Hello, everyone! Long time no see! Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware I should open this bad-boy up with an apology for my absence, and one with no explanation. Well, further explanation, I mean. But, past all that, I do want to apologize to those who checked in for news and ramblings only to find spiderwebs, and not the 'Yeah, I get it. He's a spider,' type.
I'm sure everyone knows the story, but early this spring the world thought it would be a good idea to allow me to bring another one like me into being. I warned them about the long-term ramifications, but alas, my son was born late June. Wait! I haven't even updated you all about that. Okay, let's rewind a little further back. In preparation of my son being born, I told everyone I was going to be having him sometime in the spring and that my work here and the blog wasn't going anywhere. Then late June he was born.
It was a roller-coaster of emotions that's for damn sure, and I wish I could say they were all positive. Leading up to it, we were getting very sentimental and very anxious to meet our little man, but it was problem after problem after problem with the hospital and their staff that really kept it from being a perfect experience. Long story short, unbeknownst to us, natural labor was not in the cards and the longer we pushed it, the more stressful it got, and near the end of day three of labor, I was on the floor weeping, praying, and falling apart, sure that this bloody hospital had killed my baby and girlfriend. Through those rough patches though, and a Cesarean later, we made it through, and god-damn, if our child was made from brimstone, my girlfriend literally marched down through every level of hell and grabbed him herself. Just the amount of physical, mental, and emotional sacrifice she gave to someone that'll carry my last name and not hers, is something I know I'll never be able to repay, but she keeps saying, every time I bring it up, is that she'd do it every time for the baby. This whole debacle with the hospital is story for another time and, frankly, a lawyer too, at some point, but let's wrap this part up quickly.
With the baby born, we stayed in the nursery for a little over a week later, ironing out kinks the hospital created and making sure everything with junior was peachy for his life outside mommy. One of the one's on my side, was that I was experiencing some insomnia and when I was getting sleep, I was getting some pretty severe nightmares. But it wasn't anything that was going to kill us at this point, so we were just waiting for things to get better in other places. In time there were, so we went and started to relax at home, but raising a baby is rough work! Holy hell, people joke, but it's the honest truth! When you're raising a baby, whatever title you think of yourself, be that artist, worker, pointless blogger, or whatever, that is all quickly transformed to father real quick with no time for much else, at least in my experience so far. So at first, writing on the blog at all was a complete no-go. I had fallen off the keshi wagon altogether. I had no idea what was coming out or being teased or anything! I was on baby-detail around the clock, but I loved it all the same and still do. However, the little-one is almost four months old now, and no one would believe me if I said that sort of crazy routine was still going on. So what's my excuse then?
None. I don't have a really good one, but I think you find it common around the social-sphere of the Internet. You'll see a video-maker or writer or artist just completely fall off the face of the earth and then come back after quite a long break with really no reason for their prolonged absence. I think part of it I just briefly mentioned. I had completely fell out of touch with the keshi community. I missed a series of conventions, releases, and general news, I had no idea where to jump back in. I suppose the right answer would have been 'Anywhere', but it certainly didn't feel like that. However, I do have to thank one thing that brought me back to write this, at least.
Halloween.
Halloween and vending machines, actually. Which I felt was almost too perfect, as vending machine junk is what got me back into this hobby a few years ago. It dragged me back in again, sort of. Well, with All Hallows Eve drawing near, I just happened to pass across some new, maybe not new at all, mini-figures at the grocery store's vending machine and I thought 'Hey, that would be good for a 'It Came From a Vending Machine' article, just in time for Halloween!' And the longer I thought that, the more I was open to get my toes wet again, even despite how little free time and play money I have.
If it's not spent with the babe, the rest of my day is spent at my new job. Sadly, shortly after my previous post, I was let go from my place of employment because the business was shutting down. Yeah, pretty great, right? Unemployed and having kid, lucky me, but to be honest, it worked out well in the end. I got to spend a lot of needed time with the family and I got a lot of experience and lessons under my belt about being a dad quick, so I wasn't panicking and worried later. After the summer, I found a new job and probably the best one I've had so far. I now work with a toy company, believe it or not. It's not keshi, sadly, but I work in the shipping department of a toy company that specializes in kid's toys of all sorts, so it feels like I am shopping half of the time and working the other, while being paid far more than I previously was. Absolutely zero complaints.
I think that brings us up to the present, with a lot of events going on and not much excuse to what took me so long to come back, but to be honest, I have some reservation saying I am coming back right now. Having a baby takes a lot of effort, a lot more than I first thought, and producing anything on my own right now seems to be something I need to schedule a babysitter to assist me with. However, I want to make a better effort. In my previous post, I promised Keshi Drop wasn't going anywhere, and I am still upholding that promise. I just don't think I can regularly write a lot. At this moment, I won't be able to cover news and releases when they should be. Things would have to fall precisely in the times of day or week where I could spend some time with it, and I think that won't really work outside some rare cases of pure luck. But despite all that pessimism, I think some effort should be put forth. I should write something, so for now, this is that, and later, maybe you can expect some more opinion pieces, where I delve into thoughts and explorations about topics than articles of news and happenings. I think that's something I can do, that's not all that time-sensitive, so with a crooked-smile, I say you can expect that, but I should probably warn you not to get too worked up over it. Right now, I am super busy. More than I thought. And it will be a process of thinking up something to write, tossing it around my mind a bit, lay it out in my brain and sorta' write it mentally, and finally put flesh to keyboard. I have no idea how long of a process that'll be, but I am going to start taking baby-steps back into things.
Thank you for stopping by for this and reading the ramble this far, and I hope you you come back soon when I have something a bit more keshi-sentric prepared.
Go on, Google Electric Monarchy right now and tell me what comes up. Okay, well it's not nothing. It's still a few articles here and there, some leading back to the blog, but that's besides the point. The point is your basic protein-based Pokemon is evolving into it's next form. God, that sounded a lot less gross in my head.
