itesser ink: progress, uncensored

Stumbling

2008-09-07T06:12:00.002-07:00

Despite the massive influxes of wisdom in the past couple days, both from my own mind and the book I read (that caused me to not post last night), I've been plagued more strongly than usual by ennui and a difficulty focusing. Most of this has been blamed on improper sleep last night (head the wrong way, falling asleep without thinking "I'm going to sleep now").

Losing sense of time--not knowing when I went to sleep or when I woke up--is even more discombobulating than simply having an odd schedule, especially in a mode where I'm trying to interact with the world on it's terms more.

Right now I'm struggling and going through the motions. I can't decide if what I need more is some rest before I get ready for tine with family in 5 hours, or some blind discipline to draw more.

For some reason blind discipline sounds more appealing, and not just because I don't have any sketches to post right now. I think I want to put my headphones on and retreat to my own meditative world of pen and paper.

Yesterday

2008-09-07T06:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I decided my leg was healing fine and there is nothing to worry about.

Last night I removed from my reading list things that were causing me angst.

This morning I looked Reagan in the eye and told him that I simply must get out of the house more.

Later I had a good discussion with Draco about getting caught up in things that don't enrich life

Tonight I bought two books.

On the way back I thought that I might like to write a zine (and wrote about it in a letter to Hannah!)

After that I did some drawing while watching Colbert.

About 20 minutes ago I started digging into Eat Pray Love

Now I'm going to take a bath and continue reading*.

Sunday I will visit my grandmother.

* I dropped in on Amazon to see if EPL was on my wishlist, and along the way tempered my early enthusiasm with reading the "most helpful" negative review and some of the discussion that followed it. There's a lot of calling the author shallow, materialistic, and self absorbed, particularly highlighting the fact that she pitched the book and got an advance before she took the journey she wanted to write about.

It is always my goal to come to a book, experience and interpret it without being influenced by the media circus around it. Granted, I often avoid media circus books so that when I voice my opinions, I don't feel like I have to join one opinionated camp or another (or be lumped into one involuntarily).

Here's to reading objectively but with trust and openness. :)

Unhappy

2008-09-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

As a friend put it, I'm stuck in the tubes.

In reply, I went drastic. I ditched 90% of my blog bog (kept the other 10 because they're PEOPLE), and logged out of the Facebook account that is my biggest timewaster.

May I replace these things with real creativity and reading not at a computer. And less angst and misplaced guilt.

My own great divide.

2008-09-05T04:39:00.001-07:00

The day/night has started out as draining, and likely will remain so. After flirting with a few shorter essays and articles, I plunged into this interview with Gao Xingjian, a Nobel literature laureate and Chinese artist living, exiled, in France.

I took notes along the way, a handful quotes and paraphrases, a couple conceptual launching points, and a few inspired riffs on themes, including one on exile and asylum. At one point the article mentions that Gao works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, ostensibly because he can't get enough of this "freedom of expression" vibe, and has to make up for the 20 years of self- and state-censorship he suffered in China. (That last bit isn't explicitly stated, but it sounds good!)

Here's a bit of his personal philosophy:

"Without Isms is neither nihilism nor eclecticism; nor is it egotism or solipsism. It opposes totalitarian dictatorship but also opposes the inflation of the self to God or Superman. It hates seeing other people trampled on like dog shit. Without Isms detests politics and does not take part in politics, but is not opposed to other people who do. If people want to get involved in politics, let them go right ahead. What Without Isms opposes is the foisting of a particular brand of politics on to the individual by means of abstract collective names such as 'the people', 'the race' or 'the nation'."

· From The Case for Literature, translated by Mabel Lee, published by Yale University Press

I'm finding Gao more personally inspiring the more I read the article and mull it over.

"Do your important creations for you!" my brain parses. "Don't worry about selling those important expressions. Don't compromise yourself when it really counts." Gao wrote in secret during some of his time in China, and I don't mean passing copies to friends on the sly. While in a labor camp, he buried his work in the dirt.

Creation, expression, is an imperative in his life.

Proofed by my actions, curiosity is the only imperative in my life. If I look at my days, I consistently spend more time in receiving mode than creating mode. I do my best not to be idle in these times of absorption, instead actively engaging my brain and examining what I read.

I profess, however, that creating is very very important to me. I do draw at least one thing every day, and most days I sketch. The constant evidence of my scratchbook is less creative. My blog posts aren't creative. All those are merely... thoughtful.

What is the conclusion of these facts? What can I learn, how can I grow?

Initially, the outlook is dismal. My intrinsic motivations for creative output will always be outstripped by my interests in religion, philosophy, theory... in humanity. Perhaps my lack of actual experiences drives me to experience things vicariously. Lacking a vibrant personal history, I'm establishing an understanding of the world through text. In many ways, the journal I'm taking notes in is my personal bible, a tome of thoughts, ideas, and seeds of stories. It is rich in Annie-ness, with details enough to be interesting and vagueness enough to be open-ended.

