UPDATE!!!! (Patreon)

Happy December everyone!!! Things have been NUTS lately (more nuts than usual!), and I can't wait to tell you all about it! 

I'll start with good news: TOMORROW IS THE EMMAs PREMIERE!!! Russ and I have been working our asses off getting everything ready (honestly, the reason I haven't been posting so much is because this month genuinely felt like a BLUR), and things have been stressful with all the things we had to coordinate -- designing, printing, and sending out official "nomination" letters to all the 25+ companies involved, getting the trophy logo 3D printed (thank you, Evan!) and rendered for video (thank you, Alex!), creating the ACTUAL physical trophies and making sure they arrived on time from the UK, coordinating schedules with the company acceptance speeches, coordinating schedules with the demo artists involved (you'll see what I mean tomorrow!), 10+ hours of straight filming filming filming, 2+ full days of filming filming filming with guest artists here at my studio, and even creating a commercial break (you'll see... lmao you WON'T want to miss the ridiculous commercial I made). The EMMAs premiere will run for 47 minutes in length tomorrow night at 7:00PM EST, and I really hope you all can make it, because the livestream chat should be poppin' off (I hope so!!!). Also, you'll find below this post a free album / compilation of music that will be showcased in the EMMAs tomorrow. Enjoy, and please use the downloads however you'd like!! ❤️

For some not-so-good news, I went to another ENT last Tuesday to try and solve my tinnitus (which has been getting a little louder lately, randomly spiking up more often, and keeping me up at night...), and I was basically told: your ears are physically healthy, and we don't think it's related to your sinuses, so at this point, you just have to learn to live with it. I've had pretty intense ringing in both my ears for almost 6 months now, and I was really looking forward to this appointment to see if they could help me or offer any other suggestions I haven't looked into, especially since things have been getting worse lately. To be told "there's no cure, and there's nothing we can do to help you" was just... pretty terrifying. I said, "what should I do about all this pressure I feel in my head?" and he basically just shrugged. I literally left his office on shaky legs. I don't want to sound like I'm overreacting or anything, and I didn't want to be too negative or talk about it too much during last week's livestream, but I could barely eat for days, and I had to constantly keep busy with tasks so that I wouldn't concentrate on the 24/7 ringing. I'm doing much better today though, and weirdly enough, I feel like it's because it's sort of "finalized" in a way? Up until now, I've been saying to myself "it's going to go away, it's going to stop, just keep waiting", and to just kind of... accept that this may be my new reality with the ringing is something I'm coming to terms with. I'm counting my blessings that I can still hear perfectly fine, and my hearing isn't being affected by the tinnitus at all (no hearing loss), so I'll just keep taking things day by day, drinking plenty of water, cutting caffeine, and just living an overall healthier lifestyle to see if anything changes. It's also comforting knowing that many other people struggle with tinnitus, so I'm not alone when I have bad days. Also, for anyone else who has tinnitus or knows anyone with tinnitus, THIS website has been EXTREMELY helpful for me -- it's called the "Back to Silence" method: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

BACK TO MORE POSITIVE NEWS!!! I've been reading a lot and doing my best to stay occupied, and I've re-read "Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. This was my second time reading it, and I absolutely DEVOURED all 650+ pages in two nights. I forgot how amazing this book was. I really honestly hated Wise Man's Fear, and at this point I have no hope for a third book... so I'm just enjoying NoTW on it's own, and pretending like there are no real continuations of it. I've also read Stephen King's "Later" which was AMAZING, "Hurricane Girl" which I picked out randomly at the library and wasn't super great, as well as "The Giver" since I haven't read that one since middle school. It was very, very good. I'm now reading "The Stolen Child" by Keith Donohue which is INCREDIBLE and I highly recommend if you liked Name of the Wind! I had to go into Manhattan yesterday and I read it on the train -- I think reading books during a nice quiet train ride is one of my all-time favorite situations to be in. 

Russ surprised me with a Steam Deck because he knew I was feeling very depressed lately, and I can finally play games on Steam that are usually only playable on Windows computers (we only have Mac computers because we're constantly doing video work)!! I beat Stray (which was AMAZING), downloaded Dropsy (which used to be my favorite game back in 2015 and still holds up), and am now playing through Detroit: Become Human. It's INCREDIBLE, and the Steam Deck is so wonderful because I can play it in bed when my insomnia or ringing ears keeps me up late. 

I also LOVE listening to ASMR (speaking of ASMR... here's me sorting through Skittles lmaoooooo), so if I'm having a rough night, I'll put on some ASMR or a podcast / livestream. For some reason I can't fall asleep to rain or nature sounds, but a fan giving me some good ol' fashioned white noise is a dream come true! 

As you can probably tell from this post, I'm doing my best to keep my mental health in check. A few weeks ago I discovered some really nasty threads about me (I won't say which website it was because I don't want you all to read that shit) and it put me in a pretty dark place. I've started exercising more, drinking water, quitting soda and coffee, and making a real effort to have time away from my screens. Russ and I are doing a Pokemon puzzle (lmao) together to relax, and last weekend we played Scrabble together! I'm usually pretty good at Scrabble, but Russ kicked my ass.

In terms of workload, in addition to the EMMAs, I'm now working on 3 separate scoring projects behind-the-scenes which I can share with you early next year!! I wish I could tell you right now but NDAs are kickin' my ass lmao. I'm still gigging around Long Island, and I actually have a holiday gig next week, so it looks like after the EMMAs I'll be chugging lots of peppermint tea and dusting off my holiday music. If you have any suggestions for Jewish and Catholic holiday songs in particular, please let me know!! Matt from our Discord and livestreams (and also here on Patreon! Hey Matt!) has been SUPER helpful in recommending music, and in terms of Christmas songs, I'm gonna try to keep it to songs like "Let it Snow!" or "Oh Christmas Tree!" -- I am SO bad when it comes to religious music, because when I was homeschooled, I was raised agnostic (my parents never placed any emphasis on any certain religion in particular), so I'm open to all religions and never quite know which songs are appropriate for which!! 

In addition to any music recommendations you have, let me know how your holiday season is going!!! I forgot to tell you about how my car broke down and the transmission on my harp-mobile minivan is slowly dying... but that's for another time! Also, if you have any good books, movies, or games to recommend, please share them with us below!! Thank you so much for being here with us for the month of December. I can't even properly express how much it means to me. ❤️