"My Tweets Are Down" And Other Words of Wisdom

Boerum Hill might be the yuppiest neighborhood in Brooklyn, and it's where I'd probably live if I wanted to live in the West Village or SoHo but had read the gospel in Time Out NY that said Brooklyn is better. Or if I was richer/older/fatter/had a downtown marketing job/unlimited metro card/home office full of taxidermy pheasants/wore Oliver Peoples' horn-rims/wrote an antique watch blog/raised heirloom-breed chickens in the backyard.

windows to my soul

That being said, I am a self-loathing would-be yuppie with moths in my pockets and holes in my socks. But as I was eating at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, a whiskey bar, I heard an oddly rotund thirty-something ex-frat bro sitting next to us look at his smartphone and exclaim, "My Tweets are down." His was one of those statements in which very few words are able to convey very many ideas. It was a skillful use of language and I commend him for it, even though it was a brainless accident from a guy who probably misuses 'your' and 'you're.' It was like spoken micro fiction at its finest. Ernest Hemingway once wrote a piece of micro fiction in six words: "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn." If you think about those words you'll realize just how much emotion and meaning is hidden in a powerfully short, simple statement. You immediately recognize the situation, but its gravity lies in the unanswered questions it elicits.

That's how I felt when I heard, "My Tweets are down." In an instant, I knew so much about the speaker but there still remained unanswered questions that I could not ask. It's amazing to me that a person in a social situation — sitting with "friends" eating a late, leisurely Saturday lunch — would even have the chance to notice such a trivial thing as how many inane Tweets he'd posted. Do people really keep a close eye on that shit? Were his friends so boring that his Twitter account, where he was probably alerting the six people who follow him (3 of which were at the table) that he was "totez pounding pork nuggz and slamming bourbon this afternoon who's in? #longwknd #ballerbrobrunch" was more important than his surroundings? I would think the people you're with should be more of a priority than your Twitter account, but maybe I'm reading too much into this. All I know is that it made me want to leave.

(Wah! My life is so rough I have to listen to losers at the next table WAH! Wah! My hammock blew off my patio because the wind was blowing so hard now I have to go get it out of my neighbor's tree WAH! I got a piece of hair in my mouth today at the same time I ate a piece of gum someone gave me and I couldn't get it out of the gum so I just had to chew a free piece of hairy gum on the subway WAH! Someone gave me an unlimited metro card today but when I went to use it I found out it was expired WAH! (All true stories, BTW. Also, double parentheses? YouTube sensation in the making?) Anyway, I guess my life is okay if these are my problems and I always can choose to do something or go somewhere else. Wah.)

So I did leave. I had to get back home so I could feed Stephanie's chinchilla.

(Really, feed her chinchilla. She's out of town. That isn't a euphemism.)

So, @WallStLgnd99 @CharNo4, here are some words from actual smart people (and 1 crazy person):

I would go as far as I could and hit a wall, my own imagined limitations. And then I met a fellow who gave me his secret, and it was pretty simple. When you hit a wall, just kick it down. – Patti Smith, "Just Kids"

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both. – Francois Auguste Rene Chateaubriand

You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist. – Bob Dylan

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. – Calvin Coolidge (thanks C.A.)

I got a job at Gray Line Tours for one reason only: To meet and seduce women. It certainly isn't for the money. – Timothy "Speed" Levitch, "The Cruise"

All of these quotes hold special significance to me in rationalizing my actions in life. Words like these fortify my resolve that I'm on the right path even when I take a few detours.

Speaking of, here's a little Speed Levitch teaser... you should check out "The Cruise" if you haven't seen it. It's an hour and fifteen minutes of this guy talking:

Should I wrap up this yuppie-ass, whiny, non-nonsensical, wannabe highbrow-meets-lowbrow, Hemingway and Dylan-quoting, documentary-watching post with a picture of a designer rabbit? Probably. No, definitely.

"BUNNI MANE" dats how my baby do

P.S. this:

probably my favorite email in months