Just another summer of working at what feels increasingly like a "black company." I let the place take advantage of me late last year when I had to make rent or else and shouldn't have let my desperation blind me to the fact that the place is slowly dying, the pay isn't keeping up with inflation, most of my coworkers are abusive, nothing I need is written down or clarified or updated, and the software is just atrocious. Can't sleep much either, I seem to have a compulsive solitaire habit now.

Projects will...be finished whenever, ideally by this November's Akron Comic Con. Zinogre will probably be the end of suit construction for me, the project has taken too long and just doesn't seem to bring me joy anymore. He'll probably be retired whenever he wears out or I get too busy with whatever else I'm doing. I had higher hopes for this back in 2015, but maybe this is yet another hobby I can't sustain.

I have taken the most recent round of criticism to heart. Perhaps it is time to start turning off the lights and winding things down. Can't write worth squat, it's all just a pile of self-referential derivative crap, I'm too eager to take out my old grudges and indulge my power fantasies, and it's just stopped being fun. It's better to leave my ideas in my notebook margins to look at a few years from now when I'm checking my work and conference records. "Whatever was I thinking that day?"

This is a mix of work grinding me down and the long-term consequences of my mistakes in dealing with various online fandoms and a catastrophically mishandled breakup from a few years ago. I'll be fine, even if this brings everything to a grinding halt for a few months. Maybe I'll pick up the pencils again someday, or fire up the sewing machine, or commit pointless ramling to the text editor. But it's going to be different.

Maybe it's just time to start winding down these childish hobbies and surrender to the beige. At least someone will be happy with this turn of events, and I'll be able to disengage properly and have some peace. Play some video games. Try to find a relationship that won't be shift-crossed. Maybe find a better job and pour on some overtime like a happy little office drone until I drop in the traces fifty years from now. But that's okay, I don't deserve any more.

For now though, it's off to sleep, so I can finish yet another week of work. Who knows, maybe I'll finally be able to start bending SyteLine to my will...

Clevelander Saga. Or: How I Learned to Stop Caring and Love the Beige.