Precious little time

Here is what happens when I read the news:

Step 1: Open the news online

Step 2: Read a few of the headlines, mentally dividing them into "should read" (Fidel Castro steps down!) and "actually will probably read at some point" (midlife suicide rates have gone up?), and then click on some article in neither of those categories (the Carpetbagger's "why we watch the Oscars").

Step 3: While the new page loads, open a new tab to something else I decide I have to look up that very second, such as the weather or my credit card statement or how many different kinds of Larabar flavors there actually are

Step 4: While those are loading, in another tab, google how many laundromats are nearby.

Step 5: While that's loading, go back to the news tab. Read half the article, at which point do one of the following:

• Get distracted by a movie review/ad/piece of small business advice in the columns. Follow those links until it's already almost dark outside.* Realize, alas, life has not been reinvented despite the promises that American Express makes everything easier, that free-shipping shoes are only a click away, and that all one needs to know to be healthy is one's BMI.

• Decide the article is crap and go back to the front page, which takes awhile to load, so open additional separate tabs to compare airfares to New York and to look up synonyms for "abundance". While those load, reread an email recently sent to someone important, then re-watch "Susan and Her Instruments" on YouTube.
  

• Decide the article is extremely excellent, save it before I even finish reading it, at which point the Times will tell me that people who saved this article also saved the following three unspeakably fascinating articles. Embark on a quest to save all articles saved by people who saved those articles.

• Actually read the article in its entirety (AND the graphics in a separate window) and make it my new manifesto for the day. Google everything I can related to it. Bother people I know by sending it to them with an annoying personal message that says something like "See?" or "What have I been saying!?"
  

Step 6: Realize I know nothing of what's going on. Go back to the news front page. Click on something about urban policy and open that in one tab. In another tab open health tips for gentlemen.

Step 7: While those load, write blog entry. Idly consider showering and/or once and for all sitting down and figuring out how I'm going to finish grad school.

Step 8: Get up to slice a cantaloupe. Read half an issue of Esquire.

*In my defense, this is winter news reading. Please!