(no subject)

I continue to feel things that can only be described as anxious and depressed, words I find unhelpfully psychotherapeutic. appelle and I talked about our congruent emotional states Saturday night and agreed that we are way too kick-ass as individuals to be so down.

And it's not true what they say about Ryan...

I drew like a motherfucker since last Thursday... Sorry, I was channeling Miles Davis for a minute. Actually, the jazz metaphor might work. After hours of prepping and researching Thursday morning, I sat down to draw a complex illustration of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea (foaming CG-like all around them) while, poised in the sky above them are ghosts of future enemies including a Roman soldier, an Inquisition priest and a Nazi Stormtrooper. With the exception of two ghosts at the end of the process, I was able to pencil the entire drawing without a single erasure or loss of direction.

I would draw in these intense waves for about 20 minutes then stand up and pace around the house for five minutes, then draw, etc. The inking went similarly smoothly. I was astonished. Furthermore, I was able to strike the right balance of penciling and roughing -- rendering some bits in great pencil detail and leaving some figures rough to be completed only when I committed them to ink.

I've hit a new place of confidence, but strangely enough, it's only leaving more panicky. I can't quite put this together now -- it's like I'm afraid I'll lose it? or? um, I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm kind of fragile now. Today was one of those mornings when I had to turn off the news and listen to Joni Mitchell's Hejira.

Don't Look Now!

I walk my dog with a tired brain after a day in the office and find myself saying the most bizarre things to him. Through an open garden gate, two black squirrels can be glimpsed sniffing around a yard.

"Look, Gougou," I say, "Squirrels!" (lowering my voice spontaneously and hissing) "Spy squirrels!!"