Sometimes you won't make sense

My brother's birthday is in November. Which means it's kind of the one month of the year I can't neatly avoid conversation with him. (I talk to him in December too, but one of us is always home and one isn't, so that conversation is usually "hi" and hand the phone back to Mummy. Somehow we've avoided being in the same country at the same time for 4 of 5 years now.

Why should I want to avoid my little brother, my only sibling? Because we are so different that if we didn't both look ridiculous like our parents I'd swear one of us had been swapped at birth. Probs him, I'm a lot like Daddy. lol.

My brother is an engineer. He makes complex-sounding technology for Intel. I'm pretty good at sciences but it bores the wits out of me. I'm a linguist and my brother has zero interest in foreign languages. I love travelling. If I have my way, I'll be swapping countries every few years until I'm too decrepit to do it anymore. My brother emigrated from Barbados. But only to the place where our grandfather and his family lived. And he's settled right in and is never going anywhere else. I'm a dreamer. My brother is nothing if not practical. I see something I buy it. My brother is the kind of guy that could rationalise not buying toilet paper. ( He will argue he's not cheap though.)

I told my brother I'm thinking of getting a Mac. I'm writing this post on my Sony Vaio (Monfret), which is my main computer. I also have a Onkyo netbook (Junpei), which is primarily for travelling. It's small and light, but has the memory and speed of a 900 year old woman. For Brother dearest, aka Scrooge, there is no possible reason anyone not working in computers should need 3 of them. Heck, he works in computers and only uses two. And that's only because he's assigned one for work.

He asked why I'd need a Mac. I told him that I wanted a seperate computer just for writing. That way, I keep all the other crap off it. And when I turn on that computer, I'm writing. I'm not going on the internet. I'm not watching vids. I'm not tweeting. If I'm home, Monfret will probably be serving a support role, just in case I need to do anything of those things. If me and the Mac are out, I'll just do without until I can get to another computer.

Why does it HAVE to be a Mac? It doesn't have to. But it would make the move to Scrivener (the Mac word processor that's very talked about in my writer circles) easy. And back up seems to take care of itself better. And it has a lower crash rate than many other comps.Although, as my bro pointed out, not the lowest. And frankly, 3 portable Windows computers makes even less sense than 2 windows comps and a Mac.

If having the Mac will make writing easier, and lessen distractions, then it's worth it. Writing comes second only to loved ones. And sometimes, not even to them. So I'm willing to do whatever I can to make it happen.

The convo with my bro, and the follow-up email with a link to a new laptop recommendation (not a Mac) reminded me of something I've known for a long time. Sometimes we don't make sense to the people outside our niche population. A non-alcoholic may not understand why an alcoholic friend can't just come to their party and not drink. A fit person might not understand why a friend in a weight loss program can't eat one slice of cake for her birthday.

It's easy to get annoyed or flat-out angry over it, but just remember if we've got different destinations, we should be taking different paths. Don't worry about it. The important people will put up with your quirks and love you anyway. And the un-important people don't matter. If you're not making sense to people outside your field, then you're doing it right.

Does anyone else have close friends or family that "don't get that writing stuff"?How do you handle it?

PS, if important people refuse to put up with your quirks, you can always hide from them in time zones which make it impossible to call other than weekends. When it's 10 pm  in Japan, it's 5 am in the Western edge of North America, where my brother lives.Way convenient. :)