Roxanne... in a can!🌺 @Roxy@vulpine.club

But yea I hope nobody's takeaway from all this is "Roxy is a bad pet owner" because a good amount of the debt I have right now is simply from making sure they're taken care of. I'm using glasses that should have been replaced like 8 years ago now because of just I never have the time or money (yea that's a thing too, can't hardly see well anymore and half my teeth are messed up and US Healthcare is an absolute joke so I just gotta deal with it)

Oh there's also the whole thing about I don't know how this whole "self employed making money off patreon and art commissions" works and if/when I have to file quarterly taxes, how much I'd have to pay, etc and I'm not even able to do the art commissions I'm supposed to do anyways because I'm just so pile on with stuff that I can't focus on it

And the art thing I struggle with anyways because if I do it too long my wrist and elbow start hurting (yea I've been wearing an elastic brace for my elbow, all this awkward handing out of orders at work trying to do social distancing etc really did a number on it and it's getting better but I still have to deal with pain sometimes) so yea that's a whole other thing

OH YEA I ALSO forgot to mention that just before all this happened at the end of November, my car broke and it's just been sitting there because I can't afford to get it looked at so we've just been using the truck which uses way more gas, and now we've been having to clean up and do stuff because the neighbor cant mind her own business so now our landlord got a notice because the city has received complaints on everyone around here including our house and it's not even bad out here but still gotta make everything shine now, so that's a new thing on top of everything else

It's a lot and it continues being a lot and I'm just, so tired

I forgot to mention that all this stuff I've been dealing with is *on top of* all the general stuff that people who live in the USA have been dealing with anyways as well as the depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, and sometimes suicidal idealizations that I have to deal with that I have for years without any kind of therapy or psychological help where it's gotten to the point I forget about it because I just try to block it out, but I am not invincible and it's stuff I have to deal with

I think this is why I'm so forgetful anymore, it's just that my mind is so used to blocking stuff out that it's kinda on auto now where I accidentally block out good stuff or stuff I actually need to remember lol

anyways I feel a little better now but now I feel bad because I put it out there and someone somewhere is gonna read the whole thing. I'm not gonna read replies right now because I really don't want "my condolences" or whatever. I don't want people to cry for me or give me their sympathy or anything. I just want to be able to wake up one day and know that I'm gonna have financial security and not have to worry about if I'm gonna be able to pay credit cards on time or not, or wondering what time the next food giveaway is so I can go over there and get a can of corn (yea thats a thing too, forgot to mention that)

anyways I gotta go soon and I'm sorry for having to post all this. I'm sorry I gotta use Mastodon for this purpose now, and not really post here otherwise, because snouts online burnt me so bad on the mastodon experience that I'm uncomfortable even using the site, and I'm sorry that I couldn't ever join vulpine club properly and get to know everyone here. Sometimes I just wanna delete my account out of guilt, but most my clients come from here. and to them I'm also sorry, and sorry to anyone who read this whole thing

I've got to go now

anyways that's where I am right now, I don't have any money and I'm hoping that I get the tax return so that I can have some again because I'm tired of asking for money. I'm probably gonna go back to my job after the demo is out because now it's possible to do so, because at least there I can do the same thing and buckle down and just do it. I mean yea sure I'll be risking exposure to covid every day from people who don't know any better and just come to the drive thru with their nasty ass cough but like at least its reliable money. idk I guess I was just hoping for a miracle or something, been busting my ass a lot the past few months on Shield Cat hoping to be like "Hey gimme money on patreon I'm making it happen look at me work hard" but the truth is that nobody has money and nobody can give it to me. Even now I kinda hope maybe I'll get some kind of windfall where I put out the demo and everyone goes "wow!!" and gives me money so I don't have to go back, I think thats what I'm really hoping for and why I don't go back to work just yet, just in case

idk I'm just tired and dealing with a lot and stressing out about money and loss every day for years now just makes it really hard to want to draw a picture of somebody's fursona's dick

since the SAGE demo I've been rewriting the game from the ground up and I feel like it's gone great but honestly it's been pretty tiring. I've seen other people who are solo devs and even some in groups who have been doing what I've been doing (making a steam page etc) and been like "I'm taking a break like a week after this" and I've just been like, man

ever since I got off work I was just working every day on the game or art or something and I realized that, so I've been trying to take a day off a week. It's been working out I guess, but its not as restorative as I hoped, especially because on the day off something always seems to happen

