Continuing the previous article in which I described my city during a storm, in this article I will leave out the “negativity”, seeking to exploit the positive effects of that stormy afternoon.

Believe it or not, good things happened because this incident ...

Clearly, at the time I was extremely disappointed with what happened. More than disappointed, deeply angry. Whereas I am online at least 6 hours per day, and I need to confess that I was “disoriented” in the first days: what to do? I believe that now is the right time to say that I developed in recent years an anti-social tendency which has become a pattern in my life.

Not that I am an agoraphobia or obsessive-compulsive like Mr. Monk, but after 30, I think it is normal for any human being become more selective, avoiding people who may cause us stress.

Anyway, the question “what to do ?” torment me for 2 days before the answers began to emerge. And they all showed the same direction:

FIRST AND SECOND WEEKS

Well, after I have contacted the insurance company, the only thing to do was wait for a response. So, in that first week I decided to read some books I had bought but had not read because I was too busy for that.

I decided to start little: first I read “Why we suck ...”. I already knew Denis Leary’s work - the writer / actor - due to a film that he participated 9 years ago ( “Thomas Crown Affair”) and because I am fan of the series “Rescue Me” (also, this actor is very similar to a brother of mine who died some years ago). I decided I had to buy that book when I saw an interview in “Daily Show” precisely on the controversy caused by his book. I do recommend this book, especially if you are a critic of the Western mentality.

Two days later I started to read another, even better than “Why we suck ... . “When you are engulfed in flames” by David Sedaris. What delight of book! The way he writes holds the reader’s attention, like an invitation to continue reading chapter after chapter. I must admit that did not know this writer until a friend of mine recomended me this book. I liked so much that decided to buy all his books. For the record, only 3 other writers have had that effect on me: Machado de Assis, Lovecraft and Shakespeare.

4 days later I started reading “On Ugliness, by Umberto Eco. Awesome! I won’t say anything else, but if you don’t know Umberto Eco, I’m sorry for you. He and Italo Calvino are the two biggest and best writers nowadays.

But after 15 days, I was tired of only reading. I needed something more. It was then that I decided to come back to watch TV.

THIRD AND FOURTH WEEKS

Probably the the reader realize that I was avoiding the inevitable: the contact with other people.

Of course I was not locked at home during all those days. From time to time I get out to see some friends and whatever. But as I live in a city that has more or less40 thousand inhabitants, the recreational options are limited.

Precisely because of this that I reverse a 2005 decision of mine. At the beginning of that year I cancel my Directv subscription. Of course, I haven’t stopped watching all the programs that I watched earlier. I just thought it not worth more to pay for something I could get for free on the Internet.

For obvious reasons I will not say which programs or series I kept watching even after it canceled my subscription.

However, after signed Directv again, although the amount of garbage shown on channels (open or cable) is huge, some shows deserve a special mention. Among the shows Brazilians, “Manhattan Connection” (a program about politics and economy) and “CQC” (humorous program that brings together journalists, actors and comedians that, so smart, it displays “reports” that combine humor and politics intelligently ).

Furthermore, I was surprised by series like “Damages” (Glenn Close is one of my favorites actresses) and “True Blood” (who do not like vampires?).

But you want to know something? No HBO or FX or any other channel is able to maintain the attention of a human being for a long time.

The capacity and the need that human beings have to socialize is perhaps our greatest gift and our greatest curse.

But what happened in the fifth and sixth weeks is subject to the next article.