When I have filled this book, when I have crammed it with thoughts on every surface, will I be ready to stop taking notes and start creating?

In the past 10 minutes I've lost all threads of coherency and my thought process devolved into waiting for the other epiphany to drop. Now I see myself as afraid, unprepared to be a valid creator, but not in the sense of skill, but in the sense of soul. I feel like I don't know a single thing about life and the world, so anything I write will be pure pretense.

This is hard.
I'm lost.
I don't understand.
I'm scared.

inter-aether drunk

2008-09-04T10:52:00.001-07:00

After an overnight marathon session of blog reading list triage, I dispensed with around 700 posts. But that leaves me with 150 from the past month that I really want to give my attention to.

The other 700 weren't a waste. I got 5 books added to my wishlist and 65 notes of varying levels of coherency in my scratchbook.

The numbers aren't important. Neither are the statistics. How I handle myself in the future is important.

This is a gem of a post about creativity, the force of the internet as a tool for good or not-so-good, and related topics. If only for that one post, I'm glad I didn't wholesale junk the whole backlog.

Upon waking, I will have few obligations, set upon my shoulders by myself or others, and I look forward to that.

Still in that pile that I desperately want to turn my attention to is an article making a case for daydreaming in an increasingly productivity-driven world. That's a topic I especially want to read about.

I had a good day.

Fingertips

2008-09-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

I only barely remembered to post tonight.

The most frustrating memory from today was when I felt obligated to do sketches on the letters I sent out. The resistance was likely amplified by the fact that I hadn't done substantial drawings for the few days previous. The dozen or so birds and assorted creatures felt more like a chore, especially because I try to put my best foot forward when I'm creating for other people. No mistakes allowed... and I'm working in ink!

I got over it, and am waiting for the scans so they can go in the mailbox.

The most liberating memory from today was revealing a burdensome semi-secret to a close friend. It was all my issue, but the other party knowing about it now relieves me, as I don't have to hide my feelings (or have feelings that need to be hidden). Yes, cryptic! It was a very personal moment, but I want to remember it.

The most wonderful memory from today was sitting in a nearly empty Barnes and Noble with Reagan. We were squashed into an oversized chair, him flipping through Burton Holmes Travelogues, me half watching the parade of photos, half dozing into his chest. I was very cozy and warm; a Sarah McLachlan album played over the PA. Despite my sleepiness, it was a perfect hour.

There might have been some broader theme for today, but I'm suddenly irritated for no good reason and just want to go to bed.

Yes, this is the next time I'm going to sleep since the last post.

2008-09-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

This comes from the middle of a Boston Globe article about the disappearance of dancing

Levitin, the neuroscientist, draws a parallel between people's dancing inhibitions and their discomfort with public singing. In the 1950s, he points out, "people would sit around and sing songs with a piano player. Now there's been a professionalization of singing as well." He suggests that is why we enjoy the first week of "American Idol" so much, because we can laugh at people who don't abide the new social norm: You don't perform in public unless you're really good. Increasingly, he said, we've come to think that way about all social entertainment.

I find the note about the professionalizing of past pastimes to be very much on the nose. And it makes me sad! So sad I bought Men Without Hats's "Saftey Dance" on iTunes instead of finding a way to get it free, like I normally would. (There was a pun/comment in the article that referenced it.)

This feeling that singing and dancing are a practice lost to the current generation fits neatly into my own striving for meaningful personal connections. Sitting around a piano with friends and loved ones, singing the songs that have been sung by families for generations doesn't sound like the beginning of a bad memory, nor does connecting to music and each other by moving to rhythms together.

These things are important to me, and I believe that this is a case in which I can be the change I want to see in the world. Maybe, along with my aspirations to be a successful writer/artist and competent yoga teacher, somewhere in there I'll gain the skills to give free dance lessons. And master Japanese. And French. And live in Iceland.

That list sounds a little over optimistic to be writing at the end of a day I didn't draw anything. Drawing is still at the top of my list. Too much of today was spent reading and sleeping. Reading good things that give me good thoughts, but still absorbing instead of producing (more than notes in my sketchbook).

I eternally ask myself, "When will you take the next step?" The reply usually comes, "What is the next step?"

The next step probably isn't building myself a study program of Japanese characters and Art History flashcards, but I'm doing that anyway.

The next step is definitely going to sleep.

A picture of impatience

2008-08-31T08:33:00.001-07:00

In my draw-phase today I saw bright light over my shoulder and this shocking scene greeted me.

Except it was rotated some and flipped a bit. And there was no mbear.

I don't know if Reagan will wake up with sufficient time to get me fresh sketchbook scans before I want to post and sleep, and, hey! it's already 8am, so why not post now?

There is a small sketchbook I keep by the bed to draw in each time I wake up. It's become a delightful part of my day, and I am acres proud that I've been so consistent in using it. A few days ago as I tried to adjust my sleep schedule to the norms of my timezone, I made notation that the skipped date wasn't because I neglected to draw, simply that I neglected to awaken on the date in question. I suspect that something similar will happen again soon.

