Why I Twied Twitter.

     I don't text. Why would I tweet on Twitter?

     But I signed up anyway.

     Go figure.

     But first, the texting.

     A couple of years ago I worked with texters. I have the most basic of cellphones; no camera, no music and a screen so small that I have to squint really hard just to screen my calls. And forget trying to see what time it is.

     At first, I couldn't figure out why my phone would buzz and vibrate and nobody would ever talk when I answered it. When I started being asked why I never returned texts, I slowly started piecing things together. 

     I'm analytical that way.

     I managed to fire off a few texts for a while. At first, I spelled out numbers because I didn't know how to send them the right way. Everybody thought that was funny, but it took me a long time to text a phone number, especially having to include the area code first.

     Alas, I didn't stick with it.

     Fast-forward a few months, and I'm living at the Pacific Plaza Hotel in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in the Russian Far East. I was there on a project, and a driver was assigned to cart me around. Kiril was a great kid, except for the texting. 

     There is little more aggravating than a company cellphone humming on the nightstand at 3AM, with a message from a drunk Russian kid, apologizing for running out of gas a couple of days earlier.

     Kiril and I communicated pretty well verbally, but text messages sent in broken English slang are murder.

     But back to Twitter.

     I love writing and playing around with this blog. Most who write or paint or play the cello do what they do and usually want other people to like it, too. I knew that Twitter was being billed as a "micro-blog," and I thought I'd give it a try to see if it would drive traffic to JackRabbit Café.  I searched around through the dizzying array of widgets and badges until I found one that actually worked. Of course, it had that washed-out aqua Twitter logo with the high-schoolish font, which reminds me of the lettering on late '70s/early '80s-era softball uniforms.  

     My intention was not to blast off inane "tweets"; believe me, the Tweet-O-Sphere is awash in those already. I simply wanted more visitors here.

     After a few days of a flooded e-mail inbox--fellow Tweeters (Twitterers?) "following" me and wanting reciprocity (and no appreciable increase in Twitter-driven traffic), I'm done.

     I've concluded that Twitter is a wasteland of lonely, gadget-addicted people who spend many hours each day speaking to strangers in short bursts of abbreviated nonsense. I wasn't trying to sell anybody anything; I was only looking for eyes. But there are tons of sales schemes on Twitter, from self-defined self-help gurus to get-rich-quick Ralph Kramdens to come-to-Jesus, tax-revolt right-wingers. 

     It's all just time-gobbling texting. I just want to write. 

     Goodbye to all that. They can take their widget back and my followers are now free to find another Manson. 

     But I'm keeping the Facebook page.