Bow Reads Newsweek

Yesterday, I spent a big part of the day getting a manuscript ready to upload to CreateSpace, including doing the calculations for the exact dimensions of the book cover, based on the number of pages in the interior. This is my least favorite part of the publishing process. But it did feel good to know that after many hours of fiddling with those files, they had been accepted for review, and I could now take a breather. I would not hear back from Createspace for another 48 hours.

Bow was lounging around with his army shirt and not demanding any attention, so I decided to relax by picking up a copy of Newsweek that was in my pile of mail. I sat down on the other side of the door, with my back to Bow, and started reading an article about how the internet was rewiring our brains and driving us crazy.

After a while, I noticed that Bow was on the other side of the grated door, looking over my shoulder and reading the article, too. Well, okay, maybe he wasn't reading the article. Maybe he was just looking at the pictures. But the point was, he was very quiet and concentrating on the copy of Newsweek that I had in my hand.

I decided that if he found it that interesting, I might as well share.

Bow has handled many magazines over the years, and he has always found the pictures interesting, but he usually proceeded very quickly from looking to mouthing to tearing apart. Yesterday, it was not like that. He was patient, he seemed to be concentrating for long periods of time before shifting his gaze to a different part of the page, and he felt no desire to destroy.

Is the internet rewiring our minds and driving us into a frenzy of information seeking? I doubt it. One thing I'm sure of: it hasn't affected Bow this way. He can still relax with an old fashioned magazine and feels no need to constantly check his Facebook Fan Page.