The State Of The Unicorn 2015 · 11:55am Dec 31st, 2014
The State Of The Unicorn 2015
Today was my fifty-fifth birthday.
Over the past weeks I have received a great many messages of kind remembrance and well-wishing and concern, and support, and it would be unkind not to respond. Thank you, dear friends, for caring.
I still live out of boxes, in a corner of a room. But that is finally changing. For the past many months an effort has been underway to convert the garage of this new house into a new 'Uniplex' - the family joking name for the space I inhabit. In our last home, which I still mourn the loss of, I had the most marvelous of places, but this is now, and I am fortunate to finally be seeing some hope of unpacking and getting on with my life.
If you have forgotten, or are new to my situation, put simply we - my family and I - had to move to a new city and a new state. This was caused by a business trick played by Intel, and resulted in tens of thousands of workers being displaced. The upshot of such a mass migration is that it has been all but impossible to find contractors, internet installers, or any other service that might be needed by a family recently relocated. For example, when the internet connection was accidentally cut by the contractor we finally found, it took almost two months to have the situation resolved. There just weren't any people available to reestablish the box and connection. Local businesses have been calling in workers from all over the country just to handle the 'Intel Invasion'.
I had a fourteen-year career in the software industry. Both as a game designer and illustrator, and as a reviewer and website developer. All of this resulted in an almost inevitable collection of artifacts - long story short, I likely have one of the largest collections of video and computer games and promotional items in the whole of North America. It is possible that half the unpacked boxes that fill our new house belong to that collection.
Ever play Sokoban? 'Warehouseman' - it's a Japanese game where one must shift crates as a puzzle in order to clear a room. Move one crate wrong and everything goes pear-shaped, likely game over. Until my room could be finished, there was literally no room to unpack anything. All four of us have been in limbo, all of this time, grieving the loss of our ideal home - and everything else we loved - back in Olympia. It's been rough. I myself have been... very... depressed.
An effort was made to try to finish my new room by my birthday. It mostly succeeded, and that is a turning point. It means that we, as a family, can finally start putting our lives back together. We finally have internet again, we finally have the construction nearly done, the lights are in, the toilets all finally work now - plumbers have, understandably, been in short supply too - and after a large amount of antibiotics, I am now well and have mostly kept my hearing. I had strep trying to murder my ears for a while. Bottom line - this may be the proverbial corner, just turned.
Which is good, because... it has been very rough. If my first year of writing Conversion Bureau stories here on Fimfiction - before the harassment and abuse and death threats and server attacks - was the very happiest year of my entire life (it was, astonishingly enough), then this last year, or rather this last two years, has been the worst. Worse than the year my mother died, worse than the year I had a heart attack from stress, worse than anything I know. In the past two years I have had two of my spouses nearly die, I have lost the home I loved, and, of course, I have endured the aforementioned harassment for the mortal sin of writing posthuman transformation stories.
But now, perhaps... I hope... things might finally get a little better. A room for my stuff means the room to get at everyone else's stuff, which means finally moving properly in, which means an end to living out of cardboard boxes. It's been months now. That's hard at the resilient age of 25, it is horrific when one is past the age of fifty, I assure you. The degradations of aging make everything harder to deal with. Much harder, in some cases.
I have experienced more suicidal ideation this past year than... well, it's been bad. But one thing always keeps me grounded - my family loves and needs me.
And apparently, so do some of you, in your way, and that is why I am posting a blog today. To let you know that I am still around, and that I acknowledge your kindness, and that I am grateful for you, and, well, thank you.
I'm not in a place where I can write, yet. Way too sad, still. But I wish I could write, and that's something. That's a lot. Just to even want something right now, anything, is a big step forward for me. It is my wish to one day finish my incomplete novel for you. I have not abandoned it utterly. I've just been offline, and very withdrawn. When I get too sad, I can't handle being social at all. I know I become a big bundle of boo-hoo, and nobody likes that. In space, nobody wants to hear you cry. Or so I become convinced.
And that is the explanation - along with losing internet for a really long time - for my utter absence.
What did I do for my birthday?
