Even before I'd finished reading the word's definition, my eyes were wandering north and south, to the words on both sides of it. If another word snagged me, I'd start reading its definition-but glancing beyond it at the same time. I'd start, for instance, looking up "hygiene" (couldn't get that i-before-e business straight), but move right on to reading about "hyetology," the study of rainfalls. Then I'd dally over "hyena" or drift down the column to "hymenial" (a wedding song.)

On really bad days, my eyes could even wander to the adjoining page; I'd forget all about hygiene's i-and-e relationship as I pored over "hydrophobia" and "hydrosphere" and "hydromancy." (That last one means reading the future through omens in ponds. Fascinating! You could look it up...)

I guess I'll carry this dictionary affliction to my grave, but I have managed to shake a similar one. I think you've heard about it before. As I small boy, I'd get shaken if I saw a book shelved upside down. It had to be uprighted at once. Otherwise, I worried, the sense would run out of all the words. It would drip to the floor to form a puddle of meaningless, silent babble.

I know. Crazy. Is there a name for that compulsion? Maybe I could look it up. It's probably "libro-recto-mania," or something like that.

These days, my bent to lose myself in dictionary-browsing is more under control. But that's only because the disease has mutated-sort of the way we hope that bird flu won't.

The new strain lives, not on my bookshelf, but right in my laptop. It's a threat to me every time I boot up. I'm talking about Google, friends, and how it can seduce you into checking in on what's out there about, well, everything.

I can start off, quite serious, googling an obscure fact or figure for a weekly column. I turn up what I'm after, but then-what the hell!-I start surfing. Soon I'm free-associating from one home page to another, picking up endless, useless facts in the process. Then I trek into the vast savannahs of the blogdom; specimens there range from precise science and sober thought to wild rants by bona fide wackos.

Cyberspace is great entertainment. I waste great chunks of time, googling all over the place. But my kind of surfing can bring revelations, too. For instance, every week or so, I google "Jim Atwell," to check what newspapers may have reviewed my book. (The Observer Dispatch did-but so did the Schenectady Gazette. Who'd have thought?)

I watch especially for mention in area weeklies, papers like the Walton Reporter or the Stamford Mountain Eagle. If I get ink in a weekly, I need to call the local library or bookstore and offer to do a reading and signing. That's good marketing, I'm told, and the way to move books. (Maybe I'm a novice, but I'm learning.)

Well, imagine my surprise when I googled "Jim Atwell" a month ago, and up popped a blog out of Boston, Massachusetts. "Blog," I should have said earlier, stands for "biographical log"; folks by the thousands now publish their diaries on the web. And here was a Boston blogger, mind you, writing great stuff about my book. But, wait. He had a very familiar last name: Hurtubise.

Bostonian, hell! I was dealing with an expatriate Fly Creeker.

Adam Hurtubise, who writes electronic essays full of grace and wit, grew up not far north of the Fly Creek blinker light. His mom, Kay Pierro, had sent him "From Fly Creek" for Christmas; and here he was, praising the book to greater Boston and to his friends and readers Lord knows where.

Adam brought his family home for Easter, and Kay and Bob invited us up to meet them. What a great time! Adam, with whom I've been volleying emails for the last month, turns out to be a big man, mid-thirties, with eyes that sparkle with brainpower and good humor. He's truly, gently funny, too, and deeply loved by his Lisa, a lovely brunette, and by his three kids.

Brendan, 12, and Dan, 7, echo their father's wit endearingly. Adam is crazy about those boys; but it's tiny Olivia, a blonde cherub of 2, who has her dad besotted. "They're all smarter than I am," said Adam, "but Olivia's the only one who knows it."

Adam is a recovering lawyer, working now in public relations. He also has one novel only briefly sidetracked in the publication process, and second one half finished. Lisa is a twelfth-grade English teacher, and a crackerjack in the classroom, I'll bet.

Anne and I really enjoyed the Pierros and their other guests, and the whole rollicking Hurtubise clan.

Then, on Easter Monday, Kay and the kids' parents brought them down to our place to meet the lambs and the chickens. Though Adam is still a Fly Creeker at heart, his offspring are city kids. It was a delight to see their excitement at real, live farm animals. Oh, and Blue was a big hit with the kids, too, chasing sticks and snapping gnats right out of the air.

My frustration was not having enough time to talk with Adam. This man knows the writing craft. I wanted to sit down with him on the porch and talk shop. But they're all coming back to the Pierros' for July Fourth. Maybe then.

Anyway, my web-surfing mania pays off sometimes. This time it was with a great set of new friends.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. He can be found on the web at JimAtwell.com.