Midnight hours

I really like the graveyard shift. With the great current trade-off of not being awake the same hours as my husband (and thus not sleeping the same hours either), the solitude does wonders for me. And I don't just mean the solitude of an empty house and a quiet out-doors. There's also the measure of online solitude when the blogs don't update and the email doesn't arrive. A forcible removal of distractions where I have no choice but to amuse myself.

Not that production comes to a stand-still as soon as the transmissions start trickling in again, but when I know that it's mostly pointless to check my friend's list or feed reader, I can sink into the flow for longer periods of time without needing to "breathe". That's what I call the release of checking my main 3 websites. A momentary distraction, refreshment, getting my bearings according to the rest of the world.

When I was a kid (okay, I still do it), during long walks from the ballpark to the car, or from the store home, I would close my eyes and hang on tightly to the hand of whatever responsible person was with me. For as long as I could stand, I'd clear my mind and walk into infinity, save for the gentle tugs to avoid concrete pylons, or the small reminders to step up a stair or down a curb.

Trying to do it alone produces a small, enjoyable amount of fear. Walking home from the bus stop or out to the mail box, I'd close my eyes and try to walk straight on the sidewalk. I would see how long it took me to fear stepping into the grass or bump into a hazard.

In both cases, flying solo or with a guide, I sometimes open my eyes for a brief moment to check my gauges and take note of landmarks. A reverse blink. Most of the time, especially if I'm holding someone's hand, I berate myself later for my lack of faith, as the lapse destroys the potential totality of the experience and can appear to be a mistrusting of my guide.

I mention this because it's what my internet checks during long stints of drawing are like. Quick reverse-blinks, letting in harsh reality to the world of fancy, impossibility, and imagination behind my eyes. I don't need to. The internet and the people connected to it will be there when I finish building my palace of dreams, and there are miles of empty field ahead. I don't need to worry about falling off. yet.




All 20K. The text on the last one is truncated and should read, "A good sounding deal that ends as a death sentence." It was in reference to (aka: reminder of) something I heard in a podcast (or, more likely (since it was yesterday) in Areas of My Expertise) about a deal-with-the-supernatural/devil situation where the bargainer thinks he's getting the better end of a situation, but the "reward" ends up taking many many many years to experience.