Based on the dates of my last published longform pieces of writing, it has been an uncomfortably long time.
In the last year I’ve dealt with a slew of personal issues ranging from financial, to medical, to personal that has effected the way I interact with the world. Pretty much no area of my life has been untouched by sudden changes in my every day life outside a few long term stabilities I’ve relied on. I relied on friends and peers, my lover and my father for so much support and love and because of that I owe everyone who has helped me to honor the care they showed me.
A side effect of my mental issues has absolutely been an aversion to the computer and the wider word of creative and academic action. I’m still working to obtain my degree, which has been a difficult reality to face in the way the profession of journalism and multimedia communication has shifted in the wake of generative AI, and as an autist I am functionally struggling with my committments to being a non plageristic and citation focused creative. At the same time, the expectations across the board of being a first generation college student while dealing with income based exclusion and medical complications along side these frustrating fixations on my output results in an unworkable combination.
I was already bad off as I spent my last months in Tucson. I had a day job that was meant to support people in situations like mine that was not supportive, and while I was doing some work I loved in the form of audio production and commentary for a local professional wrestling company it became obvious that it couldn’t pay the bills further.
Homeward
Once I accepted I had to move home, the rest came fast. I packed up my things and a dear family friend of my mother drove me to meet my dad at his sister’s we packed my things into the car, and off we went.
I cleaned. Oh my god did I clean. I love my grandparents dearly, but after my grandmother died and I was adopted even after living in this house for years we allowed ourself to somewhat fester in the way things were and the way things were left behind. I’ve organized parts of the house that have gone untouched for nearly nine years and I changed the way the furniture was set up to make it mine just as much as my dad’s. There was and still is a dance between autists (the man would deny any connection to autism, but all lines draw back to identifying the same frustrating and satisfying quirks that drive our lives) as we figure out how to live with each other as adults. I distinctly wanted to avoid some aspects of the feeling that I was living as a glorified teenager, though parts of my life slipped into familarity.
I went back to the station.
If you’ve known me for any amount of time you heard me talk about my first professional job in my industry being my work at a local AM radio station, and as I came back I happily picked up my roles again especially as the high school broadcast season rolled around. I felt truly comfortable in these months, and the routine felt right.
It didn’t last though. My boss is an Arizona Broadcast Hall of Famer, but after 48 years of work, it was absolutely time for him to retire, so the station closed at the end of February and I lost that aspect of my routine. I spent my entirity of high school, and for several months in college in a building I watched slowly empty. I took a bookshelf from the station for good measure, and as far as I know now, the building the station resided in will become a house (a weird house, the building was built as a radio station and has an odd setup because of it).
I was able to apply for health insurance due to the loss of work, and I’m back keeping on at home, applying for jobs and figuring out how I’m going to finish my degree. I’m certainly feeling better health wise, parts of Tucson were absolutely making me sick along with my diet, and through my medical care I’ve been put on a medication routine that has set me up for a lot more success than I originally thought.
So what now?
Present and Future
I’m still in a recovery mode in my mind. This article is a part of that recovery process, as I’ve been working to find the confidence to publish again for a long time. The fact that I’m stitting at my computer dressed and medicated in recovery. The fact that I haven’t bitten my nails and I’m allowing my skin to clear without ripping into it is recovery. I can point to so many small, incremental steps I’ve taken in my life since I’ve moved home that have made a difference in the way I feel day to day, while recognizing I have so much more to do.
A part of me wonders if the starting point of my adult life being set within the context of isolation and reporting on the dead resulted in me isolating myself in a different way, as if cutting myself off from connection and engagement with my wider sense of self would protect others from pain and grief. It’s not fair to blame the early years of my college career than it is to target any other time in my life, and I think identifying this unfairness makes it easier to tackle for the future.
I can’t just let myself drift through life anymore, even with the external pressures and the horrors on our ongoing political climate, surrendering myself to emotional petrification would kill me. I’ve shared in conversations with my lover as we’ve worked through our degrees, describing a state of failed metamorphosis in which I never really break out of the cocoon.
No matter how painful the world may be on the outside, I want to open up and feel the unfurling of my wings; I want to be free.
It starts with me of course, developing systems and means to achieve this freedom, kicking at the silk that has protected me and contained me all the same. What this means for how I create online I don’t really know yet, but I’m hoping to make it something I look forward to, as I certainly have ideas that I now want to act on.
Highlight Zone
I cannot help myself from writing about various pieces of media, products and interesting tidbits given how long I’ve been off.
The Wrestling Sidebar
While I absolutely adored some experiences in 2025 attending Action Dean and Double or Nothing in Phoenix and the indie shows I had a chance to work, it’s been a big period of my life where my tolorence for the way wrestling audiences and management treat women is at an all out low. AEW continues to dissapoint in the realm of treating the women’s divsion as equitable wrestlers and after MJF’s title win in December and supported by Darby’s title win I went all in on spending more time with Japanese women’s wrestling. Getting a Wrestle Universe subscription was easily one of the easiest and best decisions I’ve made in terms of how I watch wrestling. I thought TJPW had an amazing spring in Texas and Canada this year, and in terms of production and promotion I was so fucking impressed at how creative and human centered they took things with commissioning art for the match posters. Sendai Girls makes me feel the way I feel when I watch the ROH women’s division only amplified. It’s easily become my daily driver promotion to follow and I’ve basically fallen in love with the entire roster.
Server Talk
After the closure of the radio station, I was able to buy up a fuck ton of old computer equipment, and I used that to build a home media server I could store my files on. It’s working great after two months of figuring out parts and cables, and I can’t stop thinking about things to do with it. I’ve loaded my Jellyfin with a lot of lesbian history docs, AJW rips and my music library for now, but more in absolutely on the way.
