I'm a twitter-er and dang proud of it.

I'll be honest. I resisted for months despite the buzz about this new thing called twitter. Apparently everyone who was anyone was doing it. But me? Nah. I had facebook, I had a blog, and I had a phone with a keyboard for texting. Why did I need one more thing to add stuff to? I could barely keep up with what I had going on anyway.

But then we were asked, at church, to start using twitter for communicating during Easter, and being the ever excited participant in churchy things, I figured, might as well take the twitter plunge. I mean, its only 140 characters, right?

So I found a few people to follow, just local friends at church mostly. They were pretty interesting and posted funny stuff, but it got to be kind of laborious twittering, then facebooking, then blogging, and I didn't feel interesting at all. Suddenly there was pressure to be funny and witty and have something worth saying in 140 characters or less and if I didn't twitter then maybe it was because I really didn't have anything good to say b/c I wasn't living an exciting life worth talking about. (breath, breath, breath...)

Then I learned a few things about Twitter that helped. One, I learned that very few people were posting tweets that were overly interesting. Most people twittered normal, everyday stuff, like "in a meeting" or "pray for so and so" or "I hate Mondays". Everyone else's life was mostly mundane too. Yeah!

Two, I learned to sync facebook and twitter, so I could post on one and it'd post to the other automatically, like magic.

Three, I started following people on twitter I could never be friends with on facebook b/c facebook is a place for friends, while twitter was a place for 140 character snippets of life. So I started following Lance Armstrong (a little obsessed with Twitter, but interesting none the less), Ed Stetzer (also a big twitter-er and ranges from the mundane to the profound in his tweets), Mark Driscoll, and even People Magazine, so I can stay up to date on celebrity gossip, my guilty pleasure (don't judge me, I have a stressful job), and the band Mute Math, who post stuff like "puked on stage last night and it was awesome" (not from alcohol, but from being crazy).

I will say, in my defense, that I don't follow Ashton Kutcher, the most followed man in Twitter, or any other People Magazine type celebrities. I like to keep it classy, which is why following someone Eddie Izzard is so great. I mean, he crossdresses during his comedy act, and never makes the cover of People.

Now I love twitter more than facebook. Honestly, I do. Its fun to see what folks are up to, and when I see that more famous-ish people post normal things like "in a meeting" or "flying to Paris for the Tour de France", it makes me feel OK about my own posts of "taking a nap", "writing", or "helping deliver babies".

If you haven't tried Twitter, give it a shot. Find interesting people to follow, and be your own normal self as well, cuz at this point, the mundane is pretty cool.

Blood, sweat, and gears--romance in Boone.

A week and a half ago, I left my sweet husband at home and drove NW to Boone with two goals. One, to see my sister and two, to ride in the Blood, Sweat, and Gears half century bike ride. For you non-bikey people, a half century is 50 miles--not a super long ride by cycling standards, but challenging enough when set in the mountains of NC.

Why, you might ask, would I do such a ride, with 4 brutal climbs and 2 fast and winding downhills that double dare you not to crash. I'd love to tell you why in two words.

The Romance.

That's right...the romance.

Its the energy felt at the starting line when 1250 riders, some there to compete, some to have fun, all gather in one small space to begin a long day in the saddle. Conversations range from "Where you from and what do you do," to "Did you hear about the guy last year who did this race on a fixed gear bike just because?" to "Yeah, I just bought this bike yesterday...we'll see how she does," to "Where do we go after crossing the start?" (That last one was my question--I was a little directionly unprepared).

Its the support you get from fellow riders on long climbs. Its the volunteers who hand you water and oreos at support stations along the way. Its the raindrops that fall softly on your face from clouds that cover Grandfather Mountain that towers above. Its the friends you make along the way on the flats so you don't have to ride alone for 3.5 hours. Its the mountain air that thins on the climbs and sweeps around you on fast downhills, giving you goosebumps despite the summer sun. Its burning lungs that beg you to stop and a heart that beats so fast and hard you think it might explode. Its some inner determination to not stop that helps you ignore your body and keep pedaling. Its that same inner something that brings prayers for help to your tongue as the top of the mountain just ahead. Its praising the Lord for 5 miles of downhill to the finish line, and its your sister yelling for you while you cross it, snapping pictures the whole time.

Its pain and tears and laughs and WOOHOOs, and its one of the best times I've ever had. 50 miles of blood, sweat, and gears.

Maybe next year I'll do the 100 mile option.

Dude, that scares me just thinking about it.