My latest on HuffPo examines what we'll lose besides hard news.
Disregard this post unless you’re a hypochondriac, in which case you might learn something
I'm creating a list that I'm going to add to regularly of: Maladies, major and minor, suffered in my 40th year.
Why?
Because I think it might be an interesting record to have.
As of start of 40th year, 5/1
Almost two years removed from my last cigarette and working out regularly, I'm probably the healthiest I've ever been. Only problems: Chronic pain in right ankle for years, have never had checked out because convinced only surgery can solve. Wisdom teeth that should have come out years ago—like, 20 years ago. Occasional pain in right elbow, occasional pain in right wrist, either from work or golf or … other repetitive activities. And right hip, which, if I stride too far, gives me a twinge.
Onward, march:
5/6 Aching in right side of neck when turn my head to the right or push on area. Best-case, I'm fighting off a bug and my gland is letting me know. Worst-case, cancer of the neck. (Resolution: Went away in several days, with whatever cowardly illness I fought off.)
5/18 Right wrist is hurting a lot now, on outside of wrist, where even my skin hurts in a certain spot. My wife, who is suffering from plantar fascism or some such, gleefully squeals, "You've got the carpal tunnel!"
6/3 Right wrist still bugs me, skin is still sensitive. To what do we owe this gift? Less time on the computer? Perhaps.
6/5 Pain around my left collarbone after an early-morning round of golf. (A round during which I noticed that the twinge I had complained of in my hip is gone.)
6/10 Noticed a bump near my right heel last night while reading. When I tried to stratch it off, it began to bleed and didn't stop bleeding for an hour. Now I am afraid of it and haven't looked at it since. (Resolution: healed.)
6/29 Nearly broke foot by running over it with kickstand at gas station on first leg of motorcycle journey. Was hoping for purple bruise. It never came. Pain went away.
8/31 Pain in right shoulder, probably strained during slightly drunken, thoroughly macho shirtless mowing incident in sloped front yard of Uncle Randall's house, in Des Moines. (Please note, two and a half months since my last post. Why? Too busy to notice aches and pains. Motorcycle trip two-thirds cured my carpal-tunnel wrist.)
Whatever you do, don’t be self-involved on Twitter!
As e.e. cummings' reluctant soldier Olaf did almost ceaselessly repeat, "there is some shit I will not eat," PR blogger Jennifer Mattern says there are some twits she will not tweet.
"Twitter spam," she calls it, when one uses Twitter to share a link to a new entry on one's own blog.
Look, if people really give that much of a damn
about your blog, they’ll subscribe to your feed. They don’t need what
really amounts to a manual feed coming through Twitter as well. It’s
obnoxious. It’s like screaming “Look at me! Look at me! I said
something new and I’m so uber important I just knew you couldn’t wait
another minute for it!” Yuck. …
I thought the supposed beauty of Twitter was the ability to hold
immediate multi-party conversations in a forcibly concise way. …
Oh that's what you thought, is it?
Here are some of the multi-party conversations I've been seeing today on my Twitter account:
I am having some serious problems with Microsoft Exchange!
Heading out to Chiswick.
Heh! I can see the traffic warden on one street, looks like the same guy who gave me a ticket last time I was in Chiswick lol 🙂
Editing line manager booklet – feels good to just write stuff for a change!
Do the Cubs have Swing Flu?
Feeling like a real commuter, headed to Houston.
Too nice to work now…. I hear the bike calling.
This is the church I'll be farting in when I go on Twitter and post the link to this blog entry and with a note that says, "My totally awesome blog post about Twitter bullies"?
Maybe I'm following the wrong crowd. If Jennifer sees an occasional link to a new blog post as a rude interruption of a rich, intellectual conversation, I'd like to know who she's following.