I’m going to shutdown comments for this because I’m nervous that journals like this look like I’m trying to harvest attention or pity. I’m not looking for consolation. I’ll be okay. My only goal here is to provide more information about what's going on in my life and continue to organize some thoughts.

One of my intentions this year was to await the return of consistent creative production before I started posting on here again and promoting my Patreon more. I was doing so well there for a while, but another series of setbacks has wiped away the progress I was making.

Unfortunately, after taking a hard look at my patterns over the last year, it doesn’t look like my brain will ever return to the same consistency I enjoyed when I was getting stuff done. I need to come to terms with this. I simply cannot produce enough content to justify a monthly Patreon nor consider myself "active".

The death of my friend has affected me more than I realized. He was the first IRL friend I’d made in many years. While it’s easy for me to be friends with people I already know, I am a very, very awkward and introverted person in real life. It is extremely difficult for me to make new friends in person. This has resulted in me having lots of online friends, but very few IRL friends. Somehow, Gary was not affected by these personal foibles and became one of my best IRL friends.

While married and straight as an arrow, he was fascinated in my experience with furry porn and the fandom. He shared my love in classic science fiction, especially Star Trek TOS and TNG, classic Doctor who, and the scifi movies of the 1950s and 60s. He was aware of how incompetent the modern psychiatric industry has become, and was deeply interested in helping me bounce back from my experiences in Houston. I finally had a new friend, and I deeply loved him.

He was also an extremely important mentor who was teaching me and my best friend a suite of machine shop skills in addition to computer skills. As a master electronic engineer, auto-mechanic, and machine shop wizard, his death represents a titanic loss of skills and competence. It’s as though an irreplaceable library has burned down in a decaying world that has ceased building new libraries.

Last weekend was the viewing and internment. My best friend and I carpooled to both, cried like children, and have begun the process of adapting to a world without our teacher, mentor, and friend.

At the same time, both my budgies have become quite sick. I’ve taken them to the vet who was unable to provide any useful feedback other then “they are getting old and may just be winding down”. It is heartbreaking to watch them succumb to old age, stop playing, and stop singing. I am currently surrounded by death and dying.

This whole experience has radically transformed who I am and what my brain is willing to go along with. One of the things that is completely gone is my sex drive. It has vanished in its entirety. It might come back, but I do not see it happening for a long time. As I’ve discovered the hard way through the symptoms of depression and the side effects of SSRIs, this has also effectively erased my ability to draw adult art and possibly art in general. When I try to force it, it feels like I’m whipping a frightened and grieving horse into doing something of which he’s just not physically capable.

I think I need to downgrade my relationship with art to just a pure hobby. What that means is that I need to stop trying to make a business or living out of it.

I’ll probably shut down my Patreon in the next few months. Until then, I will be pausing monthly charges every month until I pull that trigger. Any current patrons will no longer pay a thing for the work I post on there.

I tried so hard to regain consistency, but I think I need to finally admit that consistency is off the table, and that it’s not right for me to keep trying to run a storefront. My mental health (let alone real life) is just too unpredictable. Furthermore, the latest Patreon / Gumroad / credit Card companies’ shenanigans have rendered me rather skittish in trusting these platforms at all.

Moreover, I wish to repay the loyalty of so many. What I intend to do is compile a list of those who remained my friend through all this as well as download a history of all my Patrons. I’m going to then either create a shared folder or build a gallery website that I’ll share with this list of people. They will then get links to anything I’m working on a few months before I post it anywhere. You won’t pay anything.

A side goal to this intention is to build a “Nextcloud” server. Nextcloud is an open source alternative to dropbox and Google. My best friend Richard and I have been learning how to install this software and establish all the necessary databases. I’ve gotten to a point where I can install the main program and its various software packages fairly easy. The only thing left for us to figure out is how to secure the thing. Once we do that, I’ll basically build my own Dropbox / Discord / Google, and can generate usernames and logins for my own private channel and gallery that I can share anyone I want.

I'm going to try to finish the porn comic I'm working on. There are also art pieces that I want to do for a handful of people. Once that's finished, I am going to redo Kosma; I'll try to post a journal about my goals with it soon. It's my diary, and I need my diary back.

I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve let so many people down. I’ll do my best to bounce back from the last ten years, although they have clearly demolished me. Thank you for being there when I was at my strongest. I wish I could go back to those days.