So, it's been a few years, whoops. I wanted to post that I haven't fallen off the Earth or anything like that. I appreciate the well-wishes very much.

There have been a number of changes in my life since I went on hiatus. I don't deign to get into most of that, but suffice to say we moved from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, we lost two cats (cancer, one right after the other. The third and surviving cat had a narrow miss -- I found a melanoma on her as well as a suspicious mass, but we were able to get those removed and she's doing fine. Well, and she had to have almost all her bottom teeth removed. She will be 15 at the end of April! Which, by the by -- animals can get skin cancer under their fur. Her melanoma was on her side and I only managed to notice it because of how often I pet her. She basically lived in sunny windows while in Georgia, so I blame Georgia), and yeah. Oh, I also turned 40, which I guess people still consider a milestone. I have exactly one silver hair in my beard and three on my shoulder. I suspect I shouldn't have mentioned, for I will be certainly sent to Carousel reviled as a greymuzzle. :V

I still do not want to take commissions again. That is something I'd continued to give thought. I got into taking commissions way back in 2003 or thereabouts, with my first convention (Ohayocon). For what amounts to an awful lot of work for not even close to appropriate compensation, almost 20 years is too long. Since I did not depend primarily on commissions for income, I have no problems dropping commissions from my list of things to-do. I felt that, over those years, my creativity became more and more weak and blocked as well. I don't think it helped me to approach art primarily as a business instead of a purely personal, creative activity. I want to work on getting back into the habit of making art, but for the reasons I originally ever made art at all -- personal expression. I don't want it to be anything more than that. I'm happy that other people enjoy looking at my art, or that I can provoke feelings in others through my art (haha, because it makes y'all horny, in other words. It's porn, so it should!), and I don't want the extra pressure of worrying about meeting or exceeding brand standards, idioms, whatever.

I do hope to try posting art online again, soon. I still don't have a scanner, and most of what I've done lately is in traditional media (and rarely finished), and not always fat, and not always furry. I want to try being more social, but I will retreat into my tomb from time to time. Sometimes I'm just going to be a pair of lights glittering ominously in a dark shadow, and sometimes I'm perfectly loquacious. We don't plan on weekending AC any time soon, but we might show up for the day to look at the dealer's den (I missed a sweet dragon t-shirt last year, many regrets, need to try again). I just hope people still use this site, heh. I'm not big on most social media -- I will not use X/twitter, I don't do furry on facebook (just dracula shit there. Now, if you happen to be a dracula... [to be less obtuse, we're talking GVC, OVC -- Houses and ankhs and that sort of thing]), etc.

Again, I really appreciate people who checked in on me or otherwise wished me well, even though I remained silent because I wasn't on the site.

tl;dr: I'm not dead, I'm actually getting better, I think I might be up for a walk, etc.