I fucking love books

Today is the first day in ages where I've read almost nothing. My eyes have processed words, of course. I've not been asleep, down a mine. I've read about the opening hours of the builders merchants Travis Perkins. I've glaced at Facebook. I've read the headlines on the Guardian's mobile website: pro-Russian rebels are refusing access to the MH17 crash site; children are dead in Gaza; paedophilia arrests are on the rise.

All I did was information gathering, or self-inflicted cyber-socialising, or maschocistic obsessive-depressive news-sweeping. None of it was centering, or calming. None of it has the benefits of reading long-form writing. Quite the opposite: the information was insufficient for my needs; Facebook has the miasma of marketing and midde-class jostling; the news was enervating and agitating. Reading for even 30 minutes has the diachronic effect of giving life, even while notionally absented with ones nose in a book.

It is a coincidence that today was a day I've not read and also the most hectic and stressful day I've had in a long time. But it would have been better if I'd had a chance to sit down for half an hour with a cup of tea and read some Clojure.