~Yagi_B.

I'm doing good generally, but I'm in the middle of making a transition in my art career.

I wanna make the move from doing kinky, fetish-y furry art to making sfw content I can sell to a general audience, such as long-form comics and stuff which would look good to a future employer on my portfolio. I think this is something I've said I'd be doing for years now, but eventually I'll get to it lol (maybe next year).

Not completely quitting porn, I have projects/commissions I still need to finish, Patreon rewards to give, and am also still doing the art labels for Huffaromas, but my content moving forward will be more towards a sfw, general portfolio.

I don't wanna be known in my older years as the guy who does gross shit for a living, or who has to hide what he does from people or family. I also don't think my style lends itself toward porn either, I've had it described as better for political cartoons, zines or horror, and I tend to agree with that (I think I'd rather be doing that kind of stuff, too). For a 3rd reason, the most ambitious artistic ideas I have (grand-scale, fantastic narratives) aren't porn or nsfw-related, and each time I accept a furry porn commission for peanuts, I lag myself further behind that ultimate goal. For a 4th reason, the kind of content rn I get commonly paid to draw, is gross kinky stuff that I either don't vibe with, or looks disgusting to the average viewer that I may wanna attract. I've accepted a lot of kinky commissions so far because I thought it would eventually pay my bills, but I miscalculated. c'est la vie

I'm not doing Inktober this month, because I'm too busy lol. Which sucks cuz I haven't skipped them for 4 years now, and I enjoy the challenge, but for reasons I'll explain, it's a lot.

Daily pokemon drawings, daily wips, and weekly comic pages are going to continue from this point on (on my Patreon!). I apologize for the lack of content recently, the combination of doing Skunktember along with other concurrent projects and general life/logistics has bogged me down a bit and I'm glad that it's mostly over, or shaping up to be that way. Drawing traditional might also be a part of that roadblock; people are telling me digital is a much more efficient way of drawing, and if so, that's all the more reason for me to learn it now. I've been meaning to.

After I'm done drawing the Unova pokemon (again, on the Patreon), I'm going to take a break from drawing a pokemon daily so I can free up time for more important projects. What started off as a fun warm-up/discipline exercise has gotten too time-wasting and tedious to handle, and with 5 Gens under my belt, I think I've proven my chops at least somewhat already.

This all sounds like a rant and maybe it is, but I'm not expressing any ill will to anyone. Everything I've been frustrated with or anxious with has been my own miscalculations on things, and with experience, I've been building to correct them. And I'm feeling hopeful for the future

Thank you guys again for supporting my work!

Was gonna type this out on Patreon, but this would reach more people, and Twitter has a dumb character limit. Also because I don't want my last journal to be some weird pretentious rant lol (let's see how this one goes)!

Currently in life I've hit a bit of a crossroads: I've met a fantastic boyfriend, also a furry nerd with ADHD, who has his life pretty much together with a good job, car, prospects for the future, and living by himself, on top of being a great person that I love being around. I'm also getting outside more despite being scared of Covid and recently, Monkeypox, and am learning to just be myself around people and other furry weirdos, which feels fantastic. My self-esteem and confidence is better, too. The problem is, I'm still a bit of a man child. I still don't drive, I haven't gotten myself insurance (almost 26!), I'm not currently in school, I'm still living with parents, and my current "job", the furry art, isn't paying the bills, despite me working full-time on it. And in order to live together with my boyfriend (and to feel better about myself in general), I need to sort most of these things out ^^.

This furry art thing that I've dedicated almost 3 years of my life toward since Covid hit has been fun, rewarding, and great for having built connections, friends, and a small following of fans. But, being self-employed sucks, money-wise. You have to cover your own insurance and pay extra taxes, which I can't afford to do even if I was making 5 times what I am. Not to sound bitter or anything; making it as an artist is supremely difficult, and even most "popular" furry artists on this platform, like Jackaloo, have to work side hustles or jobs. Reading what other furry artists have went through in their daily grind has made it easier for me to reconcile my disappointment.

My current goal in life is to fix the "manchild" problem.

My first and easiest goal would be to get a driver's license, which is what I'm focusing on currently. Once that's out of the way, I'll be doing a combination of 1) job-hunting 2) applying for schools 3) doing lil bits of furry art here and there. I've closed commissions for now because I can't afford to stack up any more of my time, and plan to be closed for maybe a year . However, I'll still be doing Patreon rewards, art labels for huffaromas.com, Skunktember and Bleatober/Inktober sketches this year, and posting stuff to social media and porn channels - Just to keep this job as a "side hobby" while I work on myself in life.

While a lot of art jobs out there require a portfolio (which I have!), most of them prefer a college degree, so I'm going back to school to get one. I sacrificed college temporarily because I thought I could make it as a furry artist, if I spent 100% of my time pursuing it (ADHD brain). This was pretty foolish. 3 years and still not being self-sustaining as an artist has been a clear wake-up call for me. I want a job that covers insurance and pays me more, even if I have to sacrifice making the content I like, at least for a bit. I'm thinking of being either an art teacher or a graphic designer. And drawing gross furry dick on the side lol

I'm extremely grateful for the support you guys have given me! The response to my work and the meeting of new friends while I've been doing furry art has been a wonderful experience, and I don't plan on giving it up, I just need to slow down for a bit. Thank you all, and hope you understand

If you still wanna get art from me, I'll link down below the ways you can! :
(1) https://twitter.com/Yagi_B_OG/statu.....57996246503424 - (Get yourself on a queue, max of 31 people, to be drawn as a skunk)
(2) https://huffaromas.com/collections/ych - (I draw all of the YCH labels from this company here, buying one is essentially buying art from me in addition to getting the product and supporting the company)
(3) https://www.patreon.com/YagiB - (For the last two tiers, I draw patreon rewards!)

Posted a bunch of my more kinky art to e621, about 5 of them got downvoted, 5 were neutral, and several were upvoted positively. The downvotes Would have fucked with my head/emotions about a few years ago, but I've learned not to have it bother me much anymore. I have done so much art for the past couple years, made so much content, that the snowball effect has got me rolling super hard. The constant little improvements I seem to be making in my art, also help. Eventually, my art will reach a point where it is consistently positively upvoted on e621 haha. That is my goal, and I believe it to be quite feasible. Optimism, optimism, optimism. Also, cornering the market.

Also, Richard Nixon is an interesting motherfucker. Apparently he was an antisocial introvert and I can relate heavily to that. I probably shouldn't be president.

12/26/21

A person is not consistent. Their thoughts are THEM, and their thoughts change all the time. A skin cell that clones itself is going to be different by a TINY amount, but still different. Instead of wholly reproducing itself (which the neuron can’t, why radiation poisoning is the worst way to die), the neurons turn into a program/entity all on their own via working together, creating structures by firing themselves on, turning into anything they want out of all the possible combinations of constructions with the sole purpose of following the Main Program: Survive and reproduce (not Categorical Imperative, which applies to intelligent civilization and not life generally). Everything in an organism’s brain (and by extension, the body, the immediate tools of the brain) is used for the Main Program to survive and repdorudce. Consistent moral frameworks and thoughts must be consciously upheld because they will not uphold themselves (even slightly) beyond the malleable and unreliable “program” of empathy which keeps us from killing ourselves. The reason why they can’t be passively or unconsiously upheld? Because following a certain moral framework *may NOT be suitable for survival, it may POSSIBLY go against the Main Program (my hypothesis). The neurons fire all the time in our head, creating many many simulacra, and if we don’t consciously uphold the “information” of our moral framework, the neuron firing simulacra will fail to fire in a way that upholds it, because it is programmed to not inherently value it (by “inherent” value, I also include functions like involuntarily upholding the heart and organs). Even if our moral framework IS consistent in some way and/or applicable beyond our own perception and existence as human beings, we are still “trapped” and affected by our animal bodies carved out by millions of years of evolution that obviously did not need it for the Main Program.

