I haven’t been in a fist fight since I was 12 or 13. The guy actually went down but my right hand was aching and swollen for three or four days. When I was 19 or 20 a guy I was arguing with tagged me on the jaw, but I just absorbed it and ignored it like Jake LaMotta and kept saying what I was saying. I never even dreamt about getting into a fight after that. Until Twitter came along, I mean. Since my Twitter battles have become semi-regular I’ve been fantasizing about slugging this or that asshole. Slugging them in a John Wayne or Tom Hardy movie-fight way, of course — a couple of right crosses and a gut punch and maybe a kick to the mouth or the neck. Actual fights are fast and pathetic and over in about nine or ten seconds. Plus the likelihood of damaging your writing hand is high so it’s never gonna happen again. But boy, do I dream of it! This is totally a Twitter thing. Before Twitter began to happen big-time (what, seven years ago?) I rarely fantasized about beating the shit out of anyone for any reason. Okay, I used to dream about duking it out with the husband of a woman I was seeing in ’98 and ’99, but it never happened. (I was ready though — I bought a samurai sword.) Until Twitter, fistfights were for kids and drunks. I’ll bet I’m not alone on this. That’s Twitter for you, a rage thing.