My summer reading has taken an unexpected turn and I don't know why. My book-reading hasn't changed, but I find myself reading very little online, primarily because all those sites that are must-reads when I'm enjoying the wonderful wireless connection at my office become much less urgent when I have to use the cranky dial-up connection at home. I'm reading fewer blogs and news sites and I'm responding very slowly to e-mail messages because life is just too short to be wasted waiting for a connection that may never connect or that may exist only briefly before getting cut off because of constant static in our home phone line.
So on the one or two days a week when I actually make it into town to visit my office, I like to get caught up on all that online reading I've missed...except I don't. Yesterday, for instance, I sat down at my desk in front of my wonderful wireless connection and started on my list of Required Reading only to find that I simply couldn't get engaged. I read a few things, got caught up on some blogs, looked at the Chronicle and Inside Higher Ed, but the rest of the list just didn't appeal to me and I don't know why. I had the time and I had the connection, but I simply didn't care.
I've always been an opportunistic reader: I'll read whatever plops itself down in front of my face, including cereal boxes, airline safety pamphlets, and hopelessly outdated gossip magazines at the dentist's office. But apparently I have some limits, and this summer I'm finding them. Will my taste for online reading return once classes start in the fall? Only time will tell.
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