I have a very active imagination, I create wonderful “what if” scenarios inside my mind complete with multicoloured layers of alternate realities. This can be a good thing as it enables me to visualise work that I need to make and I can quickly fill pages of my visual diary with ideas that will keep me happy in the studio for months.
This can also be a bad thing as when I am feeling especially maudlin, I can spend an inordinate amount of time brooding on possible futures for my family, all of them grim, and so my mood plummets. Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Autism don’t make for happy daydreams.
I try not to think of the long term ramifications of my daughter dislocating her good knee yesterday. I try to block memories of a particularly harrowing post, written by my bendy cyber daughter in England from my mind, as the thought of a dislocating trachea is just too horrible to contemplate. Yet it happens to my bendy girl and I worry.
I must not allow myself to dwell on all the medical problems that beset my family, my sons anxiety, his high blood pressure at 17, his pain. The fact that my husband at 48 years old, requires slow release morphine patches in order to walk, and as I wrote those very words on this blog , The Spouse came into the kitchen to say good morning and as he kissed me, his right hip dislocated and then his left decided to do the same. The Spouse has gone back to his bed to lie down until his morning nausea abates, then he will get up and push through his pain barriers and finish building his new garage, from timber he milled himself. And I will gently chide him for working too hard, knowing that his pride will not allow the pain to win and also knowing that tomorrow he will be in slightly more pain that he was today.
I need distractions from my reality otherwise I too will begin to fall apart.
And this is where you come into play, internet.
You are my escapism.
Twitter provides me with countless hours of escapism. News links to all the current events that interest me. I follow the Occupy Wall Street movement closely, I keep an eye on various anonymous news feeds, I follow human rights abuses here and abroad. I subscribe to prostitutes and politicians, skeptics and believers, anonymous street artists and the world’s great museums and they all keep my mind occupied.
My Die Churp Die twitter revolution, complete with its own #occupychurp hashtag and catchy graphic designed by the inimitable Zoey from Goodgoogs, is an attempt to entertain myself, whilst not so subtly pointing out that I think my fellow tweeters are worth much more, than the few cents churping promoted tweets will provide.
But this is only my opinion and my opinion is only one amongst the millions. If you don’t like what I am saying on twitter, please unfollow me rather than send me snarky emails with dodgy hotmail addresses.
My dislike of the principles behind churp are as inconsequential in the scheme of things as my love of Zombie Klout. But if pressed, I will admit that it is the complete lack of originality in the churp churp logo that offends me the most.
I am a hypocrite of the first order as I will ask you to give me a +K for Zombies and I will tweet those links at the same time as I will use a Die Churp Die avatar. I will retweet links condemning Klout for creating Klout profiles for unauthorised minors, at the same time as I will declare that I am The Great White Crocodile Hunting Zombie Film Maker on Klout.
Why do I do this?
I do these things, simply to amuse myself, internet.
To take my mind off the things that grieve me.
To give myself a few minutes relief from the things in my life that hurt.
It is that simple.
