Real time, real people

My eyes are bleary, a wave of nausea settles in. I have been “cruising the ‘net” looking at blog sites and web sites urging me to register and join them. Blogher, Work it, Mom, Mom Salon – all I have to do is create a profile and wittily describe myself and then I can “chat” with women from all over – the neonatal nurse in Canton, Ohio, the free-lance writer in Savannah or the professional blogger in California. But, what I could really use is eye contact with another human, real time, to chat about politics, the writer’s strike or Sayer’s rough morning.

“The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World” by Eric Weiner sounds like a great book that asks “Is there a culture of happiness?” Weiner found that people are happiest where they share close community ties. Spending time with real people, in real time.

I think its the midlife part of me that insists that I can and should find time to be part of on-line communities AND be a part of my own community. The time I spend in a virtual community could be spent in a real community –digging soil in a community garden or tutoring a non-English speaker. Maybe the solution is to do some of both. For the rest of today, anyway, I’m taking a “link break.”