Artificial intelligence is possibly the solution to this “Weakness” of biological limitation, if the “goal” is to have someone or some*thing 100% be morally consistent. Because it’s possible the “programmed” moral framework may lead to the organism’s death, which a computer will not be programmed (in this case) to attempt avoiding. Only true selflessness and lack of self-preservation will make something wholly “good” by most of our standards regarding moral metrics, but we as biological organisms are incapable of meeting that 100% capacity, even if we remove most parts of our brain responsible for betraying that selflessness (a person who feels no fear/has no amygdala, who while incapable of being influenced by normal “emotions”, empathy and self-preservation, will still experience some physiological reactions to stimuli the body perceives as dangerous and will force them to react in avoiding it, betraying anti-self preservation. Removing the ability for this person ^^ to experience these further dangerous stimuli involves removing the blood’s ability to detect C02 emissions, simultaneously making the blood ineffective in it’s other programs of even the most BASIC disease detection, leading to an instant shock and death).

Every millisecond (or maybe even less) we change into a simulacra of ourself. Our neurons are all THERE, but fire in different ways like lights on a Christmas tree or the text scrolls on Wall Street. Everything on there exists, but the incremental, selective firing of certain lights in sequence presents the illusion of animation/movement. That’s how our brains are, and by extension how WE are. We are actually an animation, we are pictures. And every picture is different. It just doesn’t SEEM like that to us because the animation goes so seamlessly and there are millions of pictures in a single moment, all EXTREMELY similar to the next, and little “cuts” in between to discern in our eternal Cerebral Twitch stream going on in our head.

We think we are special because we need ego to survive (an illusion and tool of the Main Program). If an animal had thoughts similar to what we have, they would think they are special too. More special than humans, in fact! They need to think “tribally” and egocentric in order to give them reason to survive, reproduce, and evolve. Their entire culture will, if they don’t already, revolve around THEM and everything THEY do, even if they are stupid little rattlesnakes lounging about doing nothing in the desert for millions of years (as opposed to us playing with toys on Earth, within the grand scale of the universe?). Worship of GOD may seem like an outlier to this, but nothing can be more of an outlier than the Main Program unless it leads to destruction of the species, and worship of GOD is only a self-deluding humbleness, because the GOD is always another member of the worshipper’s species, and another of the tribe, a speaker of the language and a entity that understands them in the specific, emotional way of the species. GOD is another tool of the Main Program. Psychological egoism is another name for it. It is inescapable.

On another random thought, horseshoe theory of the far-left and far-right seems plausible to me, and the more exposure I’ve had to “tankies” and current-day China sympathizers, the more I see their similarities to fascists and far-righters in their support for authoritarianism (and poorly constructed, rhetorically-drowned arguments). In one example, both the far-left and far-right see “liberals” (essentially, middle-of-the-liners who are not extreme or even politically-motivated) as the main enemy of their movement, or they at least present liberals most often in their grievances (as opposed to commonly airing grievance with their supposed-“opposite”-side axis opponents on the other end of the political spectrum, which is more common for folks “leaning” left or right). That the far-left accuse liberals of siding with fascism and far-righters accuse liberals of encouraging communism lead me to believe 1 and/or 2 things:
1) That both are wrong
2) That they are similar if not the same, and can only be distinguished from one another by aesthetic and/or traded-out ideological terminology

COMMISSIONS CURRENTLY ***OPEN*** I open up every few months or so and have a queue

My commission prices and examples: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8716249/

Other ways to get art from me are from YCH's and Patreon Rewards~
My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YagiB (rewards for patrons include commission & YCH discounts, voting rights for polls, high-res art, exclusive art/products, and personalized drawings and access to all my comics for the higher tiers)

My artwork gallery: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/yagib./

If you have any questions or want to contact me, leave me a note! I'm also available on my telegram YagiBadboi

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---COMMISSIONS PAID/WORKING ON:---
Guaco HexxRhey (1-char ink)
SLOT OPEN
SLOT OPEN
SLOT OPEN
SLOT OPEN

COMIC PROJECTS:
ATBFH (At The BF's House)
Xander the Demon

DREAM:
Another RDCworld1 dream, I was in a backyard with them playing a game of some kind, with colorful toys and maybe a bouncy castle was there too. It felt like a childhood memory of playing with friends. Kinda creepy and parasocial, but it wasn’t too in-depth. Maybe I was just one of the kids at the school that got invited to the birthday party lol. One kid there crushed a mentos candy until it looked like a cratered-out hole in the moon, similar to what my kid brother showed me the day before.

THE DAY:
Listened to a whole bunch of Contrapoints in the background while I drew designs for a t-shirt and my daily pokemon make-ups. I was on a caffeine high that lasted a few hours thanks to some green tea (green tea is amazing) and I didn’t eat for about 6-7 waking hours, which is a record for me recently lol and I felt the effects (lack of higher brain function, doing things on autopilot). I enjoyed the day just as much as the previous days, but (as always) I didn’t feel as productive as I wanted to be.

DREAM: Forgot.

THE DAY:
Got a good workout today, but wasn’t very productive when it came to art/work. Went to the grocery store, got 100 bucks worth of stuff (should’ve gotten more in retrospect), and hiked for 30 minutes up the hill to my place with 2 heavy bags, 1 in each hand. I had to stop about 3-4 times to catch my breath on the way, I could feel my grip strength, posture and trapezius really being worked. I was sweating up a storm and when I eventually got back home to put the stuff away, I experienced a great endorphin high. I babysat for a few hours afterwards, and then when it was time to do my art projects it was late afternoon and so I went to work finishing an art label. The label was already sketched out and inked, I just had to fill in, color and shade it (then scan it and everything after), and this took such a long time I remember being disappointed in myself. Took like 5 hours, and by the time I was done it was time to eat dinner and go to bed. Originally, I wanted this day to be the day where I post a weekly t-shirt design for tee-springs or some other related enterprise lol.

I feel bad not talking with more of my friends on telegram/keeping up online, I have like 50 guys on there I used to talk to a lot, that I don’t really anymore. My excuse is that I’m busy, so I can’t find the time to squeeze in a “hey, how are you” now and then, but that’s not really the case. I don’t want to gradually “lose” them. Some of them are people I really respect and I like their talents and personality, and I want to be connected with them (in case I want to do something with them in the future). Part of me, no scratch that, a large part of me does genuinely like being alone and not bothered by anyone, that’s why I don’t hit anyone up is so they don’t hit me up later. It keeps me “safer” and less annoyed. I don’t like feeling obligated to respond to or interact with anyone, unless it’s my best friend or a lover.

Was going to upload all of my "make-up" journals on this day, but I think I underestimated how much thought, effort and time went into making a somewhat readable, concise summary of events, especially those of a dream right after waking up, that the very thought of it spooked me into procrastinating for even longer. Of all of the productive, OCD-like tasks today that I had set out to complete, I settled solely on organizing, time-coding and categorizing my yugioh videos on my gaming channel, which took an hour or so.

DREAM: Forget, but it was vivid

THE DAY:
Didn’t do much today, I finished one label commission that I was happy with, watched political stream vlogs in the background. I tried looking at my discord and telegram logs on this date to see what exactly it was that I did besides draw and eat, and I can’t think of anything lol.
Oh yeah, my 75lb weight came. I went on a run/hike across the neighborhood and got a good workout, and when I came back it was there delivered to me on my doorstep. “Team Lift” was written on it, on this dinky little package, because of how heavy it was. I felt bad for the people who had to manually carry this thing to my doorstep, the good news is that very few would be able to pickpocket it. I’ve been gradually getting stronger for months now, and I couldn’t even do a single bicep curl with it. It was amazing. It didn’t disappoint and I’m glad I got it, I can’t wait until I can get strong enough to use it well. Farmer’s walks are going to be even more challenging.
I remembered a little bit more about what happened today. i was chatting with my friends in telegram about music we liked. I shared some of my mashups of songs, including those of Prince, Pink Floyd and Elo songs mixed with some contemporary furry artists music. It got decent reception, but I acknowledge they were amateur productions made by a guy who didn’t know anything about music lol.
OH YEAH, duh. I film my weekly yugioh upload every Sunday. I only played 3 ranked games, but I won all of them and they were pretty long and challenging. So I was satisfied. Even after playing the “Earth Machine” deck competitively for months straight now, I’m still discovering new things about how it works, what the most optimal plays are etc. which feeds into my manual of gameplay etiquette. I’m to the point where I seriously believe I could place 1rst at locals. But I’m still not ready to invest in the actual trading card game.

