... belatedly by a day for most folks in Asia, and belatedly by a month in Japan. The last one, 2002, was exceptionally kind to me, so I hope for at least some of the same this time around, as well ^_^;

This current icon of mine, F5 where applicable, is courtesy of
 felineelement
. The previous, shy, blushy one by
 thecreator10490
served me well for a long time, too, so yunz ("you ones", everyone out there) be sure to check those two out!

For you folks who see something odd: the normal hanzi/hanja/kanji/Chinese pictograph for horse is 馬 , while in the context of the Chinese zodiac, the character is 午 , which confusingly looks like 牛 , or ox/cattle. Well, confusingly for me, anyway --X=P

At any rate, there are some folks I've been out of touch with and ought to get back to. I've not been very social the past year and a half or so, and my memory on some things is rusty.

A number of you might be watching me because you have me confused with
 ssninc
, who's drawn a number of commissions for me over the years, the earliest ones of which I've got posted here. If that is the case you choose to drop me from your watch list, no hard feelings. Later this year -- and probably after a trip I've got coming up, so in the spring or summer -- I'd like to start posting some other old commissions I got... with the permission of the artists in question, of course. As is (rather, as of the time I post this, for anyone looking back), even after a general art purge by one or two artists I once followed, most commissions I've gotten can be found on my Favorites page.

Also after the trip, I think I might post journals more often. I've already written a few longhand, and will just be transcribing/posting those ones here. I did tweak this journal, and have altered another old one by a friend's request. However, I have not actually removed any of the journals I've posted since 2005, so you have some idea of what to expect, if you look to the side. There are things going on iRL which I'd rather not go into, for the most part. While I'm fine with talking about religion and politics など (and such), I usually prefer to do so one-on-one or in small groups than over open fora. That leaves random less-contentious thoughts, escapist things, perhaps memories of junk from the past which continue to make me happy. Although I've already got a list, do any of you have requests?