I Got the News

My husband, my ex-boyfriend (;)) and others have been pushing The Wire for years; I'm lately addicted. Stopped watching any TV for about a year, but started making an exception a few weeks ago, seeking escape from my own drama.

Newspaper folks do love to talk and talk they do about this plotline and its authenticity or writer's motivations. I've been around for bureau closures and buyouts and new owners who thought they could fire copy editors because spellcheck could do that job. My own MSM rise, halting and stilted as it was, was only made possible by the fact that I was young and willing to do more for less money than the ones they laid off and bought out. (That's the real meaning of "do more with less.") I never crossed a picket line (but I got some sweet pressure and lots of shots from a Detroit crew at a conference one weekend, and I did think about it til I sobered up), but a single-mom friend did. I actually managed to increase staff once at one place I worked, but that was because the owners were very very busy playing golf all the time. The Wire's newspaper scenes ring pitch-perfect to me and the ad hominem don't fly.

I'm desperately trying to distract myself until it's the right time to do a ritual for Imbolc, the pagan celebration of new beginnings, creativity, seeds stirring, sap just thinking of starting to rise, calves being birthed. Child's asleep and I can't write anything real. I'd planned a healing ritual, because I have some folks in mind there, but now I am furiously worried primarily about healing for my mother. I just got an email saying that while on her way to get her knee replacement, she fell and injured her shoulder. She is in pain and will need to heal for at least a month before the knee surgery can happen. My father has asked us not to call until tomorrow. So I'll call on the gods.

Photo: "Cosmic News," (Utah's Newspaper Rock), by Jahdakine, Creative Commons