It’s 6:44 AM here in Colorado and the forecast is Springlike. At least Mother Nature seems to be on my side today. But the problem for me today was never going to be the weather, good or bad. I’ve got a different nemesis this time of year, and he is a cowardly sort. He does his dirty work in the middle of the night, perhaps hoping I won’t realize what he’s done.

But you see, my body knows. It really isn’t 6:44 at all. Last night that old curmudgeon, Father Time, he remorselessly stole an hour from me, and as a writer, there is nothing more valuable to me than time.

You’re wanting to tell me that it all evens out; you think perhaps I’ve forgotten that six months ago the old road apple graciously loaned me an hour and now simply wants his sixty minutes back. Interest-free even. What I’d tell you, were you to defend this pilfering of resources at such a crucial period (working furiously on my third book and needing all the spare moments I can muster) is that I’ve become quite fond of that particular hour.

I’d also remind you that I never asked for the hour—old Father Time slipped it under my pillow of his own free will. (Even the Tooth Fairy requires goods in trade.) When someone hands me something without my asking for it, I call that a gift. At your son’s birthday each year do you demand the iPod (or whatever latest electronic must-have) be returned to you? When your daughter turns seventeen do you sneak into her room whilst she sleeps and steal enough money from her purse to cover the expense of her fabulous Sweet Sixteen party the year prior?

(Okay, I know some of you would LOVE to have that one back, so I won’t even go near the example of her gaudy wedding weekend).

Point is, I’m not trying to be obtuse. I need that hour. Desperately. I’m not getting any younger and the book is not going to write itself (trust me, I’ve checked—the word count this morning is exactly the same as when I drifted off to sleep last night).

I can’t even play the ignorance game. I used to avoid changing the clocks, fooling my nervous system and internal timepiece into believing I’d lost nothing (then, when my common sense wasn’t looking, I’d covertly move the clock ahead just before retiring for the night and pretend I simply went to bed a little late and must suffer valiantly through the next workday—being that it was always a Monday, that was never too much of a stretch anyway). Now my iPhone and computer, they change the time themselves! Even my watch is synchronized by the atomic clocks and thumbs its nose at my ridiculous plans.

So here I sit, wasting yet another hour writing a blog complaining about the hour that was taken from me. And next year, Father Time will pull the same gift reneging he does every March. But I’ve got a new plan! This is the last time the old bastard is going to shortchange me.

I’m moving to Arizona.

Of course I haven’t told my wife that we’ll now be dealing with summers straight out of Hell itself; that I’ve traded nemeses from Father Time to Mother Nature.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll move to Nome instead. Or the equator. Or New Zealand.

There must be somewhere in the world where the tradeoff of my hour is acceptable. Of course, were I a Science Fiction writer I could dream up a more unconventional solution to my problems…

Dang it. Where’s a good wormhole when you need one?

So to end this protest, a little ditty—I’m no poet, so it might be sh*tty:

Here I do sit,
My wits in a fit,
No blunt can I hit,
Not even a bit.

Father Time knows my nit,
A pact has been quit,
My anger’s been lit,
He’s testing my grit.

My attorney submits,
No writ will he get,
It’s guilt he omits,
And the jury acquits.

Now my brow’s in a knit,
So mad I could spit,
This seems so unfit,
It’s really the pits.

The day’s been lengthened
Silly tradition, admit,
We’re none of us farmers,
So why give a sh*t?

Arizona’s got moxy,
Needed nigh a permit,
Thumbed their nose at the system,
Off the government’s tit.

So join in my cause,
Leave your clocks on the fritz,
The hour we’ll keep,
Our good sense we remit.

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The blank page is dead…long live the blank page.

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Author known to use spontaneous satire, sarcasm, and unannounced injections of pith or witticisms which may not be suitable for humorless or otherwise jest-challenged individuals. (Witticisms not guaranteed to be witty, funny, comical, hilarious, clever, scintillating, whimsical, wise, endearing, keen, savvy, sagacious, penetrating, fanciful, or otherwise enjoyable. The Surgeon General has determined through laboratory testing that sarcasm can be dangerous, even in small amounts, and should not be ingested by those who are serious, somber, pensive, weighty, funereal, unsmiling, poker-faced, sober, or pregnant.)