DREAM:
I was at an art museum looking at paintings/pictures. One painting was of a woman, half-clothed in drapes, in a colorful garden and the style looked like Van Gogh. Funny enough, it was being painted in progress (but nobody was there painting it) washed aside with paint and being worked on, maybe it was a ghost? Or a digital display? it was weird, but I didn’t question it. My dad was there with me. I think the dream’s prompt for me this time was that I was getting an education through art. I was uninterested in the art piece, and bluntly told my dad I didn’t care about paintings. He scoffed at me. I think this was mirroring my irl connection to my dad, telling me to get a “classical” education in the arts, because he has no idea what Patreon is, or what the digital landscape for artists is like. He wants me to sell my art in an old school gallery and make landscape designs, because that’s the scope of his understanding. The only “old” artist I really like is Salvador Dali.

The next dream, I was in a New York-inspired setting, which was halfway underwater (global warming subconscious anxiety?) I saw a panshot of the city, before moving on to the next narrative dream, or stage of the dream. Brooklyn 99 is a comedy show I don’t care much for, but my roommate loves it. One character in the show stuck out to me, at least in terms of appearance, and her name was Rosa. Rosa was in the dream, and I can’t tell if I was in her perspective or not. Every time something embarrassing or incriminating happened to her, the thing appeared to magically reverse or step back in time, rewriting reality so that nobody remembered it. I woke up around this time and thought it was an interesting superpower. Reality manipulation triggered specifically through the stress of being “found out”, more powerful in the hands of an introvert, especially a queer introvert. Kind of like “Bites the Dust” from JoJo pt.4.

THE DAY:
When I was walking around shirtless outside in my backyard with my breakfast and coffee in hand (actually very stimulating and good for you imo, with sun shining down on you for a good 30-50 minutes), I was brainstorming a way to grade how “good” movies are. On a scale from 0 to 100, taken almost solely from the grading of the “fresh” counter from Rotten Tomatoes, but with some differences (and equally as arbitrary).
0 - 25: Terribly flawed movies (some “professional” production movies are on this level due to banality or total failing of concept or mix of other factors, student films, home movies, shitposts, etc.)
25 - 50: Mediocrity (forgettable, banal but not offensively bad, about 30% of productions out there)
50 - 60: Shows promise (Some parts are “memorable” or make it into the public consciousness, shows signs of a director finding his footing, accidental competent productions)
60 - 70: Solid movies (most movies you know of are at this level or above, anything less would be considered low quality and less likely to be a big, professional production released in theaters. As much as Hollywood and Marvel Movies are flawed and tiresome, you must still remember how easy it is to make a bad, mediocre production in comparison, and all of the work that is required to make something on the adequate threshold of “watchable” or passively entertaining. While I would put few marvel movies higher than 70 or 80, altogether, if they are treated as the most expensive long-running TV show ever made, collectively I would put it in this category.)
70 - 80: Good movies
80 - 90: Very good movies, “classics”
90 - 100: Outstanding movies (Very few)
No movie can be a 100 imo, in fact I wouldn’t even put a movie about 95, because it’s possible a movie comes out in the future (which is a long time) that revolutionizes everything, or people retroactively discover a movie to be considered better than Citizen Kane/Vertigo, and that might be a 96 or something.

8/14/21 - 8/17/21 continues the “slump” of 8/10/21 - 8/13/21 lol, when I wrote this thing ^^ I was convinced I was going to get over it and write some more stuff down. Naw. Time goes by really, Really fast. I spent a lot of time finishing labels for a furry business/project, and dedicated no other time to anything else. I was technically productive, but ‘cmon, I barely did anything. I promised myself I was going to do more and I still haven’t done it. I’m writing this 8/18/21 and I’m getting another positive feeling that I’m going to finally “do it”. Let’s see. And by “do it”, I don’t mean “everything”. Just…putting aside time to work on youtube projects and investing. I’m busy, but not too busy.
Things are generally going along very well (nothing dramatic has fucked me off my schedule, I’m very grateful and happy), I just want to be set for the future and do extra work in advance.

Watching political stuff while I drew, found out Dubai was basically a ghost town (essentially) which was spooky af.

DREAM: Forget. I keep saying “forget” instead of “no dreams” because it’s possible I AM having dreams, but I just don’t remember them when I wake up.

THE DAY:
I am in a good mood the past couple of days despite being in somewhat of a “slump” with motivation on creative projects, because I’ve been talking to my best friend more frequently. He makes me really happy and I can’t wait to see him again. He is getting into drawing and fitness as well, which are some of my two favorite things ;3 I am very proud of him and impressed with how he is doing in life, and he is proud/impressed with me for my ability to “follow through” on projects and create a lot of art, which I only partially agree. We both really like pokemon, our collective childhood nostalgia, and we talked about that and anime for a while.

Today I had one guy into pozzing/bugchasing fetish message me on telegram, asking me if I actually did all the gross stuff I do in the artworks I draw, which I said no. He got into some really disgusting stuff with rotten eggs and everything and it grossed me the fuck out, I was too polite to tell him to stop and logged off, but god that made an impression on me. I don’t want to meet a lot of my fans lol

I moved a lot of furniture for some old guy, I wanted to bite off more than I could chew by carrying an entire couch by myself, but I decided not to because I could feel the stress of my wrists and back. Won’t live forever if you try being a hero.

Finished one label commission for a guy, one of many in the days to come. Felt like I got the ball rolling on that, so, yeah.

DREAM: Forget.

THE DAY:
I tried listening to investing and stock market-advice youtube videos while I drew, but I realized that it was counterintuitive because in order to fully take in the information in the videos, I had to supply my full attention. This meant: Not spending time working on the art or drawing. Other videos that I listen to in the background while I draw don’t take up as much brain power and so I can multitask on those. Not sure whether I should train myself to multitask specifically on these issues, or just put aside more time (like 1 or 2 hours a day) to focus specifically on learning investing advice. After several weeks now of procrastinating because ‘I have a lot of art/babysitting/moving to do’, I think I’m going to follow this advice from now on.

I was so fucking tired for a good part of today, I think my central nervous system was being overworked from the intense workouts I was doing 8/10/21 and 8/11/21. I decided to take it easy and just do normal brisk walks every couple hours or so. And in the following days, I think it helped. My endorphins from the previous days were keeping me feeling good and I believe I got the rest I needed. In 2 days I’ll go back to doing a sort-of intense workout. I’ve been slacking on the Onepunchman workout (100 pushups, 100 sit-ups(3 100-second bridges), 100 squats and 10km cardio, for 2 reasons (1) laziness (2) probably understandable, but fatigue. I think it would be possible to do it every 2 or 3 days or so, but I’m not fit enough where doing this daily would be good for my body in the long run.

A good Muhammad Ali quote (or so they say, quotes get mixed up/misattributed a lot, but it doesn’t change the meaning): “I don’t count my sit-ups. I only count when it starts hurting because those are the only ones that count”. I haven’t felt really sore in my muscles in months now, I think this means that I’ve been taking it too easy in my workouts (even though I HAVE felt tired from them, this just probably means I’m not eating enough) This would explain why I haven’t improved my build in a couple months, I think I peaked around May/June. I need to step it up a notch, that’s partially the reason I bought a 75lb dumbbell on amazon. It’s twice as heavy as my current heaviest weight, so it might be too much, but I really want to see if I can do it/make use out of it.

Today I tried doing a comic page of my non-porn “serious” comic, (M.A.M.A.) Mixed Anthro Martial Arts, but a single day to work on the starting day of a comic this ambitious, probably wasn’t going to cut it. I drew one good panel before stopping and focusing on other art projects/commissions. That’s what I get *also for not doing sketchwork the day before it’s “due”. I do my yugioh and comic projects days before I have to finalize them, which makes them possible and consistent. Anyway, for the serious comic idea, I thought in my mind the whole week “TUESDAY is Yugioh day, WEDNESDAY is gay furry comic day, and THURSDAY (the new weekly deadline) would be serious comic day”. I thought in my head the whole week, prepping for how I was going to start the story of the damn thing. Going into detail on this would take a whole essay, regarding the story, which I won’t go into yet (especially since I’m still figuring out how I want the story to go, starting the comic’s introduction and fleshing it out by the skin of my teeth ala Toriyama with the plot of Dragon Ball, if that isn’t an arrogant-enough example of comparison, than with weekly Shonen-mangaka in general).

