twitter from a twit's perspective

Hey, remember when I said that I am always late to the party? Looks like I am late again. Twice in one week. That has got to be a record for me. I feel like Charlie Sheen is sarcastically snarking ‘winning’ behind my back.

Apparently, there is this social media thing called Twitter which was founded on March 21, 2006. That puts me exactly ten years and ten days late to the Twitter party. It wasn’t that I had never heard about Twitter; it was more that I was too busy creeping and stalking my sons on Facebook to learn more about it. Since they were not on Twitter themselves, I didn’t feel the need to sign up; that is, until this past weekend.

As you know, I follow The Bloggess (www.thebloggess.com) faithfully. I have also read both of her books, Let’s Pretend this Never Happened and Furiously Happy, more like I devoured them really. The Bloggess, also known as Jenny Lawson, writes openly, honestly and humoursly about her life living with mental illness. After realizing how often people support one another in the comments section of her blog, The Bloggess put forth a brilliant idea over the weekend for her followers to link up via Twitter as an easier way for members to connect with one another. So new Twitter accounts were created (mine included), dormant ones were reactivated, and those who already had existing accounts were beyond excited at the prospect of connecting with others who were dealing with a similar lillness. And, before you could shake two tails of a taxidermied raccoon, a beautiful and supportive Bloggess tribe was born.

I had absolutely no problem setting up my Twitter account and signing on afterwards. My problem began when I went to write my first tweet and I did not know what the hell to tweet about. Other tweeters seem so proficient with their tweets; some are quite witty, others snarky and sarcastic, some are ranting and raving about politics, others are posting inspirational quotes or funny memes, while others seem to be free-thinking, spirit wielding tweeters.

All I can say is that I am a Twitter genius queen twit. I think that this is what happens when you have arrived late to the party. Everyone else has had a head start; they know what they are doing and are well on their way to being half corked because they have been comfortably sitting back sipping or chugging their glass(es) of wine while writing their creative and clever 140-character tweets. I am the one who showed up late to the Twitter party AND without any booze because I didn’t have time to stop at the liquor store on the way; therefore, I have no clue about what is going on. Sigh. Always the bridesmaid. Never the bride.

Then there is also the fact that my life isn’t all that internesting to tweet about nor am I really proficient at anything in particular. I really don’t think that anyone wants to hear about how I ate my way through a bag of animal crackers over a two day period that were meant for my son’s Quirky Holiday Calendar bag and how I felt like a glutenous pig afterwards. There was that funny log clogging toilet incident but I had already blogged about it and something like that is hard to limit to 140 characters. On Saturday, some guy named Glen showed up at my mother-in-law’s door (she has her own apartment attached to our house) looking for me because he hadn’t realized that I had closed the store and he was wondering if I still had that dragon signet ring in stock. I mean, really, Glen?? Really? It gave me the creeps because that meant that Glen had asked around town for where I lived and some frickin genius out there gave him directions to my home. Way to ruin a Saturday, oh, member of the village people. Truth be told, I didn’t really want to tweet about Glen anyway.

All of these Twitter insecurites may account for part of the reason why I am unable to tweet anything. I have pressed the tweet button several times with every intention of tweeting something snide and sarcastic but then I just end up staring at the blank screen for what seems like an eternity. This is what I am going to call Twitter block — my inability to think of what the hell to tweet about or how the hell to proceed with tweeting. My suffering is real, people, so stop laughing. NOW. I think my Twitter block may be both incurable AND terminal so I hope that you are feeling bad about laughing at me. So There.

That said, I do find Twitter itself quite entertaining as a follower. Twitter IDs alone are fascinating specimens and are enough to make me giddy. IDs such as VengefulFaerie, LouisethePython, ShyChipmunk, ThatMacheteGirl, ExplodedSoda, DadvsNerdettes, StucktomyShoe, MiseryandMayhem, FeistyHarriet, GlitterHoarder, HalfMoonKooky, SpiceyRicey, MamaCuckoobird, SitDownPee, TeawithUnicorn, HelpfulHellion, SassyPieHole, SarcasmFairy, GomerSquirrelMD, PointlessBoob, DadandBuried, Mommy_Cusses, SarcasticMommy4, OhNoSheTwitnt and EattheButter make me want to meet these people and ask for their autographs. What is their story? Where did their ID come from? I think that they have to be creative geniuses based simply on their IDs.

