I did it! I'm finally leaving mastodon.social for a Mastodon+Hometown instance of my own creation! You can now find my new account @kostyn !!!!
Thanks very much to @mart0 for your incredible step-by-step guide to hosting Mastodon for a begininer like me, and of course, to @darius for their incredible writings and work on Hometown.
P.S. don't fall for Facebook's ("Meta's") bullshit.