DREAM: Forget.

THE DAY:
On one of my “daily” walks/hikes (which is turning to 5/7 days a week, now that I’m realizing how strenuous the mountainous terrain is in my new neighborhood), I went to safeway downtown and bought a lot of groceries, farmer’s walking all of them in both hands, walking back to my neighborhood under the hot sun, which took 20-30 minutes and made me sweat like a damn pig. It was awesome, but doing this, in addition to my intense workout yesterday, was probably too much for my body to handle all at once. I was a little overconfident in my abilities.
Before I went to bed, I looked up “strongest people in the world” and learned about Paul Anderson and other strongmen. Not much to say here lol
Talking to my friend more recently. I finished, scanned and uploaded my weekly page of a comic based on our relationship.

DREAM: I had a very vivid one, but I forgot what it was (what they were), disappointingly enough.

THE DAY:
The past couple of days 8/10/21 - 8/13/21 I was in a “slump”: I haven’t been doing my journals on time lol, and generally feel less productive or motivated. I am still feeling good though. I look forward to my days in that I always receive a coffee and adderall high in the morning, and endorphins from the workouts I do to stay fit and improve self-esteem. My discipline is still not strong enough to do everything I set out to do, and 1 or 2 little inconveniences can ruin my motivation for accomplishing certain things in the schedule. I suck that way, but I’m hoping to improve little by little (until I die).

My old computer is still kicking, surprisingly enough. It has a few gigabytes left of data, which, if I’m going to keep scanning high-res jpeg’s/pdf’s of my art to it, I’m going to need to make some new room. This computer is more than 8 years old now and sometimes it worries me by not charging all the way, or constantly saying “CONDITION: REPLACE NOW” (which it has been saying for the past few months now). I have recent backups of it, and a new computer that I’ve been saving up for, that I can use instead, but I still find myself using the old one, just because I’m more used to it I guess.

I really pushed myself today with a workout. I was feeling shitty and out of it for a large part of today, so I needed a really strong, powerful exercise. I was going to get myself food cuz I was hungry, but the roommates wanted to make dinner so I had to wait for an hour starving (to be polite) while they did other stuff first. I was pissed off and had negative thoughts for a bit so I just walked around outside, wanting food. I walked around outside so much I got some endorphins from the work I was putting in, so I recognized this and tried doing some more. I ran up a flight of stairs as fast as I could several times, I warmup for me since ascending staircases are easy in comparison, getting some cardio in. While my heart-rate was up, I took my 40lb weight from my room, and went up and down the same flight of stairs for 15-20 minutes with a 40 pound weight in hand (one hand at a time, not both at the same time) while I kept my posture straight. It was hard and really worked my back muscles, grip strength, shoulders and traps. I had to drop the weight at some point (with both hands) right before I finished my predetermined path/walk, because my grip just couldn’t take the weight anymore. Grip/hand strength is an important factor for continued quality of life in old age, so I was pleased with this. While I was doing 15-20 minutes with the Other weight in hand, I got so many endorphins and “good” feelings of pain that I started perpetually smiling like the Joker, maybe as an adverse response to the exercise? I felt great in the days following so I doubt I was damaging myself.

After I was done with the extensive farmer’s walk, I got myself into a warrior/viking’s mindset and chugged a few teaspoonfuls of creatine, so I could do some explosive reps with pushups and bicep curls. I did 100 pushups in sets of 10-15-10 and squats in reps of 25x4. I was still delirious and Joker-smiling from the endorphins. At this point I completely forgot that I was grumpy and hungry. I knew I needed to have protein FAST if I wanted to capitalize off of these gains I was planting in the soil of my body. I went into the kitchen when nobody was looking and ate 3 whole chicken breasts with pasta sauce. Fuck anyone who cared, I was going to get what my body needed. I was grunting like a caveman, wilding, as I congratulated myself on the effort after having done an extensive full body workout. I ended up doing the onepunchman workout again today, but I recognized it was something I couldn’t do every day if I wanted my body to rest and grow properly. Today was the exception since it was clear I needed it. The roommates were being neurotic and whiny about seating arrangements n shit, I just ate more protein, thankfully there was enough, then afterwards we saw Bridge of the River Kwai. When the movie ended it was 1:00 and I needed to go to bed, but I spent the next hour looking up the history/discography of the one of the actors, Sessue Hayakawa, an actor in the movie who interested me.

DREAM:
Two ones I remember. The first one I woke up at 6:00, and the other I woke up at 7:30. In the 6:00 dream, I was in a spooky-ass graveyard with one of my friends (which one? Idk, the dream needed me to have a companion), and we were exploring around in that. Retroactively, it looked like a scene in a Scooby Doo video game I played on gamecube as a kid. I only got nightmare vibes in the dream when we ventured deep into a part of the graveyard, where my friend was in front of a tomb shaped like a giant skull, but my instincts saved me. I had the image in my head that the giant skull was going to come alive and yell “AHAHAHA” or something and kill us. So before that happened, I imitated the skull’s “AHAHAHA” and scared the fuck out of my friend before he could “activate” it, and we went back to the “lobby” center of the graveyard.

The 7:30 dream was about me, my grandma and my mom. It started with me going on an airport (I think I was already traveling around the country). In this airport, there were 2 planes: One for putting your luggage, one for putting the passengers. I put my luggage and all my possessions on the luggage plane, and then had to go back for something. My grandma was picking me up from the airport (which didn’t make sense at this point) and needed to bring me back in a few hours or I would miss my flight and also permanently be separated from my belongings. We went to grandma’s house for a bit, and/or drove around town at night, and then I started stressing because I wasn’t going to make it to my flight. I just stood there in the car being anxious while this was happening. I don’t know what happened later, but I was back at grandma’s house and my mom was there on the couch with me (I must’ve just surrendered to my condition). She brought out a syringe filled with video game money (the green text that floats upward then disappears were eminating from it) and wanted to inject me with it to track me or do something. I got scared, said no, then ran away. I was running through an old neighborhood filled with dead grass as flat as a pancake, and I was crawling on my knees like a wild animal trying to get away from my syringe-crazy mom. Eventually I was caught by the police, with my mom in the shotgun seat; the dream prompted me to believe that my mom convinced the police that I was a dangerous, mentally-ill crazy person that needed to be arrested and hospitalized, and so for the final moments of the dream, I was in front of the police car with my hands above my heads, surrendering and crying and trying to convince the policewoman (a black woman) that I wasn’t crazy and that I was being framed by my mom. I don’t think I succeeded when I woke up. Retrospectively, what was I trying to resist?

As I get older, I get better at recognizing the signs of future “nightmares” and preventing them while I’m in the dream, but in terms of realizing that I’m in the dream? I don’t think I get much better at that, I’m still pretty submersed. Most of my dreams tend to be scary or negative too, lol. Without giving me any strong emotional reactions like extreme fright or sadness (crying waking up) like I tended to get when I was a kid.