Then there are the tweets themselves. They can be equally intriguing, hilarious, sarcastic, snippy and batshit crazy. Here are some of the tweets that appeared in my Twitter feed this morning:

• This is going to be a -smack-your-mama-turn-a-cartwheel kind of day. ~@sonyagoins1
• Have your followers retweet my followers and we’ll do lunch. ~@TheBigBatman
• If by dependable you mean depends on my mood, then, yes, I’m dependable. ~@CarrieMayhem
• Well a dead body isnt what I expected to see first thing this morning. ~@unconventional
• Gonna get a Leprechaun and a Unicorn and smash them together to form a Leprechorn AND IT WILL RULE THE WORLD. ~@Midgetspar
• When men say women who support Hillary “vote with their vaginas” it makes me want to meet these talented gals so they’ll teach me to do that. ~@OhNoSheTwitnt

I mean this was just this morning. While I was still trying to get the sleep out of my eyes, these people were already being creative Twitter geniuses. They must hit the floor running already tweeting on their way to the bathroom (yes, I realize that we are dealing with different time zones and some of these tweets may have been tweeted in the middle of the afternoon or early evening so please do not message me telling me how stupid I am for not realizing this. The point is that I am in awe of these twitter geniuses regardless of what time zone the tweet is tweeted in. Okay?). How is a late to the Twitter party goer supposted to compete with that? The pressure is very real, my friends, very real.

So far I seem to be really great at retweeting others’ tweets which I hope the tweeter realizes is the highest form of a compliment I can give. A like is good, but a retweet is better, way better. I have also noticed that I am a fairly good commentator as well as a terrific replier to those tweeters I think are in real need of a Twitter hug. For example, one tweeter tweeted, “I am still bowled over by all the new friends from #TheBloggessTribe. I’m fighting the urge to hide from everbody. How are you so open?” Being the type of supportive person that I am I replied, “I take my glasses off and imagine that everyone is naked”. See? You can’t get that type of support from just anywhere. You get that type of support from a genius, queen, twit like me. I bet you that I transformed her day with that brilliant piece of advice.

But that’s where it ends. How can someone as fluent in sarcasm as I am be experiencing such a problem coming up with a good tweet? Is there such a thing as twitterphobia? Is there help available for a tit twit like me? I need answers, people!!!!

I am, however, beginning to feel like one of the popular kids at school even without a clever tweet. You know the ones, they  were the ‘cool ones’, the ‘it crowd’, the ones invited to all the parties and the ones everyone wanted to be friends with. Since joining Twitter, I went from 0 followers to 204 in a matter of a few days. I was feeling mighty proud of this little accomplishment until I woke up the other morning to at tweet from some dude named Ken announcing how happy he was to have cracked the 1000 followers mark, thanks to #TheBloggessTribe. I am happy for him and all but doesn’t he realize that there’s a fine line between Twitter envy and rage when you start blowing about cracking the 1000th followers mark?

At the time of this post I was at 204 followers. Help me catch up to that smug little bastard named Ken (joking, I can’t say for sure that Ken is a smug little bastard but I am willing to bet that he is just for interest’s sake. Please don’t sent me hate mail about this. I am only human.) by following me @_theheadcabbage. If you do, there will be a prize of one million dollars if you are my lucky 1000th Twitter follower. Just kidding. There is no million dollar prize but you would get to be my friend for life. And that’s just about the same thing, right? Come on, people! Help this lowly Twitter twit fulfill a bucket list dream by helping her reach 1000 followers. To infinity and beyond!

Twitter Tweeters: 1

Twitter Twit: 0

PS: If you are interested in joining The Bloggesses’special community, use #thebloggesstribe in your tweet and tweet how you would love to be a member of this the awesome tribe. Some one will respond and the rest, as they say, will be history. Or visit The Bloggess at her blog at http://thebloggess.com/2016/03/not-alone/ for more information. Trust me, you will not regret it.