busybee fluffy rambles

January

This year started out with health concerns, which ended up setting the stage for the rest of the year.

I started out with an anxiety attack that felt like a heart attack, and while it was just an anxiety attack, it still led to a bunch of “oh by the way” diagnostic concerns which ultimately turned out to be nothing major, heart-wise. But general health issues would continue to affect my entire year.

I also started hyperfixating on:

• upcoming electric vehicles
• optimizing my espresso
• finding a better way to be employed and/or creative (i.e. feeling the full force of burnout)

February

Lots of annoying frustrations with the heart-related diagnosis stuff, and the usual medical gaslighting involved in being overweight.

I made a bunch of music, and started a meditation/hypnosis podcast.

I went through the motions of trying to find a job. Nothing stuck.

And I got solar panels installed on my house.

March

I had a panic attack while driving, which led me to suddenly have way more anxiety every time I drove. I’m still recovering from that.

I continued to feel totally burned out.

I had a good time with the choir.

I upgraded my VR rig.

I had a really good job lead which ended up not panning out.

April

Twitter imploded so my main source of SSO logins stopped working. The world failed to end.

I finally got a heart diagnosis: I am fine. I started on Repatha anyway, because lowering my cholesterol numbers keeps doctors happy.

More burnout. More anxiety. More panic attacks while driving.

I participated in some IndieWeb stuff but my (non-congested) heart wasn’t really in it.

I started to finally build my own body for VRChat.

May

I continued my electric vehicle hyperfocus.

I decided to renew my relationship with music (as a listener).

I had things to show for my VRChat avatar, and started writing up tutorials for others to hopefully make it easier for other people to learn how to do the stuff I had to figure out!

I redid (most of) my website templates. They’re (mostly) much cleaner now. (I still need to touch the comics section though.)

The brief surge of elation from VRChat-related productivity soon gave way to a fibromyalgia flareup that took me a while to recover from.

And, I finally applied for disability benefits. (That process is still ongoing.)

June

I turned 45.

I finally lost my battle with the Washington State Employment Security Department and never saw any of the money I was due from my unemployment that started in 2022.

I attended Furality, which was fun, but not the life-changing event that it was for some.

Lots of gender- and choir-related things.

I visited my family, and got what was probably COVID¹, again, just like the last time. Fuck air travel.

COVID complications sent me briefly to the hospital, where they gaslit me and made no attempts to actually diagnose or treat me.

July

I redoubled my efforts to be an avid consumer of music again. It didn’t really last, but at least I had something to blog about for a while.

I researched one of the uglier truths about electric vehicles. (They’re still a net benefit, by the way, it’s just there’s a few manufacturers and charging providers you should avoid if you care about the ecological impact.)

Chronic pain and chronic anxiety continued to affect my life profoundly.

August

After having a frustrating time recording a small “live” set in my basement I decided it was time to finally organize down there, and that made a huge improvement to my workflow and quality of life and so on. There’s still a bunch of stuff to be done but I’m very glad I did as much as I did.

But my chronic pain hit a new high and I was extremely depressed.

I briefly got more active on Cohost, but that didn’t last. I have very mixed feelings about that place.

I had a blood glucose scare. Turned out my meter was bad and/or there’s a reason test strips have an expiration date on them.

September

I decided to refresh my Mastodon profile a bit and actually did some drawing as part of it.

I also did a deep-dive on some hand-wavey data science to determine the rough age demographics of Mastodon.

I hit a threshold with my concerns over the current capitalist hellscape dystopia.

I got a brief surge of interest in working on comics again, and specifically wanted to work with someone else as the artist, but nothing came of it.

October

More good stuff with the choir!

Bandcamp imploded! Again! So I finally dusted off Bandcrash and made it actually usable for people who aren’t me! I think I’m still the only user! Why do I bother!!!

The first of two major delayed-onset catastrophes with my bathroom remodel from hell happened! This one was at least easy and cheap to fix.

More health-related crap, this time involving dental care as well. Also got a new glasses prescription.

I started roasting my own coffee.

I also discovered that my house’s roof, while supposedly only a bit over 10 years old, was so shoddily-installed that I needed a new one, because it was about to collapse. Wish I’d known this before I’d gotten solar panels installed.

Oh, and I got hired as the staff composer for the VRC Trans Academy. (This is an unpaid volunteer position but hopefully it will lead me to even better things.)

November

I only made a little music, for game jams, instead of my usual Novembeat hyper-output. I needed a break this year, I guess.

My house got a new roof.

I explored with some CDN options for Bandcrash users. While itch.io is still the best option for it, if you just want to host your player somwhere, B2 isn’t too bad.

I hit a pain wall and decided Bandcrash is at a good stopping point for now.

The choir had an amazing show for Trans Day of Remembrance and I was very glad to be a part of it.

I started to ramp up using my 3D printer for making actual art that I could sell for money.

The disability application process continued to be terrible.

December

Having close to a year of solar power gave me a good idea of how good of an investment it was. (It was, indeed, a good investment.)

I started to sell a bunch of stuff I don’t need anymore, especially music gear and coffee grinders (having upgraded to an amazing grinder). I was mostly successful; all the extraneous grinders are gone, at least. I still have music gear available though.

I also simplified my recording studio setup, and it feels good.

I launched my Etsy shop. I haven’t had many sales, but at least now I have somewhere to put all my 3D printing stuff in case someone wants to buy it. My main printer also broke down but I was able to fix it.

The other major delayed-onset bathroom catastrophe happened. It’s been mostly fixed. Most plumbers suck, but I finally found a good one.

I also started working on pottery again, this time focusing on slip casting.

Oh and I finally have a working fireplace in my house, and my living room is finally nicely-arranged and cozy.

Hopes for next year

I want to get busy with music again; my output this year was a lot less than usual, and I have so many backburnered projects. Fortunately between VRC Trans Academy and a couple of other potential composition roles, this might finally become a source of sustainable exposure and income.

I’m also hoping to finally get my disability benefits.

If I could find someone to work with on comics, that’d be amazing.

I also want to do more 3D modeling for VRChat and 3D printing for selling art and functional parts.

Basically I want to find more ways to both express my creativity and be rewarded for it (via both attention and income).

I’d also like to make peace with my chronic pain. It’s clear that it’s not going away and I’m not going to stop being disabled, and I need to be okay with that.