THE DAY:
Today struck me as the day that I had been slacking in my duties. It was a third of the way through the month, and I realized I hadn’t been as productive as I originally intended to be (with appointments, researching, art projects (2 comics), overdue commissions, youtube channel, logistical things etc.). I felt guilty over this and tried using this anxiety to motivate myself into getting good, but then after a good run in the neighborhood, I was so tired that I just sat down on the stairs and drank me a non-alcoholic beer to cool down for a bit. It felt good. Sundays (yesterday) are usually the days where I film my weekly yugioh video, which gives me enough time to edit and post them on Tuesday, but I was already a day behind on that, and it was late at night, so my procrastination led me to rush a job and stay up to 2:00 in the morning. Additionally, for my weekly Wednesday comic, I haven’t drawn a single new page in over a month now, I’ve just been doing coloring and finishing touches on the drafts I’ve already drawn months ago, going through my buffer like crazy. I only have 2 pages left until I’m forced to actually draw some more comic pages for the weekly upload. I’m still on top of my journals and the pokemon daily drawings, but I haven’t done anything about my ventures into investing, print media, and YouTubing (not really). Also I want to do another weekly comic in addition to my current one, this one being in black and white. After doing a lot of commission work, I think I realize I’m not good with color. Color (colour if you’re British) doesn’t attract me as much as other artists I guess, I don’t enjoy using it unless it’s pure, bloody red or pink. And plus, black and white takes less amount of time. ALSO, all the comics I grew up enjoying were in black and white. Just a spiel. I got a refill on my medication and now I need to make an appointment at the DMV. Feeling good, generally.

I enjoy being an adult when the pressures aren’t too high. Looked at myself in the mirror of a zoom call and I could see that I’ve aged significantly, even though I’m 24. I was a little worried for my health but not really. I think *looking old is cool. I’m 100% fine looking like an old man as long as I can function like an average adult.

As I was working on art, I listened to Contrapoints “Envy” video essay in the background. Like most of her works, it was profound, very well researched and presented, and continually engaging with little bouts of humor tucked between the cracks. The concept of envy v. jealousy struck a chord with me because I’m a pretty jealous/envious person. I was especially envious of other gay furries when I discovered my sexuality and personality, and found myself laughing uncontrollably at cringe complications of other autistic losers being weird. It inoculated myself away from what I truly was. The same reason I was into Chris-Chan for a bit. I had no friends, no boyfriend, no car, no job, and I was drawing furry porn to myself in my own autistic chamber (when I wasn’t isolating myself at school) wondering what was wrong with me. I was extremely similar to many of the people I laughed at, even my artwork at the time looked Sonichu-esque, but my ego couldn’t allow me to relate to the weird autistics. I felt a combination of hatred and admiration toward Fredryk Phox, the first person who showed me it was possible to be a “cool” gay furry. I had to walk out of a furry convention one time because I was convinced I was going to go crazy and physically attack one of the musical artists playing there. I still have vestiges of these feelings, but I have enough self-respect and confidence now where I’m not motivated to act on these feelings of insecurity. The more I feel like I’ve grown “on the level” of the people I admire, instead of mentally distancing myself from them as a coping mechanism, the less I feel like committing acts of violence or pettiness toward them to make myself feel better.

Also, while I was waiting for my video to upload to youtube (takes a few hours due to the length of them), I researched Hisashi Ouchi, the most radioactive man in the world. His story and his death morbidly fascinated the fuck out of me, the way he died was so terrible and yet so…I don’t want to say beautiful. I’m probably a sick fuck and a sadist, but I doubt that: I wish he didn’t suffer the way he did, the man should’ve been euthanized. But the idea of a body degrading and crumbling apart to nothing because their DNA and chromosomes were removed is fascinating, like he only had 1 “guy” of him left, no further cell replications (the reason we continue living is because through cellular replication, we constantly clone and “replace” ourselves), he was living on borrowed time. Doctors had to constantly give him skin grafts, blood transfusions, respirators, and special forms of bandages and chairs to sleep on, because he just had no cells/dna left. And yet he “survived” for 83 days. Without medical assistance (and a breakthrough stem-cell treatment that kept him alive for a little bit) he probably would’ve died in a week.

DREAM:
One of my favorite youtube channels, RDCworld1, appeared as villains in this. I was walking along the street and was under the impression I was going to a friend’s house to chill and/or party. When I arrived there, there was immediate tension. Some guys there definitely wanted to fight or something, Mark definitely did, I forgot who else (Desmond was on the side looking at me suspicious, I must've done something like stole something). I don’t know why I was fighting (more like arguing, it didn’t get physical yet) but I was defending myself on top of a balcony and climbing on the sides of a house to get away from them. Next, I think 2 guys were trying to shoot me in the alleyway and/or the balcony (in a dream, it can be the same place instantly), I grabbed both of their guns right in front of them (couldn’t take them away) and turned the bullet chambers away from me, confident I could strong-arm them. They seemed evil and nonchalant, I was pissed off that they had no emotion when they tried to kill me. One was a fat ass dude like Huel from Breaking Bad. I don’t know what prompted this dream. I felt like danger and physical confrontation was about. I felt bad retrospectively because all the "bad" guys in the dream were black and I wonder if there was some hidden racial animus I had. I hope it's just because I tend to fight or be suspicious of everyone in dreams regardless, even my own white-ass family.

DAY:
Today I finally started the “Onepunchman” workout. I didn’t like the idea of doing 10km of running because it would be bad for your joints (especially every day), so I compromised by saying 10km via *Biking. Sit-ups are not bad, but bridges are better, so I decided to do 3 variations of bridges for 100 seconds each (front, side left, and side right) for a core workout. 100 pushups I could do in reps of 15-10-15 each, and squats I could do in 4 reps of 25. I’ll see tomorrow if it makes me too sore to continue or not. To prevent central nervous system exhaustion, I’ll give myself every Sunday to rest. My back and knees are worrying me, so I’m looking up ways to stretch and message them.

I’m also way less horny since I took a break from furry social media. I like not having to masturbate all the time or getting the urge to draw furry porn ideas that end up wasting half my day sometimes. When I log back on to telegram, I feel like I’m in a whole different world. I think my “brand” (brand being my goat sona and art) is based almost entirely off sexuality, and so I’ve attracted and been surrounded by similarly horny people. With my “detoxing” from a lot of social media and furry shit, I don’t have a lot to talk about with the people I usually interact with, beyond pleasantries and how they’re situated in life. But I don’t think this is sad, I prefer it. My only anxiety is that I’ll be neglecting them, which I don’t mean to do. Many of the people who I think are very intelligent are intimidating for me to interact with because I see everything they say/do as an opportunity to prove myself or convince them I’m on their level. With “dumb” people (attributing mainly lack of social intelligence), I’m of course, bored with the interaction. I get along with people, at least online, who are “average” like me, with enough intelligence to stimulate me but also not intimidate.

I worked a little more on the commissions I still have left. I’ve decided to take a break from them because I want to do other things with my life, without being indebted furry porn to people. Logistically, atm, the model doesn’t make sense. For intricate, hard-effort pieces, I only get about 60-90$, and they take me 2-3 days to finish. Assuming I do these every day (I don’t), I would get less than 100 per day, 500-700 per week, 2,000-2,800 per month, and 24,000-32,600 per year (less with taxes). At the *Very best hypothetical, which is slightly less $ than a lot of 9-5 jobs around me, taking into account the amount of work I do (I’m working on the art every day). It’s something I like, but it’s exhausting, lacks health insurance, and it’s not feasible (although I’m hoping a Roth IRA will be roughly as useful as a 401k in the future, assuming I continue this path). I’m not even scratching the surface with 10,000 a year with art. YET. Commission work might not be it, but long-running forms of media like comics might do it through a collective interest in build-up narrative, In addition to patreon rewards and maybe some YCH’s. I’m going to up my prices for commissions, too, so even though they’re open, I’ll be compensated equivalent to the work. It’ll discourage people from commissioning more, but that might also be a good thing (gives me time to work on other projects, which I can afford to do at this time). The people who DO commission me when my prices are raised significantly will probably be superfans of my work, which will give me more a sense of my fanbase. Outlets for less-involved support and interaction will be mainly on Patreon. That’s the theory anyway. I want to end the spiel by saying how thankful I am to be in this position, professionally and just in my life in general. Thank you everyone that has supported me. Things could always be better, but that’s obvious and redundant, plus I acknowledge I have things much better than a lot of people in some ways, and I continue seeing opportunities for a bright future.

DREAM: Forget.

