Not-So Guilty Pleasure

Recently, I’ve been thinking that I should get “back to basics” to some extent.
Toward that end, this morning I headed to Super Target and picked up a sketch pad and some pencils, with the eventual goal of doing some “old school” drawing in the hopes of improving my “new school” efforts.
We’ll see what happens, I guess.
While I was there I also picked up some new workout clothes, as it’s my intention to get back into getting regular exercise.
Again, we’ll see what happens.
Once I got home from Super Target I sat down to eat lunch.
A while back I bought a paperback copy of one of my favorite books, which I no longer had in any form.  That tends to happen with that book, given that a consequence of my enjoyment of the book is the desire to share it with others.  It is a book, I feel, that the uninitiated are that much the poorer for not having read.
In any case, as a result of wanting to share it with others I tend to lend the book out a lot, and the last time I had done so, several years ago, I never got it back, having left the state and forgetting that it wasn’t in my possession.
In any case, I bought a copy of it again recently and, almost immediately, loaned it out to Scott.
This time around, though, it was returned to me, and, in fact, was sitting on my dining room table, where I had placed it when I got home from work the day, several weeks ago, that Scott had given it back.
(The book in question is Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, for those of you wondering.)
In any case, as I was sitting down at the table to eat lunch today I happened to pick the book up and start reading it, despite the fact that I’m in the middle of reading another book (which I’m not much enjoying, but have committed myself to reading), and the fact the I just received two other books as a gift from my friend Kevin.
Picking it up and starting to read it was a mistake, as it managed, as it always does, to draw me in and make me want to read it, and essentially made a liar out of me, as I’d told Kevin that I don’t often set aside time to sit down and read.
Normally that’s true (though odd, considering how much time I used to spend reading), and most of my reading is done to pass the time when I’m sitting down in one particular room.
In any case, after I finished lunch I did manage to put the book down while I went for a walk, but once I got home I picked it up, parked my ass on the couch, and read for about two hours.
As much as I was enjoying it – the book is a straight-up masterpiece and never disappoints – I felt a little guilty at the same time.  After all, there are the aforementioned other books that I could – and possibly should – be reading.
Still, I don’t feel too guilty about it because it’s just that good.
The one problem, though, is that after I finish it, anything else I read is going to seem (justifiably so) inferior.
This is really bad news considering that I’ll likely return to reading a book that I already wasn’t enjoying.  
Oh well.
Despite being a company I’d never heard of before, the cable provider I have here seems okay.  The one problem I have is that, in contrast to what I had in Ashburn, the speed of my Internet connection is appallingly slow.  It’s better than dial-up, and even most flavors of DSL, but still, it’s not blazingly fast.
I’m bothered even more by the slowness because as of today I’m extremely jealous of Brian.  Not because he’s tall, has a wife, a bigger house, and is filled with the spirit of volunteerism and community service, but because today he was scheduled to get hooked up with Verizon’s FIOS.  FIOS is a fiber-optic based Internet connection that is much, much, MUCH faster than most cable and DSL connections, and is, therefore WAY faster than my connection.
Naturally it’s not available in my area.  *Sigh*
This was made even more bothersome by the fact that on today of all days my cable actually opted to go out for a few hours, putting an end to my rationalization that, while slower, it’s at least more reliable than what I had in Ashburn.  Now I’m left with “At least they fixed the outage faster than Adelphia.”
In any case, I think I’m going to get back to my not-so guilty pleasure.