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 Spanish is my third language, taught in my elementary school in California, and has superseded my French.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.