The Real Thing

I’m beginning to feel I am frittering (or twittering) my life away and missing the real parts, like this blog. Yes, real! This page is my anchor and never far from my heart, but don’t we all slight the important things and people sometimes? Recently I’ve been taking part in actual physical interaction with three-dimensional human beings, yet feeling the guilt of slighting the also-real connections here at my fingertips. You know what I mean. I know you do. You are the ones who don’t dismiss the crazy thoughts that pop into my head during the day. You have them too. You don’t blow me off as the crazy lady with the cats. We are all digging for those special thoughts and being patient with each other as we try the lesser ones on for size.

We are American Idol without Simon Cowell. We deal not in music, but words and we all hold them dear and respect each others’ forays into new arrangements that bring out our spirits. I suspect you feel this way or you wouldn’t be here. And I hope you’ll keep coming because I may not have been writing a lot here lately, but I’m filling a notebook with fragments. Some have promise, some belong in the trash, others are lost to my illegible hand. Somewhere in there, though, I hope is a thought worthy of expansion and worthy of your time. Thanks for hanging in there and sharing your thoughts with me. Even in the winter funk many of you are tickling my funny bone and touching my heart. This is a good, real place to be. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

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Name that Day

Picture: Wikkepdia

Bad Banana tweeted Saturdays are calendar kittens. That got me to wondering what the other days of the week might be. That dromedary camel above has got to be hump day Wednesday, but I know you clever bloggers and viewers out there can come up with killer euphenisms for all the days. Heck, re-do Saturday if you can beat Bad Banana. I’m waiting.

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The Triaged Life

You know what they say happens when you are over the hill? You pick up speed, of course. Darned if it isn’t true and I think I may know why, at least in my case. Older people tend to cast off things that are no longer useful (my mother almost stripped her house) and eliminate activities and associations that no longer give them pleasure. Perhaps the feeling is that life’s fuse is burning shorter and we don’t have a minute to squander on non-rewarding things. I’ll leave that to psychologists. I just held a microscope over my own changes and found them interesting. Here are some of the things I now do.

• Choose microwave over crock pot (all that planning, you know)
• No longer compare purchases strolling store to store, but on Internet
• Encourage e-mails instead of time wasting phone calls (anti-social, I know)
• During commercials, play show recorded earlier on TV and get two in very little more time
• Skim newspaper articles instead of reading every little thing. I’ve seen most on Internet anyway.
• Crave news instantly from Twitter, treating “refresh” like a one-armed bandit in the casino when things are really breaking.
• Revel in flash fiction and haiku (reading and creating)
• Love challenge of squeezing my thoughts into 140 characters on Twitter, making every word count.

For what do I squirrel away all this time, you might be thinking. Family, friends, good books (or slutty books, if I like), working on my house and first garden, exercising, keeping an eye on government, doing photography, matching wits with my cats, any darn thing I enjoy – and nothing I don’t.

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What You Can Do

Iranian protesters need one million people on Twitter to change their time zone setting to Iran (find Tehran on settings tab). It’s an easy thing you can do.

Meanwhile they tweet advice to wash Basiji marks off doors with oil so protesters will not be attacked, to spread oil or sand piles to slow them, to rip down streets signs to disorient them, to remove SMS cards, carry Holy Korans for protection, go to embassy hospitals because Basiji are arresting injured at hospitals, to wash burning liquid sprayed from helicopters with lemon juice, and on and on.

I think I can change a time zone. How about you?

P.S. Google Earth has already updated maps of Iran and is working on getting more pixels and updates. Way to go.

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The Tweets Heard Round the World

I have never been so humbled or in awe—and this has been accomplished with 140 characters. I have twiddled with Twitter for a month or so. Wired Magazine said everyone should twitter, it is the thing of the future. Well, Wired is my Bible, so I followed along. And then I languished on there. It was like walking into a room where everyone was milling around and you had no idea what they were doing. Finally I tweeted, then tweeted again, then joined a twibe. All the while, through BNO information was coming at me before it hit CNN, or in many cases, even the professional news web sites.

Okay, now I was beginning to understand what that little crowd in the corner was doing. I joined with a few others hunched over keyboards writing fiction in 140 characters. Good writing practice. But is this what Wired was referring to?

A few days ago CNN reported elections in Iran with suspect outcome then returned to telling viewers how to cope with analog TV’s.  Up pops #Iranelections on Twitter groups.  Suddenly Twitter reschedules its maintenance to coincide with nighttime in Iran so citizens could continue to twitter. Curious about the situation, knowing reporters had basically been shut down and were staying in safe places, as advised, I thought I’d see what this was about. What it is about is revolutionary. Over 221,744 tweets in one hour at its peek. Pictures of protests and violence not seen even on TV, human voices and warnings in real time. I am in awe — truly.

Perhaps there will not be an Iranian revolution, but there has already been an information revolution. The possibilities of the cutsie-named Twitter, started in the bedroom of a couple is giving me shivers. Now I understand.

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