DAY:
I was hired by my roommate’s ex to do some moving for her lol, she wanted a whole patio and furniture located somewhere else in the backyard. It was a good excuse to lift weights via furniture (dynamically, better for muscle strength) and exercise underneath the hot sun. I surprised some people with how much I could carry, which felt good, but they told me to watch out and not wreck my back. I probably rely too much on my core and back muscles to lift shit, I’m probably going to have back problems and arthritis in my old age (if I get there, fingers crossed). I also (for free) took care of a hornets nest in their backyard, it was small, I just put gloves on, got wasp repellent/killer from the shed, doused those fuckers in poison, and then fled inside the house. Only a few wasps flew out, I think I got those suckers. For the rest of the day, I wanted to finally get educated on finance and buying stocks with my WeBull account. I learned some decent stuff on the fundamentals of stock trading before my adhd-ass got distracted and started looking up semi-unrelated shit on wikipedia, until I was 56 tabs in to some topic that was far removed from my original intention. It didn’t help that I drank 2 green tea bottles (good, healthy shit) and was hyper focused on something that I didn’t originally set out to do, and so I learned about a bunch of stuff on wikipedia for 5-6 hours straight, including how to solve puzzle games, hard sci-fi world building, quasars, futurists and technology, fun-fact lists for orders of magnitude in mathematics, Bernie Madoff, the history of the Mongol empire and ancient Japan, the teachings of Miyamoto Musashi, until it got too late to stay up without getting sleepy and I collapsed in bed. I was a little nervous to get into finalizing my investment account, so I procrastinated. Kinda like how I do these journals. Also got to talk to my friend again today, I really enjoyed that.

DREAM:
I was in a school and I was talking to Jimmy Carter’s wife, who in retrospect looked just like Jimmy Carter but a woman (kinda like Queen Elizabeth). His actual wife looked nothing like him, so I knew my brain was making this up. I don’t know what are why we were talking about, and why my brain chose the Carter’s for whatever reason. Eventually Jimmy himself showed up in the classroom where me and Ms. Carter were talking, I was respectful and bowed my head saying “hello” or something. He didn’t do much of anything, checking up on the wife, then I guess he was busy and promptly walked out of the room. I think me and Mrs. Carter were talking about some sort of political agenda, but the vibe was that we were thinking of doing something good. There were other dreams that night but I forget them now, I was moving in-and-out of sleep. Didn’t drink an alcoholic beer this night (even though I still had some to spare, and remembered they were available) because…I didn’t feel like it, I guess. I still had a dream.

DAY:
In the morning (waking up later than I usually do, I need to get my schedule straight before I fall into a slump again) I got out my yugioh deckboxes to see if I could have fun teaching the game to a kid I was babysitting. I didn’t expect them to get it right away so I let them get away with breaking some rules, and lost a few times on purpose to get them intrigued, but I didn’t make it too easy on them. They were a good enough sport when they realized they lost one time. I think chess is a better game to teach kids though. Rest of the day I did some art, finished some commissions/projects, then decided to take a physical break after a few hours of sitting at a desk. I ran so fucking hard in the neighborhood I was tired the rest of the day (6-5 hours or so). I saw some tall trees in the distance miles away and told myself I was going to go run over there and navigate the neighborhood like a maze. I enjoyed the hell out of the endorphins I got from 2 hours of intermittent hiking and/or running. While I was on the run/hike, I came up with the idea of doing the “Onepunchman” workout, which was 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and 10km every single day, as an extra way of staying motivated and productive. I ended up not doing it this day and disappointed myself. I continued talking with my best friend tho, which I enjoyed and he made me happy.

DREAM: Forget.

DAY:
I think this marks a *month since I've been doing the journal thing. Time flies haha

Things are going pretty well. My diet and fitness regimen has proven to be pretty beneficial for my mood (and body, which feeds into the mind), my environment (for the moment) is low stress, partly attributed due to the diet and exercise, and I feel confident in my future. I’m still slogging behind on some things I mean to accomplish, but I feel more confident than ever of being able to accomplish them. I’ve been thinking of ways to increase my income, including a youtube channel, selling my own art on stuff like teesprings.com for shirts and wear, a podcast etc. I really enjoy making content like art, comics, videos etc. if I can make a living being self-employed and/or a content creator, that would be a dream come true for me. I’ll need to walk the tightrope between being a sellout and being genuine, because making money IS a goal of mine. I got into art because I enjoyed it primarily, but I also treat it as a business. Commission work is fine and all, but it doesn’t pay the bills. At least not with what I’m charging. The only way I can make a living with art and not have to subsist on a 9 to 5 to pay rent, is to be (1) consistent with art output and (2) growing a compounded following through getting lucky with a post or 2, and/or (3) making income streams.

I want to make media reviews/video essays, do potential yugioh and/or traditional art streams, and get more into investing. Just a lot of stuff. And learn more about real estate. All these venues may fail, but I don't doubt myself too much. Reason I'm closed for commissions rn is mostly because doing them takes up a lot of my time and in the long run, don't pay enough, as much as I enjoy doing them.

DREAM: Forget.

DAY:
The day was more stressful than others, but *Only because I forgot to get up, walk around, and take a break from my work at some point. Staying in a chair for hours on end is not good for anyone, and it made me cranky. The neighbors were having a party and playing music outdoors, the same damn music they play over and over again lol, and I had a hissy fit. Then I ate some dinner and realized “what the fuck was I getting angry about?” I struggled to make a good bowser picture for “BOWSER DAY”, which I think would’ve helped me get followers if I did a good enough picture, but I half-assed it and quit due to time regulations and frustration. Ah well, next time!

I’ve been talking to my best friend again on discord, which has made me really happy. They’ve been going through a rough time but I’m glad they reached out to me again, and I’ll be hanging out with them soon. We’re both getting into fitness and health and all that. Going to be playing tennis, swim, hiking, and doing a bunch of cool stuff.

DREAM:
I dreamt about my dog, but I was half asleep and don’t remember much about it.

DAY:
I have many things to be thankful for in my life. My new routine of slightly-increased physical activity, and emphasis on physical fitness (aerobic) over physical appearance (muscle training) is better for my health and produces less demand of mental stress on myself and my hypochondria. Nowadays, the litmus test for how well I’m doing in aerobic, life-extending fitness (with some weight training thrown in there for good measure) is based on how good and energetic I feel as a result of endorphins, as opposed to how “good” and big I LOOK with the muscle training, which, while also a good indicator of health, isn’t the ideal standard to measure how healthy I am. I successfully did 50 pushups for the past 2 days (in reps of 15, 15, 10, 10 so my triceps wouldn’t get sore). Tennis is the best sport to be played for longevity, and grip/hand strength is the most important factor for ensuring a safe, independent life in old age. The last part is really interesting to me, since I also heard/read that grip strength (from the Bioneer) can bolster the strength of your other muscles slightly, if used in tandem with tasks like weightlifting. In old age, when your strength greatly diminishes, having reasonably strong hands to grab and carry things is super important. If you can’t have grab/carry of use your hands for anything (well), you’re fucked. So I’mma try and make farmer’s walks a daily part of my workout again, along with seeing if I can get those grip strength machines. I don’t want to buy anything off of amazon if I can help it cuz I’m trying my best to boycott gigantic companies, but I’m not 99% stubborn.

What am I thankful for? Sometimes I feel like I am given so many things and so many opportunities for doing “good” in life, that I must pray to something or someone in gratitude. But I don’t believe in the monotheistic gods of religion. It is possible they exist, but I attribute them, most generously, to a misinterpretation of a TRUE god or entity responsible for the creation of the universe. My god is arbitrary chaos. Throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, just for its own sake. Uncaring but also not malicious. Just being. Life itself was one of the things that this god struck against the wall, and that sticked. And when life emerged from the wall and looked around itself, it saw a “beautiful” canvas.

