Thunderstorms and angst.

I co-administer a message board out in cyberspace. Recently, the group of us who meet regularly on the board have gotten caught up with our own affairs and the message board has become very slow. One of the Europeans was feeling particularly left out of things, because there was seldom anyone around when he visited the board. So I arranged for a group-wide chat last evening. We set it up several weeks in advance so that those who were interested would have time to arrange their schedules. We had a nice turnout, and I’m glad we did it. It was rather like a virtual party – all the fun and none of the clean-up.

The Professor, who set up and runs the message board, has been taking less interest in it recently. This in an of itself is no big deal; we all go through periods of burn out, and he’s been busy with his teaching, web pages, and especially his writing. When the gang got together for a chat last night, though, he became moody and didn’t want to participate at first. I don’t see that as a problem; our group is strictly a social and there was no need for him to be there if there were other things he wanted to do. I got the distinct impression he didn’t want *me* participating either, though.

I left the chat for half an hour or so (begging off because of a thunderstorm that was in the vicinity, which was the truth) and sat watching the lightning with him for a while. He was quiet and uncommunicative though, so I don’t know if I did what he wanted or not.

The Prof and I met through this group of people, and I have people on the board I count as close friends. Even if he feels the need to spend some time away from the board right now, I still want to keep in touch with this group of people. I’m not sure how to easily balance computer time and home time. Virtually my entire social life is on the computer. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is a temporary mood thing that will resolve itself.