Where have I been?!

5/29/2023 9:10 PM

Meowdy!

I haven't made a blogpost in. . . 5 months? Good god, man. I guess it would be kind of cliche to say "Oh, I've just been so busy, you must forgive me," but, uh, yeah. I have been busy! Let's catch up, okay?

I know this is gonna sound stupid given I just said I've been busy, but I quit my job. If I remember correctly, the last time I talked about my job I complained about a shitty coworker who made me wanna quit. Well, she did eventually get fired for real. It didn't actually help very much though, because from then on I was working alone nonstop. Whether it was bad scheduling or no-shows or sick days, I kept ending up by myself, and it was driving me crazy. I couldn't get do half of the shit that needed to get done without any help. And when I did have help, it was always someone with less training than me, so I had to take care of the managerial tasks that I certainly wasn't trained for. It was. . . just a giant mess. More than all that, though, I was just so fucking exhausted! On my days off, my brain was so scrambled from work that I couldn't get a damn thing done. I wanted to draw, to write, to do anything but languish in my desk chair and stare at my computer screen all day, but I just couldn't. So I quit.

I was worried that I would get mega depressed without a job. Historically, when I am not strictly obligated to get off my ass, on my ass I will stay. I'll stay up 'til 4 AM and wake up at 2 PM. And, ya know, without any sunlight I start to go stir crazy and lose my shit. None of that happened though! I've actually been sticking to a schedule. It's pretty rudimentary right now, but at least I'm waking up at 8 AM and falling asleep around midnight. I'm picking up better habits too! I'm brushing and flossing every damn day, and I'm actually taking my contact lenses out before going to sleep. I know that's, uh, pretty basic stuff but it's big for me, alright?! I haven't really felt depressed since quitting, which is. . . SO refreshing. You have no idea.

Oh my god, I forgot my birthday happened too. I'm 20 now! I've been 20 since February, whoops. February wasn't really a great month for Team Xenodogz, if I'm gonna be honest. The days leading up to and after my birthday were pretty fucking miserable. Lotta dumb things happened, lost my best friend of like 6 years because of it. He was hardly in my life towards the end there anyways. It doesn't really bother me all that much, surprisingly. Just feels a little bittersweet seeing old pictures of us and all that.

I've got better friends anyway. It turned out that one of my favorite artists in the world and also my bestie, ufolliegy, only lives like 1 hour away from me? That's pretty fucking cool, dude! I got to see 100 Gecs and Machine Girl live with him, his partner, and my friend catball. That was indescribably fun. It was the second time, ever, that I had met an online friend IRL (shoutout to Eve), and what a surreal experience that is. I was beyond nervous. I feel like the older I get, the more autistic I am, man. I can only be extremely thankful that my friends don't care. I also went to the zoo with Ollie and co. for his birthday! And I'm gonna see him again in a week! Look at me, going outside and socializing and such.

Apparently I can't get enough of meeting my online friends, because I'm gonna go camping with them (and a handful of IRL friends) in July! I am, of course, extremely fucking nervous about this too. Nobody tell them this, I must'nt show any weakness lest they think I am not, in fact, fearless and neurotypical. I will post all about the little excursion on here after it happens. :-)

I've been busying myself with commissions in the meantime. I've been having a sale to help finance the camping trip, but I've made so much money that, at this point, it's just going to me now. The camping trip is more than good on its finances. My queue is fucking overflowing. This is not a bad thing! I honestly don't feel that overwhelmed at all. I'm pushing myself, but not too hard, obviously. Since I'm writing this right now. Just as long as everyone's on the same page here, the one that says "IT'S GONNA TAKE A LITTLE WHILE BEFORE YOUR FURRY FETISH ART COMES OUT, SORRY," I really don't mind the length of the queue. I've always got something to do right now, lol. It's honestly been quite a confidence booster, I mean, even aside from the money. I'm making more in commissions than I ever did at my shitty dog job. But yeah, aside from that, it's honestly quite touching how many people are buying from me. :"-) It's thanks in large part to my Popular Friends, so shoutout to my Popular Friends for spreading my posts. I appreciate it more than you know!

Speaking of "art," I have been accepted into something called "art school." Sounds quite frightening, but I am very brave, and I intend to figure out what all that's about.

For real though, I dropped the fuck out of the last college I went to, so let's hope it goes better this time. I feel way more prepared this time around. I have actually contacted the disability office and warned them that there's something wrong with me, which is not something I did last time. It probably woulda helped me. A lot. That time, I joined during the Spring semester (bad idea), didn't make any friends (bad idea), didn't get into contact with their mental health services until it was too late (bad idea), and I had a derealization episode worse than any I had ever experienced, if I ever even experienced one in the past (monstrously bad idea). I was also going for Animal Sciences, which like, I'm sure I could do under better circumstances, but. . . I know I can make good art, at least. That's something I know about myself. I also know that art classes were the only classes I consistently got A's in.

It-- it feels a bit like giving up, going to art school. I know that's not true, and I'm really just running on stereotypes and words from bitter folks with Fine Arts degrees who can't find any work, but that's how anxiety works, I guess. I spent most of my life saying "I don't want to ruin art for myself by making it an obligation," but, I dunno. I really don't mind doing commissions or art assignments or anything like that. I may have just been working on a false premise for a decade. It wouldn't be the first. This all makes it sound like I'm not excited for art school-- I am!!! I'm very excited. I want to make weird art and I want to make it as much as I can. I wanna try my hands at sculpture and ceramics and textiles again, yaknow? I wanna make friends, I want all the opportunities it's gonna be me. I wanna get out of my town, too. So badly. It'll be good for me, and I'm very excited. I just can't help being nervous too.

On the topic of being scared: I went "viral" recently. And by that I mean a Tumblr post about my highschool ceramics class has. . . 114,638 notes at time of writing. That's kind of insane by Tumblr standards. The post is only 8 days old and they're already posting her ass on Reddit. And Pinterest. And Twitter. And Instagram. For all I know, they could be Xenodogz-posting on FaceBook. It's kind of dire.

Of all my posts to get popular, this is probably the least annoying one. There's really not much weird shit people can say to me about this. They can tag it as Supernatural characters, call me Jerma, all that, but that's nothing compared to making a post with a question in it that every person on Tumblr assumes hasn't been answered. Tell me about Hal 9000 one more time and I will piss on your carpet for real.

This shit's kind of long isn't it? Okay, one last thing to wrap it all up. I'm working on a Discord server for aromantic-spectrum people! I've noticed that there really aren't any communities for us outside of Reddit, and my ass is NOT going on Reddit. And, ya know, talking to my alloromantic friends about all this can only get me so far. They just fundamentally understand something I don't, and trying to explain that to me is like talking to a brick wall. Plus, I can't help but feel like a huge fucking bummer every time I come out, guns blazing, with the "I think the way you live your life is kind of repulsive and it makes me angry some days." Anyways. It's called The Aro Garden, and it should be done within the week! I'll make another, much shorter blogpost about it when it goes up.

Alright, that's it for now! Thanks for lending me your ears. Or your eyeballs, I guess. Peace!