the mental weather report

ben beat me to the punch on cheering about Google Sets, because Colin's laptop decided to pull the random-poweroff trick just as I was about to click Update Journal. Stupid Presario. But, hey, I'll cheer about it too, because it's fun and cool and the kind of thing I could very well be doing for a living in the next couple of years here. Computational linguistics is exciting stuff!

Today I was going to go to Colin's office with him and paint more minis and write, but I woke up with the same headache I've had for the last three days. Paint fumes would have been a bad idea, so I stayed home, wrote, and drew instead. I have a couple of things I'd like to finish before I leave, namely "Walter Rides Again" and the little Lovecraftian-boarding-school piece I want to do for Amy Sterling Casil's new antho switch.blade, but as usual, I worked on the new shiny idea instead.

The new shiny idea is a short comic piece entitled "Snow Monkey". That's comic in the sense of 'sequential art', not 'funny', though it is rather light-hearted. The art is very simple and so is the story: an overworked Japanese businessman decides to go to Hokkaido and join the snow monkeys. There's subtext about reciprocity and refusing to give in to unjust expectations, and everyone speaks in little icons. (When he comes home from work, his wife's speech bubble has a yen sign in it; his children's speech bubbles have a Game Boy and a Pikachu, that kind of thing.) The script is written; it comes to about four pages. (I had originally planned 9 panels/page, but when I started drawing I decided I liked 12/page better.) The drawing is the part that's going to take forever, not least because I still draw scenery way better than I draw people, but hey, this is what we call 'practice'.

I can't believe my vacation is already halfway over. I've been kind of mopey and unexcited/ing for most of today and yesterday, despite visiting Colin's parents and a very nice barbecue at Slave's. (It's probably biology.) I feel fat and bloaty, like I'm retaining water or something, and more than once I've wondered whether I'm going to fail the tape at MEPS next Thursday and get sent home. I don't see how that could be possible, though, since right now I'm wearing a pair of Colin's 31"-waist denim shorts and they're very comfortable. At the end of last semester I had a 33" waist and now I'm down to 31" already? Damn! Must keep working out and eating well; I don't care about being skinny, I want to be athletic. (Comment from last night's party: "I don't care if I have thick legs. I can push a Saturn up an 18-degree incline.")

Had a very good time Wednesday night out at Spy with Colin and my old friend Don Hitt. The music was fantastic both upstairs and down, and I think the longest I was off the floor was maybe 20 minutes. I came home with serious thoughts of writing a longish essayblog entitled "The Virtue of Dancing, or: Hey You Objectivists, Get Out There And Shake Your Asses," on why I find getting out into the middle of a huge crowd and dancing up a storm to be an intensely individualistic act, but didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll do it eventually.

That's about all that's on my mind right now. I need to call up Uncle Paul and see about this weekend, and check with Diana about Peter Murphy and see if she still wants to do it. Maybe sometime this weekend I'll go up to Don's and see Battle Royale.

I'm not ready to leave yet. Not this soon. There's so much left to do...