Depression is an oddity for me. Aside from the short-lived acute bouts it's been a subclinical thing that doesn't impair my ability to work or keep up with basic tasks. It's hell for everything else. Can't draw, can't write, and can't roleplay. To some extent I can't really care either, which is both a good thing as it seems to fix my petty neuroses and a bad thing as I go through my days as a passionless robot. Oops.

The job search continues, assisted by my faking of enthusiasm. At least there are a few positive things happening with that, so hopefully I'll be back to not having to worry about red ink and the sense of being damaged goods.

What common ground do I have with my old friends these days, anyway? We all know that there isn't going to be a return to the halcyon days of yore (not that they ever really were), but even I thought that it wouldn't be as stilted and artificial as it turned out to be. There have been a few amusing moments such as being able to forge an unlikely bond with a local over monster suits. I'm not exactly a big fan of their other work, but hey, I can compartmentalize successfully if I really want to. Or my occasional trips up to help someone in the next state over in spite of wanting to burn everything of mine that comes into contact with their place. Go figure.

I want to return to art someday, when I can put the pencil to the page and have the images and concepts from my brain pour forth or sew interesting plushies, or even build suits. For the foreseeable future, that's not happening. Hopefully this isn't permanent.

Remaining Tasks
-Finish Zinogre (install teeth, install tongue, make final neck adjustments)
-Institute Limited Retroactive Continuity Protocol
-Release a few stray sketches that got caught in backlog
-Temporary hiatus

If my sense of timing was better and I wasn't fully burned out, there would be a vaporwave-influenced spaceport terminal drawing as a bookend. The tacky, sunset-gradient coated kitschfest feels appropriate somehow.