The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Tweet Tweet, Twiddle Twiddle

I'm teetering on the edge of Twitterdom. For all my bellyaching about the dangers of technological addiction, I am inexplicably intrigued by it and feel like I'm possibly missing out by not tweeting, as it were. I watched a program on the local science channel the other night about a poetry festival in Ireland, and one of the poets was a woman who originally hails from Canada. I loved her words, liked how she presented herself, and decided to look her up, only to land in her blog and subsequently, her Twitter. Oooh. Dirty.

Anyway, it was a revelation, reading the words of someone I had only recently come to know through a television set and knowing this was the same person, only so much more vivid, smarter and interesting. I could read her blog all day, and lost half a Sunday to it, actually, before I found myself swinging from Twitter account to Twitter account, wondering why I was dragging my feet. I might do it. I just might.

In other news, I don't feel like I talk about my child enough. I adore that little munchkin, and she knows it. I adore her smarts and her guilty pleasures. I am in love with the way she rolls in the dirt after I've just finished washing her coat. I am enamoured of the way she uses the word 'perhaps' incorrectly: Mom, I think we should, you know, have some perhaps hot dogs, or something. She'll figure it out eventually. How could I not love the way she tearfully admitted that boys make her nervous, that she likes dancing but feels 'funny' about having to dance with the little boys because they're too crazy? Just yesterday, she told me that she'd like to be a rock star, but that she's too nervous about singing in front of people. Oh, well, that might pose a wee bit of a problem, I said lightly. Perhaps (I got it right), you should speak to your grandfather about that. He used to be in a band when he was younger.

The eyes widened, the hands went straight to the hips.

Are you kidding me, mom? Are you serious that grampa used to be in a band? Are you kidding?

Nope, he sang and played keyboards.

She thought about it, her eyes searched my forehead and then the ceiling.

Well, that's kind of amazing.

Actually, it is, kind of.

My desk is covered in the crumbs of hastily consumed chocolate chip cookies. I eat much quicker than I used to, mostly because I know she'll be around shortly, begging me with the eyes of a hungry hound. I now hide food and I tend to eat more quickly. I say this is what causes obesity in mothers, the need to obsess over food and how much of it we can eat in private. It becames ritualistic, a nighttime, dark room peccadillo. All the effort which goes into procuring the pleasure becomes a life's work and before you know it you're snarfing down a bowl of chips, with crumbs flying as though they're remnants of a tree through a woodchipper. I've never been much for potato chips, though. My vice, as we know, comes in the form of peanuts and chocolate. There is one Snickers bar hidden in the downstairs area, and it is mine, only to be taken when the mood is right, when the tiny machine is sleeping. I no longer remember what it's like to eat a dinner in silence, or to get it when it's actually hot. I do love my girl but she has a list of demands as long as her legs and she tends to exercise them when I am sitting down to a cooling plate. One day, she won't want to eat dinner with me anymore, and I'll cry. I cannot be pleased.

Back to twittering, is it just another attempt to get noticed? Or, is it a harmless kind of networking for the physically shy? Is it a fad that'll die like leg warmers or will it become a staple, something else everyone who's anyone is doing? I don't eblog yet. I only really exist here, in this site, but maybe it's time to branch out? I'm slightly paranoid about it, though. Then again, I'm paranoid about everything.

To twitter, or not? Is this even a question?