Sorry it took me long... it was actually hard for me to write-up this part...
Part Four: Decline and Fall of the Snowthan Empire (April 2006 - August 2007)
Yessireebob, by the time 2005 became 2006, I couldn't have been happier: life was definitely good, in reality AND online! As for my life on the internet, what could be better? My MC family kept growing with new members, which resulted in new friends, my bond with my old friends kept growing and growing, as Season Two of
T*K*O winded down, MrsPepper agreed to renew the series for Season Three, and scripts were already underway! KGZ saw a little bit of significant activity as well, and I THOUGHT I had found another friendly forum to be a part of. In real life? Well, nothing was really happening, until suddenly a turn was taken for the worse.
In February 2006, my mother and I received the shock of our lives... my dad was having an affair with an ex-wife of his from California, and was actually planning to leave us the following month... but that was before my mom worked feverishly to track this woman down, call her and confront her about my dad's activities, thus causing her to call it off with my dad; what seemed like the impossible, did however turn into the possible - my dad agreed that he and mom would seek marriage counceling (something I had actually been requesting they do for years, because frankly, they use to bicker some much, you'd think my parents were the real-life
Frank and
Estelle Costanza). Slowly but surely, things got better between them, so that was ONE good thing, but then another hit below the belt came... we were moving again. No big deal for me really, we've moved so much that I'm used to it, so it really wouldn't bother me, now would it? Boy was I wrong! Our new house was SO DEPRESSING! It was in one of those subdivisions where the houses are only feet apart from each other, and they all look the same, and this house was TINY! I mean, sure, the living room was big, the dining room was big, the kitchen was big, my parent's room was big... but MY room was a CRACKER box! I had little-to-NO leg room whatsoever. Our backyard backed into a backroad that bordered a ridge, so were a bit further away from the city limits. So anyway, there was nothing I could do, this was our new home. My troubles had just begun, shortly afterwards, the people on another forum I posted at began to turn on me for two very sound reasons, and after they harassed me and made me feel like a complete idiot, I wrongfully got the ban hammer... apparently they said
I was the trouble maker, not them... so, having a differen opinion about certain things is causing trouble? Well, things are really looking up aren't they? No not really. Could it get any worse? Yes it can. As summer rolled around, I feel ill, something that rarely happens to (nothing seriousl, I might get a sinus infection, or a little head cold, but this was a VIRUS)... I was throwing up, I had severe dyarehia, so bad that I become dehydrated, so in the middle of the night one night, I'm rushed to the hospital, hooked up to an I.V. and everything... but the worst that happened? I accidentally left my laptop plugged up, and there was a really bad electrical storm come through... can you guess what happened? Yep, my computer was FRIED! I lost EVERYTHING! ALL of those new
T*K*O scripts for Season Three were WIPED OUT! I was REALLY depressed then! My laptop had to be completely rebuilt, and when I got it back, the sad truth of lost scripts REALLY sunk in... I was at a loss... to re-write, or NOT to re-write... THAT is the question... It really became a big debate as well, MrsPepper told me that I didn't even have to if I didn't want to, that our fans would understand, but I couldn't just leave everybody hanging like that, so I did, indeed, re-write all thirteen episodes of Season Three of our show! Despite the raving reviews, Season Three of
T*K*O is one of my least favorite seasons, because, the re-writes obviously didn't have the same appeal to them as the originals did, considered I had to write from memory. Another thing that happened too was I lost my passion for cartooning; after spending much of 1999 to 2003 doing one series of mine, and then spending 2003 - till then on another series, I had just about had it! I couldn't take it anymore! I BLEW MY CORK! I "retired" from cartoons, cold turkey and vowed I would never do cartoons ever again! I felt it took me away from other things that were more important to me, like my puppetry, so I decided then and there that I would focus more attention to Steve... even if I couldn't actually do anything with him, just playing with him was a great way to relieve stress and cheer myself up (that and watching lots of
M*A*S*H, otherwise known as Televisual Prozac). It was another especially hot summer that year, so I was mainly miserable, so when fall slowly began to creep up, I was hoping this would get better... no such luck, as two things happened that fall that changed my life forever.
1. When I puberty, acne was CRUEL to me! It was my like my skin all over my face, back, and sometimes chest was just covered in zits! My nose is still covered in blackheads, and unfortunately, so are my nipples sometimes (THAT hurts), but back then, my acne was HORRIBLE! I had tried all kinds of remedies from creams, to facial medication, and oitments, nothing worked... so finally we went with the last resort:
Acutane, a very strong medication... SO strong is this medication that the Government of the United States of America has to monitor it while you take it because of the side effects, including depression, paranoia, high anxiety... and ladies and gentlemen, I HAD ALL of those! I was already depressed, so my depression grew even worse, and I WAS paranoid out of my skull! I mean, I seriously had to sleep with all the lights on I was so froggin' paranoid... and all those documentaries I had been watching about
El Chupacabra didn't help either!
