Here I am cruising confidently into the BlogHer conference
thinking, “I was a BlogHer freshman last year, but I’m an old pro at this now.  I know what it’s ALL about!”  Pat pat knowing smirk pat.  (Check for lipstick on the teeth, smooth
hair.)

Well, it turns out I didn’t know what it was all about,
little naïve me, because everywhere I turned I encountered…

“Do you twitter?  Are you
tweeting?  You better twitter that.”

My steps faltered. 
“Um… no, I’m not… uh.”

And then, “WHY aren’t you on twitter?!”

I admit, it caught me completely off guard.  Sort of like I had walked into a church youth
group meeting to find everyone smoking out. 
Sure twitter was the new thing… mysterious, popular, a little edgy… but
also a bit decadent.  Maybe even illicit…
in a will-be-eventually-banned sort of way. 
(And let’s face it, the term “tweets” just sounds dirty.)  Here I was at BlogHer, wandering the halls in
search of a fresh cup of tea between sessions on open source and mommy
blogging, being pushed into iniquitous web 2.0 services.

“You NEED to get on twitter! 
Trust me, you’ll try it and love it.” 

I heard it so many times I started mumbling, “No thanks, I
don’t use,” as I nervously scanned the rooms for the sudden appearance of
someone’s dad, come to break up the party. 

And then I heard, somewhere along the way, “You can just use
the weirdgirl. Well, you know, if your name isn’t already taken…”

Wait, was my name
already taken?  I had to go look.  Just a quick look.  Whenever I ran across anyone else using
“weirdgirl” on the web, it was usually a preteen in another country or a
“naughty” site.  I just wanted to
check.  You know, for my reputation.  It’s only one time.

And next thing I know I’m on twitter.   (BlogHer is such a bad influence.  I hear there’s an afterschool special coming
out about them soon.)

So… do you twitter?         
– wg