Where did everybody go? I'm beginning to feel like one of my nightmare's wandering around in the dark looking for that elusive light source. Dark shadow people occasionally breathing their musty-stanky-corpse breath in my ear. Odd noises awakening morbid thoughts. Trying to kick it all to the proverbial curb.

The thought sparks that I am writing in my personal diary and this will be unread by anyone else. So be it. Whatever, I'm fairly certain that I do not care anymore. On with the show. Is there anybody still out there? Can YOU feel it too?

My always dark and sinister corner of the Deviant Art burial plot has always been a barren miniscule netherworld sometimes visited, but certainly no place to raise a family, or take a vacation. The soil here is no good for growing anything other than tumbleweeds. The local pond has no trout. or bass. only these evil Frankenstein-like carp patrolling the bottoms with milky dead eyes that shine through the murky fetid depths like the headlights of a '59 Buick cutting through a foggy night.It always has felt like a Jan Svankmajer movie.

BUT, Here's the rub, as fatalistic, and "my glass is half-empty", as it may always seem, there is that weird and totally demented tiny spark of hope that manages to move one foot ahead of the other that exists even in the mindless zombie looking for the next meal. BRRRRRAAAAIIIIIIINNSSSS!!!! The will to go on despite the depth of the shit you find yourself drowning in.

Deviant Art continues to erode away giving more and more reasons to grab pa's shotgun and put it to DA's massive yet confused forehead unloading both barrels and in turn spray painting everything behind it bright red. Now that my friends is Art more Deviant than they could have ever imagined.

OK what have I learned? I have come to the often suspected, but never admitted to, fact that I would be here despite the heavy losses and casualties, because when it is all said and done, I really am doing this mainly for me. Sure there are lucid, crystal-clear moments of laser focused pleasure given by others and that probably is the carrot that keeps one foot ahead of the other in motion. However the real truth is I would do it anyway because I have the need to do it even if it is for myself. Nobody else "gets me" is no longer as painful as it once may have been, it can always just be my secret and be good enough.

I would be a liar to even suggest that I do not miss all the cool/fun people that have disappeared over my D/A lifetime. Those that have found artistic success, a "real job", or fell in love and no longer needed this as much, or just got bored with it all. I love and miss you guys and wish you even more than what you may have now. To all the die-hards like myself that hang on still, one foot ahead of the other, I finally get it. I'm glad we are still here and it is always great to hear and see from you. Yippie-ti-yi-yay motherfuckers!