Stage One: I am in a perfect position to succeed. My client is pleased with my proposed thumbnails (and why wouldn't they be?), so they have all been approved. Freedom is mine! Choices abound; the opportunities are endless! Verily, there is nary an obstacle in sight!

Stage Two: I have consumed four cups of coffee - for reasons purely associated with efficiency and NOT chemical dependency. I am a person of my word. I am young and hopeful. There is time yet for a Netflix movie or three.

Stage Three: I always knew that being an Artist Of My Word would bring pain someday, and that is why I have come prepared with a massive collection of queued-up podcasts. These podcasts will surely rejuvenate me. If not, there is always caffeine.

Stage Four: I have consumed thirteen cups of coffee. I am now at 97% Optimization. Two more podcasts and I will be at 99.9% Optimization. Sleep is out of the question.

Stage Five: It appears that I have forgotten how to hold a pencil. I'm not sure if I've ever drawn a proper thing in my life. What IS art, anyhow? Who is to say that life itself is not a work of art? Whom am I trying to please, if not my own sense of righteousness?

Stage Six: Oh, right - the client. They have asked me for 27 revisions as politely as possible, as soon as possible. I didn't want to sleep anyway.

Stage Seven: @#$%

Stage Eight: Are we human? Or are we denser? I think we're denser than this piece of dry toast I'm eating for - oh what is it now? Brunch? Lunch? Sad dinner? At this point, it's just drawing fuel. I am an art machine that runs on college food and last minute panic. I had pocky for breakfast, bacon for lunch, and popcorn for dinner. My drawing hand is moving steadily, irrespective of my motives or brain capacity. How then, can it possibly be a lie when I text you, “it’s nearly finished,” when I wish so deeply for it to be true?

Stage Nine: I can no longer identify the tangents in my drawings. I flipped my canvas horizontally, and everything became instantly worse. My life became instantly worse.

Stage Ten: HERE IS THE ART YOU WANTED, FOR I AM TRUE TO MY WORD. I'VE ATTACHED IT TO THE EMAIL THAT I FAILED TO PROOFREAD. PLEASE ACCEPT

Conclusion:

I am a worthy art professional full of professionalism and artistry. At no point during the making of this piece did I want to scream into the void or drastically alter my profession. Thank you for working with me. I shall sleep now!

When I was in school, I remember vividly how I would spend hours crafting my websites and blog posts: a staple of my youth. I kept a Livejournal throughout most of high school and college, back when the site was a bustling online community for maudlin teens to twenty-somethings with an abundance of feelings and a lack of spellcheck. These days, reading my old journal elicits both warm nostalgia and second-hand embarrassment in equal measure. Yet there's a small part of me that wishes I could return to a simpler time in my life. I will never be able to write in that overly sentimental, foolhardy style of days long past. But perhaps I can connect with you all the same, kind reader.

I look back fondly on my "LJ Days," as it were — full of silly memes, surveys, fandom blogs, and RP chatrooms. When you are a lifelong introvert, you tend to express yourself far better through written words than face-to-face interaction. The older you get, the more you learn to appreciate those little time capsule remains of your younger self — decidedly less subtle and self-aware, yet brimming with hope and optimism. Nowadays I'm older, wiser (LOL), and slightly less prone to spelling errors and snap judgments, so maybe this time capsule will be less embarrassing for future me to revisit.

So that's the gist of why I started blogging again. Please feel free to lurk, comment, or subscribe to this blog if you find something that interests you. Thank you for your time, kind reader!