DREAM:
Sleep was great, I was so physically tired from my 4-hour walk/run across the bay last night, that I slept 10 hours. On top of the melatonin, glycine (which I took a little less of this time, was overdoing it previously) beer I drank before going to sleep, and the low-stress environment, I slept very well and had a bunch of vivid dreams I remember.
Well, some. I actually forgot one in the process of writing this. In one of the dreams, I was at an old house, some country-side, 1-story building with cicadas buzzing in the humid trees outside (it was a Red State), and I was staying there, visiting with fam, taking sole inspiration from my recent trip. I set up my room at the back at the house, which had no windows. There was a bunch of art supplies, like paintings and stuff, stuff I didn’t use lol. I can’t tell if they were mine, or just put there by the dream as decoration. I think we were moving somewhere. The dream prompted me to put my parents in the roles of 2 actors who were playing birds? In a studio, they were either dressed as, or voice-acting 2 CGI birds whose job it was to carry a package over a stormy ocean. This was apart of some larger plot in the dream that I had forget, some big drama conspiracy. At first I thought them traveling over the ocean was a “test-run” for some special effect they were doing in a movie, but the stormy waves of the ocean actually hit them a few times, threatening to crash on them and drown them, and then they took the situation serious. I think they succeeded. In another dream, I was half-asleep and imagined there was a marble pillar right outside my window. I dreamt I was in a structure/house much larger/more expensive than the one I was currently living in, and people were doing construction on it. I felt like I was a member of an elite family, and the construction workers were resentful of me. I pulled my hand up toward the giant slab on marble in the sky, calling out a name that began with the letter “M” (Mike?) that I believe was my name in the dream, and then the dream ended.
When I woke up, still half-asleep, I remembered a new yugioh archetype called Flundereeze, a bunch of cute birds that reminded me of the CGI bird dream, and I made a dumb jingle for them on the spot.
Flundereeze
They Like To Dance
They Normal Summon
All Over Your Pants
Flundereeze

THE DAY:
Yesterday, I promised myself I would get up early, go to the store to get avocados, and do 50 pushups, but I barely was able to get up and go eat breakfast by 12:00 instead. I felt good from the workout yesterday but I could not concentrate on work to save my life for the first half of today. Even with medication, writing these journals consistently also is a pain in the ass. There’s always so many details I have in my head of getting down, that I’m afraid I won’t do the descriptions justice and/or get them all down successfully, or I tell myself “what’s the point?” If I really wanted, I could expend the effort to make each of these journals a “great” work in writing, but I don’t have the fucking time. Anxiety builds up. So to keep my promise to myself of being consistent with these, but also not to pressure myself too much with anxiety, I’m just going to do my medium effort. Enough to get the gist down so I can remember later when looking back at these.

I had a slow start today but I ended up completing my journals, drew a pretty decent pokemon daily drawing that I’m proud of, and got some work done. I got a good workout by running up a mountainous terrain for roughly an hour, which got me out of a grumpy fog I was in. I need to swim more. I haven’t been lifting weights lately. I wonder if I care more about maintaining a healthy, aerobic body, or maintaining a muscular one at the cost of some potential years of my lifespan (strength and weight-training doesn’t increase your heart rate as much as aerobic workouts). Grappler Baki is a great inspiration to me, but idk. Getting real buff also means I need to consume more food and calories, which is already asking a lot for my adhd ass in scheduling shit (groceries, meal times), also I dig into my budget with those demands. Swimming is a full body workout and increases cardio/heart-rate without putting harm on your joints (unlike running, which is something I do a lot of, to the point it hurts my knees), so it’s actually pretty ideal. And I’m pretty sure I can get good, toned muscle just by doing that and some calisthenics regularly (50 pushups every day along with squats and bridges, among others). Oh, and I still need to claim those 2 “free stocks” from Webull before it’s too late.

DREAM:
New month. Like the start of all new months, I feel hopeful and on the right track, so clearly my expectations delude me a bit. Still, good to have that feeling. And gosh darn it, I forget exactly what my dream was about. I remember some of it had to do with a 2020 Will Ferrell movie about Icelandic singers, which I just read about on Wikipedia the night before, and surprised me that he was still making movies (he works with the right director and script, but he’s very one note comedically; I prefer his more serious roles as a goofy/mild-mannered, nice guy, can’t buy Will Ferrell as a self-centered asshole). I haven’t seen the Icelandic singer movie, I simply read about it and watched a clip online, and then I dreamed about it a little. Must’ve made an impression. I didn’t think it did, but your brain’s subconscious calls the shots, not you. Oh yeah, another part of the dream: I was in an airplane, huddled in my seat, trying to sing “Thunderclouds” by LSD, but my throat was hoarse and shitty and I couldn’t get the words out until the very end.

THE DAY:
I think the schedule that works for me now is: Get up, take your medication, take a shower, make breakfast (chicken tikka curry with boiled brown coconut rice, turmeric with avocado slices and sprinkled with kale, which is pretty damn good), and walk outside to get your heart rate pumping and wake up slowly until the medication and/or the endorphins kick in. Walking around in the sun WHILE you eat outside is perfect because your bloodsugar isn’t piling on to make you lethargic and feel shitty, also the food you eat obviously will make you feel ready for the day. It’s a one-two-three punch of effectiveness, at least for me.

I filmed my 2-hour weekly yugioh video pretty straightforwardly. Got a lot of good games in, didn’t misplay much, and the editing only took an hour or so before I saved it to the hard drive for later upload. After that, I went outside to go for a walk/run, because I forgot too yesterday. I ran to nostalgic landmarks of my childhood, even passing other towns and cities along the way, including my old school of 6 years. I walked down a pretty ghetto-neighborhood and got a bit spooked, even saw a toddler out on the side of the street unsupervised playing with a broken doll, told her to go inside, but nothing bad happened. Before I knew it, the sun was setting and I was getting scared. I was walking/running for 2 hours now, but there was 1 more place “nearby” I wanted to check out before I headed home. It was a nostalgic home I lived in for a few years when I was a kid. I remember it being the last home where I (1) didn’t masturbate (2) didn’t access the internet (3) find out about furries. It was the end of innocence. It took me an hour or so on foot to get there with the help of google maps. I got delirious enough that I started singing “In Dreams” again right on the side of the street. I wanted to see how far I could run without getting tired and stopping, and I was getting hungry and wanting to take a piss. On top of being in a shady neighborhood at dusk, and having walked/ran for 3 hours straight, my adrenaline was pumping like mad. I was actually making a wide tooth-grin from the endorphins, on top of being happy from seeing the nostalgic landmarks of my childhood that I made the journey to go out and venture to. Out of boredom 1-2 hours in, I started flexing my arms and abdomens to get an upper body workout. Rows and rows of blocks of 1-2 story suburban households playing animated kids movies inside the windows, interchanged with commercial, concrete-laden urban shops littered throughout to give the sense I was a number of steps away from being mugged potentially. Yugioh’s new “Beetrooper” archetype and insect-deck ideas were a common thing going through my mind, underrated unironic swarm deck with Contact “C” floodgate spam.

I eventually made it to my old neighborhood, tired and ready to take a piss. Upon seeing the house, I was overcome with a sense of melancholy (which still didn’t dissipate my paranoia in looking behind me at all times to be safe). The house from 12 years ago now, was relatively unchanged…the insides that I could peek inside of had wine bottles on the wall now, but nothing else was different. The old peeled-off paper tree, the steps, the grass, the paintjob...I wish I could’ve went inside, but it was occupied by aliens now. Even typing this is making me emotional. I began to cry a bit, looking at this old fortress of mine, the guarder of innocence from my past, and said “goodbye…for now”. I don’t know why I said “for now”…probably longing for a time that wasn’t going to come. I felt as much emotion for that house as I did for all the dead relatives I’ve seen in caskets from my childhood. I will probably react the same to future deaths in the family, but I’m not sure how my empathy has selectively eroded. My fatalistic, material and semi-utilitarian approach to life has made me shed almost all forms of sentimentality from my conscious thoughts, and encouraged me to be more selfish and robotic as a result. But I still have wells of humanity in me, even if they may be perverted. That was a great moment for me I’ll probably remember. It was almost past my bedtime at this point and I was 1-2 hours away from my bedroom, but I had the idea to keep walking/running in the middle of the night on a semi-shady street, while I was still holding 3 cups of water in my bladder. Eventually I got a call from my roommates asking where the hell I was, saying they needed me for something. Told him I was miles away on a run and he got a little freaked and told me to get an uber. So I did.

