Different publishing, same writing tension

I've been on a bit of an archaeological dig this week, sifting through 14 years of Boomerangst columns as I've prepared them for posting onto my new blog: briandboomerangst.blogspot.com.

One thing is for sure: Publishing sure has changed in 14 years. At one time publishing was all about printing. Today, while printing is still around, the emphasis is on computers.

And it's symptomatic of what's happening to the newspaper industry. There are still those people who read words as ink on newsprint, but their numbers are shrinking as more readers favor words as electronic bits and bytes on a computer screen.

I've watched the publishing of Boomerangst migrate from its weekly appearance on newsprint to include weekly distribution as en e-mail, then as an offering on a web site. Now it's time to "blog," which, for the uninitiated comes from "web log." Web log equals blog.

The significance of blogging as publishing is that it removes the barriers that have traditionally stood between a writer and his/her potential audience. To get published in a newspaper or magazine, for example, a writer needed the blessing of an editor. Even with some web sites, there is usually an editor or webmaster serving as gatekeeper with the responsibility of picking and choosing the content.

But anyone with electronic access can blog. If you want to rant or whine or opine in writing, you can rant or whine or opine as often as you want with no editor to refuse you. If people find you and read you, so much the better.

So I'll send my column each week to my editor who will prepare it for the newspaper and for the web. And I'll email it to the folks on my column address book. And now I'll blog it, because this old dog likes new tricks.

But one thing remains unchanged -- the effort of writing. There remains the process of getting the words out of your head onto a piece of paper or onto a computer screen. The challenge -- indeed the taunt -- of a blank piece of paper nestled against the typewriter platen or the impatient blink of a computer cursor remains.

Computers and electronic publishing don't make the creative process any easier, they don't ease the tension of having a deadline and having no thoughts about what to write.

My son David, a junior at Boston College, is taking a non-fiction writing course this semester, and while he has done a massive amount of writing as a history major he was faced with the tension of creative writing -- the taunt of the blank page.

More years ago than I like to admit I was a junior at the University of New Hampshire attempting to find my voice as a non-fiction writer. My Dad, a writer, wrote the following advice in January of 1973:

"The life of a writer is naturally tense, the man and his talent working against his own sense of inadequacy and the critics, after his long lonely vigil over the birth of his brainchild, waiting to pounce and make small of. The writer has to be an egotist, a believer in himself, because like all artists he must depend on himself, knowing there is no midwife; he must conceive, labor, and bring forth alone. It's the price of immortality, if the child does and can live. The price of mortality is doubt, anxiety, fear, even sometimes failure. But what the hell. It's worth the try. Life is for the living. Pick up the gauntlet, accept the challenge. Imagine how sweet the victory."

I passed the advice to David: words as true now in the age of electronic publishing as they were 35 years ago.

Feeling like the $6 Million Man

Aging is a process of breaking down. Coping with aging is learning how to compensate and adjust for those break downs.

I know, for example, that my hearing is breaking down. I don't hear as well in my mid-50s as I did even 10 years ago. To compensate I've done two things: I tried out some high-tech hearing aids that worked pretty well but were too darned expensive. The other thing I've done is told everyone to speak up, which is more annoying for all concerned but certainly less expensive.

I also know that my knees aren't the pistons of good health that they used to be. They creak on occasion, especially going up stairs. So I've substituted a running regimen of exercise with a variety of other exercise such as swimming and walking so as not to pound my knees so much into submission. I've also followed my physical therapist daughter's advice on some weight training to help build up some knee strength.

Then there's my eyesight. I've been nearsighted since high school. But, as age is wont to do, my nearsightedness is deteriorating fuzzy-sightedness, that is without the help of contact lenses or glasses.

With the help of my eye doc I'm adjusting to the need for corrective vision to drive the car and read the paper -- though not necessarily at the same time -- without swapping out different glasses for the different tasks as I've been doing in the past.

The bottom line is that I’ve gone to bi-focals. The good new is that we don’t we call them that anymore. For baby boomers sensitive about growing old, marketers have tried to de-age the need for glasses the same way they've been trying to eliminate the age stigma of hearing aids. We don't refer to hearing aids as hearing aids -- we call them audio assistants. In the same way we've come to refer to bi-focals as multi-vision lenses.

