Carnival was this past weekend. This was my first Carnival without Fef in a long time. At times, thinking about that made me feel kind of lonely or really sad, but I still wound up having a lot of fun. Chris, Frosty, Eric, Christophe, Tom, Seth, Mir, Pat, and Andy were there, and we basically did nothing but play games. Of course, we went and saw the booths, of which there were a couple of good ones. That didn't last long though before we returned to Chris and Frosty's apartment building, which it turned out was right across the street from my hotel! Frosty had bought a couple of games for everyone to play, Red Dragon Inn and Bang!. They wound up being a lot more fun than I thought they would be from the descriptions given to me. I was especially nervous about Red Dragon Inn since it was about drinking, which makes me a bit nervous. And I haven't been a big fan of hidden-role games, but I enjoyed Bang! so much.

I also went to dinner with Christophe, Tom, and Seth. We were supposed to meet up at 7 and I took a lyft to get to Christophe's apartment in time, but then we waited for at least 45 minutes waiting for Christophe and Tom to finish playing 40K. Seth and I got to chat a bit though, which was nice. This was my first time with all of them in-person since I came out to them as ace. They made a few comments to a few things I said saying "Lan, you're too precious for this world." or something like that. They said similar things throughout the night. That actually felt super nice, but the whole time was spent with them misgendering me (not their fault, since they didn't know, but it still felt bad nonetheless). Also, at dinner and in the car on the way there, Tom and I talked a lot and I feel like we got a good bit closer, which is kind of unexpected. Tom's always kind of seemed too scary and intelligent to me. The kind of person that would never respect me. I guess part of the reason for this turnaround might be our characters teaming up in DnD and the cool plans I came up with? Maybe I earned his respect months ago and didn't realize it. It's like I'm finally eating at the big-kids table and they're not making fun of me for it.

Since I had such a good time, I've decided to start applying to jobs in Pittsburgh. I guess I haven't documented my past few months on here. At some point last year I let my work know that I was going to start looking for a job in NYC/Jersey City at the start of the new year. They didn't seem to really understand that I wasn't applying to anywhere until then and just assumed I would have a job by the end of February. So, when February rolled around, they hired someone and let me go. And by "let me go", I mean that they told me to resign, which I did so that I could leave on good terms and get recommendations. I kind of really resent them for this, since it makes finding a job a lot more difficult when you're unemployed and I have to keep explaining why I am no longer at my full-time job. I also don't want to be saying that I was wanting to move to be with a friend, so I've been lying to them and saying that I was moving to be with my partner. So far everyone I've told this to has accepted it and gone "oh okay", so I guess it's not too big a deal that I'm unemployed? Also, I kind of really like being unemployed. I finally have all the free time in the world. I'm not doing as much as I would like towards my hobbies, but my days are generally really great. Sometimes I feel like a worthless piece of shit, but that's the minority of the time. I wish I could just keep being unemployed forever.

During my time unemployed, I've been really stepping up my work on the Aeldrum wiki. I also quickly learned how to use Inkscape and put together some flags and seals for various organizations in the setting. I also started putting together some rules for using my comic setting for tabletop RPGs. I really need to do more with drawing and 3d modeling.

I should get to see Fef as well as everyone but Pat and Andy (since they're not staying in Pittsburgh and were only there for Carnival) when I go to Dancer's Symposium in a little under two weeks. Andy might be able to show up for the day, but that's a bit unsure right now. I really hope Fef will enjoy doing DS. She's really been having a bad time having to go to work all the time. It'll also be nice to actually see her in person. I've been going to NYC a lot for interviews, but something keeps happening that causes her to not want or be able to hang out with friends. I don't think she's been avoiding me, since she'd just talk to me about whatever it was. It's just been a lot of unlucky timing.

On the nsfw side of things, my libido has gone down a lot, which isn't really bothering me that much anymore. I don't get random erections anymore either. I'm not sure if this is because Lyca hasn't done anything with me in months (and the general lack of them saying anything to me is a bit worrisome), if it's because I'm getting older, or because I realized I'm genderless and don't feel like I have to be sexual. Maybe I'll find out at some point in the future.