Getting on?

I find it extraordinary that the things I read in comics as a child are now commonplace - that I take for granted the use of a laptop, smart phone and digital TV. Even so I fear I have hit a wall - well, to be honest, two walls. twitter and eBay. I simply don't don't get how they work. I know it must be simple - millions wouldn't use them if it weren't but somehow my brain has said - enough, and refuses to allow me even the contemplation of tweeting or cyber shopping.


This blog (think it stands for Beloved Litany of Grief) is tweeted. But I have no idea if anyone on twitter reads it or really how to check. Facebook is easy - you set up your profile, find a few friends and away you go. As for eBay - I had hopes when, during the bear hunt we discovered John Brinnand works for them, that maybe I could pick an experts' brains. Still no further forward on that one.

When mum was alive we collected, like the rest of the world, beanie babies and spent many happy afternoons trawling through gift shops in Cornwall looking for the elusive Britannia and Princess Diana bears. Times grew hard and the little bears became a currency to pay bills and buy food. It was easy enough to sell the common ones - a friend with a shop in Cornwall stacked them on her counter and they sold out within  a day. The desirable bears we decided to put on eBay. What a nightmare! I would check = Britannia bears were selling for £100-£150 - our bear - nothing, zilch, nada, rien. It turned out that I had omitted some crucial step to enable the sale to be seen by other people. I retreated from the field of battle to lick my wounds. And sell Britannia for  £10.00 to a friend.

I left eBay alone and did not feel the loss until...Watching Buffy one day they acquired a rare book on magic from - eBay. And it was back to haunt me. I tried again and again. But I don't understand it and if I don't understand it I can't work it. Some vital but simple step is missing - I have a PayPal account, check - I think I have an eBay account - semi check and then it is like mud - so infuriating!

twitter is even worse. I have a weird name, why? Why can't I be Joanna? It seems insular - one tweets in isolation for others to read but there is no dialogue. Not that I can find anyway. I click on people to follow - I have seven - complete strangers that randomly have said things that interest me. Now I look at their tweets and wonder what possessed me. I follow William Shatner for God's sake. Why? Why? Why?

I take a degree of comfort from the fact that it took me some time to understand the iPod - now I download and sync with ease. I have all my beloved music contained in one little, slim machine and I find it wondrous and exciting every time I play a track. Could this be my love with affair with all things apple? I get Macs and iPhones - they work for me and if they don't I can usually figure out what is wrong and fix it. And before everyone jumps up and down and says that the difference is obvious - the mac and iPhone are machines, eBay and twitter web sites - I KNOW! That really isn't the point - I can shop on the web with miraculous, some might say say too miraculous, ease. I spend happy, happy hours on Facebook - it isn't that.

I fear I am simply past my sell by date - that my brain has shut down to new information and is busily trying to retain what it already has. Unless one of you can tell me where I am going wrong ...