Alright, I can finally come back to working on the site! I've had a big life change since the last time I was around: I moved states! I was nervous about it, because moving is pretty traumatic for me. Thanks to life circumstances (poverty, college, etc.), I've moved over 20 times in my life. Moving means starting over, losing precious things, losing friends and memories. I've done it so many times that I now find it hard to believe that anything in life is actually solid, y'know? I'm so used to things being transient and easily lost; but, over the last few years, things have been changing for the better. I won't go into too much detail for privacy reasons, suffice to say that a family business finally took off and our tumultuous lives have finally been able to settle into something more solid and stable. I finally have a real job doing graphic design, a good paycheck, and I'm able to pay for my own apartment instead of living with family (I love my family dearly, but after five years of living in the middle of nowhere, it's SO nice to be back in an actual city where Things Are Happening). I'm excited, and nervous, to make new friends out here, hopefully find some other artistically-minded people my age and regain a social life, regain control of my body, reintegrate back into the world after so many years of isolation. I've only been here since the first of the month, but I'm settling in much better than I anticipated
Of course, setting up in a new place is never easy; there's something wrong with the internet cables in my apartment, so, after a full week of going back and forth between Netgear customer service and my apartment's ISP to no avail, I've decided to just say fuck it and forego wi-fi altogether. Honestly I'm really enjoying it! You can say it's cope, but I was already aware that I was too addicted to the internet; it's a distraction, it's fucking brainrot. Not having wi-fi on my laptop has forced me to do more reading, listening to music, and chipping away at my video game backlog (I'm currently playing Code Vein, if you're interested). But, obviously I need some sort of internet, and Boost's shitty mobile data allotment wasn't cutting it, so I just switched to a different phone carrier (Visible) that offers actually unlimited premium data and unlimited mobile hotspot. This isn't an ad, I'm just impressed that anybody offers a service like it in this day and age. So really, that's all I need! I need mobile data to talk to my friends online, and I can connect to my laptop whenever I need to, to submit work or make website updates like this one, or watch videos -- but I'm actually loving the restriction, getting to have a slight detox from the horrors of the internet. But don't worry, I'm not leaving this site! I love having this space for myself, and I'm going to get back on semi-frequent updates again. I've just scanned a bunch of vintage postcards that I'll be uploading this week, so stay tuned for that!