The Tweet of Twitter

My Twitter addiction is increasing every day.

I keep thinking of the book Feed by M.T. Anderson, where people have the internet hooked up in their brains.

Frequently, I imagine I have the internet hooked up in my brain.

I imagine quite awesome, very frequent Twitter updates.

Of course, I have the option of text messaging my Twitter updates from my cell phone, which is like having the internet hooked up in your brain.

But it's not really an option for me; my inability to text quickly and efficiently is beyond any help. Even if it means feeding my Twitter obsession.

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A little over a month ago I found one of my childhood best friends from Florida on MySpace.

I was so excited I messaged her brother on MySpace and asked him to call her and tell her to check her MySpace page. (She's not internet-addicted like me.)

Immediately upon getting an email from her, I just wanted to drive to M-town to physically see her, hug her repeatedly, and catch up over bottles of wine and an all-night chat. Of course, the day after hearing from her was my first day back teaching. And, besides, she's getting her PhD; she's in Med School. She doesn't have time, in general, for anything.

What's mind blowing about the two of us is that we haven't been far away from each--at all. When I was in WV, she was in PA. Now she's in WV, at the same university where I went to grad school. It's one of those "for-real-this-is-so-crazy-I-don't-know-how-to-verbalize-it" things. I don't know about you, but this whole "the world is really small" thing freaks me out to the point I become speechless.

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While reading Kate Greenstreet's case sensitive, I noted her note on the use of [ ]: "Penberthy describes 'the pervasive empty bracket sign [ ]' used by Zukofsky and Niedecker in their correspondence as 'a signal of deep caring for which words dare not and need not be found'" (16).

Of course, after reading this, I started obsessing over the other punctuation marks that would symbolize the "words [that] dare not and need not be found." But they all seemed to have other more important jobs: the ellipsis with its trailing off..., the parentheses with its asides (not to mention all its MLA work), the dash with its speed and/or hesitation before moving onto the next thing--

And, of course, I obsessed about those punctuation marks almost the entire night--to the point I'm not sure I slept.

And I kept thinking, Get up and record these thoughts on Twitter.

Then, If only Twitter was a program in my brain and my brain was already wired with cable internet.

OMG, Online shopping would be so much easier...

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I wrote A, my found childhood best friend, a long email, detailing my life now and what I'm doing.

But it felt all wrong.

There were too many gaps in the past. And too much focus on now. I wanted to record all of that that led up to now--from when we last spoke to now. But that seems impossible.

How can I say all the stuff from the past that sometimes feels unspeakable b/c it's over and done with, but that's the stuff that got me here to this moment right now?

So does all of that stuff become [ ] ?

Catching up is weird.

So weird, it completely explains my addiction to Twitter.

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It's not laziness that makes [ ] so effective.

You know some people just choose not to talk about all the [ ] or don't even experience [ ] at all.

Others want to talk about the [ ] and can't b/c there's no language for it.

And then there's the [ ] for those who don't need to say anything b/c it's already know between the self and a other: "a signal of deep caring for which words dare not and need not be found."

I thought about writing A a letter:
Dear A,

[ ]

Love,
Manda

But that's way too post-postmodern for my ass. And it still doesn't say everything I want to.

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Twitter: the true intention, I think, of this Web 2.0 app is to keep others updated of your going-ons.

"Saw clown drive past house yesterday. Started laughing. He looked too normal." Things like this. What you would text a friend.

But what I love about Twitter is different. I'm trying to get myself to post beyond the surface stuff (of course, I still do post surface stuff), but it's more interesting for me when I post more complex thoughts and fading memories that I want to record, not forget.

If Twitter had been up and running 15 years ago and I joined back then, I could send A my Twitter link. Maybe then [ ] would be more clear.

Because then the silent gaps between my Twitters would accurately replicate the [ ]. The [ ] for her and others, right? Because we can have [ ] with more than one person...

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OK, I just had a "WTF am I talking about moment..."

That means it's time to stop.

I'm now thinking of the barriers of language and how [ ] could still be language and now my brain is propelling forward into sister territory and the language in non-verbal-ness.

Sadly, I don't have time for all this right now.

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Twitter forces me to say it all in 140 characters. God bless them.

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Endnote: If you join Twitter, be sure to friend me. I'm addicted to reading Tweet as much as I am to writing them.