Nights like tonight--when it's edging towards 11 p.m. and I am tired from working all day, but have vowed not to go to sleep until my work is done--that I am occasionally struck by my distance to other writers whom I know online. Most of the friends that I connect with via the internet are four or five or six hours ahead of me (I'm never a hundred percent sure because I horrible with time zones, you crazy mainlanders and your daylight savings). In those wee hours of the morning, most of them are asleep, some might even be starting their days in a couple of hours.
It makes me feel terribly behind.
I live in a place still described as "paradise," where images like the above are probably pretty pervasive on the mainland (they certainly are here, tourism is still where we hang out economy) as the norm. How many movies, wherein a character travels to Hawai'i, is greeted by a grass-clad hula dancer with a lei?
Not here. I don't think there was anything like that when my family first arrived in 1990, though at the time, if you were meeting someone at the airport, chances are they'd have a lei with them. Nowadays you can't even meet people at the gate.
But I'm getting off-track. I do like Hawaii, kinda hard to think of leaving forever (all my books are here), but nights like tonight, when it would be nice to chat about writing, or work, or my proscrastination in regards to either of those topics, no one is around. The internet is empty, I can hear my text echoing -ing -ing.
And when everyone else is reading blogs in the morning, jumping into their day, I'll still be sleeping for a couple more hours. And I wait up thinking everyone else is gone again, lost in their own work, and I've come in late again.
Upside? I get verbose, and usually, if no blog post distracts me, I can get a lot done. That's how I completed my master's thesis--2,000 to 3,000 a night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. when I was most awake and eager to interact with someone. Barring that, I interacted with my characters.
Oh well. I still have syllabi to complete. :)
Happy Thursday writing, everyone, even though my Thursday is in 50 minutes.
~Sabrina
3 comments:
Oh Sabrina! I'm sorry you feel alone sometimes. I know how you feel, even if I loneliness finds me hours and hours before it finds you.
I think you've got the perfect antidote though: our characters will always keep us company--whether they want to or not! ; )
At least with the internet you aren't as cut off as I was when living in Hawaii. If I called California, it was 2 or 3 hours (or 3 or 4? I too get confused) difference, just enough to make it way late to call or way early when I got home from work (plus I worked nights when living there), and the other relatives were in Vermont, where it was 6 or 7 hours difference and totally skewed when calling. Internet means someone can be reached at any time, if they happen to be awake, and if you use FB or IM to communicate. That's handy.
It's a nice connection to have the blogosphere, but it can be lonely when you are in the middle of the Pacific and at least 2 hours off from anyone besides Pacatrue!
It's a bit worse now with work, Jennifer. Since I may see an email and not be able to respond to it because of work, then being too tired once I get home to even turn on the computer.
Many of the writers I communicate with most seem to be closer to the east coast, so may are sleeping when I'm awake at night and eager for a writerly cnversation, or they're here in HI and not online. But the internet does afford me these instances, where I can put words out there and know that eventually it reaches someone(s) else. And that's comforting.
I am really not a comfortable phone conversationalist anyway, writtenwyrdd. But yeah, time zones. CA is 2 or 3, and Massachusetts and thereabouts are 5 or 6, but I can never remember when or how it switches.
Post a Comment