tu whit tu whoo

This morning, my young friend and former tenant John, who is finishing his Master's in Journalism and working at the CBC, came over to show me what Twitter is all about, and to get me going. I signed up to follow literary sites like the "New Yorker" and the "Guardian" book page and "Granta." Groaning, because voila, even more, MORE, to read.

But for me, I think Twitter will be like Facebook, fun to read but not necessarily to use myself. Because I write here. I don't know if I can condense my grand sweeping thoughts into 140 characters. And I was overwhelmed by the implications of all those people connecting relentlessly to each other, every moment of the day. John took a picture of his friend's birthday cake and sent it out to all his followers who can send it on ... so thousands can see the birthday cake in a matter of minutes. Dazzling. But crazy. He pointed out that because his job involves the web, he is on the computer all day, and when he's not, he's on his Blackberry tweeting or texting. His entire life, practically, is focussed on a screen. He does play frisbee occasionally.

What's really fun is that Margaret Atwood is a crazy tweeter. I'm following her. Only John and a friend of his are following me. And that's fine. So far. John took a picture on his Blackberry of my blog book and posted it to his Twitter address, to advertise it. Hmm, maybe there is something useful in this Twitter thing ...

God help me.

The outdoor plants are all in, crowding my inner space and graciously dropping their leaves. The garden has been pruned and cleaned up, and soon the wicker chairs will be put into storage and that's it, we're ready for snow. I'm still moving summer clothes out and winter clothes in - because it keeps getting hot again, briefly. Today - stunning, hot in the sun, but surprisingly cold in the shade. Sweaters going on and coming off. Better the confusion, though, than non-stop chill. Which won't be long in coming.

Not a word about Rob Ford or Stephen Harper today. I'd rather contemplate leaves.

PS I just took a test on a site called checkyourdrinking.net. Apparently, only 1% of Canadian women in my age range drink as much as I do (2, sometimes 3 glasses of wine a day, occasionally less and occasionally more.) I drank around 936 glasses of wine last year, and because of my weight and therefore the amount of time it takes my body to process liquor, spent 2,074 hours, they told me, under the influence of alcohol.

Woo hoo!

And yet, in all the questions they asked about whether your drinking has interfered with your work, health, safety or happiness, I said absolutely not. So it's my poor liver I should worry about. I will try. Though I live such an exemplary life in every other way, I'm happy to allow myself this one delicious sin.

Try the test yourself, and worry about your liver too.