but yea the past few months have just been me sitting at home in my room on beck and call, driving into town for doctors appointments etc. I've been pretty drained and having to deal with a lot and honestly when it comes to like doing commissions and stuff it's just so hard to get myself to do it because I have a hard time finding fun in anything lately. The good thing about programming is that I can buckled own and just do it, and even if I write shitty code because I'm sad, it's possible to just go in later and fix it and make it work better. If you hit a nail with a hammer eventually it'll go in

honestly, I've probably been taking more time to work on the game than I should, especially lately, but yea I was asking for less time at work because I was working on the game and I wanted to make that SAGE demo and make it really nice. It's been tough, but it was rewarding. Between work money, patreon money, and whatever money I could convince people to give me throughout the month, it was working out. However, everything changed in november when my mom messed up her knee. Suddenly I found myself having to stay home and get up at all hours of the night to help her out. During december, especially after the loss of my cat, I was especially tired. Lately, I haven't really had any time to myself at all, and I haven't been able to enjoy that trip in the car to work because one thing about that was when you're out in the middle of nowhere where there's no 5G nobody can bother you or ask for anything, and it was nice to be alone. I don't have that anymore, and I've been getting up this past week at 6am just to have some time, posting jokes on twitter like "the early bird gets the worm" or some shit. Honestly, I'm just trying to find some time where it's quiet and I can just be me and not have anything expected of me

all of this stuff that I've been having to deal with, as well as constant expenses from having to drive like 90 miles every day just to go to work because that where the job was, and the expenses on the vehicles and gas and upkeep as well as the fact that generally everything in california is expensive, has lead to a pretty big strain on credit cards etc. back then, when I was with my boyfriend, he was giving me money to help me out. If you ever noticed after we broke up that I was asking for money regularly after that, now you know what that was all about. At least my cards were not in a position anymore where I had to make enormous minimum payments, but it's still been a struggle lately especially now that I'm not working, which I'll get into in the next post

now that I've talked about that, I can talk about this, that today later on we are going to the vet with another very old dog who's had a great life but its just her time. Again, I didn't want to bring it up because we just lost one and I don't want people thinking I'm a bad pet owner. Our animals are fixed, vaccinated, healthy and could probably lose some weight lmao

though these two dogs are old and it's been expected for a while that this was gonna happen (and in general, as we stopped doing the foster care a while ago and all these animals just grew old with us) I *also* had my cat pass away in december, before christmas. This was unexpected, as he was only 3 years old. He got sick and our other cats got sick but the others got better but he just, didn't. It's hard to talk about and I miss him a lot, but honestly, he's always had some trouble and I feel like he lasted a lot longer than he and his siblings would have if we didn't find them as kittens. idk if he had an immunity deficiency or what, but yea

I'm trying to go back in my mind. I remember back when I was on snouts online and twitter and tweeting a lot but I never really said what was going on. Even with my boyfriend at the time and my tier 5 best friends I never really talked about anything. Back then, a couple years ago, I lost 4 pets throughout the course of the year. I talked about the first one but never talked about the other ones because it was both painful to deal with and I didn't want to have to explain my position before people think I'm some kind of bad pet owner. Now though, since I am talking about it, I can explain it.

Back in the day, a long while back, my mom and I did foster care for an animal shelter. We fostered a ton of them and adopted them all out. It was very nice and many lives were saved, but some of them just never went anywhere due to either just being too shy or aggressive or whatever. We had one dog before (the one I posted about recently) who was aggressive toward most dogs but we worked it out and she lived to like 17 and was content, and that's just pretty much what it's been - old dogs on medicines who finally succumb to whatever their illness was, or just being too old

ok gonna really test out the character limit on this website because there's some stuff I gotta get off my chest. I've been having a real rough past couple years and especially the last few months and I just want to talk about it and offer some insight as to why I'm not able to just be like "ok here is some cool art" every day or whatever absurd requirement I put on myself is.

Yea I think its all like a couple years ago or more, it's all just been a blur because I try to forget everything and I try not to talk about anything because I don't want to invite people into my life like that. Even now, I don't want replies like (oh I'm so sorry for you Roxy) or whatever. I don't really like sympathy and I'm not trying to make a sympathetic plea or anything. I'm really just trying to get stuff off my chest.

The truth of the matter is over the past couple years I've dealt with a lot of loss, from pets passing away and whatnot, and I've been having trouble with money and lately just trouble in general. It's been a big struggle, but something that I'm just having to deal with (cont)