Signal

Yay! I worked on the teaching graphic novel this evening! No drawing, just writing the text in my notebook, but that's a start! It helped to watch a DVD checked out from the library. We watched "Me and You, and Everyone We Know". Liberating!

Okay. That was really yesterday's blog entry. We don't have our own wi-fi yet and are shamelessly using our wonderful next door neighbor's signal. Anyway, whenever there's a thunder-wind storm, the signal goes. And sometimes when it's sunny and windless, the signal goes. So, today I actually sketched another page for the teaching book. My live-in editor, Susan, pointed out to me that I needed another page to precede the blue-line sketch I'd done of me and my second-grade teaching team. Yeah, this means more work for me, but she's right; it works better.

Where is the Donkey?

I learned tonight from a friend that there is a book called Unicorn in the Garden. I'm gonna have to change the title I'd come up with for the graphic novel I'm revising--A Donkey in the Garden. Maybe Donkey's Garden. A Donkey in the Back Yard. Back Yard Donkey. Donkey on the Deck. Donkey in the Sour Grass. Oh, this is endless fun!

We're still trying to get our tech stuff figured out here. It feels more like home now that we have our TV set up. We are quite happy because we have the channels that broadcast the Professional Bull Riders events! We went to the library yesterday, and I had to check out this children's book by Nancy Bo Flood with photographs by Jan Sonnenmair.

Bubble

I'm getting ready to work on the teaching graphic novel! It's not that I couldn't yesterday or the day before; it's that each project has its time and bubble of space. The drawing bubble just hasn't floated around. But I can see it in the distance, getting closer! Look! Here's my bin of art materials and my drawing pads!

Limbo

Still haven't unpacked my art bin. We're trying to get wireless, a land line, medical coverage, and of course, TV service. We'll be living out of boxes for a while. The moving van hasn't arrived, yet.

Curiously Calm

Browsing through the Drawn and Quarterly blog, I noticed a cover for a book called A History of Japan--Showa--by Shigeru Mizuki. It's a slice of Japanese history leading up to World War II. Graphic novels are some of my favorite vehicles for learning history. Wouldn't it be kind of cool for all K-12 history books to be in comic book format? Anyway, this book looks interesting.

This evening I decided not to attend the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco this October. I have way too many loose ends (including but not limited to unfinished graphic novels).  Am feeling fine about this. 

Tarot

We finally made it to our new home. We're exhausted, having traveled with a cat and all. Moving households is overwhelming, and within our first 24 hours here, we've been greeted by welcoming and giving neighbors, of course, as well as by termites!

Whenever I get overwhelmed by life, it helps for me to use the difficulty as fodder for creativity.  So, during this year of transition, Susan and I will be making a Transitions Tarot.

And yes...one of the cards will be The Termite.

Tired

After about 9 hours on the road, I'm just gonna read with "Gravity" on in the background.

Direct

Packed the rest our belongings in the U-Haul and am floored by just how much stuff we have. I'm enjoying reading about a more direct way of life: You want something, you make it (or trade for it). You hungry? Grow it, collect it, or hunt it.

       Illustration by Bunner MacFarland

Rinya

Began reading this lovely book by a fellow teacher at Malcolm X School. It's really helping me stay grounded during our big move.

Desktop

Tonight I packed up the desktop computer which is the one I draw on. Feels weird. Kind of exciting, too, like it's a chance for something.

Kaput

As I'd written earlier,  my Wacom tablet is on the blink. I bought a new one but continued to use the old one since I'd been having success positioning the cable just right in order to get that blue light reward! Well, tonight it just wasn't working, so it's getting packed up, along with my drawings for the teaching graphic novel. 

Sudoku. Another activity I do to absorb my freaking-out nervous energy when I'm going through big changes.

End of Second?

This is the last of the Donkey sketches I'd scanned onto the computer. I'm not sure if it's the end of the second sketchbook; I may have only scanned a portion. Uh...no way of knowing; all the sketchbooks are packed.

Rolls

I've been trying to figure out just how much of each graphic novel I'm gonna share on my blog. I haven't come to a stopping point, yet, but with Donkey in the Garden I'm planning to stop after the end of the second sketchbook. Anyway, I'm on a roll with it, hooked up to some BeauSoleil's "Valse a Pop".

Recover

Redeemed another gift card to Doña Tomás Restaurant. This was from generous parents from about five years ago. Today there happened to be a street fair in the Temescal which is where the restaurant is located. At the street fair I bought a journal for writing down all my graphic novel ideas.

The vendor actually takes the covers off of discarded library books and rebinds them as blank books. Brilliant. I first read about this in Ruth Ozeki's book A Tale for the Time Being. 

The main character buys a blank book with the cover of Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu.

Languages

As a teacher I've racked up a collection of unspent gift cards. Being that Susan and I are moving, we thought it'd be a good idea to redeem these cards, especially since most of the cards were more than two years old. So, today we treated ourselves to Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Barnes and Noble, and Pegasus Books. At Pegasus I bought two graphic novels that looked interesting. One is Andre the Giant, the true story of WWF wrestler Andre Roussimoff. The book's created by Box Brown, and I who know NOTHING about wrestling was drawn to the clear, bold line and sparse text. I'm looking forward to reading this.

The other graphic novel I bought is a French one called Chroniques d'un Pigeon Parisien. It was written by then 25-year-old Pome Bernos. 

My second language was French which was taught in the American schools in Orléans and Olivet. After returning to the States I had no one to speak French with and soon lost the ability to speak it. Spanish is my third language, taught in my elementary school in California, and has superseded my French. 

Then this school year I was fortunate to have a student who was a monolingual French speaker! It was a joy to work at recovering one of the languages of my childhood. I was also fortunate that another student had brought a French comic book, Allez raconte une histoire (Lewis Trondheim, José Parrondo) to help the new student feel at home. 

I, of course, borrowed the book as soon as I could. I had to give it back before finishing it though.

Restraint

Almost finished with this one. I forgot to draw the wrinkles in the sheet near the pillow, and I'm not sure if I'll add some other text.

I'm trying to hold them at bay, but ideas for the next two graphic novels keep surfacing. I think I'm gonna have to write them down in a notebook.

Was glued to the Colombia-Brazil quarterfinals game. It was a heartbreaking match with Brazil overpowering the Colombian team with precision, the refs making some miscalls, and tons of fouls.

Transitions

Continuing to work on Donkey. I try to be disciplined and work on all three stories equally, but when a wave of focus hits me, I just have to follow it. So, the cancer story it is! 

I wonder why I'm gravitating toward this graphic novel at this time? Maybe because the appearance of the bivalve back brace heralded a transition into another phase of Susan's healing, and right now we're in a transition between homes.

Setting

During one of my forays into Pegasus Books, I bought a graphic novel by David B. The book: Epileptic 1. I'd never heard of the author, and I wasn't particularly interested in reading about epilepsy. 

What drew me to this amazing true story of David B.'s older brother and his parents' heartbreaking attempts to find a cure for his disability was the first line of the book. David B. tells the setting: Orléans, France. That's where I'd lived for almost 5 years of my childhood! I bought the book immediately!

Brink

We threw away Susan's back brace. It was one of the first to go when we decided to move. She'd needed the dreaded thing to stabilize her back since the myeloma had weakened her vertebrae. 

Today, she called an actual cancer hospital located in the state we're moving to and got the name of her new oncologist. It's the beginning of a new era.