My days aren't exactly boring, but I feel as though my posts are. Today is one of the days when I'm torn between this being a private exercise in discipline and record-keeping and a public space that I want to be interesting, valid, valuable if by chance a human stops by. I know that unless I put out the aching effort of outreach and interconnection online and make traffic and discussion a goal, it probably won't happen.

If it is solely a private endeavor, practiced online for ease, are my writings going to be valuable to my future self? Hello? Do you hear me Future-Annie? Are you remembering this August of Invalidism? Are you recalling the summer of stress and limbo? The year of private shame?

Do you draw inspiration or anguish from the days indoors and all these hours of wishing I was writing letters? Facebook games are a daily reality, music isn't. Today the backblog count is over 1000, and there constant fight to keep the intense posts within the last month is knocking loudly at the front door. The laundry needs folding, the floor needs vacuuming, and you spent hours this 'morning' reading Midnight Sun and Twilight. The wounds, you need a shower, and you're not spending enough time with your husband.

I. Me. I'm not spending enough time with my husband. Even if it's a no fault problem, I'd be at fault if I didn't move towards solutions.

My tone is also getting increasingly acerbic when talking about who leaves the house and who doesn't. Who spends time with other people (in whatever faculty) and who doesn't.

And then I remember last year, and to what measures the situation was reversed. I worked outside the home, though seldom did I bring home tales of hijinx worth relating.

There's that tone again, creeping in even when there's nobody to convince.

Here I'm struck with twin turbines that are in no way attached to the same vehicle. One veers to the left and thrills me with the exhilaration of writing. Perhaps because I've done more reading as of late, when I feel myself playing the part of writer, not just journaler or person-who-can-use-a-keyboard, but a writer, I am excited by the feeling of power. This is not to imply that I'm good at it (although I believe in my own talent), only that crafting sentences and ideas out of words puts me in a place of feeling secure. Drawing can do this too, but does so much less frequently.

The other turbine (careening to the right) is the sudden odd drive to fold the laundry. Thankfully still strong after the detour. Whenever I have a strong impulse to do something out of the ordinary, I run with it! (Folding laundry is ordinary. Wantint to do it is not.)

My brain is a tasting menu of topics

2008-08-30T04:47:00.000-07:00

Of the many themes I've flirted with today, Fear is the one I'm bringing home to dinner. (I typed out these words three and a half hours ago, so imagine what additional smorgasboard of ideas has paraded through my mind since then. It was another cosmic post that reminded me to come back to the blogstead while I can still process thoughts into words.)

Don't laugh, but after being reminded that the Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to have its first test September 10, with the inauguration planned for October 21, my lizard brain went into fearful panic mode.

I like to consider my opinions on science to be very liberal. I'm excited by progress and interested in big ideas about the universe, but somehow the improbable possibility of life on Earth ending through the creation of a black hole in a laboratory scares a tiny part of my brain. I try to rationalize it away by deeming those thoughts irrational, but that makes it worse. Telling myself that the fears are silly legitimizes those fears. Legitimization strengthens them.

It's a paradox, an anomoly, playing out at sub-sub-conscious levels, but I've started to fixate on those dates and wonder "what if..."

What if--in a spit second--we all cease to be?
What if time is limited and there's no sense in building a legacy because no one will be left to witness or remember?

Death is one thing, and the human race being wiped out is another, but all colloquial definitions of matter and time will no longer be relevant. It's a kind of cosmic destruction we know so little about that it's not even widespread in fiction, as far as I know.

My plan for dealing with fear of black holes is simply to redouble my efforts to live better--especially with getting along with other people--in the next couple months. And to enjoy my life. Those, I believe, are habits that will serve me well even if the world doesn't come to an end.

Recalibration

2008-08-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

Other than my wake-up doodle (five days in a row!), I didn't draw much today, but it's been a short day and I'm eager to get to sleep before my brain clears up and (i'm not finishing this sentence because thinking it would make me think it more and it would keep me up).

The day was not void of creativity, though! Draco, newly finished with every credit of undergrad he ever needs to complete, was here for most of the "day". We had food and sampled two different role playing games. In one my character is an anthropomorphic cross between a bird and a turtle (early sketch), and in the other I'm playing ghost conjoined twins. They're very tragic.

(Good thoughts about the future I don't want to look at because they'll keep me awake.)

Okay, I'm not a normal person.

2008-08-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

I stay up for 24 hours, then sleep for 6 and wake up fully alert on my own?

Although, coming back to West Wing, it looks like I napped through more episodes than I though without realizing it.

I fully intend to go back to bed after a snack and a snuggle, and that effort will be aided by the fact that Reagan got home from work about 10 minutes after I woke up. :)

To continue the un-interestingness of this post, a sketch I did from a photo of myself:

false positive

2008-08-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

I don't want to eat this peach.

