It's about 3 in the morning and I'm sitting here waiting for files to download so I can edit.

I have some time, so I thought I would try and figure out what I have to share with y`all, I'll try and keep it from being too boring, so I'll throw it into bullet points as best I can and hope it works.

Five years ago I met a guy. I'm going to call him Paul to keep it private.

Well, Paul and I hit it off really well at first. I admit I had a bit of a crush on him, and so when we finally started dating I was pretty blind to the early warning red signs.
Things were okay for about a year, and the business I had started was actually running pretty well. We even managed to work and finally got my first home. A rental, but it wasn't an apartment and I wasn't living with other people outside of him.
It was nice for awhile.... then, she came along.
She was involved in the kink scene and the party scene, so it felt like I couldn't get rid of her.
She was super into Paul and was willing to do anything to get him to leave me. We're talking psycho level things.
At first she was chill and Paul and I thought that it wasn't anything serious, that once she saw we were committed that she would go away. It began to escalate though, very quickly. She would show up when it was his day off and I was trying to get some work done, and I'm being handed shots. Then when I had to lay down, or shut the door so I could work, she would hang all over him and want to do a scene. Once it got started she would push him to take it further than he wanted and when I walked in she'd immediately back off, giggle, and blame it on the booze.
At one point she pretty much drugged me and tried to convince Paul to leave me and run off to California together.
He always said no though, so she decided to start picking at me, mentally screwing with me. She'd go out with him to parties while I was working, and send back pictures that were very questionable.
It would cause a lot of distress and lots of weird semi-arguments.
Most of it, he didn't believe me that she was doing anything wrong, that she was being playful.
EVERYONE IN OUR SOCIAL CIRCLE SAW IT!
The last straw?
When she decided turning him into a tweeker would make him leave. Well, it made someone leave. And I tried, fuck did I try and make it work. But there's only so much an anteater can handle.

At that point though, I was a wreck. So I packed my bags, my cat, and what I had and moved to wherever the wind blew me.

Fucking Oklahoma.

It wasn't bad though. For a year I had a chance to live out there and focus on me, try and get my shit together and work for people who were really kind. But by that point my ability to run a business was gone, I just couldn't do it alone. I made some friends out there, and deepened some bonds.

I also managed to piss a few folks off, but I just didn't care, I was still fighting to get my emotions in order.

So a year went by and the wind was shifting. I didn't know what was in store, but a friend and his husband had room for me and were quite insistent that I stayed with them. To the point they showed up and helped me move what meager things I had.

So next up, a little town in Alabama, half a mile from the Tennessee border.

I was in the middle of the god damned backwoods. An experience I hadn't had outside of visiting extended family (city kid, country to me was the parks and cul de sac playgrounds).

I fucking loved it.

I got to see horses, in my backyard. There was space, and quiet, and stars, oh my god stars. I would sit on the patio for hours, zoned out and watching the sky twinkle. It was so peaceful.
During the summer I had my first experience with fireflies. Not one or two, but hundreds, dozens floating around in the fields.

It wasn't perfect, and I jumped around from job to job, mostly working at an adult store, then at a waffle house, occasionally doing an odd job here and there.

I finally found steady employment for a local TV station under ABC. It was nothing great, but it was what I had started out in, and it felt like the job had been waiting for me. I had a chance to really reflect and think about where I was going in my life, which, b to the dubs, hadn't really been more than, draw, draw, chill with friends, draw, draw, wash, rinse, repeat.

So my life had started to stabilize, and with that, the inevitable loneliness hit me like a rock as I faced the past few years of relationship disasters and decided, I was done. I was not going to bother dating anymore.

This was not going to work for Vixie.

So, one night I'm talking to Vixie, who I had met through her mate Nateday, a chill guy, and chill girl. And I mentioned that I was done. Her response, "Fuck that shit, I know a guy who would be perfect for you."
I laughed and asked who?
come to find out it was some red headed African Wild Dog that went by the name Sioras Nightfire.

He had been through some past shit himself, and wasn't interested in dating anymore either. She said she was going to give him my number and we should start talking.

Next thing I know I'm dating again. It's different though.
The fires of passion had gone out for me, but, in exchange there was a deep ember burning within, something more serious, something calmer, and deeper.
As our relationship evolved, so did ourselves.
I felt happier, I was handling the days better, and I was looking forward to things again.
Next thing I knew a year had passed and we were discussing him moving in.
So that's what happened.

I got a better job working for, not even going to make you guess, Fox's local affiliate, and he moved out here. we found a place, and my mom absolutely adores him, calling him son and asking if she's going to get grandchildren, and that she doesn't care if they're 'homemade' or not, as long as she gets him.

So, that pretty much covers the big points.
Oh, we got engaged at a Slayer concert, that's pretty important I guess. We aren't sure when we'll get married, but it'll happen.

Now, THAT's all the big points.
There's a lot more that happened, and there's more I could go into detail about, but the way I see it, I'll save that for later posts or to talk about after the fact.

Anyway, I think the files have transferred so I'm going to get back to work. Hopefully I'll have some stuff to post.
Also, apologies for the poor shots of my artwork in the future, until I find a scanner I'll just have to photograph them and take the time to actually do it proper.

Laters.