jackshoegazer: (Tribal Looking Pointing Yeah!)
jackshoegazer ([personal profile] jackshoegazer) wrote2006-02-20 05:52 am
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You'll find me in the desert under the solstice moon with me, myself, and I.

My work schedule is an odd, bi-weekly alternating fiasco wherein I work four shifts a week, but never work more than three nights consecutive.  I stay at Jacquelyn's place while I'm working, rather than commute back and forth to Watertown.

However, this week there was a mighty bad snowstorm on my day off, so I've been in Madison for almost a solid week.  Reflecting upon this and my LJ posting, I pondered the following while walking in the cold pre-dawn air this morning.

I don't write as much when I'm here.  I only write now because Jacquelyn is still sleeping and I have the apartment to myself, quiet, except for scurrying cats and the hiss and pings of the old radiator heating system.  Throughout the normal time I'm here, I can barely summon the concentration to reply to my comments, let alone write posts or anything else.

I've discovered why writer's run off in solitude to work.  Even writing something as simple as a letter of inquiry for a job, composing my University of Wisconsin application essay, I needed solitude.  When John and I wrote the Book, we were basically sequestered in our apartment for two months with minimal interruptions.  We wrote from after breakfast until after dinner with minimal breaks.

Don't assume I don't enjoy my time with Jacquelyn, far from, I love it, however, I find that it's not just here, but in general.  At my home in Watertown, I can't work when my roommate is around.  It's like I can't be myself when others are around, even if they are quiet, it's as if their mere consciousness affects my concentration, like electromagnetic energy altering my brainwaves.

Perhaps this links together with the idea of hunting, the lone trek into the woods, the den, the garage, the workshop; many initiation rituals place the neophyte alone for three days.  It is true that like chemistry, we are all affected my different people, so that we are different people depending on who we are with.  So this begs the question, are we only truly ourselves when we are isolated?  And therefore our only true work is birthed from that time that we are alone.

Are we hermits first and friends, siblings, parents and lovers second?  Or is it just me?

.

[identity profile] antarcticlust.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Theoretically you can come work in my office, too, and you'll enjoy having the free time to get work done. Or you can cultivate a nice place at home to study while I'm at school. I'll set up a webcam in my office so you can watch me reading and jerk off make sure I'm not being a bad girlfriend.

Wait, you're having an affair, too?! I don't like this story.

What will we do?!

Though seriously, you'll like it because you'll have quality Ethan time, and time to get homework done in the afternoons. I'd ideally like to stick to a 9-5 schedule for now, though that will probably change when I'm writing my dissertation. But Ethan will be in HS by then and you'll be getting your master's and screaming at all of us to "just shut up already so I can think!"

[identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe I'll have to keep my third shift relay job just to have a quiet, secluded place to work :)

[identity profile] antarcticlust.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow, then you'll never sleep and I'll never see you. Though at least you'd be bringing in the dough. That's how real marriages are, right?

[identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
EXACTLY! See, I knew you were a smart girl.

[identity profile] antarcticlust.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I really like your new icon. What do the tiny letters say?

[livejournal.com profile] jenmarya defriended us. Weird.

[identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks, I was wondering what you thought of it. I didn't even cut my own head off, Brian too the picture of someone else while I was behind the door :P

Yeah, uberweird.

[identity profile] antarcticlust.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not even hurt, because I feel like it must have been a mistake.

[identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I dunno, both of us? That's an oddly coincided mistake.

Oh, and I don't know what the little letters say, they were already little when I found the texture pattern.

[identity profile] antarcticlust.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I know, that's what I was thinking. But I also can't think of anything we said or did that would have been interpreted oddly, like...oh, my penis dream post? My post about us looking for an apartment? It's only been today that it happened, because I check my userinfo every day. :(

[identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com 2006-02-21 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh well, we'll see :(