a short Twitter tutorial

One perk of going to BlogHer was discovering I'm not the only person on the planet using Twitter. Now I just have to find all those great Twitter folks so I can follow them! I wasn't sure how I would take to Twitter, but so far I'm really enjoying it. I update almost exclusively from my phone and have been using it as a way to "micro-blog." My personal goal has been to type 140 characters or less that I might remotely care about the next day or later. I'm not really using it for updates like "headed to the pub, meet me if you can", but I'm twittering for myself right now and don't go to many pubs these days.

Without going into tedious detail repeating all the other great web sites out there explaining how to use it, Twitter is a way for you to send tiny updates via the web or SMS (text messages) as well as follow your friends via the same web and/or text messages interface. You can turn on or off the following at will via SMS commands (so you're not getting updates in meetings or while you're trying to sleep) or just read them all on the web.

I send text messages to 40404 from my phone and receive updates from that same number with the username preceeding the update. You can see my latest update on the right side bar of my blog and theres a link to my Twitter timeline.

I really enjoy the challenge of coming up with something meaningful to say in under 140 characters. It's like a haiku for my phone.

Some handy web sites are: Twitter FAQ Newbie's Guide to Twitter Remember the Milk - reminder service using Twitter How to send direct messages - very handy to coordinate with your new friends without necessarily knowing their cell phone numbers TwitterVision - live timeline of updates based on location. I could watch this for hours.

And for those LiveJournal users out there, you can read my Twitter updates in syndication at:

(although the updates are far from realtime)

EDIT: I also found this great Wired article about how Twitter creates a Social Sixth Sense by Clive Thompson that really does a great job of explaining why you would care about Twitter, or at least why I care.

So sign up if you haven't already and start following me so I can follow you too!

Learning to let go

So much for that chain. I blame going to bed at 9pm with a raging headache and not dragging myself out bed until 9am this morning. But today is a new day. I was full of woe earlier this evening and tears started to well up in my eyes despite my best efforts. We discovered one reason for this was my blood sugar was 55, so some grape juice and cheese toast helped in that area. But Rich and I agreed that the other things causing me woe were things I didn't necessarily need to fret about on a daily or hourly basis and since there wasn't much I could do about them short term, we'd stop bringing it up. The problem hasn't gone away but it's not beating down our door and I don't need to carry it around with me all day and night like a cumbersome angst-filled beanbag chair.

It's a fundamental difference in how Rich and I are wired. Rich can get information, give an opinion on it (i.e. "wow, that's fucked up", "that guy/gal is a real asshole" or "shit, man") and then generally let it go. I, however, can't take casual conversations about how Cindy Lou Who is upset with Betty Lou Who or some stranger kicked a kitten without carrying that information around with me and fretting. If I can't change the Who children's behavior (or the kitten kicker) it causes me much woe. So from now on, if Miss Who wants my advice or if I witness kittens being kicked, I'll step in, but I'm not going to waste the brain power on things that I am not told about or can't change.

We'll see how this plays out. I'm trying to learn how to sprinkle some selfishness in my life. I don't have a lot of good examples seeing constructive selfishness in play without someone being an asshat. The reality is, though, that it's entirely possible for me to get what I want a lot of the time without lighting the proverbial place on fire.

Right now what I want is to go for a long walk on the beach while listening to all the Christine Kane albums I downloaded from iTunes this afternoon. She played at BlogHer last weekend and I knew I would be buying more of her music after hearing just the first song. Hello, my name is Genie and I'm an impulse buyer. Shiny!

Cha-cha-chain ...

Not Martha had an interesting link today to a life hack by Jerry Seinfeld about "not breaking the chain." Jerry's idea really spoke to me today. I've had a giant pile of great ideas for writing swirling around in my head for weeks and almost all of them have even been fit for public consumption, but most are still just floating around and not anywhere close to reaching anyone else. I've had a variety of excuses that involve things like "it's too late", "I'll have to make too many links and don't feel like the html involved", "I still need to mull that one over", "I'm not in a good enough mood for that topic yet", "I'm tired" and "I just posted yesterday so I should wait." Yes, apparently I've been telling my blog that I have a headache for weeks now and soon it's going to leave me for some younger slutty(er) blogger.

So I'm going to find myself a huge calendar or poster of some sort and start making writing part of my daily routine. Something physical and involving red ink seems more appropriate than any electronic tool. Not everything written might make it onto this web site, but it should at least keep my fingers limber on the keyboard (note to self: the longer my new acrylic fingernails get, the harder it is to type with any accuracy). I've also found that the amount of my writing relates to my overall happiness and good mood. I haven't quite figured out if I only write when I'm in a good place mentally or if writing significantly improves my mood. But if I can keep the chain unbroken for a bit, it may be a self-fullfilling prophecy where I'm pretty perky all around.