#it's not even been six weeks since i last had covid this shit can't keep happening to me!!!

[pochapal]

feeling feverishly sick again. lmao.

[survey--s]

662.

What colour is the photo frame closest to you? Pale wood.

Are your pets asleep right now, if you have any? The cats are all asleep but the dog is awake and waiting for Mike to get home - I think the clock change has confused him as it's dark and Mike is normally home before dark lol.

Would you have any idea what your parents are doing right now? I assume they're at home - probably watching TV?

How many windows (roughly) does your house have? Eight.

Do you have a good relationship with your cousins? No. They all live overseas so we barely speak to each other.

What was the last kids movie you saw? Alice in Wonderland.

Do you know anyone who was born in Africa? My mum was born in East Africa. Well, on an island there.

Have you ever been to an internet cafe? Ha yes. I remember when finding an internet cafe was like, the highlight of my holidays LOL.

Are there any upcoming events for you to look forward to? Yeah, the weekend, my birthday and Christmas break.

Has the year gone quickly for you so far? This year has FLOWN by. I can't believe it's Halloween already.

How many siblings does your significant other have? Four. Three sisters and a brother.

Are you one of those people who can drink vodka straight? I can but it's not pleasant.

Have you ever done three or more shots in a row? Yes.

Do you share a middle name with any of your friends? I'm sure I do as it's a pretty common one.

What was the last movie you saw in theatres? Cats ha. I haven't been to the movies since before COVID.

Are you interested in international politics? I wouldn't say I was interested but I do keep up to date on it.

How many pairs of jeans do you own? About ten or so.

When was the last time you showered? About three and a half hours ago when I got in from work.

Do you know the name of the pharmacist at your local drug store? No.

What was the first cellphone you had and how old were you when you got it? It was a Sagem something or other and I was about thirteen. According to Google it was a my X-6.

Do you use public transport in your town or city? No. It's unreliable and generally doesn't go where you need to get to.

Have your parents ever worked in a factory? I think my dad did when he was a student.

Do you have several best friends? No.

How many lights are in the room you’re in? Three sets of fairy lights and two overhead lights.

Is there a Hard Rock Cafe in your town or city? No. I haven't been to one of those in about a decade lol.

Do you eat fast food more than once a week? No.

What flavour is your toothpaste? Mint.

Have you ever shared a shower or bath with someone as an adult? Yeah, with my husband.

When was the last time you had a bubble bath? About a month ago.

Are you sleepy right now? A little bit. Not enough to actually sleep though.

How big is your backyard? Big enough for a small terraced house.

Do you know anyone with Tourette’s Syndrome? No.

What time does your alarm wake you up in the morning? On work days, 7.30am.

What was the last zoo you visited? Our local one, which is pretty shit really.

Do you like crime films and tv shows? I have to be in the right mood for them, but yeah.

When you shop, do you take a basket or a cart (trolley)? Depends on how much I plan on buying.

Have you ever tasted milk straight from the cow? Yeah, a few times. It's GOOD.

What’s your favourite sleeping position? On my right side, curled up.

What colour is the bra you’re wearing? Black.

Have you ever seen A Clockwork Orange? No. I've read the book though.

Are you bitter about anything? Nah.

Do you like to make games out of chores to make them more enjoyable? No, it just takes even longer lol.

How many letters are in your best friend’s surname? Six, the same as mine.

Is there anything in your possession that probably shouldn’t be? Nope.

What is your favourite flavour of yoghurt? Raspberry or blackcurrant.

What was the first online account you remember having? Probably a Hotmail account or something.

Do you listen to music to fall asleep? No, I like silence to sleep.

Where did you go last time you left your town or city? Uh, the vets I think.

Do you use emojis? Sometimes.

Have you ever wanted to be a lawyer? Yeah, when I was younger.

What percentage of battery does your phone currently have? 25%.

What was the last type of soda you drank? Pepsi Max.

How far away from your house is your favourite place to shop for clothes? About an hours' drive.

Do you have supplies handy right now to draw something if I told you to? Yes.

Have you ever been married? I've been married for just over five years.

What does your deodorant smell like? Berries.

Is your bedroom more messy or clean at the moment? My side is clean, Mike's is messy.

Do you use Twitter? No.

Are you any good at baking cakes and cookies from scratch? I'm not bad at it, I just don't enjoy it.

Is there a floor lamp in your bedroom? No.