I'm posting now, at 8am, my newly adopted "bedtime", in that for the past week I've been crawling between the sheets as the rest of the time zone arrives at work, having done my work while they slept.

Except this isn't my bedtime anymore. After waking up at 6pm yesterday, I decided these dissynchronous shennanigans had gone on long enough, and it was necessary to stay up 24 or more hours for realignment to take place.

The peach is part of a care package of fresh food Reagan left for me before going to bed. There was also a pear, some cookies, and a croissant. The pear and most of the cookies and all my water are gone. I'm not hungry, exactly, but the peach smells good.

After another 12 hours of wakefulness I'll be posting again, as in the time I lived one day the rest of the world lived two, and I'd like to respect that.

So far the day has been very thoughtful, brimming with political philosophy, political fiction, and some wonderful time buckling down and getting some drawing done. I'm in that phase right now. While I was reading, studying the world, and talking with Reagan I was confronted with new thoughts that implore me to make decisions and define my values. This is a daily topic, a daily struggle for me, and there are always more questions than answers.

But I press on.

I really don't want to eat this peach. I may need to survive another three and a half hours on the the peach, the croissant, and the one cookie left. I should ration. But this peach... its flesh is delightfully firm, and its skin is soft, and even at arm's length it smells of summer and outside and sun.

I don't want to eat this peach, yet, but it smells so so so good.

There is nothing false about my personal positivity, just that I normally use a post to indicate the end of the day.

My days are, in fact, anagrams.

2008-08-26T06:07:00.001-07:00

Somewhere between the sunrise, the lamp, the towel, and the laptop, it's warmer than usual right now, so I'm going to turn in early. Instead of using this unengaging documentary, I could fetch iPod or alternate dvds from the other room to use as background noise, but surely it would tempt me into bed, with it's cool fan, white noise, and inviting husband.

Didn't I say I was going to turn in early? So I guess it's alright if I'm tempted in, although the logic seems a bit broken.

Or maybe this is all a ruse and I'm going to spend some time reading before folding myself into cool sheets and slumber.

Today I finished Lorrie Moore's Anagrams, but before I made the final 60 page dash, I wrote a somewhat-reflection:

----

Many months, perhaps a year, ago Liz at the The Park Bench recommended author Lorrie Moore. I recognized her name on the spine of Anagrams at a thrift store and promptly purchased it.

Suffice to say, other than the fact that it was recommended by a source I trust, I knew nothing about Anagrams when I cracked the cover. All of the details from the "Lost Classics" review had been lost in the dusty stacks of my brain. Some of them returned to light, called by name as I took in the book they were allusions to. But those memories stood in the background, dim, as I was dazzled by Ms. Moore's prose and became deeply involved in my own reactions.

The book, in all its ways, is a study and celebration of language. The plot doesn't inspire me much, but maybe when I'm at the end I'll pull back and see it as a cohesive statement, rather than an exploration of themes and form.

Each paragraph, each passage, feels like a complete and wholly realized entity in itself, like a single, beautifully rendered grapheme. Many times I want to copy out an excerpt and share it with someone to marvel at the craft of the words, of the single still moment or thought captured in text. In that way, it also reminds me of a comic book, each paragraph a frozen and distinct image, a single illustration. Each on it's own has meaning, and larger meaning reveals itself as you string together a series of them, but the movement takes place in the gaps, between the blocks of words.

If the book was over right here on page 141 (of 220), I'd encourage others to read Anagrams, but not as a novel. The shine isn't in the plot, or in the characters, but in the metaphor and theme. Read it as a thought experiment, read it as philosophical peek into someone else's internal dialog. Read it for the moments of wit that you wish you had.

In the morning Darrel fumbles with his clothes. I lie in bed watching him. A sock falls from his shoulder. He turns his shirt right side in and underwear drops o the floor. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"Magic tricks," he says.

Though I am sorely tempted to go back right now to the review that initially inspired me to read this book, to compare notes, I am resisting. I don't want my embryonic opinions influenced by those that have come to full term. Yes, I deem them good enough to share with strangers, but not to send on a play date with someone who, you know, actually knows something.

I need an editor.

----

After the fact, my feelings haven't changed much. I'm still much more impressed by the wordcraft than the story. The story primarily takes place inside the main character, inside the main character, not around her. Perhaps I'm too young to enjoy it properly, perhaps I'm too happy.

The books I like best are those that tempt me into the skin of the characters, where my empathy and my willingness to engage and participate animates those characters, propelling them--and me--through the story. In this I was pulled along by a metaphorical trail of breadcrumbs of metaphors and puns, the characters just happened to be along, too.

I still need an editor.

Better and better

2008-08-25T06:34:00.001-07:00

I'd like to unequivocally state that every day brings improvement in body and mind, but my eyes have been bothering me recently. I really should have them looked at by a professional, but in a matter of months I'll have insurance, so can't I wait?

At least my leg is getting better and my time more productive. Still mostly trapped in my room(s).

