It’s Been a Hell of a Month for Me

This September has been an unusually busy month for my family and me. My case management program helped introduce me to a website called Autism on the Go, which hosts Zoom calls run by and for autistic and neurodivergent people to help people like me find community with like-minded people. I’ve also taken steps toward reentering the workforce by calling another program recommended by the case manager, ACCESS-VR. I’ve worked with this program in the past, as they helped pay for my college textbooks and helped me get that job with the local hardware store that I got laid off from four years ago. I sent in an application a week ago but haven’t heard back yet. I still have other related stuff on my to-do list, like contacting the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and scheduling my driving lessons (which has proven complicated because there are no driving schools in my county, and I had to rely on one that’s a 1 ½ hour drive away).

It’s definitely uncharted territory for someone who’s been in hikikomori mode for as long as I have. As the header image may indicate, there’s no small amount of hesitation that accompanies such a large leap. I’ve told my therapist how I feel like that part in The Fellowship of the Ring where Sam Gamgee suddenly stops in his tracks and tells Frodo that “if I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.” Even so, as scary as venturing out of my comfort zone is, it is very much a necessity for me at this point, and I think the time has come for me to take that extra step.

Sadly, that may have to wait a little while until a recent family emergency blows over. You may remember me mentioning in the last update post that my sister was due to give birth at the end of August. She successfully delivered a healthy baby boy, who has been proving quite the handful for his new parents over the past three weeks, but nothing that the other parents surrounding her (like her own) haven’t dealt with before.

So I’m sure you can imagine my family’s shock and horror when my sister and brother-in-law discovered their child had an arm injury and, when they took him to the hospital to get it examined, had a nurse call CPS on them, and as of the time of this writing, they are separated from the child by law. It’s an extremely frustrating and unfair situation. Having known my sister for the better part of three decades now, I can certainly attest that she would never deliberately harm her child, nor would she tolerate her husband doing the same. I can understand that nurses have to keep an eye out for possible signs of abuse, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how they could jump the gun this fast with my sister and her husband, who are very clearly caring and devoted parents. I probably shouldn’t be talking about this with you guys, as my parents seem to want to keep this under wraps as much as possible so as to not cause a stir among their friend groups, but I needed to vent about it. It’s been weighing on my mind (probably not to the same degree as the baby’s actual parents, but still…) and I needed to get it off my chest. I don’t think this will end with my sister having her son taken away from her, because I have to imagine that any reasonable authority figure would see that this was all just a big misunderstanding. Still, it’s causing all of us a great deal of grief for no good reason, and I and everyone else are really hoping it resolves itself soon.

It feels a bit wrong to go from that to talking about the blog, but it is a necessary part of these update posts, so let’s talk about that.

So far, it seems the rest of 2026 will be dedicated solely to posts about animation. I still haven’t finished either of my “best of movies/TV shows” lists for 2025. You can almost certainly blame that 2022 list for the hold-up. I definitely don’t regret making that list, especially since I got to share Pantheon, Dead End: Paranormal Park, My Love Affair with Marriage, Aurora’s Sunrise, and many others with my beautiful watchers. Still, it means that it’s taken a long time for me to get caught up on the best of 2025. Indeed, I’m definitely going to have to split the TV series list into two parts like I did with the 2023 list, because if I don’t, it’ll be 2027 before it comes out, which would just feel wrong.

As for the 2025 movies list, how soon that comes out depends on how long it takes to finish my second 1001 Animations Halloween special. Yes, that is definitely happening again this October. I don’t think the 2025 films list will be done before that comes out, so you might expect it sometime in November. Depending on how much time I have between that and the second 1001 Animations Christmas special, I might also do a non-holiday-themed 1001 Animations article. Does that schedule sound a bit ridiculous to you? Maybe, but I have animation autism, so what can I do?

Naturally, that means the other ideas I mentioned for future articles in the last update will have to wait until after New Year’s. I don’t know what the first article after the holidays will be (the South Carolina episode of “Cryptids”? One of those prehistoric animal articles? One of those “20 Favorite Songs” articles?). Still, I have plenty of time to figure that out. Hopefully, you won’t be sick of me talking about animation before then (honestly, I wonder if I’ll be sick of talking about animation before then).

Of course, all of this could also depend on what happens if I do end up getting a job or a driver’s license between now and then, which could affect my schedule. But it’s probably no use worrying about that until it actually happens. Even if I manage to find a job and a social life, I’ll make as much time for the blog as I am able. After all, I still haven’t run out of things to say.