Yes, and I'll do the same.

Nothing to see here: carry on!

Just watching my tabby cat, Aja sleeping in a sunbeam. I've had two beige and orange tabbies; Aja and a previous male cat, called Punky (short for Punkin, since he was colored like a pumpkin) and both loved to lie in sunbeams. I think Bill Watterson was right when he had Hobbes say tiger's tummies are solar powered. These guys definitely love sitting in the sun.

Sounds great! I'm only a hobby user, but I'm thankful for inexpensive or free alternatives. Adobe seems to be racing against Microsoft to see who can piss off their customer base the hardest and soonest.

As an only occasional user, I find Photopea does basically everything I need it to. It's a free browser-based Photoshop clone more or less. I think it was done by one guy. It's really quite impressive for what it is.

I am not aware of an equivalent vector alternative, but I also don't really have a use case myself.

He messaged myself and some folks on the 7th regarding Marty, so he's ok and checking in occasionally, but he hasn't been posting much.

-M

People basically having to have to cancel their credit cards to get out of Adobe's notorious subscription policies is astounding. I've been using Krita for basic photo editing stuff and though I very rarely use it, there's lots of potential there and it's free as well

Man, that's pretty rough. Mental illness is a terrible, terrible thing.

I never had to deal with schizophrenia but my own sister was bipolar so I have a sort of adjacent experience.

My advice (because it worked for us) is not to take any guff, but to make it clear that once your friend is ready to renew your life-long friendship, you'll be there for them. 

Best of luck... Those are always difficult situations.

We all like to believe friendships last a lifetime. It's a pleasant happy thought. The sad reality is most don't. Friendships usually begin based on a convenient commonality-sharing the same school, living in the same neighborhood, working at the same job, having a common interest or whatever. And as long as that convenient commonality is in place, the friendship will likely stand unless there is some sort of conflict. The difficulty is when that convenient commonality is removed from the equation- one moves away, they graduate from school, one changes jobs, one loses interest in the shared interest they had, etc. In order for the friendship to last beyond that, it takes a lot of effort from both parties. It's not a matter of how much you liked each other, how many shared experiences you had, how much one cared about the other or vice versa, but about making a conscious effort to maintain the friendship by both parties. Many friendships are sustained this way. Many are not. And it is not sustainable if it is a one-sided effort. As a kid who moved a lot, I saw a lot of friendships end when the convenient commonality ended despite both parties swearing they would keep in touch and maintain the friendship. It's easier said than done. It was one of the hard life lessons I had to learn. And I was, as often as not, the one who didn't put enough effort into it.

There can be a lot of reasons why one side or the other doesn't put the effort in to sustain it. Some are conscious choices, many are not. It's all too easy to get too busy or too wrapped up in the new situations and the new friendships and not make the time to put the effort in to maintain the old, even if you have every intention of doing so. When mental illness enters the equation on either side, it gets a whole lot harder. And it doesn't matter if one side is willing, cares a lot, and puts a whole lot of effort into trying to maintain, sustain, or reestablish the friendship, it's all for naught if the other side is unable or unwilling to do the same.

It sounds like in this case, that convenient commonality was long out of the equation and the effort to sustain was not a two-way street. I applaud you for your effort to try to sustain it, but as an outsider looking in, it seems he stopped doing so a long time ago. Maybe not consciously, and maybe because of his mental health issues he was unable to, but that seems to be the case. Again kudos to you for not giving up and trying, but it sounds like this fellow needs a lot of help and support, and he is not willing to do so or even willing to admit he needs the help or allow others to try. That sucks, and it hurts when it was someone you were close to. One of the hardest lessons I learned when I was an educator is that there are some people you cannot help because they won't allow themselves to be helped. Hopefully some day someone will break through to him and maybe he can start to get the help he needs. And if you are willing and inclined, you can be there to support him and try to renew the friendship when he does, but until and unless he does, there is no friendship there. He's made it clear that you aren't going to be the one who breaks through to get him to the realizations he needs. It's likely going to require some kind of medical intervention to do so, and that likely can only be done by a family member or caretaker and even then, it's not a given.

But it may be time for you to let go and realize, it wasn't your fault. It may not be his fault because of the mental health issues, but it wasn't your fault. If you want to keep the door open, that's commendable, but he needs to walk through. You've opened the door, reached out, invited him in, tried to drag him in, and he still has refused. That's not on you. It's hard, I know. We always want to think we can or should do more. Letting go feels like giving up, but its not. It's the old riff on the old Serenity Prayer (Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference) which can seem trite, but it is absolutely applicable to situations like this. He needs to want to change and work to change before change can happen, and until that happens, there's not a lot you can do. Which, as I said, sucks and it hurts, but accepting that is the challenge.

-M