November 3rd, 1997

Changing views

Hi people. I'm writing this from the apartment that me and my brothers just moved into, and the clicks from the keyboard still echo in my fairly empty room. I've got a totally new view from my window now, and I also have the computer (which I'm borrowing from my dad at the moment, by the way, thanks dad :) in my bedroom now, which feels right somehow. No, I won't be getting up at 4am to check my mail, but it feels good to know that I _can_ :).

The view from here is a pretty dull one, all grey concrete buildings, and in the middle distance the smoke from the heating plant, lit from below by the streetlights. I have to admit that I like it better than the evergreen trees I saw before, though. This way I can look out, or go out, and find that there actually is someone in the world except me. I need people around me, need to see them and be able to talk to them, and that just wasn't possible when I lived out in the sticks. Now the pressure is on to get a job too, to pay rent and other little details like that, and with the change of scenery I think that my usual fall depression might actually not materialize this year, which is really nice. Then again, maybe it's because fall is past, and I might already be over that hump, strangely enough not because of my real life friends, but my online ones. You know who you all are, and you know I love you, I hope. And thanks for being there, even though you probably don't know that you're doing anything special. But you are.

I've got no internet connection at the moment, or rather no phone, but I don't use the phone much anyway, almost exclusively for net access. I guess it shouldn't be so bad, after all I spent almost two months this summer with extremely sporadic net access, and had the greatest time, but now I don't. It feels like a part of me has been ripped out, I think even as bad as if all my RL friends had just gone away, and it's due to my changing attitudes towards net relationships. I remember having a small argument with KatLuv in the Worlds a few months ago, and thinking she was stupid for falling in love on the net, and getting so close to someone that it resembled a real life couple. But Kat, if you're reading this, you were right, and I was wrong, not that I'm all that upset about that. I still say that what you do on the net isn't real, you don't really have sex, or take a walk in the park together, it's all just words on a screen, and as such doesn't really have a physical existence. But (and it's a big but) the way we _feel_ about what we do on the net, and the way we relate to them, is very, very real. And I'm glad to have discovered that. Some people are so good to be with that you're unconsciously drawn to their virtual company, and others suddenly aren't as interesting to talk to. This can't be measured absolutely of course, but you tend to be drawn to certain people, or groups of people, just like in real life, and start more or less avoiding others.

I'm writing this by candlelight, in my new place, listening to the city humming outside, and smiling at the screen when I read the above. It might be silly, but I'm not changing it, I'll expand on it. Til later, dear readers (if I have any:).