Thank you guys so much for the well wishes! I'm sorry I'm neglecting this blog so hard, I'm having to rearrange my whole dang life around the loss of the 15+ years of work that was on that stupid hard drive. Not to mention some $2000 of camera equipment I can't function without and can't replace. Much depressing. Very fuck.
At least one anon asked for a hard drive update, so: after 2 separate campaigns by relatives of the Karen persuasion, fuck knows how many phone calls, and a desperate road trip, I have learned and resigned myself to the fact that my lost luggage is sitting in a warehouse in fucking Texas, and that there is not a Greyhound employee alive that both can and will get me access to it. Rip.
The silver lining is that I can be reasonably certain my original fiction and art won't magically get published by some guy in Timbuktu - which was a legit fear I was nursing when I was told it might have been stolen.
Moral of the story: never travel with your work when you're in the middle of backing it up, emergency or no.
Also never step off a bus for those 20-minute breaks without all of your stuff, because the one time you don't is the one time the driver pulls out 3.3 minutes early and abandons you in downtown Nowhere at 4a.m.
Also, and I cannot stress this enough, PUT TAGS ON EVERYTHING, even if you only have carry-ons. They can't do shit for you without tags.
Anyway. Thank you for bearing with me. I'll get back on the wagon sooner or later.