Jeff O'Handley, Author

Jeff O'Handley

The Doubting Writer Finds His Voice

Monday Musing, Daylight Savings Edition

-It’s six a.m. and it’s dark again. Sunrise is officially 7:22 a.m. The other day I read an essay somewhere calling on Obama to banish Daylight Savings Time, to send it back to the abyss from whence it came. Aside from the fact it does not work from an energy-savings perspective, the author argued that it’s “cruel.” At the time I scoffed, but this morning? Yeah, it feels kind of cruel. On the other hand, it’s always kind of nice having dinner with full sun pouring into our dining room, and knowing that the Catbird will not be doing “town runs” with the distance runners on her track team in the dark makes me feel a little better (things get kind of dicey late in the cross country season).

-One other thing I always find funny about the beginning of Daylight Savings Time: the day we set the clocks ahead should, in a way, feel like a shorter day than normal. I woke up yesterday around seven, body-time, which was now eight clock time. By one in the afternoon, I felt like I’d been up forever.

-I am now a week behind my self-imposed date to deliver a manuscript to betas. Progress is being made, which is good. I am thankful at the moment that the deadline is my own, and I’m not under an editor’s gun.

-We successfully popped above the freezing mark for one day last week. Yesterday I found myself up on a porch roof, shoveling off a surprising amount of snow. We haven’t had one big snow event since the last time I did this; instead, everything just sat because nothing’s been melting. Temperatures are supposed to pop up and down this week, pushing 40 by day, 20s by night, so we’ll start to see some melting. I suspect sump pumps will be getting quite a workout.

-On Friday night I smelled my first skunk of spring while driving to pick up the Catbird from a school function. Saturday afternoon I saw my first dead skunk of the season. Right now I have not seen any of the birds I associate with spring: red-winged blackbirds, grackles and turkey vultures. I don’t really consider robins a bird of spring because most years we have a bunch hanging around all winter, but I haven’t seen any of them, either. I did hear a cardinal singing about a week ago, which was a nice sound.

And that’s all I have today. Last week, Agent Carrie put out a call for her Query Critique. As of now, the critique is not posted, but it might go up later today. Keep an eye out, add your two cents, and you might help someone get a 100-page critique in the deal (and that someone could eventually be YOU). Have a great day!

5 Responses

  1. We're supposed to get above freezing today and tomorrow – so excited!!! I feel like yesterday was a forever day too – hope your week is great 🙂

  2. We've been fortunate (in one way) that our winter's been so short. Our challenge is going to be this summer. There's been little snow for runoff, and I imagine most of that will be absorbed in the mountains. I have a feeling it's going to be a bad fire year this summer.

  3. We haven't had nearly as much snow as the east coast, but we did get walloped over the last two weeks. Finally warming up this week into the upper sixties. Definitely feeling like spring here. Once the snow melts, I'm betting we'll see some daffodils poking up through the ground. 🙂

    And I'm on team BANISH ALL THIS TIME CHANGE NONSENSE!

  4. 50 degrees this week. Whoooo Hooooo!
    By the way… I hate DST. I don't like the jarring change. I don't like driving to the gym in the dark. DST is stupid and should be put to a vote to abolish it! 🙂

  5. -Jemi–I've seen the pictures on your blog–it looks like you could use warmth more than we can!

    -Donna–Is your part of the west part that's been mired in drought? I know it's been real bad out there. I wish we could have given you some of our snow.

    -L.G.–Sixties? Dang, that's nice. Yeah, the older I get, the less tolerant of this time change stuff I become.

    -Stacy–I do have to say, though, it's nice driving home from work in the light! I'm not convinced it really does anything, though.

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