30
Twucking on twitter.
On twitter there’s this trend. ‘People’ has become “tweeple”, ‘speak’ has become ‘tweak’. Basically replacing every first letter with a “tw” for Twitter, obviously. Anyway, due to lack of sleep (this is my excuse, shuttup) I received a funny, flirty Direct Message from someone and it immediately made me think, “I wonder if anyone has reached the lowest point of twitter addiction, that being Cyber Twex.
It could go something like this:
Hey, big boy, wanna twuck?
…I start by twubbing my hand along my silky smooth twigh. Your twenis is quivering with antwisipation…
It’s twexual on a whooole other level, tweeps. Yes, I’m a basket case, I do realise.
Disclaimer: Hello mom. The devil made me do it. Love you!
29
A post on life people vs. net people
I realized today that the there’s a price to pay for devoting so much energy to the internet. Your real friends become overlapped by the people you interact with online. I’ll go one step further and even say that your life friends don’t know nearly as much about you as the net friends do. How sad is that? And by sad I don’t mean ‘loserish’ I mean the every essence of the word ‘sad’.
My life people don’t know that I’m stressed out, for example. Because if I picked up the phone to B to tell her that I was about to have my head implode from the stress of starting a magazine, she wouldn’t even know what I was talking about. One of my twitter friends, however, would offer their assistance or ask if they could have some of my boobs before I blew. Because it’s easy to type in a life update within 140 characters. Not so easy to fit the background story and explanation into a phone call.
On the other hand, there’s also a price to be had for being SheBee, the blogger. Life people know that I have my ups and my downs and that mostly I can be totally eccentric and crass and loud and insane, but they also know that I more often than not do know how to chill, have normal conversations, and have the ability to be serious and sometimes even responsible and mature. They know how I react to One Tree Hill and they know what my favourite flavour milkshake is.
One of the things I’ve noticed most about meeting people in real life after knowing them online is that they fully prepare themselves for SheBee, and not Sheena. When I do have a conversation with them, they’re surprised I’m normal. For instance, if I jumped up and started drilling a waitress about her tattoo* my net people wouldn’t bat an eyelid – because that’s SheBee, she does the unexpected. But if I sit and have a quiet dinner**, discuss things like politics and literature, my net people remark on how different I am in real life.
The downside is that I have been told on numerous occasions that I invest too much time into my writing, into my computer, onto the internet. Writing a book or updating my blog doesn’t seem relevant to them. My life people feel cheated, apparently. My life people feel that I live in my own world. My life people, don’t get the SheBee part of me either. “How do you come up with so much to talk about all day to strangers, Sheena? Aren’t you paranoid? Don’t you feel weird about knowing all these people without having met them?” are just a few things I’m asked on a regular basis.
And the answer is, no – I don’t feel weird. Because I may not know that X has freckles in real life, but I do know that he’s wonderfully loyal to the woman he loves. I may not know that Y has 4 sugars in her coffee, but I do know that she needs to be stoned in order to write. Because they told me so. Because we’ve come to know each other on an intellectual level. Because on the internet, physical appearance, creed, race and age does not matter. We all have a common goal: get our voices out there as much as we can, to as many people as possible, get other peoples voices understood in a way that we resonate with.
I may look like I’m in my own world most of the time but it’s okay – people know me here.
* True story.
** Also true story.<–>
28
Hey, have I told you yet about my new pet?
Look:
The Feline - a nightmare.
Look, firstly, I should confess he’s from the reject pound, Animal Action. Which is like adopting a kid from, oh I dunno, Boys Town School For Miscreants and Badly Behaved Juveniled Testosterone-prone males. But he wasn’t like that at first. Oh no, he was all sweet and purry and cuddly like. He slept on my pillow and tried to suck on my ear. He meeuwed his way to get to my biltong, even.
Then yesterday he relaxed his fake sweetness and shat in the litter box. Which stunk out THE ENTIRE HOUSE. And because he’s all little and vulnerable and there’s that other bullshit about getting lost, we’re not even supposed to open the house doors (to get fresh air in!) because he might get out! Oh no – not me, I stuck the fucker in the bath and aired out the house after emptying a perfectly full aerosol can of freshner into the aircon fan.
