A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama

The pressure of blogging, at least for me, is that once you find the thing you want to write, you can't let it go, even if (and especially) it's difficult to get out. I had the idea to write about the first boy I ever met off the internet. A tragically comedic story, it is also complex and lengthy. I put it off for over a week, instead spending too much time with friends and beers. And then I sat down with a cup of coffee a couple night ago and wrote the bitch. It wasn't fun, but it was satisfying to challenge myself in the telling of the story, describing my horror upon seeing him come down the stairs with q-tips sticking out of his ears, yellowed with wax, my utter lack of attraction. I re-read the piece, my longest post by far, and was proud of it. Obviously I lost it. Obviously something happened and it's gone and I can't get it back.

Writing pissed me off a little, or maybe it was blogging, or computers themselves. Maybe I was most angry at my own carelessness. I may try to write the story out again someday, but not anytime soon.

The sun was out today, and the weather calm and nearly precious. I spent the time reading outside and then I got out my pad and pens and did some drawing. I feel a sense of relief after writing and drawing, as if I'm a too-full balloon and these actions are the tiny pinprick that lets out the funny little burst of air. So I drew Sanji, the chef of the crew in One Piece. Not bad, eh?



There's something great about drawing in the sun. The light is perfect, the shadow of the pen so satisfying, the imperceptible grain of the paper confiding. I think this is the best thing I have ever drawn, this detail of the woman loving, the smoking chef Sanji.



I'm off tonight to watch a movie with a 19 year old whom I feel very little attraction for, and in a couple days I will be meeting a man 20 years older than that for a little hike and chat. I have no idea what I'm doing, so don't ask. You'll just be met with a blank stare, an embarrassed sideways grin and a curlicue eyebrow.

Shortly. Thus. And So.

I woke up last Friday with the kind of nausea that makes you forget you ever felt any other way. The kind that makes your forehead break into a cold sweat, the kind where you don't even know if you can make it to the bathroom because moving will only make it worse. I vomited several times over the course of 3 hours, until it got to the point where nothing was coming out but the most basic fluid, the yellowy pain known as bile. I saw myself in the mirror and was frightened by the look in my eyes. I felt disgusting and pathetic, I felt like Rusty Brown.

I recently read Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library 16 and was completely blown away. His layouts have reached new levels of cinematics, so much to the point where I find myself remembering it in movement. The art of comics has long intimated at movement: the scratch marks by a inky cape, a red vinyl boot, a green and shiny gloved fist. But Ware's movement is slow and purposeful, like the precise snowflakes that decorate the opening pages.

ANL 16 has many characters other than the profoundly pathetic Rusty Brown (with whom I feel an unwelcome kinship towards). There's his future friend by default, Chalky White. His sister Alison, beautiful and real. A collection of teachers at the snow blanketed school from Rusty's father to Mr. Ware himself. All different but all struggling to make sense of their loneliness. Everything seems to point to some semblance of order or fate, a reasoning for these people to be brought together: the clean lines, the rounded edges, the reference to snowflakes, the architecture of the school itself, the square panels.

But that's not the case. He let's you know this by an omniscient voice on a blackboard referring to something not hinted at by visuals, the commingling smells of the school itself. The inherent pointlessness of "dissecting" out of the miasma the origin of each separate odor. We do this thing in our heads, we make ourselves main characters in a story. When we're probably a lot closer to the static that TSSHHT's across the title page of ANL 16. A random and loud scattering of specks, impossible to differentiate.

Like in One Piece, I want all the people I care about to be on a ship outside of reality. Floating on the sea, together forever. Outside influences are only quick distractions from the loyalty of our friendship and our crew, waiting for defeat. I know that this is a fantasy, and it gets me hurt often. This is why I am like the sad collector Rusty, his denial of reality in exchange for plastic. I refuse to acknowledge the randomness of our intertwinings, I refuse to swallow that existential moment. When Chris Ware draws himself into the story, miserably trying to be helpful, thinking about getting dumped while his paintings loom above him explosively cold, I cringe. I respect it, but disavow it entirely. Surely life isn't so desperately lonely!

And then I see myself: not thinking about anything at all, my knees pressed into the graying linoleum, my mouth stretching over the nauseatingly smooth curves of the toilet, vomiting loudly.

heeeere's usopp! the one in the upper left hand corner sucks, i know.