Posted on by crystal · 13 Comments

Twitter and things like that

Few things suck more than someone taking the drama out of your dramatic exit. Picture this scene-that-you-will-never-see-in-a-mexican-soap:

Gorgeous girl, dressed to kill, pouting at the doorstep with suitcases in hand: I’m leaving!

Gorgeous boy with his head in the newspaper, not even looking up: Bye

Yeah, I feel a little like that today. I mean at least act like you’re going to miss me. It’s been four years, how now? All you can do is ask if you should forward my mail?

Le sigh.

Anyway, in other news.

♫♫♫♫

A pal mentioned in passing that a lot of people *cough*cough*.ke crowd*cough* misuse twitter. It was initially meant to be an information resource. Like the FB status but without all the annoying quizzes and sponges. It was meant to answer ‘what are you doing’ in a quick and timely way.

At some point it morphed into ‘what can you do’ and people started to use it to market and spread news, with funky tips, adverts and RT links. I get all my news from twitter, including the passing of MJ, Patrick Swayze and  bunch of people who I should know but don’t, kina Charlie’s Angels Celebrity Lady, the one with the pretty name.

Plus it’s a great place to find out about safaricom and zain’s latest offers. It’s thanks to twitter that I joined Super Ongea and that 3 bob calling tarriff thingie. Plus the whole Mercs vs Passats, unlimited bandwidth [yay!] and my first freelance writing job – all found on twitter. So for me, twitter is a pretty nifty newsfeed, without all the classified fluff.

But mostly – for me at least – twitter is about friends. Not necessarily the kind of lasting bonds that people lose arms over, but the kind of ‘let’s hang out on saturday’ thing, where people make dates and use 140 character updates to tell each other where they’re sitting. Twind dates so to speak.

At some level this sounds odd, but since online hookups are becoming far less … unusual, it makes sense to use twitter that way. When I first heard about this couple that met on Second life, dated, fell in love and married, I chuckled. Especially since the groom moved halfway across the world to live with his bride.

But wait, it gets worse.

After she twice caught him canoodling [I like this word] with some girl on Second life, she divorced him. Yep. Note that he did not meet the girl online, call her, get her into his wifey’s house and do the dirty. Nooooo. What happened is wifey came home from work, found hubby drooling at a computer monitor where the online version of himself was doing the nearly-nasty with the online version of some girl.

Now get this clearly. Second life is a virtual reality game where people hang out. You go on there, create an avatar, and then do stuff. You can hang out in the virtual mall, watch virtual movies, go on virtual dates, the works. You can even use real-world money to buy virtual land and clothes. You can use your actual credit card to buy a virtual pair of jeans in a virtual Woolworths [though why anyone would want to do that mystifies me] Your avatar can take some other person’s avatar on a date to a virtual McDonalds and stuff like that.

This may sound silly to the average person. But if you met your husband on Second life, then went offline and married him, then finding the same husband in a virtual jacuzzi with a virtual girl, you can reasonably deduce signs of a co-wife, yes?

My two cents? Before you wear the actual ring, do a virtual marriage for a bit. Go the the Second life vegas and do a virtual nuptial. Of course the downside is there isn’t [as] much fun in virtual sex.

But I digress. My point was, we use twitter more as a mixing-work-and-play tool. We are at work and we get to hang out with our buddies at the same time. Or we are lounging at our respective digs while at the same time having a mass party on Chuki FM or in Milo’s kitchen or wherever the latest bash is at, which is pretty cool. We get to be in lots of different places at the same time, and whenever we like, we can take the party offline for a shot of twitbowl or twitpool or MAMAs or even Just a Band.

I don’t think that’s what the original twitter-people had in mind, but it’s a pretty nifty mutation, no?

♫♫♫♫

On an actual note, the LOA involves a lot of self deception. It’s all about the power of the mind. If you’re tired and you tell yourself ‘I feel great’, you will notice that your spirits rise considerably. Especially if you put some spirit into the words. It’s hard at first, but it gets easier with time.

Thing is, sometimes I’m just fcuking tired, and I just want to declare that I am fcuking tired. But then, after I say it, then what? I don’t feel any better declaring that truth than if I had lied about it and said ‘I am a human gummibear, I never tire, oxygen is my juice’. Now that makes me feel better. Even if it is a lie.

So I suppose the real trick in LOA is to monitor my thoughts. When the thought ‘I am so xyz’ comes to mind, before I decide whether I will say it or lie about it, I should change it.

