Hibernation's Over!

I've been away from the blog for so long that now I sort of feel like a guilty little kid trying to sneak into the house unnoticed. Not that I ever experienced being a guilty little kid, you understand. I'm just talking rhetorically or some such adjective.

My good friend Sande Elkins tactfully reminded me that there was nothing new on here when she last looked. I have been remiss in my duties. The truth is, neither Sande or I actually talk like that. I'm not even sure that there's a documented case of someone from Loudon, Tennessee using the word "remiss" in a sentence. If that's true, then I just became a trailblazer (!), and if it's not, then I've been, well, remiss in my research.

Nothing's wrong- I've just been pretty busy with a new job and with working on a fairly sizable music project, and there has just not been that much spare time to go around. I guess that's a net good thing, but I really do miss getting on here and letting the thoughts go wherever they want to go. It's really therapeutic for me to do that, and I resolve to do better. Or at least TRY to do better. I'm pretty sure.

I've never paid much attention to it, so I don't know if this happens every year, but it seems like my activity level is tied to the seasons this year. This winter was almost like hibernation, which isn't all that bad a tactic in Illinois winters, and now that spring's coming on, I seem to be getting busier. Now we're coming up on the switch to Daylight Savings Time, which presents me with the perfect opportunity to go off on a tangent.

Am I the only one still a little confused by time changes? I know they've been around long enough now to be routine, but I just never have gotten comfortable with them. We've developed these little cutesy memory aids to apply to them, like "Spring forward and fall back", but even THOSE give me a little problem. I always get it confused with "falling forward", like when you trip on something, ot "springing back", like when you almost stepped in something.

I have to admit that I share my grandfather's take on this whole DST business, or DST BS, if you will. He observed (correctly) that when it gets dark, people turn the lights on, and when it gets hot or cold, they turn the AC or heat on, and what TIME you call it has little if any bearing on it. So, he reasoned, how is any energy getting saved (which was the original goal of making the switch)? Answer us THAT one, Department of Energy!

I need to apply for some kind of exemption anyway, because I've been chronologically-challenged ever since I moved into the Central Time Zone from the Eastern Time Zone. I still say "6 o'clock" and "11 o'clock" news, knowing full well that in the Central zone, these two things come on at 5 and 10. I couldn't even guess how many times I've missed the news over that bit of confusion. In the CST zone, it gets dark at 4:30 in the afternoon in the winter. In the EST, it stays daylight until 9:30 at night in the summer. And I just can't get it to seem right that Saturday Night Live comes on at 10:30 here, when it's OBVIOUSLY an 11:30 show.

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but at the same time they say you're never too old to learn. They also say that the more things change, the more they stay the same (which I've NEVER understood!). For now, my only comment is that the old dog can learn new tricks if he can be convinced that they're worth learning. Other than that, I guess I'll leave these contradictory sayings as another tangent for another day.

It's good to be back! Take care!