birdfall / upgrade

Watching Twitter die in such public indignity (I shudder to imagine what's going behind the badge-disabled "hard core" halls and offices is painful, one system shutting down, one after the other after the other, waiting for that last rattle to come as the good times and the bad flood back in collision and in concert. Sounds familiar.

But I'm happy with where I am, socially, now: this space, the newsletter, Mastodon. Still trying to strike the balance between all three, but that will come – probably when I stop thinking of it (I've found over the past several weeks that a purposeful attitude of indifference to result (AKA "fuck it") has been a boon creatively and diabetically): whatever the path forward it's an opportunity to use social media as I would use it were I to start today and not almost twenty years ago: usage in forties will be far different than in twenties.

Or at least it had better be.

Speaking of new from ashes of old: my beloved iPhone XR bit the big one yesterday and I spent much of the afternoon chatting toys and games with a cool kid at Best Buy (neither of us are digging DEATHLOOP) while we set up my iPhone 14 Pro. Haven't really explored it much yet, but I do know that the camera captures dogpictures even better than the XR so that's nice. Plus the screen doesn't have a massive crack and pixlation and black blobs all throughout. Upgrade.

Got stuck in The Work this morning (what does it want to be what am i not hearing what am i not seeing etc etc) so I did a new Lynda Barry / MAKING COMICS exercise. Will post later this morning.

the morning's attendance card, a sketchy me holding a dead bird amid other upside down v-birds dalling and evidence that I still, even with shorter hair, can't capture a fitting iteration of it in the 4'33" I allow myself to draw these things.

(that other place) notes, expanded

Expanding, from Mastodon post:

As someone who attempted to run the day to day of a company financed by a rich asshole who thought they knew everything by virtue of being a rich asshole – though this particular rich asshole was much more hands off than Twitter's resident rich asshole (except when he had an idea that just had to happen which required me to spend most of my tenure fighting back and getting him to open the wallet to basic site functionality that needed fixing and enhancement – I mean, who would have thought that a digital archive of more than a million pages of scanned historical documents should have a robust and user-friendly search engine?) – I have nothing but sympathy for those trying to keep it afloat: You're staying with a sinking ship whose iceberg decided they should be the captain.

At this rate, I'll be stunned if Twitter's still up and running by the end of the week.

muskville->mastodon: week two or maybe three IDK all the days merge together anyhow

Remain content with my shift from Muskville to Mastodon (@twweaver@mastodon.social): still in the process of deciding value of having my own, single-user instance when I have this space. In truth, however, my shift is more than a purely "fuck Elon" move but rather a happy confluence of a long-standing desire to exit Twitter cold turkey for different social pastures and the dumpster fire that is Twitter's descent into Muskville. Amazing how a 14-year addiction vanishes when the supplier becomes tainted and (more evidently at least) corrupted.

Current thinking for how a single-user instance would function/interact here: this space would move to once-daily while all whenever/whatevers would move to Mastodon (EarBliss, dogpictures, etc.) That being said, I like the way this site is set up, with the zuihitsu combinations of things all on a single page – hence my present reticence to rock the boat.

But who knows. Maybe the mood will strike me and I'll go for it (when host sites open back up after the present diaspora) and then change it (my new 404 page is nothing if not the entire mission statement / creative statement of this space). Who knows. So long as I avoid redundancy (I've set Mastodon to delete all posts older than a month, so this space is currently essential as a living, breathing document of myself) and being redundant I'm good.

In other: I am stuck in ZELDA – stupid strength/battle tests. But hey, if nothing else, I was right about needing to combine things (in The Work, not ZELDA) - had to see it to believe it or believe it to see it maybe one maybe the other, IDK.

endobound

Fog outside, fog inside: endocrinologist appt day so the WorkDay is in tumult. Doubt there will be anything new or exciting or difficult or annoying (other than the standard day in and out of managing a life-altering chronic accompaniment) but hey, it's my semi-annual vacation when I get a hour and a half each way to myself in a car with podcasts and/or audiobooks – hence why (other than I like my endo and credit him with keeping me alive) I haven't tried to find a more local source of endocrinological wisdom.

I'm particularly joyful over the implosion of Twitter/Muskville as it has completely freed me from my 14-year addiction to it and eliminated any desire to stick around and watch it burn or "fight for it" as so many are saying: I'm grateful for all of the connections and friendships it brought me, Twitter's way beyond its sell-by date and has been for a long time (Musk essentially overpaid for rotten fruit) so it's time to let it die.

Excited to push forward on new things and new means of communication. Still considering starting and running my own Mastodon server/instance for myself through this site. Not quite there yet, but I'm getting closer. I've yet to figure for the problem that doing so would solve rather than create – especially since I've got this space (and the newsletter) pretty much exactly where I want it.