can I suffer and tweet at the same time?

A recent horoscope suggested that I don't squander my awesomeness on old hurts. I didn't take its advice today and squandered a bit of my awesomeness. For the greater good, I told myself, but probably not when it's wasted on deaf ears. After the squandering, I dreamed that I saw myself lying on the floor of a jail cell. I thought, I need to tweet that shit, but paused. If I'm tweeting about my incarceration, is it really that serious and worthy of comment? Can I really be suffering and oppressed, if I'm tweeting? I considered tweeting in C's voice as if he was announcing my jail news, but that seemed dishonest. I don't think I figured out what to do regarding my very compelling tweet announcement. (End of scene)

Another recent dream involved my trying out for something like American Idol except Roger Ebert was the judge. I waited all day in a line with a woman I sang next to in middle school chorus. I didn't know why I was trying out, I believed my voice not to be special, possibly not any good at all. I figured I was there so I might as well go through the motions. I did my do ra me warmup and popped in a few Tic Tacs to address my gnarly morning breath. The woman and I were the last people to be given a chance to tryout. Ebert was very friendly and chatty. We talked about how we remember Tupac in a certain way because he died so young, he remains still in time, but Snoop Dogg on the other hand . . . I was like "yeah, Snoop does guest appearances on a bunch of my son's Nickelodeon programs. Twenty years ago white American was terrified of that guy and now he's considered so tame, he entertains children. How times change!" We had a good chuckle then a bunch of dudes came and started taking the stage apart. Ebert said we better hurry up and sing while we still have our chance. I realized I didn't have a song, but the other woman did and she started singing "What a Wonderful World." Ebert motioned for me not to just stand there like a dope but to join in, so I did. Then one of the guys who's taking everything apart starts singing the song, really loud, drowning us out, which is kind of obnoxious because this is supposed to be our tryout and then ANOTHER guy joins the song and they change it to a song about how lesbians shouldn't have children. Shocked and bewildered Ebert, the woman and I stand there with WTF? expressions. (End of scene)


I do walk around with a semi-permanent WTF expression or at least the WTF feeling most of the time. Maybe it's because I'm almost 40 and becoming disconnected (happily, I think) from the "new/up-and-coming/young" as much as I feel disconnected by the generation before me with what I consider to be their warmed-over, no longer relevant debates they occasionally still rehash. Then there's my own generation, don't even get me started. While I still try to follow conversations the literary types are having, I'm becoming more and more puzzled. Like a confused senior citizen who no longer understands how to operate her modern television. How did this become that? sort of thing. What do they think I need that for? Who on Earth would ever use that? And most importantly, How did "What a Wonderful World" get co-opted by a bunch of entitled jackasses and become "Lesbians Shouldn't Have Children"?

Am I in this strange transitional space where I'm neither young nor old? Should I listen to my elder Ebert and speak/sing up? Should I even engage the jackasses? Would that change anything? Can I speak without engaging the diseased elements? If I stay quiet, does that mean they get to rewrite the song into their own illness and rule the world with it?


Just some questions I'm pondering these days.


p.s. Apologies to any olds or youngs I may have offended in this post. Please forgive me. I'm new to middle age.