My Mother and Twitter

As has been well documented on this blog...my mother's discovery of the internet has been a vexing issue for me quite some time.

My father has been "online" (so to speak) for a really long time because of his business. But my mother didn't even know how to use a touch-dial phone for a while there. About 7 years ago, she started going to these classes taught by nuns (aimed for geriatrics living in the Desire House Projects, as a FYI) so she could learn how to use Microsoft Word. Slowly but surely she crawled her way towards the 20th century (I don't say 21st, because I'm sure having to use an IPhone would cause her to have an apoplectic fit). She opened an email account. She discovered "google." She started emailing people with the same family name as her asking, "are you my cousin?" She started getting with it. But I was pretty comfortable that the gap between our technological savvy was so great that she would never catch up with me, and would never be able to monitor me (Big Brother style). WRONG.

This summer, she joined facebook and told me that if I didn't accept her friend request, she was going to disown me and write me out of her will. It was only a matter of time before she found my blog. And now she's found my twitter. My worst fears have become realized. My mother is tracking my every move from a remote location.

A couple of days ago, I received this communication from her.

Subject Line: TV Watching
Message: if i were you i might not twitter so much about tv shows as it makes your social life look terrible.

My immediate and visceral reaction was to yell out, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS?" I didn't even know how to address her critique. I find blogs where people are constantly talking about all the restaurants they go to/museums they attend/dinner parties they throw tiresome and self aggrandizing. I do those things too, but I don't feel the need to talk about it ad nauseum. I do not need to seek the approval of others for accomplishing tasks that 99% of the population does without fanfare (See, e.g, doing laundry, cooking a meal, washing a car, or cleaning a room). Plus, no body wants to read that, unless they want to add that in their arsenal of reasons why they hate you. I know I open my computer sometimes and say to myself, "I haven't hated on (enter name here) in a while, so I think I'll go take a look at their website."

Second: who is my mother worried I am NOT going to impress by talking about LOST? Does she think that there are future husbands out there reading, who are totally charmed by everything I say...until they see that I like the tv show Modern Family, and then have second thoughts? NEWSFLASH BIGMOMMAJ (the moniker my mother keeps trying to make happen on this blog): This website reads like ONE GIANT RED FLAG for a potential suitor. High strung? Yes. Overly Dramatic? Yes. Holds irrational and unreasonable grudges for a long time? Yes. I highly doubt the tweets about television are going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Sigh. Is there some way to block someone from accessing the internet? Maybe I will try to confuse her and tell her that all the cool kids are using "Microsoft PowerPoint" to access the internet these days.