I confess the reason why I took to Twitter so passionately was because I am the ultimate “idea man”. You know, like those people that go in front of movie studios execs to pitch movie ideas? (I learned of the movie industry from TV shows so YMMV) I have lots of one-liner ideas but that is the extent of my “genius”. Every day I walk through life making running commentaries on people I see, things I observe, news I hear, and [invisible] thought bubbles that pop up over my head. Not to mention the memes and quotes that make me laugh as I rapidly scroll through Facebook streams on my phone.
Oh, I should write about THAT.
I’d open my laptop, jotting a couple of lines down, and immediately running out of steam.
Dead. Nothing. Void. Hollow caverns echoing with the witty one-liners.
“There should never be a BUT following a true apology. Lance Armstrong apologizes like my husband.”
“Manti Te’o would have stood out like a sore thumb in NFL since he’d probably be the most faithful and gentlemanly boyfriend amongst all the NFL players.”
“Frankly I could care less that he lied. I am more concerned about the culture that forced Manti Te’o to fabricate a girlfriend who died of a [fake] tragic death.”
Echo. Echo. Echo.
I hope you will forgive me for the mental purge here. My brains are hurting with all the echo. Ok, smart ass. I know you can’t really get rid of echo by “purging” them. It’s just a figure of speech though I am definitely mixing analogies here.
I am sitting inside the train station again on a Saturday morning, waiting for Mr. Monk, my 10-year-old boy, to get out of the weekly religious class run by a Catholic Church that more than one Catholics have told me is TOO conservative even for them. There are reasons we are keeping him there and I will not get into them. Suffice it to say that my sons and I have had a lot of great discussions and I hope, we are “training” them to be critical thinkers.
What don’t kill you will only make you stronger.
What does it say about me that I love being in a crowd of strangers and feeling alive amongst the hustle and bustle? Invisible yet alive. This is the kind of crowd different from say, going to a conference or a party. There is no pressure, no obligation, no anticipation to socialize with each other. And absolutely no networking. I ABHOR the concept of “networking” by the way. I’d rather die. There I said it. Probably why I will never get ahead on the career ladder. I wish for my kids super-duper Google-Fiber-grade networking capability (ha ha I slay me). That’s all that matters nowadays isn’t it no matter what kind of job you are holding?
Got my new Kindle Paperwhite this week. I could not shut up about it, I know. I am sorry, ok? Leading to the moment before Marvin arrived (yes, I named my Kindle Marvin. 2 points if you guess Marvin who?) I had been restless, full of anticipation. I have never felt such excitement since… I can’t remember really. I lead a pathetic existence, yes. Now I curl up with Marvin in bed in the dark, caressing his comfortingly textured, paradoxically smooth skin (and promptly fall asleep. I like the concept of reading though). In the recess of my consciousness however I cry, “Traitor!” indignant for my deep love of rubbing my fingers with a book page in between, feeling the heft of somebody else’s words and thoughts in my palm.
Mr. Monk inherited the ex-Marvin now named Tardis. “Bigger on the inside”, get it? 10% into The Hobbit, he exclaimed, “I love Kindle!” he who previously had adamantly been on an anti-electronic-book tirade. “It is just so amazing. It’s like a book but more awe…” I held my tongue that wanted to argue as he curled up in bed with Tardis, so absorbed by what was happening in The Hobbit that he did not even bother to finish his sentence.
Facebook introduced GRAPH SEARCH this week. To me it boiled down to one thing: Discoverability. They are not changing their privacy policies per se and you continue to keep your privacy settings. The biggest (only?) difference now is that we can no longer afford to mindlessly LIKE or comment. Your friends will now see what you are liking and commenting on on their streams. We need to watch for WHAT we are liking, and if you are Interneting at work, WHEN you are liking because obviously when you are LIKING you are not WORKING.
I am not liking this.