The Great Skin Suffering
I have suffered from an inflammatory skin condition my entire life and it is living hell. Worse than my joint pain and even the tendon degration in my knee is the near constant stinging and burnign sensations I feel on the surface and just underneath my skin, it’s pretty much always happening and detectable, though I’ve found various ways especially now to cope with the pain. While the products I list below are topical solutions, I have to also mention my weed usage, which helps tone down the over all pain I’m feeling, and the prescription of an antibiotic medication that’s been helping clear comorbid skin issues.
Yes I Have a Lotioning Routine
Every time I wake up and go to sleep, I rely on a few products I put on my body pretty much every day:
Drip Sport Ice Muscle Recovery Lotion CBD+CBG and CBD+THC Gel: The dispensary my dad and I go to had their gels on special, and while I’d usually get the salve (a product that is functionally messy as fuck) these tubes are 100% better. Quick absorbing, and fast acting as fuck. I use it to target localized nerve pain in my neck and back, but this stuff is endorsed by both my 75 year old dad with disk degeneration and his 83 year old sister who got knee surgery.
Aloe Vera Gel: Can’t use anything that contains a scent or dye, so no after sun products, but this is the base layer that goes onto my skin and absorbs quickly, use this on sensitive areas where chafing or broken skin occurs and stuff starts healing quickly. It’s also face safe, and can be my first layer after washing my face without any gross pilling.
Curél Itch Defense Lotion: I’m working my way through testing all of the eczema and itch stopping lotions I can safely use, and this one is pretty fucking good. It absorbs quickly and doesn’t leave any staining on my clothing, but it spreads really well without using a fuck ton. It’s a thicker lotion so be mindful when applying, otherwise I like how it avoids the sticky sensations and leaves a soft touch to the skin.
Eucerin Face Daily Lotion Broad Spectrum 30 SPF: I pretty much stopped wearing face base makeup (foundation and concealer) following the end of the 2020 high school marching band season, and only bust it out for special occasions, but what I could not abandon from that time frame was applying sunscreen. I bought this moisturizer sunscreen months ago and I’m not sure if it will ever run out despite using two pumps a day. I honestly don’t love this sunscreen because it’s incredibly pilly, and I rely on a Blue Lizard SPF 50 Sun Stick if I need base coverage under makeup, but it’s so easy to apply that it’s become an instant routine step until I run out of the thing.
Aquaphor Healing Balm Stick: I’m already sworn to their lip balm, but this little stick solves so many annoying issues for me when it comes to my skin. Dry skin gives me the urge to pick, and occlusive balms which help dry patches the best are a fucking mess. This stick balm is basically a giant chapstick that’s less lubricating and more moisturizing. I use this on my face, elbows, and anywhere that gets dry and bad. I occasionally use it to tame my eyebrows without using brow gel, which works great.
Avery Reccomends:
Make some dumplings! I followed Lisa Lin’s video recipe and blog and made 54 pork and cabbage dumplings I can now eat over several weeks. After my dad and I butchered a tray of enchalidas earlier last month, it was a necessary win.
Watch this performance:
This is a recomendation for a book and website that is for adult audiences only and features intentional consensual bodily injury, blood and genitalia, select the filter to view my thoughts on the book Mod Con by Shannon Larratt
Mod Con: The Secret World of Extreme Body Modification
Read on the internet archive. I honestly find reading stuff like this really engaging with the human body, and I’ve found through an early facination with medical footage (I was a sports medicine student) along with my interest in hardcore wrestling that viewing the necessary gorier parts of extreme body modification doesn’t cause me much strife. I think I envy a lot of the ways people describe having control and agency over their bodies in Mod Con. It’s a sense of self discovery that very few people can take on and to be willing to share that is something so personal that I admire in a lot of the folks who gave Larratt time. I certainly share the complex connection between pain and pleasure and through the legacy of artitsts like Bob Flanagan and in more modern expressions Carta Monir’s Blood Video I feel like a lot more people are willing to explore what it means to shape and use the body in a way that is for them, more than anyone else. Though I get it if you don’t want to put a hook in your penis.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream
Probably the last title I will buy for a Nintendo product any time soon, this game really hands the player a kit and gets told to make the dollhouse. I’ve gone wild with this game, making OCs, friends, wrestlers and my favorite doll designs. In the weeks the game has come out I’ve certainly spent hours on making custom items, clothing and buildings to various levels of success.
As a big freak for the Sims and a staunch anti-EA advocate, I hate that my grounded hope for all life sim games leans closer to it than say, Animal Crossing. I enjoyed Animal Crossing, but felt the pace was a little rough and the animal aesthetics themselves interest me less than a contempory human option. I sort of feel like dedicating seperate teams to Animal Crossing, Tomodachi Life, and Pokopia has resulted in very familiar games with minor direct differences that could easily be unified on to corner the life sim and builder format that the Sims had held onto. I suspect this doesn’t happen much because people have payed 60-80 dollars for three games instead of one, but a girl can dream.
All in all, I’m going to get a fuck ton more playtime out of this game compared to Animal Crossing, but it does leave me wishing for a little more.
Also if every Mii on my island could stop falling in love with Mina, it would save a lot of broken hearts.
Closing Remarks
I hope this gave a picture into where I’m at and how I’m holding up. As of writing this, I just got a follow up to an application I put in for my local library, so I’m going to make myself lunch and tackle that! I hope to have more on the creative side and on the website update side to proudly present, but for now, take care of yourself!
