I am soon to be another year older.

A lot has happened in the past year. Many more things I've gotten to do and experience, friendships that were budding have become more solid, and I have become more settled into my own house, enjoying my first full year of living on my own.

It hasn't always been fun and games, but I feel like things are moving in mostly positive directions here, and this is such a rare feeling for me that it almost seems alien. I may actually be settling down here, deciding that life can just pass me by as long as no one gives me any shit. Truth be told, I feel as though my interpersonal relationships are growing and taking me places, and maybe I am not so alone as I have typically felt. This year alone I've been to two conventions and a number of fur meets, meeting many new furs in the process including the indomitable Maus and the lovely Rei bunny...people down in the lowcountry who I don't typically get to see because of how far away it is. Going to cons out farther away from me is a bit of a learning process too; recently attended FangCon, the distance of which was actually not that bad, but required driving though the Appalachian mountain range (about an hour of narrow, winding roads). Also lost my V card to a lovely lady who was awesome enough to help me out with it when she discovered I was 30 and had no experience. It was a one time thing, but I'm nonetheless grateful to her; it helped put some things into perspective for me. I can move on with my life now.

And, I am learning what it takes to run a household; there is still so much to be done here, and it is becoming apparent that I need to start being more careful with my money. Hosting a room at FangCon was fun and something I enjoyed doing, but it ended up backfiring on me when the day I had us checking out turned out to not be the convention's actual breakdown day. I had to extend the room and eat the costs (wasn't about to ask my roommmates to pay for another day when I was the one who had scheduled the room like a doof). I'm paying for it now, unable to buy the things I had promised I'd get after the con. (Super glad though that the furry publishing vendor who said they were going to come never did. Buying books and CD's would have made things worse!)

For my birthday I don't really have any plans. Maybe go out to eat at my favorite gourmet Pizza Place. Hooters has their anniversary on my birthday, but this being year 31 for both of us, it probably won't be as good a blowout as last year's, lol! Gonna hang out online, use half of my birthday money to get some CD's or something and put the other half toward my house, enjoy some wine and some good company~

This coming year I hope to make more progress on my house. I am hoping the other rooms will be easier to paint but in the interest of expediting things I may just hire a painting team. I just need to save my cash for a while. I plan to attend FWA for sure; was iffy about it before. Wishy-washy about Megaplex, which is still an option but I have heard so many mixed reviews that I'm afraid it may be a waste of a trip. Hoping to do more, see more, expand my social circles, hang with dear friends and play some awesome games. Having come to accept that this is the way things are going to be, I am now able to look ahead without feeling defeated; if not a feeling of anticipation at things to come in the immediate future. The distant future is still something I dread, but not as much...giving up on the world is strangely freeing like that. I had a similar experience when I gave up on myself in my teens, and started smashing through barriers that I hadn't even realized I had put in front of myself.

The world may teeter on the brink of chaos but things are pretty good for me right now. And I suppose that is the way things are going to be until the point where circumstances dictate action.