What does most of your weekly or fortnightly income go towards? Savings/long-term investments.

Have you ever been to another continent? Yeah, Asia, Australasia and North America. I live in Europe.

Do you have any hidden piercings? (this includes bellybuttons) Yeah, but I don't wear any jewellery in it.

What month is your birthday? December.

What can you hear right now? The Simpsons. I'm watching all the Treehouse of Horror episodes.

[minjeonpark]

A ramble about life🧘, work🧑‍💻, writing🖋️ and everything else.

Hello!👋 I feel like it's been ages since I opened Tumblr. I've been meaning to answer all of your comments, but several things happened this week that literally changed everything in my life.���

For starters, I got covid. Not fun at all, experienced headaches and body aches that turned me into a potato, and now I'm almost out and back to full health...I just need to endure a sore body for two more days. ✌️😭

Also.... I was fired....? *Insert yoongi's iconic confused face*😐😂

Lmao it came as a shock to me too --to everyone in my department since we all got fired. It stranded a lot of us because the news came as a work email at 9 am when everyone was home bound dealing with covid. No one expected it because we had just come back from a successful work trip to acquire a new client for the company. Now looking back, I should have paid more attention because just last month, half of the HR department was fired👀 and if you're a victim of capitalism and a slave of the work force you know HR is the last to go, like they're untouchable when the company is purging their payroll. HR, the last standing soldier, the one that sees you off...welp. 🤦

I wanted to leave an angry rant here the moment it happened, but I needed to keep moving and not let the fear of an uncertain future drown me. I know I'm still young and there are a lot of opportunities out there (I would like to think that way) but in a world where the timeline of how your life should play out is set and everyone around you is following it you can't help but feel like a failure when these things happen. Like, I don't want to get married and have a child in two years, you know. And I don't want to be frowned upon if I don't have a job that makes six figures by the time I get married. Cause everyone around me is doing that. I want to enjoy life at my own pace, and maybe getting fired from this important office job is a sign to follow the creative path I always wanted...I don't know. I have a job interview in two hours, so I guess this is me nervous rambling. 😬🥴

I was also considering putting my writing hobby on a Hiatus, but immediately backtracked because I don't want this hobby of mine to be tainted by the pressures of adult life. So I'm still going to write the shit out of my imagination because like many of you have said, it is an escape from reality. Chapter 22 is fully drafted, I actually added more scenes because when I first read the draft it felt like it lacked some important scenes, so that's where I'm at with the next update. I hope to give you teasers this Wednesday and post this weekend.

Let me end this rambling with something that I want to tell you all that my dad actually tells me every time I'm stuck. Whatever you chose to do, don't think of it as something you have to do for the rest of your life. It sounds hard, and it is hard to make the decision to change career paths, but sometimes you just need that push towards what will eventually make you happy. So here I am telling you that even if we don't know each other, just know that I will cheer you on. Whatever change you're too scared to make but that you know it will make you ten times happier than what you're doing right now, picture me telling you to go for it. My dad always says to not be scared of failure because out of everything you can learn in life, Failure is the biggest learning lesson you can get.

With that in mind, let me go apply for jobs that I'm under qualified for while I figure out what in the hell I'm gonna do next. 🤔

Also, I'm gonna start editing past chapters of Days Since I Met You with the lovely Sybil @sybilinthehollow. It's just grammar and stuff, nothing of the plot will be changed. So you don't have to worry about reading back. Everything for a better reading experience! 😏🤣🤭

Without further ado, I'll go study for my job interview, and I'll maybe see you tonight as I write Chapter 22? 🤞✌️

[frogsandfries]

Something I've been meaning to say

Let's start with perhaps an apt dream for the last day of a year personally I never imagined could be so bad.

In one part of the dream, I'm digging through rocky sand, looking for the rocks. I'm going to build a huge cairn. I hear a dad yelling at his distraught, young daughter, so I wonder around the mountains of sand that I've dug up to find a dad trying to fish off the ocean bay shore, and a daughter who wants to build a sandcastle.

In another part of a dream, my partner and I are teenagers camping by a lake, and all around the lake are several docks. We're instructed by the teacher to put our dirty dishes in the water by a certain dock. One day, my partner and I happen to be near the dock while what appears to be a flurry of piranhas attacks our dishes; but it's otters.

