The Tweet of Anxiety

I am fighting off Internet-based anxiety this morning. Do I know how to Twitter? Can I...should I figure out how to Tweet?? There's this really frightening feeling trying to surface in my brain: if I add one more thing to my technology challenged list, will my life turn into a retro Twilight Zone episode? Will I wake up one morning and find that the line between cyberspace and reality has been permanently blurred??

Running always reduces my self-imposed anxiety, so I go out for a nice long jog. As I'm going along, I picture this weird Twilight Zone scenario. If I do succumb to one more Internet-frenzied time suck, will I only be able to talk in web speak? Instead of deep conversations with my cousin, I'll only be able to say, "LOL, Trish. OMG . Let's TWEET-UP. TTYL." And on my runs, perfect strangers will start "following" me, waving a file folder, trying to get me to look at their questionable pictures. Then more people will join in the chase, trying to give me crucial information about how to enhance/alter one of my body parts that I may or may not have.

Someone honks their car horn at me and zaps me back to real time. An actual person! Yay! Someone I know! A friend who is giving me a real-life wave!

There's a chance for me, yet. All is not lost. I'm going to go home and write TWO snail mail letters...and two chapters for a book that will be on real paper with a nice, sturdy hardcover and book jacket...with real pages that you can turn and smell the newness or the unmistakable library shelf scent...

...Uh oh....what was that? You know TweetDeck makes a very appealing and realistic sound...