Right now I'm actually in my childhood room. The only things vaguely familiar are the angles of architecture and the bookcase at the wall. And the doors. The doors are the same.

The carpet is new, the paint is new, the shutters are new, and the contents do not say "girl's room". There's a treadmill, a home gym, and a large TV. The only bed is an inflatable one, and it is cozy in it's box.

I've made my mark here, lightly in the first few months of my tenure at home as a married woman: an item of luggage that wouldn't fit in the other closet. A "beanbag" made of old sheets, packing peanuts, and bubble wrap. Reagan and I occasionally eat dinner together in this room and watch something on TV, and that results in cloth napkins seeping into the pile of pillows and quilts that accompany the ghetto beanbag.

Since I've installed myself, sketchbooks and prescription bottles have taken up residence. My laptop is here, even when I'm not, and the stack of DVDs by the TV gets taller day by day. There has also been an explosion in the napkin population. I think they're breeding. Some dishes, a pair of socks, a pack of my favorite candy, a towel, a second lamp. My polaroid camera.

Once again I wonder what would happen if I expired here and a crack team of forensics lab rats came through to examine my life by what I left behind. Normally it's a question that I pass off without too much thought, but it seems different here and now. No furniture to speak of. A "Read & Grow" Picture Bible used as a lapdesk. Some episode of West Wing on pause on the TV. It's been on pause for a few hours now.

This is my old room. This is where I woke up every morning for 13 years of school, but that doesn't show anymore. The childhood that lingers is in the baby things assembled for my niece.

It's been a good day, but thinking so much about my surroundings, I want to get away. I'll wind down with taking this episode of West Wing off pause and doodling myself to sleep. Or at least utter tiredness, then find my husband and cuddle myself to the Land of Nod.

I hope to write about music tomorrow.

Headfake

2008-08-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a long day. I'm reasonably happy with what I've accomplished. It's 6am, but I woke up much later than usual, so I think I'll stay up a little longer.

I had a particular planning rug yanked out from under me today, and during the ensuing fall I probably passed through most of the 5 stages of grief. There was certainly a hunger fueled period of acute mourning. Later there came the internalizing of the concept of accepting things that I cannot change. Even though I know what direction I'm facing, and even though I know I'll have to run (this is a race metaphor, not a leaving literalism), there is an indefinite period of time before the starting gun will report.

I don't know when the race begins; I don't know how long the race is. Infinite limbo. But I'm beginning to accept these facts and turning my attention to surviving the present. Maybe a philosophy of living every day as my last would serve me well.

Tonight's headfake is brought to you by West Wing season 3. A journalist who was pulled out of Myanmar after the Burmese government put a bounty on his head is put into the White House press room. After a couple short conversations with the Press Secretary, the journalist tells her that he hates reporting on the White House because it's all gossip, stenography, and the worst parts of politics. He expresses a viewpoint that completely belittles the Press Secretary and her world (without being condescending). For a moment you see the Press Secretary see herself and her situation from the outside and agree with the journalist's view, then she goes back to work.

Seeing yourself from the outside as inconsequential... then going back without changing anything. But one person's inside is another person's outside. The Press Secretary and the journalist live in adjacent realities with differing values. The whole world is like this.

A struggle I see in my generation is accepting that truth, and defining our individual values and realities. I've always thought that one of my strengths was the ability to see situations from different viewpoints and understand that the facts I'm presented with are leaving out valid details. But constant exposure and willingness to tolerate, even try to understand, things I don't believe or agree with wears me down. Once I realize I'm not on the same page as Person X I'm in a discussion with, I feel the foundation for conversation is undermined and we need to either bridge that gap by finding common ground to work with, or change the subject. When there isn't common ground of any kind, I'm mentally always scrambling for footing. That's the exhausting part.

Am I supposed to just assume that Person X has information similar to mind and plow ahead until running into an undeniable problem? To me that feels like building on sand just because it looks level.

Illuminating!

2008-08-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

I received two letters today and wrote two replies. I am largely remiss in not addressing envelopes right now, but I'm tired and want to go with that feeling.

Reagan and I went out for a little bit today, the fifth time I've left the house in three weeks. Ugh. But this was purely for pleasure, so I'm not letting the statistics get me down. The trip was a quest for paper products, chief among them: envelopes.

Tired of sending out correspondence on half sheets of printer paper, I found an item that calls itself a journal, but with its elegant design of plants and its glue binding, it is well suited to use as stationary. One side of each page even has lines at the top for subject and date, and there are four different patterns in the 200 page book. This should last me a while. :)

It is very handy for a new purchase of a paper product to not feel excessive or useless when I use it the very first day I have it.

More ruminations well up within me, on the topic of letter writing and a few other things, but remember that talk of sleep?

Here's the sketches I posted a webcam picture of two days ago.

Annie Room or Ante Room?