When we mention this to one of the camp grounds keepers, he gets really angry at the teacher and forces us to leave. Joyfully, I get shunted back to Milwaukee.

In the last part of the dream, this older-ish, highly educated lady has tracked us out of the bay-front pub we went to in Oregon, a few blocks over to the bike shop. She's really upset that my partner hasn't noticed her; she thought they had a spark, they were clearly made for each other, just really, really upset. And my partner had hardly even noticed this poor lady.

When she stormed off, I told my partner I loved him and he seemed genuinely annoyed that I only expressed affection in public and I was kind of stymied by that assertion.

It was such an interesting dream for the last day of such a rough year, because that's kind of where this year started. I've been wanting to make a year in review, reflection kind of post for at least a couple weeks now, but every time I sit down to work on it (usually before I go to sleep), I'm too tired.

I started this year earning about eight dollars an hour, sleeping in the spare room of a childhood friend's house. I thought I would never be able to afford to live on my own or pay rent again. They were having trouble keeping up on the rent, and I knew it would be easiest if I moved along.

I started making arrangements to stay with a friend in Oregon when I met somebody. Between the two of us, I packed everything up and we had two suitcases and some backpacks, and we left from Chicago.

We're not going to rehash all the shit where I was absolutely dying of fever like I've never experienced as an adult, and then my friend wanted me to choose between him and the person I actually wanted to think about having kids with. I was never going to even consider having kids with this "friend", but he thought by shepherding me and basically harassing me, he could get whatever he wanted. Since he couldn't get what he wanted, he basically drove us out of town. So yeah.

We basically begged our way through friends and family back to New Mexico, where my partner had some assets. We got a motel so we could quarantine the best we could, and look for work, do some apps.

Covid has made this year all the more challenging and strange and complicated. When we got into New Mexico, there was nowhere. Nowhere for us to go. Normally, I would've been just fine bundling myself into a library--we actually did a few days in Oregon, just posted up to use power and internet. We were lucky to not be required to wear masks. You can't go to libraries that are closed, whether or not you have a mask on.

We managed to get a room with a completely random dude that somehow I guess my partner's mom somehow distantly knows?? 🎵 It's a small world after all. I managed to have enough job to pay my loans and get us out of the boonies and out of Crazy Life Falling Apart dude's house.

I managed to pay for six months, for the rent, the phones, the internet....... on my own paycheck.

I think about this really hard a lot lately.

I went from the beginning of this year believing that I would never live on my own again, to paying our entire $900/month lease by myself.

I also went, over the course of six months or so, from accepting my job to fucking hating my job. Guys, I hate my job more than I like it. The people who call me can be awful and aggressive and it's stressful and not fun and I only have half the information I need at any one time. I mean, whoddathunk that people would get aggressive about money, eh?

But at the same time, I'm not comfortable enough to own my success until.........I dunno, until my situation really looks stable. After the last few years I've had, couch crashing, sleeping on motel room floors, living in others' homes at their mercy.......... Just when you start to think things are going good and you mount be able to unpack and sprawl out a little, everything goes topsy-turvy. So I'm literally just waiting to break my promise to my cats.

Until then, things are starting to pick back up for me, creatively. For the first time in three years, I'm starting to work on dolls again. I'm sticking to my commitment to finish my graphic novel in pixel art--I actually haven't done any work today since I've been working on this post.

But yesterday, I finally finished one of the most ridiculous frames yet, with all the colors-- just blended and overlaid, and converting it from an even count to an odd count.....hhhhhhhhhhhrgh!! I'm gonna need both screens to help me finish it, so I'll get on that this evening.

I'm hoping to start releasing posts regularly, every Monday, and then about June/July, ideally (I definitely don't know if this is realistic, I'd like to have enough material to release the book of art). I think I can definitely come up with enough material to queue, and as long as I'm persistent, which should be easy as long as either I can work from home, or have a commute, or otherwise spend time with limited resources, the work is easy enough............ once I have good photos of my linework, which means....... having linework. I should.... make a system: For every frame that I finish to post, I should make one or two lineworks. That should at least keep me caught up.

I was telling my partner the other day, from the dream scene until Kitty opens her dorm door, which is the last frame I had storyboarded, is over three hundred frames. From the first frame until grandma leaves the room (which is only remarkable because I guess I'd started deleting old material for some reason), is twelve frames in the storyboard, but seventeen in the final linework. Even that soon, I had added material to increase clarity.