The May Dal Report

Hey y’all, another busy month in the life of Dallas. Things are simultaneously looking up and have gotten worse. But you know how it is. If it hasn’t been obvious, I’ve had a hard time of writing this month. I have another session notes post to write up, plus a handful of other ideas I’ve had kicking around for awhile. You’ll see them when you see them, I guess.

I think I’ve kind of set the precedent here that I talk about my job hunt first before anything else, but at this point I’ll just be letting y’all know when I get a job. Rest assured, I’m still looking.

Normally, I tend to post these in a rough chronological order of when events happened, but this month I’m gonna be moving some stuff around. I’m keeping the fun, happy, silly stuff at the top and leaving the really sad stuff for further into the post. That way there’s no weird tone shifts randomly, but also so some segments can be avoided if need be. I don’t want to restrict myself from getting as vulnerable and heavy as I want to, but it isn’t exactly light reading.

Anyway, here’s the monthly dump, reach out for the password, you already know the deal.

There’s Always a Bigger Fish

Cass and I began working on a Minecraft mod together! We were inspired by Webfishing’s fishing mechanics and wanted to create a similar, though distinctly Minecrafty, experience for players! Obviously I’m doing the art and Cass is doing the programming, and we’ve been concepting and throwing ideas around together as a unit. This mod is part of a mod jam hosted by the Mod Garden on Discord. There are a bunch of other devs participating and anyone’s welcome to join! The deadline’s just about two months away so we’ve got a lot of time left. Cass and I really hit the ground running in ways neither of us expected. We set out a pretty achievable goal and ended up finishing it in under a week. That goal was to add ~20 new fish of various in game sizes that would be exclusive to certain biomes with a Webfishing-esque minigame. And we’ve basically accomplished that. The minigame needs some work still since it’s the most important aspect to get just right and we’ll likely be working on that up until the very end. But the rest of it we’ve already finished! I’m working on finding more fish to add and make textures for, as well as different baits, foods, and fishing rods. I’m really excited for what this mod will look like when we’re done with it! We want all the basic aspects of it finished by the deadline, but do plan on updating it after. One of the big things we’ve talked about is having models for the fish to actually swim like salmon and cod already do in vanilla. The issue with that is Cass has never coded mobs from scratch, and I’ve never textured them before. So it’ll be a learning experience, but once we figure it out, I think it’ll be really fun. I don’t want to say much more because things are subject to change at this point, and I’m only half of the “team” working on this, so I’ll leave the technical stuff to Cass if she wants to talk about it in her own time.

Ikea and Bucc-ee’s with Rachel

Rachel visited us a couple more times this month! A planned visit first to go to Ikea, and then a surprise second visit a couple weeks after. I had never been to Ikea or Bucc-ee’s before so it was exciting. Ikea was exactly as I imagined - though not quite the maze people joked about, just follow the signs, idiot. With Bucc-ee’s I was completely underwhelmed. I got an Icee and it was tasty. That’s all I have to say about it. It was also incredibly busy, I have never seen that many people at a Walmart let alone a gas station. We also walked in on a borderline fist fight because an old man was trying to sneak into the women’s restroom. That was something!

Gardening with Grandma

My grandma needed her flower beds redone with some weeding, mulching, and planting new flowers for the year. Over the course of a few hours we got it done! Well, I did, my grandma was supervising. We listened to Queen and she told me about the reality shows she’s been watching. We went to a nursery for plants and made some friends while there.

Art Stuff

I managed to trick myself into drawing more this month. The first thing I made was almost an accident, I wanted to draw a little faerie creature NPC in my campaign (who you can read more about here) because they look strange and are a bit hard to describe. They’re a little bug plant creature and their name is Dandy! Like many fae, Dandy only really cares about their own self interest but are intrigued by the party and owe them a favor. So they’re sticking around until they can pay the party back.

Next I began drawing the various characters involved in Kalyn’s upcoming campaign, technically starting with my own character, Javier, from last month. But I moved onto Michaela’s character, Larry. He is certifiably not an alcoholic, the only problem he has with drinking is when he isn’t drinking! He’s an anxious rogue thief looking for dishonest work.

I also drew Evan’s character, Sledge. He’s a warforged who’s down with the woodland creatures and various flora and fauna of the Southlands. He just wants to chill and touch grass.

I’ve begun drawing Sam’s character, Vebradu. I’m not gonna show what I’ve got now because it’s only a sketch and very ugly, but he’s a kenku wizard who loves pondering his orb. I did also make some small adjustments to the last drawing of Javier I made, so it’d be more consistent with what the other portraits look like.

Cousin Doug’s Funeral

CW: Death of family members discussion begins.

I wrote about my cousin Doug a few months ago for his 68th birthday. He wasn’t doing well then and his health steadily dwindled until he passed away May 15th. I don’t think I did a great job of capturing who he was there. Doug couldn’t leave the house without meeting a new friend and you could hear his laugh from miles away. He loved Looney Tunes and collected stuffed animals. His favorite was the Tasmanian Devil, who he had countless shirts and plushies of. He also loved baseball, especially our very own Cincinnati Reds - despite their shortcomings. I wanna share a few stories people told of him at the funeral to give an idea of who he was.

My dad told a story of when a family friend was staying with Doug and his family for a time when they were teenagers. He forgot to bring enough socks with him, so asked Doug if he could borrow some. Doug said of course, led him to his room, and opened his sock drawer. He was going through the socks, unfolding some, turning some inside out, tossing them all over. This continued for awhile, until the family friend finally said, “Any socks will do, Doug.”