2008-08-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

I could easily go to bed right now. Easily justify it, easily accomplish it. But I'm not really excited by the prospect. I'm excited by the prospect of reading and writing. I'm excited by the prospect of drawing. But my conscious and subconscious minds are pulling farther and farther apart. It's an odd sensation.

All the basic functions are at the surface and responding just fine. Move, speak, formulate coherent sentences, type. But the part of me that does deeper thinking, analysis, and produces creative ideas is on the other side of a widening chasm. I can tell when my trapped muse is speaking, but not what she is saying. I shout, "What?" but even that, despite its echoes, can't breach the barrier of emptiness.

Perhaps this reveals a flaw in the New Plan, or perhaps I'm just not operating at 100% of my mental capacity due to all the drugs I'm taking.

I'm doing much better.

Today was a good day. I don't see Reagan much, between him doing care-taking tasks out of the room, working, exercising, and sleeping on a different schedule from mine, but today had some good quality time nonetheless, and that makes me happy.

While I was soaking my leg today I looked through Joy of Drawing for a bit. It was originally published in 1959 and has a drastically different approach to creativity than the one Reagan counsels me with. I think that modern genres like the graphic novel would baffle the author. Off the top of my head I can't say what the fine arts community thought of comics in the 50s and 60s, but I'd guess that the sophistication in the art form was much less common then.

The advice in Joy of Drawing isn't gone from writing books published these days, but those books aren't the ones that I'm pointed to by people who grok my interest in the craft. Joy of Drawing focuses on still things: abstraction, technique, inanimate objects, and landscapes. The modern advice I absorb is about movement and expression and style. Sometimes I feel I should be starting with the basics (drawing lots of fruit and geometry), but more often I'm enthusiastic about moving directly towards what I want to do.

It's very confusing. The only consistent thing is quantity, quantity, quantity. That's what I need to keep reminding myself to work on.

I bought Joy of Drawing before I met Reagan, and it was somewhat useful to me then, although I didn't read the whole thing. Today I picked it up after at least two years apart and had a difficult time not arguing with the author, who writes about his way with more confidence than I think about my way. The battle of wills made me uncomfortable and I went back to drawing as I usually do... but peppered in abstract line drawings (from the book) using the hand-not-touching-paper technique (also from the book).

My practice habits are improving steadily with my leg. Tomorrow will be even better. (Reagan and I made a pact today to cut back on dicking around on the internet.)

Umm...

2008-08-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

I spent a disappointing quantity of today lounging and doing Medical Things for my leg. The pain wasn't as bad as I expected, and I expect to sleep well tonight. But I have to stay up a couple more hours to take my last antibiotic of the day.

It's possible I made a mistake in taking West Wing on as my comfort food. I finished the first season and moved smoothly on to the second. For all the times I've seen it, I did catch a line I'd never really heard before. Considering I can say most lines of most episodes, that's an "accomplishment". The general problem is that I can't see myself stopping this great undertaking of watching the first four seasons of the show. That's almost 50 episodes. Considering I haven't had access to a TV and DVD player since I moved out of the Vista apartment January 2006, multiple years have passed since I've watched these dvds. I showed Reagan Season 1 while we were in San Marcos, just watching it on my computer (back when I had speakers!), but I think we stopped after one.

Another new line: "All that's left is to dot the 'T's". Never noticed that before. Probably because it wasn't spoken by a main character.

Did I mention that I love this show?

Something else I love is food that my parents brought home from some insanely expensive restaurant. ($160 for two people with no alcohol?!) The sides.... creamed spinach and jalapeño cheddar potatoes... were good, but the really phenomenal bits were the fish and the steak. Fillet mignon so tender I could've eaten it with a spoon. And the middle of it was like beef sashimi.

I'm posting, I started writing a letter, I did some reading (from a book) about drawing, and I did some drawing.

Reagan's asleep, so I couldn't scan it. My eyes are tired, so I'm going to sit back and watch TV for a bit.

TMI, TMH, TLC

2008-08-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

don't think about the packing... don't think about the packing... don't think about he packing...

I am simultaneously trying to write about the packing and not think about the packing. No, I'm not talking about packing as in putting things in boxes and moving somewhere, I'm talking about a little strip of medicated paper? cloth? shoved deep in my wound. Right now there's no real physical pain, but a large psychosomatic ache, something like a wound in a phantom limb. But my leg isn't not there.

West Wing has been my primary distraction. Despite some home-care medical events on tomorrow's schedule, I'll be able to sit at my desk at least semi-normally tomorrow. I look forward to it.

I'm thinking about the packing again. It comes out tomorrow. I remember the pain from yesterday's being taken out today.

It's probably bad chi to talk about medical stuff, but it's (almost) all that's been on my mind. Definitely looking forward to this not being a part of my daily thoughts and awareness. The preoccupation has but a barrier between me and the rest of the world, particularly Reagan.

Drawing, too. mmm... drawing...

