On thinking about how I tweet

I just wrote a post for our company blog contest about the language of social media, and how it’s being perceived.

Okay, really I tied together a bunch of links and quotes by other bloggers because I procrastinated with great skill and toss the post together at the last minute. At least it drove me to finally post on here again.

What really struck me was a Boston Globe column by lexicographer Erin McKean.

McKean talks about twitter, and all it’s associated tw- words (tweet, tweeple, twitterhea). But what caught my attention was this:

...it's not just the twords that make Twitter interesting, it's the character limit, the implicit constraint of being interesting, witty, informative - in short, of being worthy of the limited attention of your followers. The best tweets of Twitter (some of them collected on the occasionally not-safe-for-work site Favrd.com) are more epigrammatic than newsy. Twitter demands writerliness in a way that instant messages, text-messaging, and even blogging don't.

This made me think about how I use my own twitter account. For the most part I retweet company tweets and various links and tweets that interest me. But maybe I should do more. Maybe I should be using these small chunks of text to practice my writing skills.

How much imagery can I fit into 140 characters? How much meaning? I think I may start to throw out the occasional test post, and stop worrying about how useful, or logical, it is to other people.

Cheers

Back to work

The mono is done with, and I'm finally beginning to feel like a living, breathing person again.

I didn't have a particularily bad cast - no fever, to sore throat. What I did have, however, was a couple months of feeling like the air itself had gotten heavy. I was exhausted halfway through my day through the sheer effort of getting up, getting work and just breathing.

A note - no, my company did not expect me to work through my illness. I went a couple weeks feeling brutally exhausted before going to the doctor (no fever or sore throat - I honestly just thought I was "tired") and two more weeks before getting my test results. As soon as I, and they, knew I had the mono I was given leave to work from home for a week. After that I spent two weeks on vacation in BC.

But yes, the mono seems to be gone, judging by the lack of need to sleep 10-12 hours a day. I am however, still extremely anemic.

In my day-to-day go to work, go home, intarwebs, possibly eat dinner and use the rower life, this isn't much of a problem. Last night, however, I returned to martial arts (number one on my list of "things that make me not-crazy) after over a month of being unable to work out at all.

For the record, I'm an endurance person when it comes to activity. For some reason, and against the apparent norm, endurance works cause far fewer asthma problems than shorts, intense burts of activity.

Add a class that was almost completely comprised of short, instense bursts with anemia (and the resulting difficulty of getting enough oxygen into my system) and you get a tiring night and a the need for a couple puffs off the inhaler.

It was also a hell of a lot of fun.

Checking the knitting-bag

I learned something on my recent flights to and from BC: If you decide to carry a knitting bag you will be searched.

In fact, the young gentleman tasked with finding that elusive 1mm crochet hook (used for placing beads) will not only search your bag, but will just not get it.
The lunch is fine, as are the two containers of beads and six balls of yarn (wool, camel and linen). It’s with the needles that will give him pause.

“Questioning” is the kindest way to describe his vaguely disconcerted expression as he tests the tip of the first pair of knitting needles. The cable needles (37 inches and bedecked with in-process lace, beads and all) will be met with disbelief – and tested for sharpness.

By the time he reaches the sixth pair of needles, tucked away inside a secondary bag, he’ll have started avoiding eye-contact and will zip your bag up without a word before letting the x-ray attendant know it’s fine.

He’ll wave you on, wishing you a safe flight and hurriedly turn to the next, more usual passenger – the one who went through advanced screening with a three year-old.
He never will find that needle-like steel crochet hook.

The lady to check my bags returning to Ottawa was a little less perturbed and found the hook no problem. She then gave me the requisite funny look while I smiled and said it was for placing beads on the shawl I’m knitting (in my best cheery voice) and wished me a nice night.