My fascination with micro-blogging, micro-"fame", and how the playing field gets leveled 140 slots at a time

I've been sucked into the mirco-world of Twitter. I admit it. I really dig micro-blogging. With 140 characters, and a social network working for a person, even the pen is not mightier than the Tweet. That's because the Tweet is instant and potent. News travels fast, and may contain links with video, or loads of extra info. and news. Also-and here's the BIG one. It's free.

For me, it's not about becoming well-known, it's about disseminating very helpful information that makes life better, that changes lives. Or, that brightens someone's day. To me, that's "micro-fame" if Twitter is involved.

@mashable has nearly 100,000 followers, and the influence there shut down a part of yahoo recently, and sold out a company's line of shirts, with just a few characters. The shirt said, "Eat, Sleep, Tweet."

who's shrinking my clothes?

Is there is a gnome somewhere that's been shrinking all my clothing? I'm encountering some unfortunate dressing experiences in the mornings, much like the one you see here.

ecoNOmy

I have to say, I have never felt more grim about where things are headed, or what kind of future my kids will have, than I do now. Even after Sept 11. I worried. But not like now.

Spending this much money for banks, when it didn't work before, and the government intrusion, (health care like the DMV, and all the pork, and the loads of $ the country doesn't have.) I really am starting to think my children will not be better off than I have been. I grew up poor, but with hard work I put myself through school, and we've managed to be okay. I don't know if those types of things can happen on this current course. I find I am sobered more often in spirit, and my thoughts wander as I kept wondering. It's not just me.

I start to go to humor when these types of things happen, because worry won't solve anything. The tension needs to break. What's a 'stimulus package' anyway...? "Well, As Michael Scott would say...that's what 'he said'." Or "a stimulus package is what Chris Brown wanted to give Rihanna just before he bit her, because she said, 'I have a headache'."

Yes, it's a coping mechanism. I have to learn to trust my divine Father. I do, in general. And each day, in these times, I'll get more chances.

new eyes to see...new blog

I started a new blog at wordpress (LifeAsPrayer.wordpress.com) to cover ideas in my book project and take them from the book into regular life. I didn't think I'd need a new blog for that, but it seems right. I think I might merge the emergingPA blog there at some point.

At emergingPA.blogspot.com I'm giving out freebies all month in Feb, b/c of my birthday. I'm sharing the love. It feels nice.

From current reading (assigned)

You, the great homesickness
we could never shake off,
You, the forest that always surrounds us,
You, the song we sang in every silence,
You dark net threading through us.

(Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, NY: Riverhead, 1996, p. 70)

Candy

Okay, I have to admit, not eating these is hard.

It's like they're looking right at me.

Darkness

I've been pondering the links between darkness and growth.

I have most often (as many do) thought of darkness with negative things or hidden things.

But now I am encountering it in a new way as of late. We dream in darkness. Seeds germinate in darkness. Winter season, the needed time of dormancy in a normal cycle of a year, has long periods of darkness-short days, long nights. These are not bad things.

And I've been thinking of "the dark night of the soul"...silence, for the better.