greetings thatoddhaystack shareholders. today I have cookies for your snack. I made them myself. I hope u enjoy them. I like to make cookies when I'm stressed.
unfortunately I do not have a lot of levity in me right now. I’m going to be a bit serious for a moment, so scroll past if you’re not interested I guess?
alright. so. at the end of april I was suddenly and unexpectedly taken off the contract I’ve been working on for a little over four years now. everyone I’ve talked to about this said that it was bullshit, and that it’s unfair that I was removed, but there’s nothing to be done about it. my current contracting agency has a grace period of a month where they will try to place me on another contract, but once that grace period is up I will not have a job. I would love to be employed before that happens! but I am very very stressed right now! because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and it all feels out of my control. especially given that gas is expensive and groceries are expensive and Everything feels like it’s getting more expensive. I would like to keep having money. but who knows if I will!
so. that being said. no one is under any obligation to donate to me. it’s hard for everyone right now, and even with the threat of unemployment looming over my head I will financially survive for the short term. But. if you are so inclined. my ko-fi is here. I don’t have a commissions page up currently but I am also willing to Exchange Art For Money, if anything on my art page interests you. hell I’ll do web design/dev and ffxiv modding for money too if ppl want it.
april events
other than losing my marbles yet again, what did I do in april? not a whole lot of events to be honest. I was still trying to save money this month because I had blown a lot of $$$ at the beginning of this year. and I was just tired in general from work (lol) and trying to lock the fuck in.
my mom visited at the beginning of the month, and we spent the weekend visiting some of her favorite spots. I finally got to visit a buc-ee's! it was crazy overstimulating in there lol. I’ve also recently gotten my mom into oshikatsu so she brought along a harley quinn nui to take pictures with. I didn’t end up buying a ton of stuff over the weekend, mostly just food.
I also hung out with my irl friend twice in april… once to go to a bike shop to investigate getting a bike for them, and once to a local indie games showcase and an izakaya afterwards. the izakaya was expensive and the service was kinda bad but the croquettes were really really good so I guess it made up for it? I don't think I'll be going back though. I did see a really cool FMV rhythm game being demoed at the showcase that I am excited to see more of.
oh there was an alumni brunch event for my college that I had signed up for and I did go to but in the end I was just not. feeling the vibe so I left pretty soon after arriving. womp womp.
I bought food from the FFXIV x jollibee collab on behalf of a friend who wanted the code but didn’t have a jollibee near them… it was a pricey meal but it was also so yummy… I did manage to stretch out the food into two meals.
april projects
actually pretty productive this month! part of that was that I had aimed a lot lower with my goals b/c I wanted to have a more laid back month.
I did a lot of the usual, that being reading a book, writing my monthly blog post, and applying for jobs. I did a couple of things off my bingo card that I will talk about in that section. I did finish up another OC profile, that being another guy in my necromancerverse, blue! an eccentric guy who summons spirits to flirt with them. no one really likes him. he’s kind of my comic relief guy in necromancerverse, which is otherwise very serious and deals with heavy stuff. so I have one goofy guy for me.
still picking at my horror vn very slowly. this month I pretty much just picked at the script a little bit and then started working on sprites. oh, and also wrote out an asset list for me to reference while I am completing and seeking out assets… it’s not set in stone, but it’s nice to have something to visualize roughly what needs to be done. I also kept working on ukagaka wiki pages, though most of my work is still just in the draft stages on the forum. I did start working on a Big ghost page though, so hopefully one or both of them will be done in may.
bingo
bingo update! we love bingo update! I have been making a decent amount of progress on things.
get an “exercise” routine: this is something I completely accidentally stumbled on, but recent job stress has made me start running again because I 1) need a distraction and 2) running wrings some amount of dopamine out of my brain which combats the anhedonia I’ve been feeling as of late. now, since about the middle of march, I’ve been running 3-4 times a week. except for the one week I had an acute pain flareup, and the fact that that didn’t kill my momentum made me feel like I have established an “exercise routine”. here’s to continuing to run in may! with everything I’ve been going through as of late, running is really one of the load bearing pillars that’s been keeping me sane
finish a spanish graded reader: what it says on the tin. I borrowed one on libby and read it. it was about 50 pages long and I didn’t have to look up as many things as I feared I would. I haven’t read a lot in spanish since then… I’m still trying to find a way of studying that will stick to me, but it felt good to at least get through a graded reader.
set up a pihole: finally! after having the pieces for a pihole for… a while. I did need to replace my router because the one I had before was baby-proofed so I couldn’t get into the network’s guts and actually use the pihole appropriately. but yeah I finally got it set up and it was a little bit of a pain but for the most part there haven’t been any issues since the set up. and i’m blocking on average 25%-35% of queries! that’s a lot of ads that are just. Gone. I Killed them
make a ffxiv mod: a mutual on bsky mentioned “hey I wonder if anyone has ported this one hair to m!miqote” and that let me down a rabbit hole of hair porting and extra skeletons and hair physics and I emerged out the other side covered in blood but with a hair port done and new knowledge in the xiv modding space. wahoooo!
april faves
tomodachi life: living the dream
yes I did put the demo as one of my faves last month. yes I have enjoyed the full game much more so. this is another one of the load bearing pillars of my sanity rn is watching my ocs goof around in tomodream… oh and also watching sanvita play out HSDGJKHG. my husband <333. I <3 that this game lets me live out yume fantasies like. living together LMAO.
polymadonna
cw body horror
I’m a simple guy. I see new nilfruits I click like. this one didn’t immediately click with me but I really did like the substance paralells in the mv… and the miku+len+rin cameo was fun… and then I thought more about the yuri elements… and then I realize I’ve been watching the mv on loop. nilfruits so good at making contained stories in the span of a single mv…
bracelet making
I’ve been steadily making bracelets to trade at mikuexpo! I had the goal of making at minimum 30 bracelets and I hit that! there’s something very meditative about making bracelets that makes it a nice calming activity. excited to trade bracelets at mikuexpo!! after this event I want to slowly prepare some for halloween horror nights…
may plans
it’s gonna be may. or. it is may as I am typing. so wtf am I doing in may. i mean primarily I want to Get A New Job. and I am doing everything in my power to do so. please send me ur job search energy that I can find something palatable….
other than that. still want to pick at my horror visual novel. still want to pick at pages on the ukagaka wiki. still want to practice coding at some point. still want to work on oc profiles (hoping to finish up my necromancer ocs this month! that will be exciting to have another oc universe fleshed out…). there’s a lot of things I have still just In Progress that I don’t know if they will be finished this month or not. perhaps. perhaps not. but I will continue to work on things steadily.
in terms of bingo goals I am focused on some more #selfcare things this month… I want to finally sleep 8 hrs a night for a full week to see if that has a marked effect on my mental health. I’ve been inconsistent with sleeping well and so I hope that if I set it As A Focus this month then I will actually… do it. I want to also clean my room this month! I usually do so at least once a year (usually during the spring), and the entropy of my room has gotten particularly bad, so I’m hoping that doing some physical cleaning will be good for me. I was also going to work on cleaning my house in general while I am in this… transitory period. as I will put it generously.
and of course, the Overarching Goal of this month is to Please Survive. not to vent again on this post but I’ve not been doing mentally well! but I have friends and resources available for me to lean on in this difficult time. and if all I can do is keep pushing forward then… that’s what I’ll do.
hell maybe this month I’ll finally have the time to put together my pc. as I have been saying I will do since january.
I hope may is kind to you and kind to me <3 see y’all next month hopefully with good news!