I put the "twit" in Twitter

I'm just not getting it. I feel like I'm back in sophomore year of high school, sitting in geometry class, and Mr. Neff is droning on and on about proofs. Meanwhile, I can't even get the pencil into the compass correctly. I'm lost.

To this day I have anxiety dreams about that class. And I think it's because I've found something else that I just. can't. get.

It goes by the name of Twitter. Perhaps you're familiar with it? There is no question I put the "twit" in it.

I have an account. I get how to type in updates. Beyond that, however...

When I log on, I see different updates from the two dozen people I follow. But a lot of them are RT, which I looked up and found out means "re-tweet." But I don't know what they're talking about in the first place, because there are a bunch of symbols I don't know and topics of an ongoing coversation I'm not part of.

So it's like sitting in a room and listening to one side of a phone conversation your friend is next to you.

I know I've blogged about this before, but I still don't get the #. I haven't a clue about the @. Kirsten over at Nilsen Life just waxed poetic (what does that even mean? Why is it waxing? I must investigate that) about finding great bloggers to read on Twitter. How, I wonder?

The helpless feeling of not understanding this stuff really sucks. My 6 year-old is already better at video games than I am. Pretty soon he's going to be tweeting about kicking my ass in Super Mario Brothers.

This must be what it's like to be old. Your kids are watching video on the iPhone and you're still dialing on a rotary.

In the scheme of things, this shouldn't bother me. But I feel like if I fall behind on all this, I'll be forever drowning. There's nothing quite like feeling dumb. And if I can't be on top of it all, then at least let me be treading water.

I need a social media class. As long as I don't have to fit a stubby little pencil in a metal contraption, I might just learn something.