Musings of A Wannabe Alterkocker, Part Deux*

*Here’s Part One. Knock yourself out. Just don’t wake me up from my nap.

I know I must be old because Twitter gives me diarrhea.

I know all the young people in the Middle East and Europe are starting revolutions 140 characters at a time, but all the tiny tweets and mysterious followers and crippled English and manic self-promotion and those people who shout out every time they’ve completed a new suduko game (you KNOW who you are)—it’s so STRESSFUL. (Speaking of stress, Marcia Fine’s Jean Rubin knows something about it.)

Still, it’s what humans do these days, so I spit a tweet out now and again and then spend a hour reading everyone else’s tweets when I should be doing many, many other things that may produce an actual outcome, such as clean underwear for the family or, say, a book.

Some people are quite good at the Twitter, posting useful info and funny pictures (thanks, @SteveMartinToGo, for the pug in the bikini yesterday) and even finding jobs and promoting themselves into prosperity. So I get that it works, I just haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet as no one has offered me any money. Here’s to trying.

I’m not the only one who appears to be having a Twitter problem. Jerry Seinfeld—yes, that guy, who got way rich being funny about nothing—began tweeting over the weekend as @Seintime. In five short tweets managed to attract 165,000 followers—and piss off every Jewish bubbe who’s found her way online:

(Screenshot c/o MediaBistro.com.)

Another #ReasonIamAnAlterkocker: Holocaust humor, not hilarious so much. Soup Nazi notwithstanding.

@Seintime has not tweeted since. S’okay, dude. Not everyone’s humor translates, y’know?

The main #ReasonIamAnAlterkocker is though I am still three months shy of my 40th birthday, I had the unbelievable unpleasantness of experiencing a barium enema a few weeks ago. It sounds like it’d be bad, right? Drinking that yucky chalky stuff and having someone snap a photo up your bum? When I asked the nurse if I could down the stuff with a beer back, she stopped and put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Oh, HONEY. You don’t DRINK the barium.”

I will be traumatized until I die. My doctor assured me that this was a kinder, gentler alternative to having a colonoscopy—would anyone care to weigh in on that? #ScrewAging

Fortunately, the test did not reveal a tangerine-sized tumor or that I had inadvertently swallowed my son’s ball python, so my doctor had no choice to agree that it’s Twitter that’s causing my stomach issues. “Still,” she said. “You need more followers. I’ll retweet your next post, OK?”

You can follow me at @TypeItLoud.

3 thoughts on “Musings of A Wannabe Alterkocker, Part Deux*

  1. I’m a year and a half shy of my 60th b’day (no, not the French b’day)so I’m rather use to the alter cocker state of life, even having had a barium enema in 2006 (don’t want to fart for a couple of days after one of those cold ones. Face it, life sucks and then…. Anyway, it’s blogs like yours that make the whole lousy thing tolerable. Talk about tolerable, I recall in more than one of your past blogs how you doff your hat to women who are well hung- I saw one (a pair) up close today. She was with her man; I was with my 87 year old mother. Life really does suck.

  2. I am about your age and agree completely about Twitter. I am very tech-savvy; however, Twitter just doesn’t fill any particular need I have. There are many other time-wasting activities I prefer. When I do occasionally log on, I like you, can’t help but think about all the other things I should/could be doing. Love your blog!

  3. I am about your age and agree completely about Twitter. I am very tech-savvy; however, Twitter just doesn’t fill any particular need I have. There are many other time-wasting activities I prefer. When I do occasionally log on, I like you, can’t help but think about all the other things I should/could be doing. Love your blog!

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