Neotoy 2022

January 24th, Hello 2022, I thought you'd never come. Hello friends. And now for some news that most likely will mean next to nothing to anyone besides me, but that you may perhaps find interesting on some level: I've stopped self-hosting, at least temporarily. Surprisingly my server is still as venerable as ever, but my ISP made self-hosting harder than it used to be and I just didn't feel like bothering with the hassle in 2021, arguably the worst year of my life. I'm trying google sites, just for the hell of it.

Yes indeed, 2021 was a shit show of epic proportions, and this is no hyperbole. I nearly lost everything dear to me in my immediate life. The reasons behind this episode are as nebulous and ephemeral as clouds of cosmic gas coalescing into stars. And for me it was like a star was born right in my lap, burning hotter than a million suns and then going super-nova in my face. I am scarred, I am burned to a crisp, parts of me are just a carbonized husk. I lost most of a year of my life and perhaps more.

And who do I blame for this? There is no one really. I could blame evolution or whatever ephemeral lick of flame that makes the human spirit continue licking after the human body has taken hit after hit after hit. The will to live, I could blame that. But that would do no good, none at all, the show must go on. In a moment of salience it occurred to me that I must "cope or die" and so that is what I am now attempting to do. Given my checkered past, this post is nothing new. After all I've been fighting terminal depression my whole life, it's a miracle I'm still alive to begin with.

If I am writing all this for any reason, it is to announce that I am not dead yet. Neotoy is still alive, and like Joaquin Phoenix, still here. And still defiant as hell. The consequence of 2021, the aftermath, is that I had to put almost everything I was working towards on hold. Everything. It was like my life ground to a halt, and just now, five months or so later I'm barely starting to move again. It was like being in a coma or having one of those horrific skiing accidents where your whole body is in traction for months. I now know to some degree what that must feel like, and let me tell you, it is horrible.

So yes, that is why I was gone and 'off the grid' for so damn long. I would not relive 2021 for any amount of money. Nor will I ever be ungrateful or take for granted good mental health ever again. I wish I could say that the crisis was over, but it isn't, there are still aftershocks, still the wreckage of fallen skyscrapers to contend with. The road to recovery will be long and arduous, of that there is no doubt. With any luck at all, I will make it out the other side. So wish me that if you will. A toast to the glorious future we all so richly deserve. Be well my friends,

-Neotoy