Wit vs. Self-promotion: A Quandary

This is the third day of #SummerBlogSocial 2011, and this post is for prompt #6, which asks: Tell us about an element or two of your blog or social media presence that you are unsure of and would like opinions on.

I love twitter.  No, seriously, I think I have a little bit of a man-crush on it.  It's like every single one of my tweets is a mini-blog post that I get all giddy and excited over hitting the "publish" button on my computer.  And the fact that I've gathered together such a great mini-community that sometimes will respond to my tweets that I think are so clever and amazing with adulation and praise - that's awesome. 

But, as with all great loves, I've got a little bit of a quarrel with my crush.  Sometimes, I just don't have anything to say.

So my twitter account will sit idle, waiting for some twit-spiration to arise and per-twit me to be clever and twitty for a couple of days.  And all my followers will get in the meantime is a couple of tweets a day that say,

"hey - I know you're super busy and all, but I just wrote this really long diatribe about nothing of any importance to you.  By the way, what's the difference between a monologue and a diatribe?  I know what a dialogue is, but can you have a monotribe?  Haha, I really love these kinds of linguistic questions, don't you?  ok, anyway, here's the link for my blog, come see me, please?  no seriously, come!"

Although not in so many characters.

In addition to the lack of inspiration when it comes to funny and clever tweets (we can't all be Marinka @motherhoodNYC) I have a phone that is about as current as those massive brick phones of the early 80s, so even when I DO have something awesome to say, it takes me about 30 minutes to type it out.

So my question to you all is really two-fold:

First, how do you all manage your twitter account in terms of actual substance and tweets that promote real connections between you and your followers vs. self-promotion.  And second, how do you perceive those people who will, for days, do nothing but self-promote (albeit sparse self-promotion, but absent any real content). 

Writing that last sentence, I feel like I should add a disclaimer: if someone follows me, and I look through their history and all I see are links, I will not follow.  What does that say about me?

AAOADHD

I can't study anymore.  I think I've got acquired-adult-onset ADHD.  That is, AAOADHD.  I just pronounced that out loud and audibly giggled.  At work.  Yes, folks - it's sealed.  I'm a victim of AAOADHD.

Take last night, for example.  My wife and I have papers due on Friday, and my wife had thoughtfully scheduled a couple hours where my in-laws would take the little guy so we could write our papers. 

She finished in LITERALLY FIFTEEN MINUTES.  Please allow me to reiterate that.  She wrote three pages single spaced about the inter-workings of a Canadian firm's ENTIRE IT department in less time than it takes to play one round of Pictionary.  I went to make a cup of coffee and she had finished it before it started along its journey to percolation. Fifteen effing minutes.

She then picked up the paper, put her feet up, and began reading the paper.  Just to be a punk.  Look, wife, no one reads the paper anymore.  You're not fooling anyone.  You purchased this newspaper with the explicit purpose of rubbing in my face the fact that you are studious. I think I'll buy you a monocle and a train ticket for your birthday.  So you can be all studious and judgy somewhere else.  While...seeing things...with only one eye.  Whatever, psh.

In the fifteen minutes that it took her to write her paper, I was catching up on twitter.  I can't read it, or even participate effectively at work, because I'm using a phone from the 1870's, and the touch screen is prohibitively stupid.  When she told me she was done, I was lost in thought - thinking about how awesome it was that Eratosthenes used stadia to calculate the circumference of the Earth.  Seriously, look up the story.  It's fascinating.

But when she told me, I was so shocked and devastated that I literally fell onto the floor and crawled around writhing dramatically.  And I'm using "literally" correctly here.

And just this morning, while I've been trying to write one goddamn post for today, I've actually written three.  One that was a stream of consciousness in the style of James Joyce's Ulysses.  But then I googled Ulysses, and started reading about its critical reception, and then I got into Irish literature and Oscar Wilde, and then Gay Pride, and Old Navy, and before I knew it, I had only three or four sentences written and I was bored with the idea of a stream of consciousness.

Then I wrote one of those six word stories but was supremely unhappy with it.  Especially when I took into account that I spent nearly 45 minutes thinking of six...stupid...words. 

And then, in frustration, I decided I was diseased.  With AAOADHD. 

I just said it aloud again.  And laughed.

Someone please help.

The Wedding - a debriefing involving hatchets

Oh, how I've missed you, fellow bloggers and bloggettes.

I've realized with this week or so of absence that I've grown to really enjoy being involved, even remotely, in your lives.  Reading along with your daily or semi-daily posts has become a very welcome routine for me, and I'm like a 90 year old grandpa - I loves me my routine.  Example: I have to wake up at the same time every day, even if I'm not going to work - otherwise, my sleep pattern will be all out of whack.

So, speaking of something out of the routine...how 'bout that wedding, huh?  I think over the course of the three days  I was up there, I tweeted maybe...5 times?  It turns out that tweeting in the middle of the ceremony as the best man isn't exactly considered polite.  I HONESTLY didn't think of that when I was gearing up for the trip.  I thought I would sit through the entire ceremony and reception snickering to myself and delving into my iReporter fantasy by tweeting to you all constantly.

But, boy, it was a doosey. 

Here are a few highlights to make you jealous of our awesome time:

• Driving in a two door coupe with a three month old exploding exactly at the wrong moment, forcing my wife to crawl over the seats in her beautiful new dress to change him in cramped spaces while the entire wedding was waiting for the best man (me) to show up. 
• The bride's father commenting almost immediately upon meeting my father about how poorly my dad kept his yard.  My father, who spends tens of thousands of dollars a year on landscape design and work (and who is as explosive as my son, but just from the other end) actually handled it pretty well, despite displaying his chameleon-like ability to change facial colors at will.
• My brother and the rest of the groomsmen getting tattoos on their inner hips that say, "Riot" - apparently from this one time when my brother said it at a wedding referencing "It's always sunny in Philadelphia", sending everyone into giggles.  I didn't get the joke, so I didn't get the tattoo.  Thank god.
• My overly drunk and newly single aunt (there's always one) squealing at the top of her lungs any time one of my brother's military buddies said ANYTHING, yelling, "You can rescue me ANYTIME!!!"
• The bride and groom entered the reception hall to the Star Wars opening credits theme song (probably my favorite part of the wedding altogether).

As an addendum, my b-day loot included a MacBook Pro - probably one of the sweetest gifts ever given, except for the super sweet hatchet that my wife got me.  It's got a badass leather case and everything.  That reminds me, I wanted to check the local laws to see if carrying a hatchet in public is legal.  And if it's not, I need to check on how much jailtime could I get carrying it.  You know, to weigh the risk/reward. 

The above is an image from here. I do not own the image, but I do own the hatchet, which, admittedly, is much more awesome than owning just the image.