And now, for something completely different...

Expectations

A few months ago, I wrote this regarding people not really "getting it" when it comes to chronic illness. They can't believe that after 6 or 7 or 8 months you aren't running marathons or whatever, even though your cardiologist told you that you had a "near-fatal event" in February.

I wanted to update that post. I'm feeling better; some days are really good, but then there are days that are absolutely terrible. Like today. I have tremendous chest pain when I breathe; it's not just pleurisy, but deep lung pain. Nothing new, just the usual.

We recently moved to the foothills outside Boulder, CO. We're in a nice house in the woods (or semi-woods, actually). Some of my friends have expressed great disappointment that moving to the supposedly "better air" of these foothills hasn't magically made me better.

Please refer to my original post to understand what happened to me. Although now I have asthma, you have to understand what started it all, and that mountain air isn't the cure.

Time is the cure. My pulmonary doctor said I will get better. Another doctor confirmed this, but warned me it could take at least a year.

So, I know you mean well by expressing the sweet and rather old-fashioned "better air" theory, and I appreciate it, but especially on days like today, it's a bit painful to know there are such high expectations for me to become more exciting and awesome. I won't apologize. This is who I am now. I won't always be like this, but that Rocky Mountain High isn't necessarily going to fix it.

It sure is pretty, though. Too bad "pretty" doesn't fix lung problems, eh?

So here's the thing.

I'm going to write a serious, non-meta post here for a change. I'd put it on my own blog, but that's mainly for specific nuclear weapons/national security posts.

Today I am going to talk about illness. Being sick. You know, stuff no one wants to hear about. People like happyfuntimewoohooyay! updates. Well, I apologize in advance for harshing your buzz. I also sincerely apologize for my sarcastic tone, but you'll understand the reason in a minute.

Read the rest of this post »

BREAKING! Seriously, BREAKING!

This is too long for a tweet, but not significant enough to post on my own blog, so I figured Posterous was the place for it.

This is a meta thought, about blogging, specifically about news items.

It goes like this: someone has a blog, and they're promoting it via Twitter. That's cool -- I've done that myself.

What's annoying is getting to the blog and all that's there is a link to the news story, a sentence introducing it, and an an excerpt from the article. That's all. No analysis, no original thought, nothing, just a short rant at best and a sentence at worst.

I guess I'd just rather read the original article. If you're going to direct me to your blog, add something. Do some analysis. Make it worth my time. Otherwise, you're just clearly trying to get site hits, and that's rather cheap.

Irritating Trends and Habits On Twitter

Sharing Is Not Always Caring

People including you in an argument or discussion they're having with someone even though you may (or may not be) following that person. They do this by re-tweeting everything they say to that person, or even more annoying (because it doesn't give you any context), they put a . in front of their reply. Example:

.@randomperson Yeah, you just try and MAKE me do that. You just try.

Um, no one cares about your argument. Well, maybe a few people do, but trying to include the whole world is just rude.

Thanks But No Thanks

Thanking for re-tweets is a nice, polite gesture, but I've thought for a while it might be better if people did it by simply replying to the person who re-tweeted their stuff. Here's what @PaintsNature had to say about it, in a couple of tweets:

1. Folks, those of you who spend a lot of time thanking other folks 4 RTs might consider making them @s so they dont clutter the tweet stream. (link)
   
2. [cont] When I thank a bunch of folks, I usually @ it to the person with the fewest followers, so most of my followers don't have to read it. (link)
   

I think she put it best, so I'll just leave that and go on to...

Excessive Re-Tweets

Re-Tweeting is great. It's what makes Twitter an interesting relay of ideas. However, if you're going to do it without commentary, or if that's all you do, it's not as interesting as following someone who mixes it up with their own comments.

Wht Dd U Jst Sy 2 Hr? (Shorthand Hell)

Too much shorthand is pretty hard to figure out sometimes. If you have lots to say, um, maybe blog it?

Anyway, it's just a few thoughts. The comments are open. Got something to add?