OH MY FUCKING GRAPE JUICE! I have NEVER in my life smelt anything as revolting… until tonight. Do you know what this little shit did? My god. I can’t begin to tell you how repulsed I was:
He. Crapped. On. My. Bed*.
I swear to blog. And then, he couldn’t even handle his own odour so what does he do? He vomits. From his own smell. On my fucking bed!
I’d like to extend a big fuck you very much to each and every one of you that told me kittens were a sweet, cute & easy blessing. The fluff and the cute eyes and the paw-paw-pawing my shoelaces aren’t worth it. I want a refund. Maybe the dude down the road will swap me for his fuck up dogs**.
* I should probably blame this on Piano, who was closed behind the door in the room that holds his litter box. Shot, dipshit. Now wash my linen.
** I’m kidding dudes. Don’t call SPCA on me.
28
Nerd Mag is underway!
When I started writing, I knew instantaneously that I wanted to become something more than a blogger. More than a home-made poet. More than someone who just makes her mom and friends laugh sometimes by reading the odd post. I wanted to professionalize, legitimize and capitalize on my writing.
Sometimes you just have to make shit happen. For yourself. Because if you sit patiently like a duck waiting, eventually an Elmer Fudd is going to find you and fuck you up. So, I created my own magazine to become Editor. And even got real life writers to write stuff for me. Insane! My dream come true.
And now I’m hating myself a little. Because with all the whining, moaning, spoon feeding and ass kissing, these writers are driving me up the fokken wall man*.
* But it’s still fun. Kiss, kiss, writers!
xoxo< -->
27
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Certain things in life are just basically going to get you down. Other things are guaranteed to lift you up. Exposing yourself to the public is one of the former. I don’t do well with critism, I never have. But I’m learning okay. I’m learning to not punch you in the fucking face when you diss me handle critism and treat is with the respect it was given.
I have to remember that not everyone I meet will like me, or what I do, or even who I represent. Sometimes no matter how hard I try, I’ll never please everyone. So this is me toughening up, holding my chin a bit higher, pulling a middle finger putting a smile on my face and saying;
Bring it on, bitches, I can take anything you’re willing to give 
26
My skin is peeling and I look like a leper. Girls help me!
Hi there internet, how are you? Good, good.
Guess what? I’m stressed out. But not just stressed out like, “oh, I wonder, what ever should I do…” it’s stressed out like “jaysus-merry-and-joswitch-in-a-wheelbarrow! What the fucking fuck am I gonna do now!” kind. So what happens to me? I show it physically.
No, no, I don’t lose weight or anything, thats for skinny girls – I am way more hardcore:
- My skin starts peeling. Yip, just like that I get flaky skin. And its only on my hands. But what makes it worse this time is that I’ve now started peeling from that sun burn I had a few weeks back. Stroosbob. So now my fore arms are flaking and my hands are peeling. Whoresome!
- My face breaks out in a million tiny little unwelcome “blocked pores” for lack of a worser word resembling the likes of chorbs, zits, blackheads etc.
My solution? I lather bottles and bottles of effing “Oh so heavenly” (my arse) cream onto the flaking skin, resulting in me looking like Alan Donald on the cricket pitch in his severe whiteness. And for my face – I wash it with soap and water every time I go to the loo, only making the skin dryer than that Arab dude, Omar’s, sandal in the Siberian Dessert.
Seriously, I don’t do the girly girl thing usually – help me! What now?
26
Turning Karma Upside Down
Right. So, in the manner of Earl (from that mnet I am Earl program, whatever it’s called) I would like to know where to start in order to get my karma levels balanced out.
I’ve had a shit load to process lately and all of these things tell me I have one of two options to fix myself:
I possibly need Jesus. Much like Santa, The Easter Bunny and flying purple piglets – I am not the most faithful of persons I know. Also, that whole “I caren’t see or touch or smell him” thing kind of puts me off. I’m a physical kind of chick. I like to feel the men in my life. So, the other option is:
Write a list of all (some) of the bad things I’ve done in my life and make it right.
