to kindle or not to kindle

Technology is a big topic over here in this house.  We all fight against its worst qualities (time vaporizing, dependence, loss of social cues, etc.) while appreciating its incredible efficiency.  Recently, the Mister was standing in my office, looking at my face and he said, "Did you get my email?"  T overheard this and balked.  "What?   You sent her an email?  When you're standing a foot away?  In the same house?"  We laughed.  Then, in a few moments, this appeared on my desk.

 

Isn't all great art a reaction to conflict?  A response to circumstances beyond our control?  Forgive me if I'm bragging, but this card is now one of my most prized posessions.  And check out what's on the back of it:

I digress.  I recently decided to give in and try out a Kindle.  Here's my two cents:  If you happen to travel five out of seven days with loads of time between and at your destinations, then the Kindle may be for you!  Also, if you happen to be one of those rare creatures who love to read but loathe the stacks of books that build up beside some people's beds, couches, chairs, then the Kindle may be for you, too!  Alternately, if you plan on being stuck on a desert island (with a power outlet) and can only take one item, then a fully loaded Gutenberg Project Kindle would be idyllic.  But for someone like me--who is basically a homebody with no imminent desert island in my future and who loves to flip between pages as I read, admiring a perfectly built chapter, or checking on the introduction of a character I somehow missed, look and re-look at a cover or open a book randomly and read the first sentence that hits my eyes--the Kindle is clutter.  I'm sorry, Jeff Bezos, but it doesn't disappear in your hands.  And as much as I love this commercial, it's much more whimsical and lovely to hold an actual book with actual pages and an actual spine.  I'm disappointed.  I was ready to be a convert.  I was ready to embrace the future and love me some Kindle.  But I didn't.  It's going back.  And I'm going to the library.