another year goes by, huh? i hope your holidays were plesant - or at least as plesant as they could be, in whatever situation you've found yourself in.
we can only ever hope that our next year will be better than our last, y'know? i figured i would try to recap some big things that happened in the past year here in this blog post and send it on the 31st. it would help my memory, i think.
so let's start with january. i wrote out a list of things that i wanted to do in the year of 2023, and to the surprise of literally nobody i didn't really get to all of them. womp womp. the list is as follows:
these were goals i considered realistic, and i got to like, two of them. so instead of focusing on the shit that i didn't do, i'll focus on what i could do. even touch on some stuff that might be easier to attain in the coming year.
"grow my blog" was such a vague goal. i'm like 99% sure i meant my tumblr blog, but i grew other blogs as well! like my spacehey, and this blog! people are looking at me now (gaaah! the terror of being seen!) which as someone who is trying to be a better artist and work on commission, is something that i need (whether i like it or not). speaking of art, the stuff with the art festival - sad that i didn't do it but kinda glad that i didn't, cus the weekend it was supposed to be was kinda shit tbh. gloomy weather all around. and the music thing! i'm planning on taking guitar lessons in 2024. i've sort of plateued with my current skillset with guitar, and i wanna know more about my instrument. the goal has morphed from "release music" to "understand where you're at musically" and then hopefully, maybe join a band. and i like to think that i've made more art this year? i wanted to use youtube as a motivator to make more art, but i sorta realized that making videos or streaming isn't really my bag. baby. i mean i might stream a little in 2024 but i like listening to my copyrighted tunes while i stream so that might not be a thing.
though i think the big important thing (and funnily enough the first thing) is "start a webcomic". i started the year thinking my webcomic would be about hirsch (you haven't met him yet probably, but you'll meet him later maybe) and his whole lore, which will probably be about the complicated feelings i have with capitalism and whatnot. but no. i pivoted to ghost harem instead. and you're probably sitting there thinking "charlie," and i'm telepathically communicating back, responding "yes?" and then you're saying "you haven't put out a webcomic. the only things you have about ghost harem that are public are the wiki pages." which is an understandable line of thought! consider though. i'm actually in the process of fleshing out a story. i have events that are set in stone and arcs that are clear and defined. there are locations that i have a clear vision of in my head and i can answer just about any question about it - and those answers consistently feel right. which is so much more than i ever had for hirsch. sorry man, i'll get to you later. i got a song in my heart and it's ghost harem. just because there isn't any comic out right now, that doesn't mean that i haven't been sculpting it behind the scenes this whole time.
other than setting goals for my year, january was a pretty nothing month.
february, however.
the absolute corniest, sappiest, most cliché and trite fanfiction/wattpad event happened to me in february - i got myself a girlfriend. and they're better than yours because they write me things like letters and poetry on physical paper and i can put that physical paper in my sketchbook and read it and reread it whenever i want. in fact, they might be reading this now. hi babe! this is going to be a very long post - very out of character for how these normally are. enjoy the novel. also we went on 2 dates in february, the shortest month of the year.
speaking of dates i went on, a smooth transition into the month of march. our 3rd date was... march 3rd! i think that was the one where i just kinda decided we were a thing (though i did confess to you on valentine's day which, as previously mentioned, "how trite and cliché..." i hope you read that in whatever voice you imagine ted having). a lot of march was spent working on the previous version of this website. do i consider that work useless? no, it was still useful to me i think. any practice on web development is good practice. this thing is like my sketchbook in a weird way! i also bought my tickets to the KISS concert around this time, and finished the month by applying to a tarot deck thing, the results of which i awaited in april.
another smooth transition! i unfortunately didn't get accepted into the tarot deck thing, which made me real sad. so i tried to direct my focus back onto my website, deciding i needed a clean slate. in fact, most of the month was dedicated to figuring out what the fuck i wanted to do with this thing.
in may i celebrated my 21st birthday! i can now get drunk or high (or both!) and i got to celebrate in a couple ways - i had a party at home at the pavillion and a party at my grandma's with my friends! we went to the aquarium and it was nice :]
summer lightning round!! june started off with some car problems, it wouldn't start up at all (and didn't for the entire summer, womp womp). did a squad trip to ikea (favorite place of mine) and went to the palisades mall for the first time. celebrated a friend graduating from college, too! july was chill - my dad's birthday party, slides night 6, and barbenhiemer all happened. artfight was a bit of a struggle but we pulled through! oh, but august was a real drag. nothing really happened.
nothing is better than bad stuff though, i think. just when my car was running again, i got a flat tire. boo. and student loan repayment started up again. plus i lost my hairbrush for a couple days! what a shit month!
which then flowed into october at first. but hey! it's when this site got its revamp so it wasn't all bad. got into this perpetual cycle of treating fleas on my pets and i could feel it chipping away at my soul which was obnoxious, but i also put together an absolute banger of a costume for the fnaf movie - thirst trap purple guy. it was awesome, people should've noticed it more i think so i'll probably reuse it later. one of my regulars (ross, he's like, so sweet and kind and awesome) gave me some of his old clothes! and my first fountain pen! i also went to my first punk show, too! and it was fun. also if you're any of the guys from moosecreek park i want to personally apologize, i was in the blue car, we were leaving the venue at the same time and i felt like i was driving like a douche in your vicinity upon refleciton when i arrived home. i owe you all a ride in my car.
november chilled out a bit more i think. went and voted locally, got new brakes in my car, and discovered a new record store! hope i get to work there (maybe will design them a webbed site for funsies hehe~). then december. here we are. KISS was sort of the highlight of the month tbh, but overall a delightful month and a fine way to end the year. currently i'm working on stuff for slides night 7, so i'll wrap that up then put out teddy's wiki page when i have a minute.
what a recap! and what a long fucking post jesus christ. if you read all this you're a trooper, i mean it. like the ticker on the homepage said - merry clitmas, happy new yuri. here's to being the best version of yourself you can be.