2. Something HORRIBLE happened one night...
my baby was attacked! Now when I say "my baby", you guys all know I'm talking about Tommie right? Well, one night, two wolves (that's right, wolves, NOT coyotes, NOT "wild dogs", but WOLVES) strolled out of the ridge and they pretty much tried to tear her cage open with their mouths, just to get at her! One of them came BACK for her, I had the $+ scared out of me when that happened, and Tommie was in a bad spot - she had three clumps of fur ripped from her pale pink skin, the tip of her tail was bitten off, she had teeth marks over her butt, and her fur was soaked in blood (I believe the wolves cut their lips on the wire trying to get to her), so we moved her into the garage for a WEEK to keep her safe, and to administer medicine to her; she received two medications - one was a painkiller, the other was an antibiotic... it had to be given to her in seringes, and she did NOT like them... she SPAT at me! Seriously, I'd squirt the medicine into her mouth, and she'd spit it back out at me! The week went quickly, and I spiraled out of control because my parents said it was time for Tommie to go back outside... I know this may sound ridiculous, but SERIOUSLY, SHE'S MY BABY! SHE'S MY FLESH AND BUN! I LOVE HER LIKE SHE'S MY OWN DAUGHTER! SHE IS MY DAUGHTER AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED! AND NOW HERE SHE IS GOING BACK OUT THERE WHERE THERE MIGHT BE MORE WOLVES, OR EL CHUPACABRAS WAITING TO ATTACK HER AGAIN WHILE I'M STILL ON THIS MEDICATION THAT MAKES ME HYPER, DEPRESSED, AND PARANOID!
I was in such a bad way, NOTHING helped... because of what I was going through,
Season 37 of Sesame Street was such a disappointment! They made such a big deal about
Abby Cadabby, and yet, she only appeared in THREE episodes! I can't even casually glance at any episodes from that season because they remind me of when I was at rock bottom, and boy oh boy I was at rock bottom! And you know what the real sad thing was? I don't even remember what life was like here at MC during that time save for
T*K*O Season Three. Speaking of which, the season ended, and fans were still craving more, though MrsPepper was concerned that if we kept renewing the show that we would pushing a good thing too far to the point that fans wouldn't care anymore, so we both agreed that Season Four would be our final season, and so I began to shape out the final season of our show, feeling zesty, I decided to do a last minute cast change: this season, I decided to write D'Snowth out of the show; my problem was I began to realize that having myself on the show and being head writer was a bit unfair, because I knew exactly how and how not to write myself, everyone else? I had to write them based on how well I knew them... MrsPepper and Prawnie were the easiest to write for since I talk to them all the time, Vic Romano I always modeled after Hawkeye of
M*A*S*H, but Davo's presense on the forum had become stagnant (and I honestly don't believe he ever really kept up with the show anyway) TogetherAgain and Vibs were hard to write for because I'm not used to writing for girls, and I hardly ever talk with them, especially Vibs who's never here anymore... then of Beauregard, well, he was our janitor, so he wasn't really playing himself as opposed to the rest of us. So, Season Four of
T*K*O saw the end of D'Snowth's stay on the show, and apparently, that last season was quite lack-luster, as episodes had less and less turn outs, people were changing the channel, going back to watching
The Moppet Family, and when the final movie
"When You Pull the Plug" aired,
T*K*O left the airwaves with very little fanfare.
Various other weird things kept happening around that time as well, but most of them happen to be a little on the personal side, so I can't really mention them.
Now then, I kind of jumped ahead of myself, so let's move back to about December 2006/January 2007... by that time I was off Acutane, and luckily my acne was under control, though I still have the occasional breakout, nothing near as extreme as what I USED to have; but I was still a little on the depressed side, so you know what happened? I finally thought long and hard about everything and I thought to myself "Things aren't going to get better until I make them better"; so with that said, I decided that I was going to TRY to just grin and bear everything: this was our home, I'd have to learn to love it, I had to learn to take it easy and night and not worry about Tommie so much, but most of all, I would have to stop being so depressed! By February, I was climbing back up a bit, and by that summer, after
I graduated, I THOUGHT I things were going okay for me, and by August came around, I thought life was pretty good again... I THOUGHT...
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