Well, I just made it to one year at a company, a feat I haven't been able to manage since I left the rocket shop I worked at in Seattle. But I recently got hit by a car while I was riding my bicycle in a crosswalk. Got a little concussed by it. I've been trying to take it easy, but its hard when my I want to run around and cant sit down without aggravating my back or read my digital books since screens give me headaches now. Trying to find a novel to read.

I don't update here often.

I've always taken a more serious look at my hobbies than most. Furry was one that I devoted a lot of time and energy to. It's been a great creative outlet, getting to meet and learn from so many crazy and unique artists, while I myself have been learning and teaching what I know in the aerospace and propulsion fields. Lately, after I had a spat with and got burned out from trying to work for one major defense corporation, I bought a house and have been working on self-improvement with my now long-term partners in Denver, Colorado. Still somewhat trying for friends in the area, but how I was treated coming out of the closet as transgender in Seattle still stings, and I honestly find myself without the energy to entertain friends, even online. I honestly feel that after all these years, I'd be happy to spend time catching up with almost anyone from my earlier years, and that's where my ache is. I walked away from a lot of people, companies, and industries I invested a lot of personal time, energy, and money into during the wake of COVID, and it's hard to get going again after getting back on my feet. Things are looking up, however, and if people start reaching out again once I start producing, I'll be really happy.

Now I have bought a house, a huge garage, a computer studio, a space of my very own to share with someone I love, and a fun new industry to get involved in. After stumbling in my typical polyworking yote way through a bunch of test, ops, maintenance, and manufacturing jobs in aerospace and food manufacturing, I found myself in a great gig in a energy startup staffed full of PhDs from all the biggest national and international research laboratories. My C-suite directly contributed to what I feel like is my generation's moon landing: in creating the first and only net-positive energy fusion reactions. It's absolutely crazy the way these world-renowned experts in their fields are starstruck with my abilities to make anything work while under-promising and over-delivering in every way they can imagine. I can't believe the competition I beat out in order to be selected to make these systems. Not bad for a former homeless high school dropout who was dragged around the world a couple of times through more war zones, conflicts, humanitarian crises, and countries than I can name unless sober and think really hard about.

My life is stabilizing, I'll probably restart some old art projects and iterate on stuff I've written with my partners. I've been thinking about leveraging my experiences in the military and video game industry into some personal multimedia projects and tech development. My job values me, my voice, my time, and my personal deveopment, so I'll be able to express myself in some new fun ways. Moving away from ghost writing potentially launching some publication work, and getting to inspire folks through media contributions through my employer, my home studio, and furry life is going to a lot of fun.

So all of this last week or two, I've known something was up. We've had no internet, our daily flight plan was lacking the 'umph' it usually does, both my Skipper and XO both vanished for days at a time, and new and interesting bombs and missiles were being brought up to the flight deck. Then, after flight schedule yesterday ended, the ordinance divisions of all the squadrons on the ship went into hyperdrive, loading every single bomb pylon with a weapon, sometimes even loading extra pylons to cram extra ordinance onto the airframes.

When a bright white flash aft to the starboard side distracted me, I knew at that moment shit just got real. I see the acceleration stages for the cruise missiles flashing brightly, streaming and curving away from the Burk to the northwest and dimming to a faint orange glow of the cruise stage kicking in. Again, another flash, and another, and another. Every few minutes, another salvo of four to six missiles launching.
I'm sitting there on top of my bird thinking, "Holy fuck. we're a fucking metal storm, and my squadron will be bringing the rain."

A later, my Skipper bursts into the paraloft sweating up a storm and stressed, grabs his flight gear and says, "The Tomahawks are starting to hit in twenty minutes. Thanks guys." and runs off. I get a call to man up two of my Hawkeyes for the start of the airstrikes. 601 is the first bird of the CAG off the deck, followed be the Rhinoes and Hornets armed to the teeth, then the Prowlers after them, and even those old E/A-6Bs were loaded up with missiles! After they all launched, 600 followed suit, taking off into the sunrise to begin the start of a really long day for ISIS and other terror groups camping in Syria.

And for an hour or two I was excited, then I realized that nothings changed. I'm still on this steel bathtub with broken toilets, with a bed that rips my hair out at night. Whatever, at least we finally got to kill some rotten people.

So I'm traveling the high seas, playing twelve hours a day in jet blast, and having an absolute blast in Athens today. I can't wait to see what happens later this year in Dubai and where ever else my travels take me!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4762280/

makes it so much easier than to use amazon or paypal!

Where do I begin?

I've dealt with a whole myriad of stuff, you know stuff like my uncle getting blown up in a bombing, my ex-fiance getting raped when I was in the Middle East, my sister and her family's home burning to the ground along with my grandfather's home, being emotionally abused by my ex, depression, cyrogenic burns, regular burns, break up after 3 crazy years, catching MRSA and almost loosing my arm,

Yeah...

I couldn't sleep, and I've spent a few hours looking at my visible scars and recounting all the history behind them.
I've looked at my mental scars, my aversion to kissing, intimacy issues, and the distance I've been putting between people I care so much for. I've looked back on the times where I've lost grip with reality, times where I've gotten frustrated and just lost it, going swimming in Lake Michigan in December, running five miles barefoot and in shorts in -10 weather, the times I've gone sleep walking and woke up lost, my getting stalked out of concern, almost catching a blue jersey on the flight deck when he/she get creamed by jet blast before falling 70 feet into the ocean.

Life has it's ups and downs, and if doesn't, it means you are dead. The one thing that bothers me most about all of this is that it doesn't bother me. I've seen, lived, worked with, and heard about so many people, people who've had both more and less stuff to deal with than I have, and seeing all the mental issues that haunt them.

It's like, I look at my right hand, and I just stare at the scarring... and it's like, why does this bother everyone else, but not me?

I'm bothered by my distance from myself and from others, but not enough to impact me. It's like my friends and lovers want to call me by pet names, but they don't know what will make me shrink away. It's touching that they're that considerate but it's like a viscous circle. My writing has gotten more painful and sporadic, and my most recent story in particular has triggered PTSD or similar flashbacks in quite a few people I've let proof read.

I don't know at times, and I guess it helps to get this stuff off my mind in such an indirect medium. But times that I'm not drowning in work load, and have some times with my own thoughts I realize how much I've been dealing with on my own, and how little it's been bothering me, but how much its been affecting me.

I was planning on writing some positives here, but now with all the text above it seems a little out of place in this journal. Oh well!