I'm reading John Updike's Rabbit Run.

It makes me think of a subject I've wanted to write about for a while now:

Saying the wrong thing.

Have you ever had a moment in a conversation where you knew exactly what the wrong thing to say was? The thing that would bring complete silence to the conversation, cause someone to cry, stop being friends with you, or even break up with you?

It's like walking by the fire alarm in a hallway. You know exactly what would happen if you pulled it, but you keep walking anyway - with the alarm unpulled.

Not sure if other people have these same moments during the day. I have them constantly.

Updike's character Rabbit makes me thing of my impulses surrounding this.

Whenever he's in any sort of situation with girls he'll ALWAYS say exactly the wrong thing. I'm interested to see how it turns out for him. I'm about 100 pages in now. Wish me luck.

I want to quote something from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

There's this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what's immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what's right around them is unimportant.

And that's why they're lonely.

You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you're just kind of an object. You don't count. You're not what they're looking for. You're not on TV.

He goes on to talk about a secondary America you see on the back roads off the main highways. He talks about how you see the real country driving through the back roads.

I had a bit of experience with this driving up to New York taking some crazy back roads thanks to my GPS. It really is a completely different experience.

This touches on two things that I believe are important

1. I hate the negative impact TV has.

Reading this as well as "Bowling Alone" paints a pretty dark picture about what TV can do.

It's not limited to TV either. It's any medium that has the ability to destroy social bonds and turn people into solitary creatures. It kills ambition to go socialize. My ambition to do so is low to start with so it would be particularly devastating for me. In a way I think my addiction to Internet entertainment may be somewhat similar to TV that Putnam mentions in Bowling alone. Different technology, same effects. Here I sit alone.

Maybe the nature of this is slightly different though. At the moment I am less of a passive consumer than TV would have me be. Most times on the Internet though are spent in read only mode for me.

2. I like the idea of traveling around and seeing lots of different things.

Who knows if I'd like it in practice. Maybe I'll find out.

I enjoyed my trip to San Francisco a while back. I liked seeing NYC and Boston. Going through the back country in PA was beautiful. Driving through DC on an early Sunday morning was interesting.

Just some randomness for you. Trying to figure out what this is all about.

Munns convinced me to check out MeetUp.com for something I might be interested in.

I love reading, and need to meet more people / become comfortable talking to strangers.

Joining a book club seemed like a great way to accomplish these things.

Brendan and I joined this club that meets in and around Durham. We had our first meeting tonight reading God's Middle Finger which was really entertaining. Talking about it was just as fun.

Next month we're reading Maus, a graphic novel about the holocaust (sounds crazy but won a pulitzer back in the 90s). I'm really excited to expand my literary horizons. Normally I read the same stuff over and over.

On top of meeting new people I hope to meet new types of books. So far it's going well.

Updates monthly on this.

I just finished the 6th book in Frank Herbert's Dune series.

A thought came to me. "I am the destroyer of words." When I woke up this morning at 11:30 (I was up until 3 reading) I started reading another book.

I want to find some kind of application like maybe an Amazon list that lets me put together a list of all the books I've read. I'd like to somehow incorporate this into my own database on my website. Or maybe just link to it from my site.

I think today I'd rather do something besides read all day though. We'll see how that goes. Weather.com says "You should ride your motorcycle."

I'm just finishing up the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

This was recommended to me by Justin who got me interested in it with his Tattoo of the Litany.

Litany Against Fear

I'm reading the 6th book now which was the last one written by Frank Herbert. There are more books but written by his son.

If you haven't at least read the first Dune book please ask to borrow my copy. Or go buy your own. He attempts, and succeeds, to create a massive universe inhabited with some of the most interesting and compelling characters I've seen.