Today, I lay in bed with the ipad for a few hours. Didn’t feel like getting up. When I finally did, I looked outside as I had my late breakfast. The sun was out in a nearly cloudless sky, and it was only a little chilly. I knew what I had to do.
I got dressed and grabbed a book. Not one of the new comics I got at the con, either. A paper book from my library. I didn’t want to think about comics at all today. And I left my phone behind as I went out to a little park a couple blocks from my place.
I lay spread-eagled on the grass for a while. I’d been intending to read, but I guess I wasn’t quite up to it just yet. I just basked in the sun for a bit.
Eventually a wisp of cloud passed over the sun, and I started to get chilly. I got up and went for a sandwich, and started reading.
The book I’d chosen was an old friend. Swanwick’s “Stations Of The Tide“. It’s not the first thing I’d read by him, nor is it the wildest. But it’s the one I come back to every now and then. It’s one of the few books I bought a new copy of after Katrina took my library; it means something that I can never quite decide on.
Sometime I feel like reading it for the first time changed something deep down in the bottom of my head, and I would have taken a different path if not for it. I can’t quite tell you what. In part because I can’t put it into words; in part because the bits I can put into words feel intensely private.
I read the first few chapters, then paused, sated. Unusual, that. Usually I inhale a whole book in one long gulp. But after the constant stimulation of the con, I wanted to slow down and savor things; I wanted to think slow, large thoughts today. I tried to eschew my usual speed-reading habits and pass every single word through the verbal parts of my brain instead of unconsciously skimming along. (I never trained myself to speed-read; it’s how I’ve always read, since as long as I can remember.)
I left the sandwich shop and deposited my con cash in the bank. I gave twenty bucks of my net profits to a girl busking at the corner; I only made about fifty or sixty dollars over my half of the booth fee, and to be honest I kinda felt like I needed to do something to balance taking part in a 75,000-person festival of consumerism.
Then I was off to a cafe to read more of my book while sipping a cider/chai drink. I found myself wanting to try and draw the characters. I’m not too satisfied with my first attempts; maybe I’ll refine them tonight or this week. They don’t have the right contrast of shapes, there’s not enough angles, and they’re just not… I dunno. They’re too prosaic. Not otherworldly enough. Not enough of a dream.
I came home and sat in the studio chair, reading a bit more, then just lounging. Now I’m in bed again. I’m not so much physically tired as mentally. The con was an emotional rollercoaster. And I had to do a LOT of social processing. Which gets easier, but is still something I don’t really have the hardware co-processors for most people seem to.
I don’t think there will be a page of Rita tomorrow. Maybe Thursday; I have a first draft of the script. But no rough drawings, no gleam to the words. I’m going to skip aikido tonight, too. My legs are just tired enough that the last thing I want to do is walk for a half hour and jump around.
Nap time.