Suppose the thought ‘I’m bored’ comes to mind. Before I speak it, I might think of stuff that excites me, like soap bubbles. Or I could picture myself popping bubble foam [Fun!] Then instead of saying I am bored, I could say ‘Ooh ooh bubbles’. I wouldn’t be lying, and I wouldn’t be bored anymore.

Hm, I like this idea. Hope I can remember it.

Feel free to ignore everything after ‘On an actual note’, since it assumes you belong to my cult: the crazy reincarnating creatures of zombieville. Our motto —> nobody dies, we just change form. *cheeky grin* For more information, consult Neale Donald Walsch on Google.

Off to find me some bubble wrap in my happy place.

♫ Get you in ♫ Better than Ezra ♫

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Posted on by crystal · 8 Comments

Back to sanity

What. It’s after lunch.

Two people I know [of] were on TV yesterday. They looked all smart and hotshot talking about social media and the usefulness [or not] of twitter and facebook. Me, I’m just in it for the rant.  But it did get me thinking.

In my other life, the one where I use the saner half of my name, I am sometimes approached with ‘Oh so you’re the xyz that did abc’. I always find it vaguely amusing. So I did xyz. Big deal. I’m still just me, with all my foibles and nonsense and idio-whatsits [I never liked that word].

I remember in school once I got in trouble with this boy I liked. He was the head prefect, and awfully hot for a short boy. His sister was in my class, and she got it into her head that I had ATT. Ok fine, I did, but still.

What happened is we were in the field, under the acacia tree, and it was windy and really dusty. I was in the shade for some reason, and she was standing in the sun. She came walking towards me, and I squinted to keep out the dust and maybe see her clearly, which she misinterpreted and said

“Why are you looking at me as ift [sic] I am *contents of sewer* ?”

I was all of nine, or maybe ten years old, and was rather too shocked to answer.

“You think you are so clever, you know I have an auntie in Tanzania? She can roga you with this,” at which point she pinched my arm and allegedly grabbed a few hairs … or maybe dandruff. I didn’t think much of the threat, since I have a few dubious relatives of my own, and I was sure mine could take hers any day.

I left it at that until the next day when we were in the school bus heading to the swimming pool. I was looking at …almost said his name **cheeky grin**… zoobing at his beauty and not hearing a word he was saying. Turns out he was yelling at me to sit down, and was not amused that I had refused to  obey.

“You think you’re so clever, and just because you did xyz you can do whatever you want?”

I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence, I was too busy crying that the boy of my  infatuations could speak to me like that. I don’t remember whether I sat down or not, but I must have, coz he was scary at the best of times.

So clearly, my having done xyz has never been a big deal, and I still wonder why some people think it is.

Yesterday, watching Kahenya and Mark on the silly unloadable video, I couldn’t help thinking they’re regular guys, just like anyone else on twitter or wherever, just like Paula or Alai or Tonee-before-BBC.

And I see myself as a pretty regular person. But because of BBC/Kiss FM/et al, they become instant experts, go-to guys, people held in awe. Yet awe aside, they are just everyday jamaas with squabbles and foibles [I like this word] and tweef, just like the rest of us.

Sometimes, when I meet these people who pull the xyz stuff on me, I wonder what they would think if they saw my FB page, or twitter feed, or heavens forbid, the mess that is my living space. Would I come off their pedestal? Would I be suddenly human in their eyes? Would I be worth less … or somehow worthless?

Some people in the blog twircle are professional. They are serious at all times, never a stray tweet or idle chatter. Their image is cold, clinical … compact. I wonder if it’s hard keeping that up, or if my anything-goes-ness-ness is some kind of mutation. Coz me, I think I’d be a little stunted if I had to watch every word I said. I’m not even sure I know how. Still, different strokes and all that, their system serves them well, so I just need to work with mine.

Wait. I have a system? Interesting.

I do feed my mind the strangest things sometimes.

And I’m sleepy.

♫ Walking with a ghost ♫ Tegan and Sara ♫

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Posted on by crystal · 20 Comments

Weird is me

You know that episode in Ally Mcbeal where Billy chips, gets divorced, has an affair and dyes his hair platinum? They all think it’s a mid-life crisis, but it turns out he has a brain tumour. And just before he blacks out and dies, he discovers Ally is his one true love, not Georgia.

Yeah, just thought I’d throw that out there.

Coz the platinum hair was really cool.

So I woke up this morning rather … sore … on the inside that is. I’m into LOA these days, and my Sifu says I continue to create in my sleep, and that I must go to sleep thinking happy thoughts. Ngingi helps.

