I remember, when I was a kid, watching my mother jam herself into her girdle - a piece of equipment so rigid it could stand up on its own - and I remember her coming home from fancy parties and racing upstairs to extricate herself from its cruel iron grip.

In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod, I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven't listened to in years.

I might have missed my calling as an editor. In the spring, the sight of my empty garden beds gives me the horticultural equivalent of writers' block: So much space! So many plants to choose among, and yet none of them seem quite right!

To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it's in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy.

Some people are tired of hearing me tweet because they want me to stick to football but I like to use social media like I was a regular guy because I think I am.

The day I made that statement, about the inventing the internet, I was tired because I'd been up all night inventing the Camcorder.

Democratic states must have access to content exchanged between terrorists on social media and instant messaging.

Here's what I love about social media: You get to peer into people's lives that you normally wouldn't be able to.