Well, it's happened. I've given in. Given up. I've started tweeting. And not only have I started tweeting, but I've also placed a widget on the home page of this website, making Twitter a substantial and constantly updating part of my web presence.

Granted, I hate myself.

But to be fair, there's so escaping these things, is there? At least, not for someone like me. I'm too curious. Too invested in popular culture. Too worried about being left behind.

The transition hasn't been easy. I find that the whole Twitter thing does not come naturally. I'm not sure what to say, who to follow, or why I'm even bothering. Nonetheless, I'm in it. I'm learning. I expect what will happen is what always happens. I'll get the hang of it, experience a period of obsessive co-dependence (along the lines of the Email Boom of 1995, the ICQ Addiction of 1998, the MSN Haze of 2000, and the Facebook Experience of 2005 to 2009), and eventually, I'll burn out and give it up. Something new will come along.  The whole thing will seem important for a split second, before fading into the distance and I'll go from using it every day, to being unable to imaging why I ever used it at all. That's how these things go.

So with that in mind, I guess the question is, why bother? I don't know. I know that I like riding the wave. It might make more sense to skip ahead. That may be the smarter route. But being smart is overrated. And when you skip things, you miss things. I guess I just don't want to miss anything.

Maybe it's just me.

* Image of Ollie the Twitteriffic bird by Iconfactory.

I have a lot of bad habits. I bite my nails. When I feel nervous, I talk too much. Sometimes I cut my own bangs.

A legion of little sins. Not so serious, really.

But the worst thing about me, I suspect, is that I hold a grudge. In many cases, once I become angry, I stay angry. Forever.

I don't think I'm alone in this. Some of us are just grudge holders. I often read accounts famous people like this, and recognizing myself, am either strangely pleased or horrified. When John Hughes, that captain of disenfranchised youth, died last year, Molly Ringwald revealed in an op-ed piece for the New York Times that he was the grudge holding sort. She wrote:

"Most people who knew John knew that he was able to hold a grudge longer than anyone — his grudges were almost supernatural things, enduring for years, even decades."

Supernatural things. That's what my grudges are like. That's what I'm like. It's vain, of course, to compare myself to someone so beloved and accomplished, but that is not really the point. Look away from Hughes for a minute and at Ringwald herself, and the point becomes more clear. More sad. It's not what I want, but nonetheless, it is.

Often, as I nurse my grudges, stroking their little heads in the dark, I wonder how I got this way, and why I can't turn it off. Other people can, and do.

They key questions come to mind: When did this happen? How did it happen? And if I can dig up the source, dust it off, ponder the root ball and ultimately understand, will that make it stop?

I guess this is why people have psychiatrists.