I know it's been a while and my presence has been scarce. Let me first start by saying 2016 has absolutely sucked. The only thing that has been absolutely awesome was my trip to Confuzzled as GoH ( will touch on later :] ). I apologize ahead of time if this gets a bit scatter brained, it's 3 in the morning here.
The apartment management here has been kind of a pain. We've had primary staff switch here several times. I've had my garage given away to someone else under a contract I already had. We've had staff enter the apartment on multiple occasions without prior notice. The garbage disposal unit is still broken. We've had multiple storms which have caused our area to flood pretty badly, one of which caused the power lines behind our complex catch on fire. Our roommate Larus has moved out for a number of reasons, one being that in a two bedroom apartment; you are only allowed to have two adults living in this unit. Which, is pretty stupid in my opinion... It's left a lot of unused space here, and the layout of this unit is really awkward. So, we decided to start looking for a new place. We found a 1 bedroom apartment in the same complex, $200/month cheaper ( yay! ) and all with updated features. It also has a window in the bathroom, so we get natural light in there. Despite the issues with staff, we do like the area. And the prices for this complex are actually not bad for what you get. We'll be moving all of next week :)
I used to like my job. I felt like I used to get projects that meant something with people who were pretty awesome people. Upper management has ruined a lot of things there and hired some very poisonous people. I love the people in my department. We're all geeky and get along quite well, but it's kind of like being in IT Crowd. There are many people in other departments who don't care what our job is. To them, we're the people who tell them "No" because they feel like making each web page with 8 different fonts is super amazing and innovative, or creating a 150+ page website with 20 different unique templates in an absurdly short amount of time is doable. It's stupidly cut throat... and when you can work at a place that does web development and someone doesn't know what a TXT or HTML file is or how to open it; you know it's time to get the hell out of there. TLDR; I'm not happy with my job. I know that it needs to change.
The battles in the unending war that is Crohn's Disease still rages on. It makes every day a little harder to keep going. It's super frustrating and rather painful for me to endure. My work has made me come home frustrated and exhausted. Most days, due to the Crohn's and work ( which, btw... causes me stress and makes my crohn's worse :[ ), I come home and fall asleep until midnight. This means I have most morning hours available to myself, alone... which has kind of made it hard on Aerak.
I love him a lot, and it's been really stressful for us both. Earlier this year, he ended up losing his job because of the stupidity of his boss. I won't go into details as that is for him to talk about. It's left him stressed out as well, so as one may imagine; our relationship has been a bit strained. At the end of the day though, when we do have time when I wake up; we try to lay down on the couch and watch something. Weekends are very important to us to have together. Will touch more on this below.
I used to be a lot more active in the fandom. Politics have been getting more and more intertwined with everything we do; and in many case, it really has really kind of spoiled the fun for a lot of things I used to enjoy. There is sooooo much ego going around that it has become "side with me or side with them". I don't want to take sides, I just want to have fun. I want to share my art like I used to. I want to talk to whomever I choose or go wherever I please. Instead, I have to tiptoe around areas so as to not piss someone off or allow them to misunderstand something and spread dis-information around. rumors really choke our community and kill the amazing creativity we all have.
This convention, for me, was probably one of the best, most fun conventions I have ever been to. The staff was amazing, the location was stunning, the furs over there are super awesome. It was an absolute pleasure to go over there and meet them. For those who do not know, I had never been to another country, or had been on a plane, or had been Guest of Honour. So this was a hell of a lot of firsts for me… I got to experience life in the UK, and I have to say; life there was pretty awesome and it really gave me a new perspective on what life could be. Everything there felt more real, more practical. The cars were smaller, the houses were smaller than I am used to, people drove on the wrong side of the road…*smirk* but it all made sense. It really inspired me to think about my own life and what my future really means to me. It also got me thinking about how we do conventions here stateside and how we could do things better.
I’m not happy with who I am...and I don’t think I have been happy with myself for a long time. Part of that has to do with my health. It’s sapped my ability to do the things I have enjoyed. I haven’t been happy with my job, and I haven’t been happy living in this apartment. I’ve known for a long time that I have needed to make some changes; and I know that I have played at them before...but I think I just needed time to really come to terms with what is really wrong and get sick with dealing with the problems on a daily basis. I’m a very stubborn person. :P
Home life - We’re moving to a smaller, more conservative, “what we need” type of environment. In the meantime, I am going to be looking at building a tiny home. I have a lot of student loans ( I actually just typed stupid instead of student hahaha ) which take up a stupid amount of income on a monthly basis. This would give me the opportunity to teach me some skills I can use later and really give me an idea on how to cut down on the waste in my life. If I can make a tiny home somehow work and reduce the amount of money I pay off to outside sources, the better.
Work Life - Not much to say here, find a new job :)
Health - I really need to understand my triggers. I know what most of them are, and I know how to do a liquid diet, but I still get into bad habits and go off course. With help, I aim to really delve into cooking more and try to make things that are better for me. In time, my goal is to lose some weight and ease the damage being done to my insides. I hope that I can reduce the pain I am in every single day. ( I currently take 3000 mg of acetaminophen every day… 4 tylenol and 4 excedrin )
Furry life - There’s not much I can do about the politics. It is what it is...but one thing I hope to bring back to life is my art. I know that I need to fix life things listed above first or this will just not work. Additionally, I will not, nor probably ever be pursuing commissions again if I can avoid it. Dealing with the attitudes or constant nagging of some people drains me to the point of just not wanting to draw or share. I also want to find a place where I feel comfortable posting my art. The stresses of the above should help to make this process easier.
Aerak - Again, by fixing a lot of the items listed above; our relationship together should start to become more close to what it should be. We won’t be quite as snappy at each other about everything :P
Lastly, I would like to apologize to anyone I have been short with. My health leaves me in a bad mood a lot and I really don’t try to be this way. I used to be a very happy, bubbly, bouncy person and that is who I would like to get back to being.
Anyway, I should probably get to bed...there’s a wuff who needs some snuggles :)