But I’m kind of on the BT, and yesterday I was sort of giving Master Sifu the silent treatment, mostly because he said I couldn’t watch this video I spent all day loading. And when I wouldn’t listen, he put the power off. *russumfussumallpowerfuldeitiesandsuch** So I went to bed cranky, woke up more cranky, and by the time I got to work, I really wasn’t myself. So I figured I could be myselves instead.

Therefore then.

I reactivated this account just to see if it still worked, and whadd’you know, it does. Nice. But then I am still pretty attached to this one which at some point was actually this one, and I figured, why not keep both?

Then I started doing my little indian fist jig, jumping between accounts and whatnot, which was kind of fun. It’s quite possible that someone doused my tea with coffee, coz I do feel more than just a little … odd.

Anyway,  what led to all this is the realisation that few people trust me. They believe I will mouth off every single word they say to me. And in all fairness, I probably will, if it involves me. Like for example, if I have a crush on that-boy-that-I-am-not-allowed-to-have-on-account-of-he-belongs-to-somebody-else, then I will probably tell him, and then go crying to one of the K15.

But if the same boy tells me he has a frightful fear of, I don’t know, giant green killer tomatoes, I will probably not tell anyone else about it. Except I just did. Oops. Oh well. I guess your secrets aren’t safe with me after all. *sheepish grin* Please keep them. Or else you will come after me with a pitchfork and a torch, and I already did that scene, twice. It wasn’t fun. For real.

So I realised that  a lot of my drama is self-inflicted. Or rather self-attracted. Yes, I am a magnet for drama, and my queendom is a dictatorship. Does that make sense? No? In layman’s terms, I am a drama queen, and my subjects are drawn to me by sheer wordpower. According to Master Sifu, the more I talk about drama, the more I attract it.

So I will be sitting here peacefully minding my own business, whining about my latest quandary to whomever among the K15 hasn’t tired of me yet. Usually it’s K10, coz he’s the sweet, infinitely patient one. Or K3 coz I tell him everything. Sometimes K13 coz he gives realistic advice and is allowed to give me a ngoto, or K7 coz he’s beautifully biased and always takes my side. My personal favourite is K2 coz he always says exactly what I need to hear, But he’s really far away so I can’t always find him when I want him. Le sigh.

Anyway, I’ll be sitting here binge-ing on milk and ranting when wham out of nowhere I will find myself knee deep in a fresh sewer load of … well, whatever resides in fresh sewer loads.

Yesterday I decided enough. I will not speak, I will not whine, I will sit here quietly and do nothing.

And guess what. Nothing happened!!

Cool, yes?

Except it wasn’t. Coz I was sooooo boooored! I had nothing to talk about! I tried to have a chatversation and it was like:

Hi CB.

Hi K5. Wsup?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Nothing.

Ok, bye.

Ttyl.

I mean really, wtf? Nothing? I know I suck at smalltalk, but seriously, nothing?!

Sad conclusion, my life is unbearable without drama. I mean I could always sit in a corner, pull a root mudra and meditate, but where’s the fun in that? I only enjoy it in contrast to my constant chaos, I like the relief it gives me from buzzing around like a Gummibear high on seaweed or cheap sawdust.

Le sigh.

That’s probably why I went with the schitzotwenia today. I needed a little dose of crazy to up my ante. Mind, I don’t start fights for the sake of it like some people do, and I do have moments when I like my peace and quiet. I just have more moments when I like it loud. Feel free to sweep the gutters with this one.

So.

I am two tweeters. For now. It will keep me sane as I attempt to keep the drama within my head. I will hurt fewer people that way. I’ll probably write more screenplays too.

In other news.

Some days I wake up and I don’t want to talk to someone. Other days, I go to sleep because I don’t want to talk to anyone. And saturdays, I wake up and feel ok, maybe I can find you again. Maybe. That makes me a whatever-it-was-that-you-called-me. Fine, it’s me, it’s all I know how to be. So go eat an ice cream.

Now, you, yes you, with the … you know yourself. All of you three. I am not apologising, I stand by my words even now. I’m just saying it wasn’t my intention to offend you.  That is all. Now go get passive aggressive and break a light fixture, yell at a wall, or stick pins in my effigy or something. It’ll make you feel better. Seriously.

Yes, I’m that arrogant. Sue me. I have a pretty lawyer *cheeky grin*

And this is why mindreading is generally not  good idea. Don’t do it. Just don’t.

PS: I’m up to 2GB a month. Yay! ♫ She-geek ♫ She-geek ♫ Na ♫ na ♫ na ♫ na ♫ na ♫ na.

No, it does not count that most of it is streaming audio.

♫ Hole in the head ♫ Sugababes ♫

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