Happy nude year everybody!

To quote a line from an old readalong cassette tape for a children's book I had growing up, "It's time to turn the page [sparkle sfx]!". As time progresses and we turn the page to begin our next year of recorded history, it's time for me - like many other people I share a planet with - to reflect on the past year and meditate on what I want out of the next one. 2023 was a strange year to say the least, and 2024 promises to be even stranger.

Instead of New Years Resolutions, a few years ago I decided to start thinking of each year as an "Era". At the end of the year I would come up with a theme that suited how I was feeling after everything the year threw at me, and label the upcoming year as my "___ Era". 2022 was my Villain Era. Watching a new rise of incessant queerphobia made me realize that no amount of professionalism and social nicety would make phobic people "accept" queerness. So I decided if there was no hope for normalcy, then why bother trying so hard to fit in? I dropped all pretense about professional appearance and completely trashed my social media with porn and fetish art, and allowed myself to be radicalized as a pro-porn queer anarchist.

Well, at least online, anyway.

This past year, 2023, I declared to be my Wizard Era. I slowed down and went back to studying, practicing, and experimenting with my various creative outlets. I stopped trying to put out "content" and refocused on what kind of music I wanted to make. I spent a lot more time practicing drawing without posting it online. I built this website - my Wizard Tower - and began my slow withdrawal from social media sites. I spent the year retreating into my tower to ponder my orb, and to jam the fuck out to Uriah Heep's "Demons and Wizards" album, which I swear to fuck I bought on a dice roll and not just because it was Wizard Era. It was certainly a very different year.

During the holiday break, I spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing of any importance, just living life and trying to unlock secrets in Risk of Rain Returns. My wife, however, was on a creative blitz and was absolutely storming up new fanfic ideas for My Time At Sandrock. I was a bit sad that we didn't spend much time doing stuff TOGETHER, but I was much happier to see her thriving in her element after being blue-balled all year because her idiot supervisor kept draining her completely of energy at work. Meditating on that whole situation, I think I'm officially naming 2024 "Hermit Era".

I plan to continue distancing myself from Twitter and Tumblr. I read through Tumblr notifications to see if anyone likes my gif repository posts, but I don't scroll the dashboard anymore. I was on Twitter a lot during the holiday break, but now I'm just using it to tell people what song is currently stuck in my head. And though I did consider finally taking a trip across the country to visit my mom and sister because it's been over 6 years since I saw them in person, I am fully aware that COVID cases are back at an all-time high because nobody fucking takes this shit seriously and business owners are scared shitless of people working remotely and wasting all that money they've sunk into renting and operating their big fat offices that we don't fucking need in order to do our jobs.

Yeah, nah. I think I'll pass on being social this year. Come find me here in my Wizard Tower if you wanna chat, but I'm not going to be much of a public face in 2024. It's just not worth the trouble.

My so-called "porn addiction" is probably gonna get me banned from certain pearl-clutching public spaces anyway.

Anyway, in less...pensive news, I've been hard at work on the new album. 7/12 tracks complete as of today! I have at least a basic doodle of an idea for the remaining 5 tracks, so it should just be a matter of time now. There's no rush, after all. I really like the new direction I'm pushing for on this album, so I hope people will give it a listen when it's done.

I've been making some changes to the site as well, trying to add some new features and better organization. I uploaded some playable music tracks directly to the site that aren't released on other platforms, and split up the blog entries into an Archive system. Gonna start reviewing more explicit anime too, so I created an 18+ section (don't tell my boss I spent half of that Amazon gift card on an obscure hentai DVD). I'm gonna go back to HTML school - figuratively speaking - and learn how to space things out better though. The text feels a bit claustrophobic on some pages. Eh, I ain't too worried about it though.

That's about all I have to report for this monthly-ish blog entry. I'm ready for 2024 to be weird and probably have some nasty surprises for us along the way. Adversity is inevitable. But I'd rather be pissed on than pissed off, so I'm going to make a fist and face it with aplomb.

This ain't no place to be if you planned on bein' a star!