Half & Half

A recent article in National Geographic on the teenage brain may also shed some light on the declining attention spans of Americans when it comes to reading. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, have an ability to read beyond the length of a Tweet. Editors now request shorter articles from writers, and the day of the feature-article may be drawing to a close.

Last month, I had a "longer" poem accepted for publication (a mere 7 stanzas), but the editor informed me it could only be published as a 5 stanza poem.  I made the cuts, but if I reprint the poem, I'll restore the 2 lost stanzas.

Today, writing seems to be about half of what it was just a few years ago.

Of course, I'm probably only half the man I used to be.  I can't run, can't read without glasses, and have started taking copious amounts of vitamins and minerals to keep the half remaining cartilage in my knees and joints.  I also eat half of what I used to eat, but gain twice the weight when I eat it.  My wife often tells me I'm half nuts.  I don't know what happened to the other bag of cashews, though.

Next week I'm going in search of the other half of me.  I'll look everywhere.

And then I'll get back to writing half the article for half the price and only have half the fun I used to have.