Changes on the Horizon

One of my crit partners is moving to Florida soon, bringing the number of local Moxie members down to two, counting me.  We'll miss her.  I'll hate not having her here with us.  But her husband has a new job and has already moved, and she's going to follow as soon as she can wrap up her affairs locally.

I hate to lose any of my writer sisters.  We've always had each other's backs, and in some sense, we always will.  But in trying to figure out how we might video-conference our meetings using a webcam and Skype, we realize it just won't be the same.  I like technology--without it I wouldn't have contact with some people who are very important to me.  But a video-conference will never beat the face-to-face dynamic that we've always had, just as, for me, an e-book reader will never really beat the texture and smell of paper and the comforting feeling of a book in my hand.

In so many ways, I'm a lot like Star Trek character Jean-Luke Picard; I like my Earl Grey tea, hot, and I like a real book in my hands when I want to curl up and read.  If technology advanced so far that I could only have these things if I replicated them, I'd always be replicating them.  Now, how in the world am I going to replicate the presence of my friend at our crit group meetings?

No doubt, the Huz's phone would just answer, "Droid!"