Do you twitter?

If so, follow me — if not, check it out. Keep an open mind.

How to tell if you are hooked on Twitter:

• Do you receive tweets on your cell phone?
• Have you shared a meal with people you met through Twitter?
• Do you feel the need to tweet good morning and good night?
• When writing a note to your husband, do you insert the @ symbol without thinking?
• If you are upstairs, do you @ reply to your husband to ask him to bring you a glass of water on his way up?
• Is your first thought when you see something strange, “omigosh, I have to tweet this!”?
• Do people you have never met know when you are at Target?
• Do people you have never met who live across the country help you decide what to have for lunch?
• Are you trying to decide whether to Plurk or Twitter?
• If someone says fail whale do you know what they mean?

I know I’m hooked, as is my husband. The benefits are both social and professional. Jim and I have had dinner on several occasions with our tweople, many of whom are fellow geeks who have given advice that has helped us solve technical problems, introduced us to new fields of interest and provided valuable business contacts.

The icing on the cake — we’ve had a great time. Once we met at the Apple store to help one of our Twitter friends purchase a MacBook Pro, then enjoyed Chinese food afterward. We’ve traded parenting, gardening and career tips and commiserated on life’s daily frustrations.

I’ve met people I never would have known in my relatively small social circle and it has reminded me how refreshing it is to know people with different opinions, perspectives, values and belief systems.

Disclaimer: No, I don’t work for Twitter or derive any commercial benefit from this post. I wish. If that were the case, I would be buying a new MacBook Pro instead of living vicariously through a Twitter friend …