I woke up this morning, lazy, snoozing, enjoying the pitter-patter of the rain outside my window. Too awake to sleep, but not ready to watch more sportscenter or jump in front of a computer yet again. I need to unplug.

So, over a bowl of marshmallowy shooting stars and clovers, I finished reading Fight Club. Just a grey sky morning, me and the dogeared corners of a recycled library paperback. The rain went tap tap tap tap tap outside the window. It was…peaceful.

I think I get too buried in technology sometimes, and this book was just what I needed. A little funny, a little dark, a little confusing and yet very much candy. I’m not reading it to critically analyze it, or figure out how it fits into anything I’ve ever read. I’m not ciphioning information out of a news website to recall later, getting a little spooked how behind with bloglines I am. I’m not watching the next-to-be-deleted thing from my DVRs, wondering what I’m getting next, and when I’ll be able to watch that. I feel almost like the doctor in A Beautiful Mind… Sometimes too much effort is spent finding connections between things, and fitting all the information we have into context. Mapping and evaluating every little piece of information we have into distinct memories, and then associating them with like thoughts. It’s hard work, and I’m not up to it this Sunday morning.

It’s raining harder now, and my gutters are overflowing. The systematic rhythm of the rain is drawn out by the overflow from the rooftops. I look out, and the street is filled with water. I think I even hear the sump pump kick on for the first time since living here, but when I check the crawlspace, it’s dry. (Maybe the noise was the icemaker.) It was nice to be able to hear and identify a new noise. No rush of the TV. Maybe living alone is teaching me solitude.

One candy book done, I go online to order the next one in my queue: High Fidelity. I think it’s interesting that Amazon has looked inside the book, and compared it to all the other books in its collections, and pulled information from it I might find useful. There’s a list of Capitalized Phrases, in case I’m searching for buzzwords. They found the Statistically Improbable Phrases, which of all the books they’ve scanned, really only repeatedly occur in this book. High Fidelity’s? Compilation tape and simultaneous orgasm. I wonder why ‘top five’ isn’t in that list.

I am Joe’s inquisitive Left Front Incisor.

The CPL has two copies of the book, but both are checked out. I login and request it. Oh, these are paperbacks. I wonder if there’s a hardcover. There is, in Urbana, on shelf. I request that too. I ponder driving over to pick it up.

The rain’s pretty much stopped now, and the TV is on. I was idly watching Sydney tell her fiance she works for the CIA and now I’m watching the Pack game. (They just made a nice TD play, and then missed the PAT. Who misses a PAT?) And now I’m reprogramming the new remote to control volume on the receiver. And the laundry is ready to be folded. And the email client is open. My physical inbox is overflowing, and I’ll need lunch soon.

I guess I can’t really escape being connected, as nicely as that sounds. But it was fun, at least, this morning.