It's a 24-hour world

So...I was up last night working, as I often am, when a tweet catches my eye as it goes by on the right side of my monitor. It's from the editor of the Studio City patch site, and he's up at 1:30 in the morning working. And I think, damn, Mike works hard. I know he begins his days early because I see his posts on the site and here he is 19 hours later, still up. And then it hits me that of course, I have been up since 6 after a four-hour night and I'm still working too...And I don't even think it's ... odd.

When did that happen? When I was a kid, I remember reading autobiographies of great men who worked 12-hour days and I thought that sounded hard. Nowadays, a 12-hour day sounds like a vacation. It goes with the territory if you're a freelancer. But have you noticed? Even people with "day jobs" are working really long days too. Used to be you had your job and your family obligations and then, there was time left over just to breathe. Every single person I know works really, really hard. There's the job. There's family. And then there's the second job, whether outside the home or in. Everyone's writing, publishing, trying to get a little traction. Then there's volunteer work. Because things are broken. But mostly it's just work to stay ahead of the bills, or to stay even or to stay not too far behind. My parents would be appalled at the hours my brother and I put in at work. But it's the new normal.

And at least I have a job.