And then, and then.
Bubblewrap Bob looked at her in puzzlement. "Why are you still here?" he asked. "I thought you didn't do these 14-hour-in-the-office days anymore? I thought you went home and had a real life?"
Keitu shrugged. "I meant it, I really did," she protested. "When I registered for e/merge I said I intended to spend around two hours a day enaging. I meant that, too!" Her voice was edged with desperation.
"But then..." she shrugged. "Sometime life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans, as John Lennon once said."
"Except in his case, he was wrong. Death was what happened to him when he was busy making other plans!" Bob pointed out ruthlessly.
Keitu sighed. "I really did mean to let it all go. But then, I just felt the undertow suck me right back out..."
"You sound like a real hippy with all that wave-and-surfing metaphor," grumbled Bob. "That is just so 70s."
"Maybe that's it," Keitu admitted. "Maybe it was exactly that notion that resonated - a kind of Woodstocky feel only with better hair and cooler clothes, and far nicer toys. But that sense of idealism, of belief, of... of passion! Somehow, although I let it go, it wouldn't let me go!"
Bob chuckled. "You're talking about Howard sitting barefooted under his plum tree! I wonder how many fermented plums you've been eating...!"
"Well," Keitu admitted, "it makes a change from all the chocolate. Hey!" she looked up. "Do you think I could be the secret love child of Nancy White and Howard Rheingold?"
Cross-posted from e/merge2008 blog