I've been on this website for 13 goddamn years?!?

Hey guys, long time no anything.

Yesterday was my dA birthday and wow holy shit 13 years.  Every time I have one of these I'm like "Wow that's hard to believe" but the number keeps going up because that's how time works and you'd think I would learn BUT I'M NOT THAT OBSERVANT.

How have you guys been?  I've been BUSY.  I haven't had time to formally update and say this, but I have a full time job.  I'm teaching 7th grade English.  I love it, it's everything I could have wanted.  The only downside is the school is a little far from where I live, so I lose a lot of free time commuting, which is why I haven't been doing much drawing.  That, and all the grading.  But I'm so happy that it doesn't bother me too much.

I mean I would love to be drawing more, but it's nice to have a job I actually like going to every day.

If you follow me on Twitter (nekosd43) you know that basically the only things I'm capable of talking about right now are work and podcasts.  That is basically my entire existence right now.  Because I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk grading after work, podcasts have been my lifeblood.  Welcome to Nightvale and Serial have always been favorites, but recently I've branched out and tried a slew of other ones.  Alice isn't Dead and Within the Wires are both great, can't wait for season 2 of both.  Limetown was REALLY good, sad that it's so short.  The Black Tapes is interesting, I don't know if I LOVE it but I did listen to the whole thing (waiting on season 3).  SAYER was GREAT, super excited for the newly announced continuation.  And of course I've been binging on My Brother My Brother and Me and The Adventure Zone because they both make me laugh until it hurts (and Adventure Zone sometimes makes me cry).  If you're a podcast person, let me know what you've been listening to!  I'm caught up on everything except MBMBAM so I could use some more suggestions.  I like fiction/long form story podcasts the best.

What else...  Been trying to get back into writing again (but I know I say this all the time).  I run the Creative Writing Club at my school, so it helps to be around a bunch of kids who are just excited to tell stories.  I've got a very open policy when it comes to this club, kids come in and share stories and poems and essays and fan fiction they've been working on.  They've been asking me to bring in stuff too, so that's been inspiration, though lately they only thing I can seem to get out is fan fiction of The Adventure Zone (which hasn't seen the internet yet because I don't have a good place to put it).  I haven't written fanfiction since I was... like 12?  We were still using things like "squick" or "vanilla" to tag stuff, I don't think Squick is a thing anymore.  I don't understand any of the tagging methods kids today are using.  The point is I feel old.  But one of the things I've been trying to stress with the kids is that any writing is good writing as long as you're enjoying yourself, so that's probably why I've suddenly allowed myself to write fanfiction again.  Feels nice, even if I don't end up sharing it.

I've been listening to a lot of The Mountain Goats when I'm not listening to podcasts.  I've got literally a seven hour playlist of The Mountain Goats playing in my car on repeat at all times, and since I'm spending at least an hour and a half a day in my car, that means it gets a lot of listens.  I've got every album of theirs from the past 16 years.  Part of the love I have from them stems from the fact that they sound really... real.  They often have studio albums that include things like voice cracks and sour notes, like you were listening to it live.  And the lyrics are just A+ poetry, I don't get tired of the word pictures they paint.  If you're looking for music that doesn't necessarily always sound clean or polished, but tells a great story, you should check them out. Their most recent album, Beat the Champ, is a whole disc of wrestling themed songs which is just a JOY.

I don't really know what else to talk about!?  This has literally been my entire life.  Things have been good.  I have been good.  Podcasts have been good.  Working is good.

It's just really good you guys.

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My journal features this time are very ORANGE because apparently I haven't been adding things to my faves since Halloween.