on becoming w00tmom

Definition of w00t :

as defined by unword.com
1. (interj.) Celebratory exclamation used especially in online role-playing games.
2. (acro.) We Owned Other Team. Alternatively spelled w00t or w007.

and as defined by urbandictionary.com
"Wow, loot!"

Definition of Mom:

as defined by Webster's New World Dictionary copyright 1988
colloq. Mother
1. a female parent
2. the source of something
3 a women who is the head of a religious establishment

So here I am then, a Gen X often mistaken for a Gen Y, hired by a company that most certainly believed my life was somehow mashable with all internet social media when in fact I didn't even recognize social media as a term until perhaps a month ago. So I attended a number of trainings all, of course, pushing social media as the next great thing . . .yadi yadi yadi and I really had to question the choices that I've made or not made over the last twenty years. For instance, my email address has remained the same since I moved to AOL from CompuServe. (Yes, should you decide to email w00tmom, you will actually be emailing an AOL account) Like keeping my maiden name, though, I've decided to keep that one. However, other decisions had to be made to face this social world. Surely the company hired me soley because someone must have told them of my ability to find the name, number, address of the guy in the green shirt who bought a tall latte at Starbucks last Thursday. Big secret, folks: I use that same set of internet skills to find and communicate with all of my old boyfriends . . .Todd Kahm you remain a mystery and that was so short lived don't be offended. Oh, and baseball player that Missy and I picked up in the station wagon when I was living out of it, I never did know your name. Other than that, they are all there . . .lined up like ducks in a row providing years of entertainment really. So there I was last week at a national meeting with @AnnEvanston telling us we would have to be authentic and transparent on our social media and hoping like hell that I stopped getting old pictures in the mail with demands for money and knowing that I must decide . . .can I do this? Can I come out of all the closets that I'm in including the one reserved especially for people who refuse to trust and/or learn anything about Facebook, Twitter, or yes, sorry, Blogger, blogs? I struggled and struggled with this and all the while the company was putting on a fantastic national meeting . . .the CEO was attending training with us and we were having dinner on the set of Indian Jones at Universal Studios and my colleague was trying to show me how to snap my bra straps into my evening gown and I was falling in love. Falling in love with this company where almost ever person I met was so nice and so genuine . . .falling in love with the job and the travel and the people . . . falling in love with this working woman that I was emerging as . . .Social media has been given to me as a gift to become the girl I am. The same medium that I feared would somehow unravel me has allowed me to define myself. w00tmom . . . @joelcomm who said I shouldn't include numbers in my tweeter name. Sorry, buddy, I had to do it.