A friend of mine noticed that I LIKED this article:
I Can’t Stop Looking at These South Korean Women Who’ve Had Plastic Surgery (thank goodness it is not something I’d be ashamed of when caught liking) and shared a piece of wisdom from Tina Fey with me. Of course a long tirade swirled inside my head that would have become an awesome blog post were I able to form cohesive sentences and string them together logically into paragraphs. Instead, Imma taking the easy way out. Ctrl C. Ctrl V. SHARE.
Invisible in a bustling crowd. Yes. (Delicious.)
Twitter. Yes! Ideas, links, interesting digressions… Also delicious.
As for random, Random Is Good. Real. Quirky.
Quirky is delicious.
(Hmm. Maybe I’m hungry?)
Sorry. Random.
BigLittleWolf recently posted…Who’s the Boss?
Never have to apologize for being random!
The ever-changing photo on your right column is, today, from The Graduate. And I’ve recently entered a freakout spiral about how I am now older than Mrs. Robinson was, though I’ve always, naturally, identified with the protagonists.
So I’ve already forgotten all the things about the Twitters and the plastic surgery. And my kids are waking up again and what were we talking about?
Tardis. Phew. That’s better.
Naptimewriting recently posted…Rollercoaster 2013
When in doubt, discuss Doctor Who.
WTF? We are older than Mrs. R now? Now I am depressed.
Tardis. Yup. That’s definitely better.
By the way, I’m going the full fledged face pull as soon as it starts sagging toward the midline. They’ll have to hook me up to two tractors driving in opposite directions to get the skin to go back to where it’s supposed to be. I’d also like ass implants? I think.
dufmanno recently posted…The Subway Sandwich Lady Dispenses Some Valuable Advice
Be careful. That last line could be interpreted as “I’d like to have something implanted in my ass.”
Tom G. (@20prospect) recently posted…Fini
[To Tom] Be careful. Your line could easily get you to have something implanted…
😉
Arrghhh!!!! You have too many thoughts to comment on each. So now I have to choose one topic. I hate when that happens.
I’m confused. I took your “liking” the article to mean that you were horrified by it. Did your friend see the “like” and assume you were pro plastic surgery, so she felt the need to send you the Tina Fey piece?
See? This is what that damn new FB search thing is doing. If I “like” an article about Human Trafficking because I want to raise awareness of the issue, are total strangers and shirt tail acquaintances going to see my “like” and assume I like slavery?
A persons thoughts, feelings, and deeply held beliefs cannot be summed up by “like”.
Someday we’ll realize that social media cannot possibly communicate the nuance, subtlety and paradoxes of the human personality. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are just a Funhouse Hall of Mirrors.
Tom G. (@20prospect) recently posted…Fini
LOL. I feel the same way too whenever I read a post titled “Random thoughts” or something similar. Thank goodness for Twitter, right?
I am with you on the LIKE dilemma. Sometimes I “like” things as a way to say “I hear you” or “I feel you”.
I do have to say though: I hate speaking on the phone and therefore I am not completely anti-social media…
At least you had interesting ideas. I got to a point a few months ago where I sat contemplating a painful hangnail wondering if I could squeeze a post with any merit out of a week of pain and a fear of cutting it off too low thereby causing another medical disaster.
Today, DC is buzzing with inaugural events, Barbara Walters fell and hit her head when she got drunk at the British Ambassadors house, thousands of celebrities are walking around here giddy, – do you think I could manage one decent post about all this? NOPE.
Anyway, everything you write is awesome.
dufmanno recently posted…The Bathing Suit Mesh Disaster of Norwalk Connecticut
What you wrote in the comment above is itself worthy of a short post. 🙂 May I confess: I often curse your name after I read those interviews you conducted in the 80s love child site because there is certainly no excuse for me to “write” anything any more.
As Adele said at the Golden Globes, I’m pissing myself. 🙂
Meg at the Members Lounge recently posted…Where I Prove Pinterest is NOT a Waste of Time.
Love that lady. 🙂 Off to read about you and Pinterest now. 🙂