Here goes nothing:
I should confess to writing all those those fake Phys Ed notes I gave to Ms. W in High School. Except the one genuine note my mom wrote for me that put me in Detention for being a liar. Apparently 12 year olds are too young to have periods. Stupid ho, how could she doubt my bleeding capabilities? *ahem*
Should have told Tiff that burning bibles and class text books was probably not such a great idea. At school. In the trees. Where we were smoking. In school uniforms.
Have I ever mentioned that I’m a phone-phobic? I am one of those annoying people who reject calls because I don’t feel like talking, and I am definitely one of those “let-voicemail-pick-it-up-if-its-important” people. Others hate this about me, and I’m told negative things about myself and what should be done with my middle finger constantly. Maybe I should up my game and start talking to people. Then again, meh.
I procrastinate a lot. I want to do thing, don’t get me wrong, I just never do.
I cheated on that one dude that one time with that one ex. Not cool.
I used to happen to be the worst kind of receptionist in the world. I’d let people walk into the building and get lost just because they didn’t greet me or bother to ask where they should be going. I also used to look at the switchboard ringing and file my nails instead. And if mistresses called in, I’d give the men fake messages from their wives to call instead.
Oh well, lets see if it improves karma any.
24
From Cheerleader to Geekleader.
All my life I grew up as the rebel, the girl who wouldn’t turn down a joint and the student who never attended class. I was the “popular” girl, the one who lead and not followed and the one who was always asked out first to any social event. I had no desire to feed my brain because my heart was overflowing. Things changed over the years, thankfully. I’ve become a little bit more mature, a lot less shallow and huge heaps more in touch with who I really am: the eccentric loud chickie not afraid to chase her dreams or follow her head, even if it sometimes leads to failure.
So much of this change needs to be attributed to the life I’ve lead and the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learnt. Lessons that I wouldn’t change for anything if it meant I would turn out different to how I am now. Aside from the lessons and mistakes, I’ve come to know myself through my writing. Someone once pointed out that I write so much because its the only time I can actually slow my thought process down enough so that I can understand my own mind, and they were so correct.
Which leads me to my topic of today. Without my blog, my writing wouldn’t mean nearly as much to me. Being online and having my words read by others has done more for my soul than anything else has. In blogging I have learnt to be honest with myself and share things with people I’ve (mostly) never met face to face. And here enters Social Media & Web 2.0.
A conversation I had last night got me to thinking. My online life up until now has always left me putting myself into my self made “Cosmetic Geek” category. I’ve felt like a fraud, or a fly on the wall a lot lately as I’m helping to set up the Durban 27 Dinner again (which for those of you left clueless is a geek dinner event specifically for the purpose of networking with fellow onliners) and having looked at the guest list the other day, mine was the only name put down that didn’t “technically” fit in with the crowd. Last night Bergen pointed out to me just how wrong I was, in such a way that left me sitting back with a smile on my face. I may not be in IT or web developement (yet) or know exactly how to code or write scripts to make things work on the internet, but I have learnt more than the average nongeek. I’ve become my own brand of geek.
I have my own blog, which I maintain myself. Most of the design issues are handled by me and although more often than not I call on my guy geeks to help with this or that, all technical problems essentially get fixed by yours truly. I’ve learnt how to edit basic code, align things in html, a bit of graphic design, I”m a social media whore and I’ve even whoreganised my own nerdy competition which was so much more succcessful than I ever anticipated.
I might not know how to make my own plug-ins or explain to you what exactly a ping is, but goddamnit I’m sure trying to learn. This year my goal is to conquer SEO. Search Engine Optimisation. I’ve also been asked to design a small little company website and I’m even being paid for it! A handful of months ago I would have laughed at myself even.
Cheerleaders don’t do html, or know terms like “FTW!” and “404 Errors”, but this cheerleader sure does. She’s happy to be a cosmetic geek, one with all of the determination to learn this webby tech stuff, but none of the Tech IQ. Yet. This cheerleader does belong to the geek world. And this cheerleader, she’s proud of it.
