Stuck in Space

One of the headlines in today’s news concerned the scheduling of an astronaut’s flight. Apparently, one astronaut on a current mission is due to become a father during the course of the mission.

He may have some trouble being the lamaze coach this time.

The headline, however, made the statement that the said astronaut was “stuck” in space on his wife’s due date. This puts in mind some “Apollo 13” or “Lost in Space” scenario. Neither of which is true.

I think the AP manual has guidelines regarding specificity of language the headline writer needs to consider for future headlines. The connotation of “stuck” is that it is somewhat against the will of the astronaut to come back or that he is in an unplanned or unexpected circumstance. The scheduling of missions is highly planned and scheduled and the reports following the inspection of the shuttle following launch found no damage that will prevent or delay it’s return to earth.

The unfortunate thing is the wife’s fertility cycle, but the astronaut is not technically “stuck” in space. With the technology we have available now, he can “virtually” be there. I have seen those people who walk around wearing web-cams that broadcast their every move. Surely the doctor could put a webcam on his cap and have the images beamed up to the astronaut.

Likewise, the astronaut could be beamed down to a monitor so his wife could scream at him as necessary. Better yet, this is NASA, let them beam him down in a 3-D hologram so he can “virtually” hold his wife’s hand.

Office Space!

Finally I have a functional office space in my home. Since I moved into the house two and a half years ago, my office has been the clutter/junk room. During my recent vacation, though, my office was project #1 and it has come out quite nicely.

The first step was getting four bookcases out of the room. I still have the books, but finally gone mine put away in somewhat of a logical order. On one wall, I put in a track shelving system and it made a world of difference. Being able to adjust the shelves gives me so much more usable space than the standard wall-unit bookcase – and it looks so much more orderly perched up above my new desk.

The desk made another huge difference. Despite eating up a chunk of space, it is a real desk and fits nicely in one corner with a writing and a computer space. Since I still like to compose most of what I write by hand rather than by typing, that space is so important to me. The writing space looks out a window to my front lawn – usually at the damn grackles, but still it is some kind of wildlife beside the college-age boys renting the house across the street.

I also moved in my 55 gallon aquarium and the comfy recliner that never matched any of my other furniture. So now I have soothing sounds to go along with a favorite reading space.

I have a couple boxes of books to put away somewhere yet and some scrapbook boxes to file. I make scrapfiles, not scrapbooks. It is much more exciting to open one of the boxes and rediscover a memory than to have it neatly organized in a scrapbook where you know exactly what you are going to find.

All in all, though, my reading, writing, and quiet place is back. With just a bit more organization (stuffing things in the closet), it will be the perfect place for my evenings, and maybe I’ll be able to get to the short stories I kept threatening to rework and publish.