Waited 10 minutes for the uber to arrive. I got inside smelling like 4 hours of sweat (it was cold out but I didn’t notice from the workout), I forgot the address to the new place, so I told him I was going to a junior high school nearby. Since I was clearly not a junior high student, he asked why. I half-lied and said I was visiting relatives from out of state and I forgot where they lived, but I remembered my “cousin” went to school around there, and it was close by. I don’t know why I lied, it was compulsive and on the spot, and my adrenaline fueled the glibness of my performance. I think I tell white lies constantly, not to manipulate or hurt people, but just to get them off my back. All of my falsehoods are made to avoid trouble or consequences as a learned response to not getting chewed out, and I’ve managed to get away with it for a long time unfortunately. It’s actually come back to bite me a lot, by lying about how I’m doing in school and whatnot. The uber driver kept talking about real estate, fortune 500 stuff and Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, google etc. all of which I was interested in, but I was disinterested with talking with the person, so I gave short offhand responses. I got out of the uber in front of the junior high and started walking up the hill toward the new place. It was almost completely night at this point and I remembered that mountain lions/cougars were sometimes common in these parts. My adrenaline was the highest at this point during the final stretches of returning home. Afraid there was a 50/50 chance I was going to have to fight a cougar sneaking up on me and getting mauled, I raised my arms and shoulders like frankenstein, hunched over, trying to make my 6’5 build as intimidating as I could while I huffed and puffed up the hill.
When I got home the guys were watching Clash of the Titans 1981, a follow up to Jason and the Argonauts I guess. I was tired as fuck but I got dinner and went to bed before midnight and crashed.

DREAM:
Pretty memorable, and at the end made me emotional and cry a bit. The first dream I remember was inspired from the time I was on the set of short films in my early college days, staying up late, drinking red bull and waiting for your turn to set up lights, sounds, or being in the back as an extra. I believe one guy was hitting on me but I was too in the closet to pursue anything at that point. In this dream, I was in a competition, as usual, with 20-something contestants in a house. I forget what the occasion was, what the prize for winning was, and what exactly we were supposed to do, but every time a contestant did something “wrong” or rude, a snobby 20-something guy in a black suit hand waved them away, literally causing them to crash through the walls or teleport into a different dimension, an extra way of saying “bye”. (I believe an inspiration for this was a video I saw last night called “when an anime character doesn’t explain their ability”. I love that vid and their channel, rdcworld1 is consistently great. Anyway, I was the 4th person in the dream to be “hand waved”: I don’t know exactly what I did. I think I asked a question about getting water or something, or a question about the production. The other 3 were “hand-waved” because they were rude or out of place, but I didn’t consider what I did rude so I was irritated and confused. I don’t know if I died and came back as a ghost but I came back, and went for an “appeal” to get back on the production. I figured doing or saying *anything out of line was a no-no and so I accepted my apparent place in the hierarchy and just gave up and the dream ended.
Second dream, all of my family were substituted with DBZ characters. This one I don’t remember as vividly in regard to plot progression, but at one point I was on a beach at sunset and Piccolo and/or Goku’s granddaughter was there. Transitioning seamlessly onto a couch in a living room. I think someone died (as characters in DBZ do) or something emotional happened and I woke up with a half a tear coming out of my eye. It was strange but I’m glad I had it. It’s a bit of a pain trying to remember and spend 10 minutes writing down a journal every day due to my adhd but eventually I’ll get better at it (I’ve been able to accomplish similar tasks semi-efficiently within a year of practice) and plus I’ll always have these later to go back and look at. Documentation. Documentation. Documentation.

THE DAY:
Did work, felt pretty productive. Unlike the past 3 days before, I didn’t go on a long run or walk, instead I fapped 3-4 times, which, while accounting for only 30% of the exercise I’m used to doing, counts as exercising the glutes and hips the way I do it, by humping a pillow in several positions. Yeah, I said it. I fuck my pillow. What? I can’t get off by sticking a toy in my ass! Believe me, I tried it. So physically, it’s like half the benefits of doing real sex, minus the potential oxycontin (which, honestly, I only get around certain people), and the coordination needed to maneuver your way around that diiiiiick. Squats are good if you wanna ride someone, you WILL get tired. Anyway, fapping was a compromise to being tired, and a “rest day” for my usual workouts. Saw some clips of Jason and the Argonauts while I was eating dinner, an old 1963 epic. It was ok, had a lot of flaws, with…pretty much everything except the acting which was good, but I don’t blame it. It was a serviceable and charming movie.

DREAM:
Pretty good one, memorable even after a few hours of waking up (I attribute the low stress, schedule and beer before bed). Like many of my dreams, the perspective of my “character” changes to different people, and the locations seem to blend seamlessly into another.
I think I was in a friend group of 5 people, and it was furry-themed cuz I remember we were each a different animal, a barn animal. Adam from Yourmoviesucksdotorg was there as a horse, and one other guy (the plucky comic relief) was the pig. I was crawling around with them in some concrete basement underneath a house, which looked like the architecture of my first dorm. What we were doing there, I don’t know. I also don’t know what animal I was, maybe goat, but the dream prompted me to imagine I was in a group of 5, and that we were animals of some kind. Exposition. Telling, and not showing.
In one part of the dream I was in a group of 3 this time (maybe 2 others left) and I forget the appearance of my 2 friends, but they were there. I was spelunking in a cave that was a mixture of a dungeon and a big waterslide, right on the side of a decently-sized hill. I made shortcuts through the maze by cutting through the plastic walls of the waterslide and ending up in another location. Eventually I got myself out of the maze (quite easily) and I realized it was a “getting trapped in a waterslide” dream, and then I became too scared to go back inside, even though I was curious.
The final stage of the dream, Torkoal, a pokemon, was spawned out of the side of the mountain and started floating toward me, chasing me. I immediately knew it was going to attack me in some way (I thought it was going to shoot fire) so I scurried away as fast as I could and landed inside of a pool of water, where I thought I was safe. NOPE. The Torkoal, still somehow flying in the air toward me, splashed in the water and attacked me while I was submerged, biting me like a snapping turtle. I didn’t get nightmare vibes but I was still surprised and scared. Dream ended around there.

DAY:
I go on a daily walk/run every day, typically to the store a few blocks away to get supplies I need. This one was good, I sweat for 30-40 minutes straight and my mind was clear for hours after. Finished my daily pokemon drawings that were overdue, decently fine with how those turned out. I’m closer to finishing owed commissions as well, finally. I need to finish my commissions. For the past year and a half now, I’ve been *mostly doing art I was paid to do, instead of working on my own personal products. I don’t want to spend most of my life barely skimming by doing stuff I don’t care about (and plus the art is bad and niche anyway). I want to change that, but it will take a lot of hard work and some luck getting there.

DREAM: Forgot.

DAY:
I REALLY forget what I did this day, haha. I think it was a p boring “stay in front of the computer drawing or wasting time” type of day. I caught up on my pokemon drawings on this day I think. On this night, I DIDNT forget to drink a beer before bed.
On a general note (because I need to fill the journal with something here), I’m wondering if I’m even horny for people anymore. I think I’m honestly ok with masturbating for the rest of my life instead of fucking, I get either (a) anxious (b) neutral/bored fucking other people, and there’s the risk of STD’s n all that, which are annoying. Jumping on their dicks and taking loads and big toys is like a fun physical activity for me to do instead of something more intimate or heart-racing. The prep needed to do it (lube, PREP, eating right, organizing the location etc.) isn't worth the reward either, I feel like I'm in a competitive semi-olympic event. The expectation that the sex will lead to intimacy later is something uncomfortable to me, too. I’ve had to reject a lot of guys who got feelings for me after we fucked, all gay/bi furries of course (I won’t fuck a non-furry, too scared and not worth the effort). I get a sense of self-confidence and vain happiness in myself for having had sex so many times and priding myself in landing a lot of partners, but I mean, gay furries are easy. It’s not really an accomplishment. Their vibe is KINDA similar to me in that they treat sex as a handshake, but I think they enjoy it more and see a lot more in it than I do. My previous relationship was asexual and I loved the fuck out of him. My emotional needs triumph the sexual by default because I have no real sexual needs except to fap to furry fantasies. Real life just doesn’t cut it. Virtual reality technology in the future might be “fun” tho.