I first got on Twitter to simultaneously distract and self-express at my day job. It was way back in 2008, when the world was still high on hope and people freely used the term “post-racial” as if we had cured systemic injustice, thank you very much, and we could talk to one another in brief instant flurries with something resembling civility.

My 140-character journey began when my friend Diana Gchatted me a no-fuss elevator pitch during the mid-workday afternoon slump: “Hey, I’m on this new site where you can write and post short thoughts. I think you’d be good at it.” Since then I’ve tweeted once and now multiple times a day for the past near-decade, and it has led me to job opportunities, celebrity run-ins, career boosts, and less glamorously, unsolicited insults, circular arguments with strangers and the emotional maelstroms of being unfollowed or never followed in the first place.

My creative process is simple. For example, say I am rushing to a meeting near Grand Central, bemoaning the fact that I’m not a morning person. I see a pigeon who has waddled in between two businesspeople waiting in line to buy coffee at a corner cart. Before the conscious part of my brain kicks in, the Twitter app is already open and my fingers are dashing off “A pigeon is waiting in line for coffee between two suits. I guess someone else also finally finished Lean In.”

Within seconds of posting any tweet, I’m checking and rechecking the screen to see what the favorability index is on my random speech bubble. If it’s in the double digits for likes, I tell myself that the West Coast hasn’t risen yet. My best tweet found favor with more than 40,000 people, the worst was deleted. The statistics are undeniably grotesque, yet compelling in their rigid judgment. It’s like a standup comedy set, except the feedback per joke is spread out over a much longer period, and you get specific detail on who responded and can adjust your delusions accordingly re: your “influence.”