And certainly the technology has made them less bi-focal looking. My new glasses aren't set off by the lines that separate far and near; they provide gradual vision changes from top to bottom for far, medium and close-up.

It's the new multi-vision contact lenses that I really like because they make me feel like the Bionic Man: "Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster." And it didn't cost me or a secret government agency $6 million.

Okay, so maybe not stronger or faster, but definitely better. The lenses allow me to see distance or read by finding the sweet spot for the particular need. As the eye doc says, the brain is an amazing thing. If I'm watching television news while reading the newspaper I often transition from the TV set to the printed page. I can literally will my brain to focus on the print, and it's very bionic and cool to literally watch it happen.

This is a far better solution to what I had before -- so-called mono-vision lenses. My right eye had a contact lens for distance; my left eye had a contact lens for reading. The brain was amazing enough to combine the two in a comfortable way, but sometimes I'd catch myself cocking my head one way or the other in order to emphasize the distance eye or the reading eye.

I'm lucky so far. The aging process isn't taking any worse a toll than a few things that a little tweaking can't fix. I'm not sure I'd want to turn into a medical case that required $6 million to fix in order to make me better, stronger, faster. I don't think my health insurance will cover it.

It's not black and white ... or blue and gold

Because I have loyalties to three universities, I'm a bit of a chameleon when it comes to college sports.

My wife Jane, on the other hand, is about as black and white (or as blue and gold) as you can possibly be about college sports. For her, it's Notre Dame or no one, the Notre Dame way or the highway.

I am a proud graduate of the University of New Hampshire and wear my blue and white team colors and Wildcat mascot logo whenever and wherever the need arises. But I'm more diverse about my affiliations and affections because of my daughter Elizabeth's undergraduate and now graduate studies at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., and the fact that my son David attends Boston College. So while I'm definitely a Go Wildcats kind of guy I'm there when necessary for the Bobcats and the Eagles.

Jane and I, for example, made a trip to Notre Dame for the Fighting Irish game against the U.S. Air Force Academy. As a man of many hats, I was there as a Falcons fan, given my grade school upbringing at the Academy where my Dad was an Air Force officer and an English professor in the 1960s. Jane wore her Irish garb, I borrowed Air Force garb from assorted family. We were quite the couple on a campus full of Irish, but I had the last laugh: Air Force 41, Notre Dame 24.

The Division I athletic clash is further deepened by the fact that Jane's daughter Eileen is currently at Notre Dame. One fantasy we had last fall was for me, Jane and David to travel out to South Bend, Ind., for the BC-ND football game, but David was studying abroad and unavailable. So we've turned our attention to the 2008 season -- the Fighting Irish are scheduled to play at Boston College on Nov. 8. Assuming of course we can pull off getting tickets, the hope is to get Eileen east for the game. Talk about sibling rivalry -- or, in this case, step-sibling rivalry.

My more immediate attention is focused on hockey and the fact that we're getting close to the end of the season and therefore close to the post-season and the possibility that UNH, QU, BC and ND will qualify for the NCAA tournament. According to the most recent national rankings, UNH is 4th, BC is 7th, ND is 9th, and QU is 16th.

Now I know what follows gets pretty deep into the weeds of too much detail, but there's a possibility that the four schools could end up going to the same regional tournament. My hope -- no my nirvana -- is for the four of them to play the regional tournament scheduled for March 22-23 in Worcester, Mass. I've got the tickets, I've got the lodging; now all I need is the right schools to get there with me and Jane.

My favorite web site right now is USCHO.com, and if you're into college hockey this is a web site for you. Each week it predicts the pairings for the tournament, broken down by region. This week's brackets prediction -- "bracketology," as USCHO.com calls it -- has only BC playing in Worcester next month (along with Michigan, Minnesota State and Bemidji State). Notre Dame and Quinnipiac are out in Colorado Springs, and UNH is in Madison, Wisc.

Hmmm ... that isn't the dream combination at all.

For the time being, until the official pairings are set by the NCAA, Jane has got to join me in cheering for as many of our teams as possible to get to Worcester. At least for my sake, UNH has got to get to Worcester. After that, she can cheer all she wants for the Irish to the exclusion of everyone else. And, for me, at that point it's the Wildcats all the way.


Paul Briand writes a weekly column about the fun, fears and flab-fighting foibles of middle age.