Whoops! It's After Midnight

I was already feeling guilty that I was writing on Thursday instead of Wednesday night, and the computer just informed me that it is after midnight. So I am two days late with blogging on Woodsong Notes. Ah well.

I wrote my “Sunday night blog” on AmazonConnect on Wednesday because I was away from home until Tuesday night, and although I started the blog when I got home, I didn’t finish it until Wednesday.

Tonight Gerald and I had a stimulating evening listening to Angie Wyatt tell Southern Illinois Writers Guild about her career and about her children’s book that she is hoping to have published when she can find an economically feasible way to do so. The prototype of the canvas book she originally envisioned would cost $27 to produce—something even us book lovers wouldn’t be able to shell out for a children’s book.

It was great watching Angie on the 10 o’clock news after hearing some of her explanations as to what goes on in the news room. Her three-minute segment on John Rednour, DuQuoin’s mayor, was most interesting—and even more so because we had just learned that doing three-minute interviews is considered “in depth” on a news show. Persuading others that that amount of time would be a worthwhile use of those limited minutes was a recent achievement of hers. I look forward to future “in depth” looks at local people.

One of the topics discussed at Guild tonight was the prevalence of newsletters, news stories, and books on the computer screen. Most people still seem to prefer to hold a real live book in their hands. I feel that about newspapers. Sure I enjoy surfing and finding interesting new stories to check out on the Internet, but what I really enjoy is holding a large awkward newspaper in my hands—preferably at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee.

Right now I am trying to catch up on the two local papers that came every day I was away on my trip to my brother Jim’s at Mattoon and my daughter Jeannie’s at Freeport. Gerald carefully saved them for me, and I am carefully skimming them. I guess that is a contradiction, but I cannot carefully read them like I do when I get one paper at a time. Yet I definitely go through every page except the classifieds and advertisements, which are all out of date by now. So I skim carefully.

I strongly prefer to read a newspaper after Gerald has read it. Then I can cut out anything I want to save, but most of all, I can dissect sections at will and never mind returning anything to the correct order. Gerald does not like to read a violated newspaper; and just so I won’t think him cranky, he reminds me that our cousin Bob Morgan wants the paper left intact also.

I tried to explain to him the other day that he and Bob Morgan have longer and stronger arms than I do. Of course, they can keep all sections together and in the order it came. I need to tear those sections apart and fold them up so I can hold them easily. So I am having a good time reading, tearing, folding those dozen papers that accumulated while I was gallivanting to see my granddaughter’s musical. The messy piles are there to prove I read and enjoyed them.