Drawing the line

Maybe it's a distinction the rest of the world doesn't care about, but I like to draw a line between "work me" and "home me."
When I'm at home, I prefer to be thinking about home things, such as my family, our home, our pets.
Don't get me wrong. My job's important to me. I check my work e-mail from home at least once a day to make sure there's nothing vitally important there. But I rationalize that, saying I can do that on my time.
There are people in the world who don't understand that distinction, particularly people in the "real world" who feel connected because they know the home number or cell number for an editor at the newspaper. They feel like they can call whenever it strikes them and try to pitch a story idea.
I try to be polite. I try to be pleasant. But deep down, it irritates the heck out of me.
After all, I leave for work around 8 a.m. I get home around 7 p.m. I usually chow down my lunch in less than 10 minutes. They get a solid 10 hours out of me each day. So having to deal with this stuff at home too is quite frustrating, particularly from people in the public.
It gets harder and harder to draw the line between here and there. E-mail, cell phones and high-speed Internet make it too easy to be in contact. It seems as if part of your mind has to be in work mode all the time.
I suppose it's silly to whine about it. I should be happy I have a job that matters to someone, even if it doesn't matter that much to me sometimes. I should be happy I'm in demand.
But most of all, I should just learn to let things go, no matter how frustrated they make me.