Tales from the Emergency Room

2008-08-19T02:38:00.000-07:00

4 prescriptions (antibiotic, antibiotic, non-drowsy pain killer, drowsy pain killer)
3 shots (tetanus, antibiotic, 'numbing agent')
2 medical facilities (urgent care, emergency room)
1 samurai blood geyser.

Believe it or not, but I did draw something before getting out of bed this morning, but the rest of the day was consumed with the aforementioned hijinks.

Something memorable about the day was the last room we waited in, the room the procedure was done in, had a clock that didn't work properly. The second hand went around the full circumference maybe 15 times in the two hours we were there. It was a Timex clock, and the second hand would get stuck at 8 for a little while, then at 10 for a long while before resuming it's twitchy journey.

Getting back home with my bag of goodies from the pharmacy, I curled up in the upstairs TV room and watched a couple minutes of Scrubs, a couple hours of Olympics, Sideways, and just a few moments ago had Reagan pop in the first disc of West Wing season 1.

Ultimate comfort food.

Hot cup of Earl Grey, and the vicodin slowly working its way into my system don't hurt either.

Unexpected Turnaround

2008-08-18T02:00:00.001-07:00

For a while today was the worst day I've had in a while. But that while was like the dark filling in an Oreo of Good(tm). That's probably the least logical metaphor I've ever written.

After the usual surfing after waking up, I watched most of this inspiring lecture. I'd seen the beginning before, but not the bulk of the presentation which is incredibly rich with passion. While I was about 20 minutes from the end I got an unexpected call from Draco. His had just arrived at the local airport, back from GenCon Indy. He stopped by, we went to Dennys and had a good couple hours hanging out, waiting for Reagan to get off work. Among other things, we talked about the aforementioned lecture and how we each relate to the world at large. Diners seem to be a good place for me when it comes to talking out big thoughts.

Back home I contacted a couple people I hope to see come fall, and then somehow slipped into a really dark funk for several hours. Reagan, as usual, helped me out of it and convinced me to go to bed, at least for a few hours, instead of staying up all night before visiting a doctor tomorrow.

I was in bed a few minutes ago. Since the serious sleepiness hadn't hit me yet, I opted to ponder over some of those larger thoughts that have been nagging at me, specifically what my dreams are. Often I feel torn, as though I'm serving two masters as I try to pursue both writing and art. Writing can be a tough field to break into, and visual art is a new language to me that I haven't yet mastered. I thought over how I want those two to intersect, and what form I want my work to take. In several minutes of pondering in the dark I started to visualize where I want to "end up", what my checkpoint is.

Something I know I need to work on is the speed in which I translate my words into pictures. I'll never ever ever be able to draw as fast as I write, in any quality. Ideas will always outpace production, but I want to do what I can to close that gap. I came to the conclusion tonight that I need to imagine an ideal workflow and work towards achieving it.

That's still in the planning stages, but I was inspired to restructure my days, both to maximize my own usefulness and adapt my self-challenge ideas to my current reality of not working out. The New Plan's larger structure is to draw early in the day, and start that practice by sketching something, just one thing, before getting out of bed. Besides liking any idea that would facilitate buying a new sketchbook, it has the potential to capture buts of dreams and fuzzy early morning thoughts. I want to tell myself that exercising my imagination is more important than checking email.

Draw before internet, write (develop ideas) after dinner, read before bed. Posting happens sometime in the reading phase. It's enough of an enjoyable habit that I don't need a specific mention of it in my meta-schedule.

I'm excited about this prospective new way of doing things. I think I've written down enough to keep me relaxed enough about new epiphanies to still fall asleep.

The paper arrived

2008-08-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

I intended to come up for air quite a while ago when the newspaper hit the driveway, but neglected to do so, being engrossed with conversation between foodies I was reading. I'm still not done with it, but a small moment in the discussion about a chef being fanatical about not letting the guests she was cooking for into the kitchen sparked happy memories in my brain.

Back in Savannah our kitchen was connected to our living room by only a doorway (instead of the apartment having an open floorplan), and Reagan and I each used it to our advantage from time to time. Sometimes for a special occasion, and sometimes for no reason at all, other than a good idea, one of us would make a special dinner. Many times these suppers were so special that the cook would forbid the other person from entering the kitchen, for fear of a glimpse or whiff being caught and ruining the surprise. Many good evenings.

There haven't been many opportunities for us to cook for each other like that in the past year of living at home. Even though my mom is not forbidding with use of her kitchen, the two couples in the house operate in their own orbits, which just happen to overlap at the all-important hub of food making. Almost as much as I look forward to getting our own place to live next year, I'm excited at the prospect of visiting friends, patterning to their orbits, and cooking for them.

Speaking of orbits, at dinner earlier today my brother answered an astronomical question that has lurked in the back of my mind for several years. In the past I've oft wondered why all of the solar system seems to be on a relatively flat plane, and whenever we send probes into space we send them parallel the plane made by our orbit, not perpendicular to it. The short answer is: centrifugal force. I'm not enough of a scientist to trust myself with the long answer.