Well, I share my birthday with another of my spouses. He and I are one year apart, same day, and I often let him pick where we have our fancy dinner. We still don't know where the good restaurants - or anything much - is around where we are now, but somehow we ended up at P.F. Changs, which is a chain outfit that does a sort of fusion-style neo-Chinese cuisine. It was pretty, and fairly tasty, and we all shared a huge slice of chocolate cake twee-ly named 'The Great Wall Of Chocolate'. Because China, you see.
I couldn't think of a single thing to want for my birthday, but Aedina (here on Fimfiction), another of my spouses, is very keen on people having presents to open. She like festivity in general. So I found myself with some surprising, and quite beautiful, birthday loot. Vinyl Celestia and Luna from Hot Topic, an amazing Nightmare Moon sculpture, some wonderful German unicorn toys - I always favor unicorns - and a really brill Beholder-shaped gaming dice bag. Aedina is very good at choosing things that I love - even if I am too blue to imagine liking anything. It was really quite wonderful.
For my part, I got my shared-birthday spouse imported MonsterArts figures of several beloved Godzilla monsters. He loves Godzilla - so do I now, thanks to him - and these are literally the best movie monster figures that can be bought. I also got him a very heavy book about Dr. Who, which, happily, it turns out he has long wanted. So that was a huzzah right there. He is very hard to get gifts for - I can't think of anything to want when I am depressed... he never, ever can articulate anything he wants, pretty much ever. I have to play Sherlock Holmes every time, combined with keeping records of what he already has. But, I think I did good this time, so... that is happy.
Now that I have broken the ice, I will peek in more regularly here. I don't know when I will write again - it will likely make a difference when I have a desk to type on, as opposed to my lap. Lap-typing hurts my neck something awful. I've been experimenting with balancing boards at angles off of boxes to hold the keyboard but... a desk will make a difference. Soon, perhaps. Soon. I can finally see light, there, at the end of a months long, very dark tunnel.
Goddess, but I love my family. Thirty years, just about. I wouldn't be alive, save for them. A truly loving group of spouses is the greatest treasure in all of life. When all else is lost, they are the lifeboat that allows survival. Always 'marry' your very best, truest friends, and then cherish them with every breath. That's my big Life ProTip for today.
Thank you for caring about me too. I will work to get back my mojo - 'joy', really - so that maybe I can write for you again. I'd like that. I want that. I hope so.
So that's the State Of The Unicorn for December 30th, 2014, soon to be 2015.
Maybe this can be a year of desks instead of boxes, kindness instead of harassment, and wonderful stories too. And No Man's Sky. I've been following that game and, basically, it's my dream come true. Maybe this will be a good year, and maybe it will be worth being fifty-five.
Thank you for your kindness and support. Good friends.
- Petal Chatoyance
Someone needs a hug.
I wish I could give you a hug.
My heart goes out to you. I hope that Princess Luna will come to you and say, "Petal, it's time to wake up," and you'll open your eyes and be back in Olympia in your own little bed, and you'll stagger around the house telling your spouses about the nightmare you had.
Aw, that stinks! I hope things get better for you and your family. :/
I stared in shock and disbelief for a second or two when I saw what had caused a feed alert. It's very nice to hear from you again. I've not actually read the post yet, but I thought I'd say that first.
Oh, happy birthday!
Wow. You're still not fully unpacked? My recent move from my on-campus apartment took about a week to complete, and it was some level of distressing to me pretty much the whole time. To have that for this long... well, I'm sorry life still seems determined to heap troubles on you.
And two months to get the internet reconnect. As internet addiction is the exception to my generally non-addiction-prone personality, that sounds horrible. See the bit above about life, and sorry again.
...And you had a nasty ear infection.
I'm very glad you have your family too. Good grief, with everything life does to you, it's nice you have them for mutual love and whatnot. ...That probably could have been more poetic, but this sort of thing isn't my area of expertise. Basically, at least you're not going through all of this alone.
Anyway, I don't know when you'll be back to reading through comments, but it looks like I might want to get back to reading your works soon. While you were gone, I finished Recombinant 63 and The Ice Cream Pony Summer and started The 800 Year Promise, but I started directing my attention to other things. Hopefully you'll continue to be pleased by my comments as you've said you have been in the past.
Oh, yes, and I've been listening to some LibriVox recordings of Lord Dunsany's works. Some I've not particularly cared for, but others have been quite enjoyable.
