Last night, everyone in my house went to bed early–except me. So, with an unexpected hour alone, I sat down at the computer with the intention of hunting online for a freelance writer based in Zurich (for work). Which led me to the magazine of SWISS International Air Lines. Which led me to a blog post about Swiss bloggers. Which led me to a lecture by an American about the slow movement. By this time, I looked up and it was high time for me to go to bed, too. An hour had sped by. And what had I accomplished, exactly? I never did find a Zurich-based writer. Oh, the time-suck of electronics.

But back to the slow movement. Reading about this mini-trend (of which slow food is an offshoot) really hit a chord with me. I am by nature suited to a slow pace. I feel my best when I’m going slow. Rushing makes me grouchy. And rushing someone else (like, let’s say, a four-year-old) makes me even grouchier. (Thus, Alex knew he was wounding me to the core recently when he called me “Mrs. Rusher.”)

I like slow, and slowing down time is one of my primary goals in trying to use electronics less. I read a great article last year in Domino mag about a couple that went without electricity for a weekend (by choice, not natural disaster). The big take-away for me was that the writer said the weekend seemed luxuriously long.

So, now I’m hooked into a paradox. I want to learn more about and get inspired by the slow movement. There’s a blog based on the book, In Praise of Slow, that looks pretty interesting. And there’s a wry Web site called SlowDownNow.org (run by the International Institute of Not Doing Much), which is hilarious. I’ve even learned there is a Society for the Deceleration of Time. (I could be a charter member.)

But when I get lost online pursuing the slow life, my life speeds up. So, instead of doing more and more online research about this slow thing, I’m just going to sit. And think. The old fashioned way.