Denke immer nie

Looking forward to the end of this semester of German II. I’m burned out. Given my struggles this semester, I’ll never achieve competence level A2. German I and II are considered A1, and I’m a middling student at it. Immigration wants higher than A2, so there goes that. At this point, I can’t even remember words or how to speak it. There are so many tiny little pieces and rules and it has blown out past a point where I can hold the pieces together in my head straight enough to form a sentence.

I learned how to speak English over a decade of my childhood, picking up pieces along the way, incorporating them into what was already automatic. But learning a new language in my 50’s is terrible. I’m having to take my own understanding of language apart, to pull the wires up from the works and start labeling the parts of speech. It’s blowing it all out as I unpack it, and even my grasp on English is slipping. I just don’t want to talk anymore.

I need a rest.

Deshaded

Apparently 10 days was the time set on my Mastodon shadow ban. I was thinking either 1 day (after apology and mod review), 3 days, or 7 days. But when the 7th day passed and I still had a limitation on my account, my next guess was 10, and I was right. The ban lifted on Wednesday.

The mastodon.coffee mods never responded to my appeal, and to be honest I had no hope that they ever would. Of the 5 mod accounts listed, 1 is gone and 3 haven’t posted since 2022/2023, which makes me wonder if they’re just sock-puppet accounts. The 5th mod is the owner. So they apparently don’t care about dot coffee or for any of the 1364 other users on the site.

I did create an account on mas.to just to see how the other half lives. It surprised me that mas.to has significantly more users, is faster, and has global search enabled for those who opt in, something not available at all on dot coffee. I like that feature; I’ve wanted that feature for a long time, if only to search my own back posts.

It’s tempting to jump to mas.to, but I really do like the dot coffee domain name in my alias.

What gets to me is that Mastodon is billed as the social platform with low switching costs, so you’re never locked in and can move your account to wherever. But that’s incorrect. What doesn’t carry with you is your post and media history. You can export your filters, follows, block lists, and other stuff, and import that on the next site (you have to manually do all of this), but there is absolutely no option to move the 8800 posts I’ve made since 2022. All I can do is export them and keep the dump file. That bothers me, and it should bother anybody whose use case and expectations don’t fit the top-down ethics of the Fediverse builders.

At some point I’ll migrate, but for now, I’ll let this black eye heal and think twice before donating again.

Extra

My favorite is when I need connection, because everything inside is so heavy, so I hang out with the guys, and there’s just no room for me anywhere in the conversation. I can’t keep up. It’s the best. Tune out and scroll my phone until I leave. I’m tired. Just the best.

Shade

I have never been shadow banned. But here I am. Not on Facebook or Instagram or Tumblr or Twitter. On Mastodon. Of all the places that are safe. Mastodon.

I thought I was an ally. I feel like an ally. I believe I’m an ally. But I don’t look or sound like an ally. So I’m obviously not an ally. I feel hurt.

Situation isn’t important; a soap opera is a soap opera. But I said a thing without considering every possible dimension of interpretation, and I got reported. I’m a horrible person. We hetbois are all the same.

I’m sorry for trying. Really, I am. I’ll never try again. Or maybe I should keep trying all the way up to my character limit. Whatever. I’m just some guy. Unimportant.

Or just don’t post. My kind already has enough column inches. I’m tired.

Not Quite Fight Club

Dreamed that in 2000, actors Tim Roth and Francis McDormand moved to my hometown to document him fighting 12 different teenagers. Not like he’s a martial artist or anything, just him going around the area and finding 16 to 18 year olds who want to fight him. As if there was a nascent underground brawling scene or something.

Was made on a budget of $200,000. Of course this never saw the light of day, because Weinstein refused to distribute it due to all the fighters being minors and nobody signing any releases or getting any pay. But Tarantino occasionally shows it at house parties.