I'm so glad to hear that things are improving for you, and that there is truly light at the end of the tunnel now.
Thank you for keeping us here on Fimfiction up to date, and continuing to stay with us.
And of course, Happy Birthday, belated though it is.
Happy Birthday Petal! And a happy new year too. Best wishes for the coming year. Hopefully everything will keep improving.
Very happy to hear from you. Happy birthday, and here's hoping 2015 is a much better year for you.
Well, that made my New Year's Eve. I'm happy to hear that things are improving for you, even if they're not where they need to be yet. And I'm very glad that, since all we can offer are kind words and e-hugs, you've got your family to be with. Happy birthday, and hopefully a happy new year.
Chatoyance, it is good to hear from you again.
Sorry to hear the filth of humanity still is delivering their mental excrements to your doorstep.
I can only hope you won't let it get to you, nor allow it to influence your private life.
I wish you and your family all the best for 2015.
Make sure to drop a line occasionally to your friends and fans, most of us know you for years and years and know what kind of crap you've had to face. Silence makes us worry.
OH!
and happy birthday! 
Thank you for letting us know how you are doing. I am saddened I can't do much besides offer moral support. I did buy a couple copies of Unicorn Jelly, so hopefully you got enough money to get a box of chocolates or something. With regards to your internet problems, was a wireless hotspot unfeasible for you? Anything port but Hughesnet, I always say.
Happy Birthday! I hope you situation continues to improve, and I look forward to reading your future works when you are in a good place to write.
Happy birthday and good luck to you!
Welcome back. Hope things work out for you.
...Touching. Fifty-five, formerly displaced, and you're still pressing on.
You have my condolences towards your difficult position, and some admiration for how strong you've managed to be through it all. Seriously,
As for your fiction stories here, don't worry about us. We're not the ones writing your stories, after all. The plot line will flow when it flows; no sooner, no later.
Happy Birthday indeed.
I don't understand people who go from 'I don't like this', to 'I hate you'.
But it seems inherent in the human condition that it's all too common.
Thanks for all the writing, and hope 2015 is much, much better.
Aww, well I am glad your hanging in there and that things are getting better. I got some of those vinyl hot topic figures too including Celestia and Luna. They're really nice to decorate your room and can put some color in the world when it is needed. You'll always be my favorite writer.
Aaahhh, I would've at least dropped something in chat if I'd know your skype birthday was anywhere near your real one!
*huggles* The new year WILL be better.
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Happy birthday, happy to hear things are setting down and settling in. Much love to you in this coming year. Thank you for being the beacon which you are even if it attracts the mean moths.
Our princess of Cardboardia has returned!
Happy birthday! It's great to hear from you again.
Happy Birthday & a Happy New Year!
Oh please, you're not fifty-five years old. Such a kidder you can be. You're only forty-two years old with a banging body of a women who looks thirty-five years old. Which doesn't matter, because you going to live enough to see the day people get suck up into some weird digital world that evolves into it's own reality from this one.
There's going to be this epic pony/unicorn war because you unicorns are stuck up. You're low on bits and join the army (or something) and start blasting the rebel ponies cause it's a job. Knowing my luck, I get stuck in MLP world because I take a wrong turn in Shadow Run world and now I'm this cyborg pony who get sucked into stupid civil war because fighting (and break dancing, I learn break dancing to get the chicks) is the only thing I'm good at.
We meet on the field of battle not knowing who the other was before this mess. 'Cause we never meet in person that past life.
The battle is awful and you say:
"Petal Chatoyance will be your doom mud pony scum!" You blast arcane bolts in my direction.
A memory pops into my head and I say:
"Did you ever make something called the Revised Bristol Stool Chart?" I dodge, and shoot bullets out of my gun hoof.
"Why yes. Where did you ever see that thing." Bullets fly over the cover you've taken as you lob a magic bomb in that direction.
I dodge out the way of the blast. "You had this blog on this site that was for writing stuff about ponies you unicorn supremacy jerk."
"Oh yeah, who were you?"
"I was the guy who talk about rubber duckies."
Then the Ultra Space Marines land into the fray who are led by Primarch Megan because someone just HAD to cross Warhammer 40k with MLP.
