Twitter

So it's finally happened. It's been more than a month since I blogged about anything, but then Twitter got banned (sort of), and there was nothing for me to do but open a Twitter account.

Like all techno-thingies, I've resisted Twitter for a long time, despite extensive peer pressure. I resisted the Internet at first as some sort of newfangled distraction that would never catch on (this was, mind you, when Webcrawler was the best browser option and dial-up made the Internet super boring). I regarded email as pointless until I had to set up an account for work. The only reason I opened a Facebook account in the first place was to apply for a freelance gig that never panned out, and which turned out to be lame anyway.

No. No, you were never lightning fast.

I don't suppose I need to elaborate on the details of why all my anxiety and hesitation turned out to be stupid and completely wrong. Now I'm the one on the Istanbul Women's Facebook page all coolly advising everyone how the world isn't coming to an end just yet, just Google how to change your DNS number and VPNs aren't scary because I learned all this stuff when You Tube was banned for two years. I hardly know exactly what all these acronyms and numbers are, but I know how to make them work to get me the things on the Internet I want to have.

And there are a lot of things on the Internet that Turkey doesn't want me to have. There are also a lot of things the US doesn't want me to have. To that I say, "Fuck all y'all." I have like 8 CDs downloading on my work computer right now. I figure I've paid enough money to the entertainment industry in my life. They pretty much owe me at this point.

Keytar? Technology is awesome. 

So now I'm on Twitter and I feel like someone's grandma on Twitter because I don't get how it works with all the hashtags schmashtags and whatever, but I'll figure it out.

Today at LE's school, I overheard some dads and a grampa talking about Twitter. Amca was all "What is this Twitter business I keep hearing about? Twitter is closed falan... what is this Twitter and why did they close it?" and a younger fellow told him it's this thing where you can post stuff and other people read it and also you can send free messages. Amca was all, "Oh, so it's like Whatsapp or whatever? Free messages are great-- why would they want to close that?" and the younger guy was like, "Well, that's part of it but there are also articles and pictures and stuff."

And Amca nodded and rubbed his chin and said, "So it's like this Facebook where you send your pictures and other people talk about them?" and the younger guy said, "Yeah, it's kind of like that, but different." And Amca said, "Well, of course I don't do Facebook because I don't understand any of that anyway. I don't get why they bother closing this and that and the other thing." The younger guy shuffled his feet a bit and went for a non-committal, "Well, you know how it is işte, burası Türkiye..."

Amca winked at me. I was doing a crappy job being sneaky about eavesdropping, all with my phone out trying to read a few articles in the remaining minutes before the kids came out of school; the Twitter ban, the Syria crisis, the everything else crisis. Every day it seems a little bit worse that I brought a kid into this world.

Amca slapped his hands on his thighs before standing and making his final pronouncement on the Twitter issue. "I guess so long as we can still drink tea. If they don't ban tea, everything will be fine." The other two men nodded in somber agreement and Amca smiled my way.

And then they went on to talk about the weather, which is changeable these days, and the huge flock of birds that flies over our heads around the same time each evening, and the crazy things our kids get up to, like punching each other in the mouth, which maybe I won't be writing anything about but maybe I will. Maybe it won't even matter if I do or don't.

I'll probably be too busy reading stuff on Twitter.