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Local gal shirks responsibility of classwork to continue to fuss with HTML and CSS learning.

I got myself into a bit of a funk I really need to wiggle my way back out of it, I'm just not sure how. I feel like my best bet is to ride whatever wave I'm feeling right now and get important tasks in order (laundry, school assignments). I'm definitely stressing a little bit but I know I've made it work in the past, I just want to stop relying on this fight or flight to make deadlines response I've been leaning on for years. I shudder to think how many grey hairs I could have spared myself.

I do feel like I've just been really lazy versus it being normal executive dysfunction. Although I'm really starting to wonder how much the weather is messing with me. We got confirmation that humidity is basically not being cycled out of the rooms for most of the year I feel abysmal during peak daylight hours in my current room. Plus it wouldn't be the first time I've had a living situation completely sap all my strength because of the weather and formerly untreated health issues. Hopefully, though it's just a matter of sleeping regularly because I can do it for a week and feel phenomenal, then I just eat shit and its back to old habits.

Outside of that I've been listening to more new music and thinking about shows I really love. I started a decent amount of books and some manga re-reads, just getting my brain to stick with it. I also have some RPGs in progress, however I have just not had the energy to boot up any of them.

One show I've been thinking about a lot is Elementary. I just finished re-watching the first season again with a friend of mine and I have a lot of thoughts about it. It's crazy that the show is over a decade old now because it still feels very relevant. Even if certain elements date it, it makes insanely good cultural commentary on many topics in the US. I thought I might tack it on here, but my thoughts on the Season 1 finale really deserve their own post because it's nuts how tight and satisfying that seasons story and direction were.

Well it's almost four in the morning for me so I'm going to go ride the wave like I said and shuffle laundry around and hopefully get some of my stuff re-organized.

While I've definitely been inspired by an artist I stumbled across recently, I just spent my time after class pouring through resources to code websites. I didn't muddle around with stuff as much as I would have liked to as a kid, but between Neopets and the middle school computer classes I think something has stuck. I found one solid website with free tutorials so I should be able to mess around and re-learn what I've forgotten and hopefully get some new skills under my belt with CSS and JavaScript!

With how much I've been marinating on something like this, I'm surprised it took me this long to pull the trigger on learning. That's just how it is when you get pressure cooked by life I guess.

I don't know if it will fix all my problems with how I navigate online, but I'm so sick of the look of sites like carrd and other site builder hosts because there's really just an illusion of expression on these pages. I cannot keep looking at the same five rounded boxes with slightly different gradients that are sold as "professional". As a creative it's just so much more freeing in theory to express yourself in other aspects too. If someone sees what I do, I want to put both my best foot forward and show who I am as a whole person.

I've really been contemplating how to host all my art and other projects for a while, too. I never really could gel with tumblr's side-blog system and maybe if I just posted art directly to my side-blog it would be more functional, but I am also a horrible lazy little creature of habit and pre medication me would get stressed out at having to manage more than one social media page per website. Hell, I still barely remember to cross-post art. I don't even really wanna deal with posting on Twitter or Instagram either because it's just impossible to actually connect with someone on those websites now. As much as I've purged numbers from my brain, I know its a pain in the ass to get any kind of traction unless you post like it's an 80 hour a week job. Now that I'm back in school (and because of some other events that spurred me to go back) I realize how much more valuable it is to have people you can actually talk to about your craft, your hobbies, your passions. Forging lasting connections with other people is far more valuable than like any algorithm jackpot will ever be.

Don't get me wrong, I knew this with friendship, but being on-line with the advent of social media and being unemployed for such a long time did a lot of damage to my relationship with art and I could barely get myself to remember why I loved art, and why I loved drawing for myself. People make it seem like you gotta do all this crazy shit to "make it" as an artist, and I just don't believe that. I won't deny I'm in a slightly more privileged position to be able to go back to school and to go for an art degree, but I did not grow up with the same paths I have open to me now. Meeting people in school, though, it's really shown me why the experience is important. Meeting others, learning whats out there; there's opportunity tucked away in places you might never think. All someone really needs is the courage to reach out, to try.

I started rambling for a bit, but I think starting to set up my own sites is a really good step for me to find my stride in presenting myself, and my work. Especially since i want to share way more than just visual art. It'll be nice to have another place I can use as a blog or a portfolio or whatever I want it to be! I think it will be good for me to take the time to build it from scratch like this, too. I want to slow down and enjoy more of the process behind everything. Be it art ,or webdesign ,or making a game ,or anything: the process is everything!

This is way longer than I thought it would be, but I'm excited to take the time to chew on this more and hopefully I'll get to share a funky little webpage soon!

In other news I wrangled last.fm to let me in on the chance I decide to make character playlists again. My music player on desktop lets me scrobble there so it'll be nice to try since I dropped Spotify like a rock. ^_^