathes in the cold crisp air and sends sunshine deep into the earth

Maybe the calendar is not so wrong, we think, but then again, we know. These last four weeks - twenty-eight days - no matter who was counting or how, have taken a lot longer than the six hundred seventy two hours allotted to them by our measurements. It seems that we have spent all those hours battling the last blasts of winter.

February, the longest month, draws to a close.