Just a heads up, this is going to be one of my more, if not most, serious journal entries to date, and likely (hopefully) for a very long time.

So, uh. Greetings! As some of you may have noticed, I've been pretty silent lately. Now I know it hasn't been that long (and in fact I did think it would be even longer before finally getting around to this journal), but it has certainly been longer than I would have liked, especially after how well things had been progressing. Uploading the last of my pre-digital art, hosting regular streams, and even starting to take digital commissions—I was on quite a roll for a bit! So what the heck happened?

My father passed away from complications with COVID-19. He had a number of other known issues, so his death was not a surprise, and we weren't particularly close, either, so more than anything the whole situation was just... weird. Disappointing, a real shame, and weird. There was some sadness in the beginning, perhaps less (or oddly, perhaps more?) than one might expect due to the nature of our relationship, but the "business of death," especially nowadays, does not allow for much time to grieve, and unfortunately my father was not the most responsible adult, so he left quite a lot of "business" for us to deal with.

Today is my first full day back in my own house after more than two straight weeks of consecutive 12+ hour days dealing with his affairs, and not only am I TIRED, but the end is still nowhere in sight. However, we are at least at the point where things have begun to settle down and I can live in my own house again and use my own computer (hooray!).

That being the case, it is going to be some time before I can resume my normal activities in a normal capacity. My time each day is limited (and even if it's not, I'm overdue for some self-care), but I'm hoping to post a few things from the last month or so that I had been meaning to upload, and then gradually work my way back up to regular drawing and streaming (and Japanese studying!) as time allows. Beyond that, however, I'm afraid I have no inkling of a more precise timeline. "As soon as I can" is pretty much what I'm running on.

As of this past week, I'm again relatively active on my discord server, in case you still want to hang out and chat or just get some more direct updates on my art status, but rest assured that as soon as proper activity begins again, I'll announce it here (and on all my profiles) as always.

Lastly, I usually like to steer away from these matters in journals and conversation, but given the context of this journal, I'm gonna close out with this: Wear a mask, people.