To which Doug responded, “Sure, but I’m trying to find ones with holes in them.”

Doug’s brother, Keith had some very lovely words to say about Doug as well. I touched on in my previous post that Doug was disabled and was somewhere around a young teenager’s mental capacity. Keith talked about growing up with Doug as a little brother, how he was constantly annoying and pestering Doug. And how one day, and he wasn’t sure when it happened, he realized he had become the older brother, being playfully teased and annoyed by Doug as he grew. He said, “I’ve never been more proud than to be an older and younger brother to such a cool guy.”

Anniversary of Grandpa’s Death

It’s the one year anniversary of my grandpa’s death. At least it will be on the 31st, just a few days after this will be posted. I’ve really been feeling it lately. He left us so quickly it doesn’t feel real. I just got used to saying “Grandma’s house”, even if I feel “and Grandpa’s” on the tip of my tongue, stick in limbo at the back of my throat. Left unsaid, but the feeling of something unfinished still remaining. I’ll never get used to it. I didn’t have a blog at the time of his death last year, but I still want to share some stories from his funeral. If it wasn’t clear, I do better recording stories other people tell me. For some reason, in my own memories, nothing quite sticks out for me. I forget a lot of things, especially when I go back to my years as a teenager. I didn’t appreciate at the time how precious memories are and the intentionality you need to have when trying to keep hold of them. But I have a nice one that a family friend, Bubby, shared with us at his funeral.

My great grandpa, who I never knew, but everyone called Big Poppy used to manage a small general store when my grandpa was young. My grandpa and one of his brothers (I believe it was his brother Delmar, but he had a lot of siblings, many of them died before I was born) hatched a plan with Bubby to steal some candy from the store while it was closed. Grandpa and Delmar lifted Bubby up to one of the windows and he crawled inside into the dark store after hours. Bubby was the only one small enough to fit, he was about 5 at the time and Grandpa and Delmar were already in their teens. Bubby was able to get in and out undetected with the haul, carrying it all in his shirt. The boys ran to the creek where they could eat their candy without being seen by their parents. Bubby asked Grandpa then why they broke in through the window, rather than just taking the key. Grandpa said “It’s a lot more fun this way.”

They got in trouble later when Big Poppy opened the store the next day to see half the candy missing. But they wouldn’t be punished before they ate their fill.

Death of family members discussion ends.

Depression

CW: In depth discussion of depression and suicide mentioned in passing.

The following is a diary entry I wrote earlier this month. It’s been edited very minimally and is an accurate reflection of how I felt at the time of writing, though things are getting better. I have a lot more drive to get up in the morning and find something to throw myself into. I think generally speaking, my mood is still pretty low. But its trending upward, which is all that matters.

Depression is a weird bitchy little thing I’ve been carrying with me for about a decade now. I find it incredibly hard to talk about. There’s nothing about it that’s easy to experience or describe. I’m not naïve, I’m aware no one is constantly happy. I don’t even know if its possible to be consistently happy. Although that could just be me being cynical. Either way, I know every emotion is temporary. I know its useless to chase any one emotion over another because its ethereal. And that does still partially apply to my depression. I know despite my low emotional baseline, it does go up. I can eat some really good food, have some really good sex, play some really good games with friends, etc. And I feel good. It does feel good 80% of the time. And I can ignore my brain. But in the times between those things, it gets really hard. I think I spend far more time chasing dopamine than I think is healthy. I’ve caught myself wanting to be high or drunk a lot more than I would’ve wanted to a few months ago. I’m really good at chasing my tail to find literally anything that will make me feel different. And I don’t just do the unhealthy shit. I go on walks a lot. I don’t think those help, but it makes me feel different. I finally got myself to draw because I wanted to make Michaela’s character to make him happy. And to make myself something to be proud of. And it worked, technically. But less than 12 hours since I’ve finished and I feel numb again. I know this is temporary and I know my pride and happiness for doing something for a friend was going to fade. But it happened faster than I expected. It’s so hard to explain. Because I am still proud. I am still happy. But the emotions feel toned down. Like, on a scale from 1-10 I’d say I’m at about a 4. Finished the drawing took me up to a 5. And I feel at a 4 again. Actually, I think my scale is fucked up. Because in my head a 1 is “I’m going to kill myself” and a 10 is “I feel content.” So, I guess the best thing I can say for my mental state is “I don’t feel like killing myself.” Which is a win. But I would like more. I don’t feel satisfied.

That’s largely how my depression feels. I feel just good enough I don’t want to die. And that’s my every day. At least until the worst of it passes. Which it will. It always does. I kinda just hope that nothing too bad happens to me until I feel normal again. I wish I had a nice takeaway. Something to give myself a plan or advice for other people with depression. I don’t. Not really. I have a disorder that makes life hard. It makes it hard for me to relate to people. For me to be the person I wanna be. For me to accomplish long term goals or simple tasks. I’m at a public park right now. I’m watching geese eat grass and swim. The fountain just turned off. Technically, the park closes at dusk - right now. But I can stay far later. I’ve been here plenty of times well passed dusk and haven’t seen another soul. I think I’ve said every useful thing I can say. At least for now.

Discussion of depression and suicide mentioned in passing ends.

Conclusion

That’s basically about it! I’ve been doing better lately. After spending lots of time with friends and family I’m slowly feeling more and more normal again. Giving into self destructive habits less and less and looking forward to sunrises more and more.