Into new snow.

November was an unbelievable torrent of chaos.  I'm still kind of amazed at just how  I kept any of it straight.  It was a deluge of medical acronyms, adrenaline fueled frantic calls and travel to six different institutions where I was plied with more medical acronyms, phone numbers, and 'things to watch for, and who to call' information.

I shouldn't complain.  I'm fortunate to live in a place where there are layers of care providers who are able to guide people through the absolute insanity that is someone literally being betrayed by every organ in their body over the span of a few years.  The support has actually been a little overwhelming, which is a better problem to have than being left to my own devices.  

I've been told that I should have asked for help sooner, as most people don't wait until they have two complete mental breakdowns and end up in the hospital.  But its a trait that runs in my family.  We're very 'old country' and we 'make our own way'.  Its an idiotic and stubborn way to live.  There's no pride in it.  Its foolish.  If help exists there's no crime in asking for it.

I admittedly didn't even knew help existed.

However this post isn't just for me to rabbit on about how bad the last couple months have been.  As a little of the dust settles, I'm trying to find a semblance of creative spark again.  It's been hard to grasp onto over the last year.  Every thought tends to be on the daily 'health portfolio' from first waking up to going to sleep.

I've had to go back to some of my older posts and get caught up on what ideas I used to have.  Some of them don't click with me anymore, and some don't make sense but that's to be expected when most of my 'notes' were caught up in artworks that depicted 'in the moment' ideas.

I also no longer 'hear the lives' of anyone that existed in my head anymore.  I see fragments here and there, but I'm no longer immediately connected.  So it means I have to start drawing on things I used to know about them, and their lives, and trying to draw again upon that instead of on the whim of what I might see them doing at the very moment.

That all sounds insane, I know, but it's kind of how I operated (which is also insane).

I'm also going to start doing sketches for the $10 patron level again.  I even had one in 'pending' before the wheels went right off the road in mid October.  I need to get these done, and it's another way to start back into doing art again.

Much of the upcoming stuff will be pretty ragged, and scratchy.  I'm out of practice from such a long stretch of not creating much new work (I was able to ink things, which is a completely different skillset).  I don't quite know what exactly it will be, but I'll keep wandering the archives to see what strikes me, and maybe branch off some sort of story of what I think the place or character in question might be about.

I apologize for being so quiet lately.  I was badly socially drained.  Every day was dealing with several people and offices and institutions and I just couldn't draw up the energy to try and be social online as well.

I'm now completely off of Twitter.  I had been using it literally just to re-post that I had posted here.  I didn't read anything there at all anyway, didn't engage with anyone there anymore, and given the climate of slave labour, abusive work-place nightmares, illegal firings and letting extremists, racists, and the evils of the world have free reign there under the guise of 'everyone should get a say' I figured it was a good time to wipe my existence from what is basically a conspiracy theorist vortex.  

I haven't really picked any other place to be for 'social media'.  I have a tumblr that I sometimes push things to, and apparently I had a Mastodon but I can't figure that whole thing out at all and don't have the time to.  For now, this will be my more 'social' space.  It might turn out that I don't really need to be on another platform anyway.  

It's definitely more quiet, which I appreciate.

So, here's to hoping for a few days where I'm not occupied with keeping the whole place from burning down, and maybe I can show some of those more happy fragments from the lives of some of the people that were in my head.

I appreciate all of you who stuck it out with me.  I know it's sucked with how quiet I've been lately, but if life could just calm down a little I might be able to at least be a bit more active on here.

-T.J.