A Question of Tense

For nearly three years there has been the problem of tense. When I talked of Kirk was it present tense? Did I say he 'was' or he 'is' something. Kirk has a gift with languages... or is it he had one. Tricky thing, language.

Grammar was never my strong suit anyway. I sprinkle dashes and semicolons around with reckless abandon, and commas are like salt in my opinion - they add flavor to a sentence. I've been known more than once to start a sentence or even a paragraph with And or But. I'll split infinitives because it just sounds better sometimes to boldly go, and I'm not always careful about thatting and whiching. Microsoft Word scolds me something awful. My typing is always littered with chastising little wriggly green and red lines.

But the question of time... well pardon the pun but it was fraught with tension. I might not have picked up much beyond je voudrais manger avec vous demain in language class, but I know the theory behind perfect, imperfect and plu-perfect. I just didn't like the implications. I forgot as well. Kirk is (pardon) was such a vivid person that he is still very immediate to me. So more often than not I still use the present tense. There are people I've met casually who probably believe I have a living husband because that's how I speak of him.

I'll probably still do it when I write.

After all. He does live in the stories.