All Apologies

I feel I owe a few people an apology.

They see me at one of the coffee shops around where I (or we) live.  My friends come up and haven’t seen me in a while, so they want to chat.  And how do I react to this?  Distracted, a bit short, and possibly an overall sense that I do not want them around me.  They leave, maybe wondering why I might be mad at them, or at the very least that I am irritated by their presence.  It is for this I apologize, because you had the unfortunate luck to catch me in work mode.

There is reason I try to get out of my place when I feel creative.  I get WAY too distracted.  Video games to play, books to read, movies or shows to watch, TV Tropes to look up, the list of distractions goes on.  ( A side note:  TV Tropes is one of THE biggest time wasters I have ever known.)  So I force myself to vacate the premises.  I take my laptop, my notebook and head up to one of the above mentioned shops and begin to work.

When I am in the process of creating, I tend to focus all of my concentration on the task at hand.  I get in the zone, so to speak.  I keep any potential distractions to a minimum, so I don’t lose track of what I am doing.  Hours can fly by instantly when I get a full head of steam going.

And then someone, not knowing any better, interrupts that process…

I try to be responsive, engaging, but my mind is thinking of how to write the paragraph that describes EXACTLY what I am thinking that has eluded me- and that it is fading.  I don’t want to be impolite, but when I get this way, I am like a dog that sees a treat and cannot get to it because some person wants to pet you.  (Yes, Rusty, I should know better, but you are so darn cute.)  And I can’t bring myself to tell them because I feel it might be rude, but all the while I am acting even more discourteous.  And it gets worse, since after the friends who were talking to me leave, I cannot get back into the mode because I am disgusted by how I acted towards them.  So I pack up, head home, and try my damndest to avoid TV Tropes.  (I usually lose that battle…)

So Tony, Jay, Jerry, Sarah, Dad, Lois, and any others I have neglected to mention, I apologize for my behavior.  I hope you all know I am not angry with you, dislike you or am put off by you.  Please understand that sometimes it is so difficult for me to get into my zone.  And to lose it frustrates me to no end.  Thank you for considering me worthy enough to talk to and I shall try harder to not act like an asshole when this happens.