We both at the same time say:
"I'm too old for this shit."
And we both leave the battle to go eat some donuts because being a racist Equus makes you and me hungry.
You're such a cool person
“¡Get your hooves up, party’s starting out right now!”
“¡Everypony, everypony get down!”
“¡Time to make a wish, better make it right now!”
“¡It’s been an year and today is your birthdayparty!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthday!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthdayparty!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthday!”
“¡Make a wish, it’s your birthdayparty!“
Do you feel like you're being hugged while you're reading this?
Because, as I am writing this, I am hugging you.
I really hope I'll get a chance to chat with you on skype, or something, soon-ish... There are so many things that might happen!! I'm just glad to hear that I'm not too late.
It is a happy new year indeed when Chatoyance comes back. I'm quite glad things are turning up for you. I've seen some of No Man's Sky, it looks muffin awesome!
BTW, there is quite a collection of Doctor Who in the current Humble Bundle Books. So maybe a late present for your spouse?
Hello Chatty its good to hear from you, Happy birthday! Let's hope this new year proves to be a much better year for you.
Well I'm glad to hear things are improving for you however so marginally.
I look foreword to catching up
*gives you a great big hug and doesn't let go* I wish I could be there to hug you for real. I hope you'll be attending Everfree at least so I can. I missed my chance before because I hadn't started reading your works, and now I've missed the chance for you to at least be living in the same state as me, but I would still really like to hug you.
I am really glad to hear from you again. I could tell the move had been really traumatic and unwanted to you, and had been worried.
I hope you have a much better year than the last one.
Just thought I'd join the many voices welcoming you back. Glad to hear things are looking up for you. Hopefully you're reminded of all the good things, and the fact that there are plenty of us here who were concerned for your welfare. You bring a unique voice to fimfiction, a voice that has been missed these many months. I'm probably not the only one, but I can say for myself I checked your profile every week or so to see if you'd made it back.
I'd begun to get worried you wouldn't ever come back, but this time the check payed off.
Glad to have you back.
2704343
I'll me too this post, and note that while I am a young 'un almost a decade younger than Chat, I was still highly amused by the Sokoban reference. I never actually played Sokoban itself, but only experienced it in the Nethack levels (where I usually wanted to get the Bag of Holding).
While that reference was amusing because of the sheer nuisance value of actually plodding through those levels, I was horrified at the idea of actually having that as a life. Chat has a wonderful way of expressing awful situations in light and witty ways, but this particular expression perturbed me, because I could not imagine living this way.
Happy Birthday!
I am so very relieved that this was why you weren't on, not... (voice speaker=Princess Unikitty situation=first blowup)something much much Much MUCH worse(/voice).
Phew.
2706236
Amulet of reflection all the way, man. Freaking gnomes with wands, and frost wolves. Keep stuff you don't need at a given moment under rocks or in small locked rooms in levels that don't get many time ticks.
2706469
This is why, in Nethack, you always have two or even three ascension kits buried in various places. Because the game will otherwise cheat you out of everything every time.
Happy belated birthday, and it's good to know you're still alive and kicking, and have a good outlook on things.
I'm sure you'll get this situation licked before too long.
Hang in there, and hope to hear more from you soon.
I know this is late, but happy birthday, and I'm glad your ok. I hope things get better for you. welcome back!
I am very glad to hear you are ok. I know it is late but happy birthday to you! I wish you the best and that this year will be a better one.
Glad to hear from ya, Chatty
*boop*
Very belated Happy birthday to you Chatoyance! I don't frequent the site as much as I used to, otherwise I might have noticed that blog post sooner. It sounds like you've had a rough year, and my condolences and sympathy goes to you. However, I believe that you will only manage to come out stronger from everything, You've proven yourself stronger then those who have harassed and bothered you, showing them that they won't win, which is something I shall always applaud.
For you and your family, I extend well wishes that you all have a wonderful January, and more importantly, a Wonderful 2015. Like any year, it will likely have some down moments, but I believe that the happy ones will outshine and eclipse them all. May you all be happy and healthy.
2690104
What's wrong with giving virtual hugs? They can be just as warm and fuzzy as a real one.
I just noticed that this was posted on 5:55 a.m. Kind of interesting if it was intentional. :)