Well, I decided i didn’t really like having a blog any more. Also a lot of it was way out of date having been going for 12 years. However, my older books still point here so i didn’t want to leave people hanging completely.
I’m thinking of giving up Twitter, too. I lost my Twitter for a week, after someone reported me for something i didn’t really do, and i decided to appeal. Over a week later, I’m still waiting, it concentrated my mind. I need a time-out. I’m in the middle of moving house, tho I missed Twitter friends a lot, the constant abuse not at all. I’m tired of having to have rhino skin just to be with my friends.
We need rhino skin because of the abuse, because one must shrug it off or there’s a danger we end up as poisonous as the people we are being abused by. The abuse almost exclusively is political, (the poor Right Wing are very bad at logic but wonderful at calling people names) but you do get the wannabe romeos, the ones who turn nasty when deflected, it’s the internet after all.
So, if i’m perceiving most of my online interactions as basically sad, impotent and emotionally-crippled married men (the kind who sidle up to you in your DM’s, pretending to be your friend) or even junior nazis, I figure bugger it, time to take a break.
Buggering a Trumpist with a cactus was what got me chucked off Twitter, btw, a gentle suggestion. He harassed me early in the morning, just after i discovered some US Trumpist posting completely untrue vaccination conspiracy theories on the #Australia hashtag. Then when this one trolled me i was barely rude by Australian standards.
So yeah, 8 days later, Twitter are still not contacting me or letting me into my Twitter at all. Which gives them a creepy amount of control over my life and one i’m not at all happy with. I need to rethink things. I can’t even let WordPress post a link to this post up on Twitter, it won’t let me in at all.
If contacting me seems important, if Twitter ever give me my profile back, i’ll put a forwarding address there @stinginthetail, or you can hit up @Mr_Whatsit, see if he’s paying attention. He will every so often.
It’s hard to describe, but after the enforced solitude i’m feeling solitary, like doing some exploring without my safety net of Twitter. Eleven years plus, it’s been my village. My family. Even some of my actual family now follow me (heavily disguised).
Now I’m 60, with someone to care for and a household to keep together, along with my own health problems, and of course what we are all facing with covid, I do not have enough time for everything, so I want to focus on my writing, which has suffered the last few years after i got hypnotised watching Donald Trump try to kill more Americans than anyone, ever.
However i’m hoping we’re moving into a better time. I’ve just hit 2 Astra Zeneca shots, so safer than i’ve been in the last 18 months or so.
I’ll probably change my mind next week, but until i do? I’ll leave this here.
It’s been nice talking to you all.
EDIT: 2nd October, finally got my profile back – Twitter didn’t answer emails (from their online email option) or appeals. After 5 weeks i gave up, and was then forced to delete the tweet above and admit i was an evil person trying to encourage death and mutilation in others.
Literally Twitter make you okay a legal document in which you admit your guilt.
Yep, gotta love Twitter. Or not. I’ve tried going back. Seeing friends is great, but I feel sick. Like trying to share the environment with something i’m allergic to. Or maybe like dating my rapist.
In real life, i don’t have to engage with right wing people or white supremacists all the time, they certainly don’t come knocking on my door and telling me ‘all lives matter’ or that i’m a Trotskyist (i’m not a communist, but in the tiny US political mind, anything left of trump is commie).
The Right are gutless twats who don’t usually slide out from under their rocks (until recently enabled by open racism in Australian PM’s/US Presidents or when drunk/taking steroids) unless online. They’re ichor-filled spiteballs known for their rabid stupidity and hatred of women. I can turn off the news when they get them on – so now i’m going to turn off Twitter too.
Hiding? Nah – I’ve been on the frontline the last 40+ years. By any measure, i’ve given the struggle for human equality my life. I’ve protested maltreatment, bigotry and racism (as i’ve been crippled the entire time, odds are, with more effort than most). And here we are, going backwards at a rate of knots, thanks in a huge part to the collusion of women who really do date their rapists.
One of you have a go. I’m fkd.
Copyright © Lee Abrey 2021
Lee Abrey @stinginthetail 