Now that I think about it more, it seems pretty obvious, so I'm not sure if this is news to anyone other than me. In that moment, though, I was glad to have other small bits of science knowledge to share, culled from recent blog readings. Proof that my new regimen is doing something!

The bit I shared was that it was recently discovered that the northern lights are caused by solar winds. (Again, the short answer.) Inspired by that and wishing to make it useful inspiration, I brainstormed 3 similar phenomena of a "natural" origin for a fictional setting, either to illustrate or describe in a story.

1) Star-lances - laser like beams that show up in our atmosphere, similar effect to that of light streaming through a piece of dark paper with tiny holes poked in it, except all the beams come from individual sources (or do they?)

2) Daysparks - plasmatic waves pushed through the air at dawn cause certain particles to explode. Very tiny pinpricks of light that burst and disappear. Not known to have enough heat to start fires. ;P

3) Sky-ripples - A phenomenon much like our aurora, but not at the poles, and looking like the wavelets of a stone dropped into a pond.

For whatever reason I didn't want to limit myself to sky lights of natural causes, so I pushed myself to double my output and imagine phenomena of human making:

4) "God's hand" - formation made by jet trails in the stratosphere/ionosphere as spacecraft move to and from the pass-point in and out of the atmosphere

5) Glistening web of strings where we patch the ozone

6) Hail of stars from outer space: satellite/robot we sent into orbit collects and hurls space-junk back towards the planet and it incinerates upon reentry.

I have a feeling I'm gonna look back on that in a few days and be terribly embarrassed. Such is life.

Another new decision for the day: science news is a good conversation starter. I vow to read more about it and grow my knowledge to enhance my discussions on scientific topics. Besides, it's handy to know something about science if you want to dabble in science fiction.

The other epic posts I was reading today, by the way, was this one on Velveteen Rabbi about her visit to Hebron and Bethlehem. Many good thoughts and good links there.

Tonight's study was much more focused on quality than quantity, and the thinking and relaxing was good after a day of activities finishing up my birthday celebration. (Dinner with family (good, good time with them) and watching Charlie Wilson's War, which was a gift). The sun is now rising. I'm hungry, and my only real option is crackers or the shortbread cookies from Reagan's MRE. (He was at Camp Pendelton today, shooting guns with other Marine hopefuls, and had field food for lunch.)

I want to angst about my personal quests for meaning, but I want to sleep more.

Cleansing Internet.

2008-08-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

I know. Crazy, right? Eight pages of writing done today make me very happy.

Other thing that makes me very happy: I'm starting to get a handle on what I'll be doing this fall. I have somewhere to go. I actually have two places to go, and if they don't fill all my alloted weeks of separation, I have an idea of who else I might ask. Knowing I'm not going to be stranded at home takes a large weight off my mind.

The closer I come to having a plan of my physical location, the easier it is to make plans for what projects I want to do. It's exciting to think about breaking out of this cluttered room and stretching my legs and my mind and my creativity in other parts of the country.

Speaking of stretching my leg, my left knee has improved from the horror it was last week at this time, but I don't know if it's improving far enough or fast enough that I can rule out professional, medical solutions to the situation.

I have gone up and down the stairs more times today than I have in the past two weeks put together (or at least the past one week), but that's mostly because Reagan's been asleep for about seven hours, and I've needed to swap out my ice pack. Now I need to take it downstairs once more.

Pray for me, that tomorrow I'll study earlier and get sick of it earlier and thus feel like drawing before I'm too tired to do so. :P

Thursday

2008-08-15T06:27:00.000-07:00

Thursday started at 4pm.

Do I really need to go on?

(It's 6:30am and I'm not sure if I'm tired, but I'll go to bed anyways. I wrote a weird email, iced my knee, lamented my lack of desk space, decided to shoot 12-15 rolls of film in the next month and a half, and attempt to fill a 250 page journal in the same amount of time. Sorted a large number of files and watched Music Man, too. My headphones lost audio in the right ear last night, and the borrowed ones compress my ears a bit painfully over long periods of time.)

The chord of early August

2008-08-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been much variation in the past 10 days, and even less since Sunday. At-desk-with-leg-elevated isn't a bad position as far as aiding with healing, but it's quite poor for typing, so tonight I'm taking full advantage of having a laptop and lounging on the bed.

I really wish I had something new and different and deeper to write. A sidenote of that is probably wishing my life had more variation. Even though I realize there's not much new, I still want to take the time and delve into one of those long, rambling, introspective posts that take more than an hour to write. Two arguments against that are Reagan curling up next to me for sleep, and the fact that I'd rather be watching the last 3 episodes of Dexter, Season 2.

My superego wants to write, my id's asking for TV. The ego's leaning towards the writing as the speed with which I tore through episodes 2-9 of Dexter probably isn't healthy. The id argues that we've begun the endgame of the story arc, not caring that if I watch more now there will be less to escape to tomorrow.

I feel boring. And frustrated. Very frustrated.