This week I took the slightly random step of creating a Twitter account for myself. I use the word random because I have only ever had a very hazy idea of what Twitter actually is, and don’t have the patience to read the help guide, but as far as I can establish it seems to be a website for people who are obsessive about updating their Facebook status. Now I must confess that I am rather partial to updating my Facebook status myself, but the more ‘friends’ I acquire, the more constrained I feel about what I can actually say. “Clare has had a crap day at work” is not a status which will further my career when I know my boss can read it, nor is “Clare is really happy because Babel just let her suck his cock” a good status when there is a family member in my friends list. Sometimes I get around the problem by setting my status in Esperanto. Sometimes I don’t even want Esperantists to read it, in which case I write it in German because I only have a handful of Facebook friends who will automatically understand that, especially if I choose my slang carefully. Sometimes I set an indiscreet status in a fit of emotion and then delete it when I’ve calmed down. I like setting statuses, it’s an interesting emotional outlet, and it can help to focus the mind when you’re forced to express your mood in such a limited number of characters. (more…)

Being in a mood where I have lots of important things to do and am anxious not to do any of them, I decided to conduct a survey of my Facebook acquaintance. This was prompted by the fact that yet another person who I would never have expected in a million years to add me as a friend, just did. My policy when someone adds me as a friend on Facebook is to click yes, even if I dislike the person intensely. This is partly because I have an insatiable curiousity to read about what people are doing with their lives, and partly because I don’t like being consciously rude. (more…)