Man, deadlines are so helpful. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I love deadlines. They are like jumper cables for your brain. Vroom vroom.
In other news, I updated my comic recently. You can view it here. Daniel and I took the weekend off--almost entirely for reals!--and went hiking with some peeps, hung out at Remedy, etc. And I spent about 6 hours of Sunday making a comic, because, you know, weekends. It was actually quite relaxing, and provided some much-needed flexing of the drawing muscles. I've even been feeling the itch to paint a little bit, but that's way more labor- (and prep-) intensive, and I don't really have the time for it right now. Writing is consuming my life. (Note: that is a good thing. A very, wonderfully, spectacularly good thing.)
I do wish that we could find an apartment. We can't technically look right now (I mean, I am certainly allowed to bum around and check places out on the interwebs, but not for keeps) because moving dates are up in the air, etc, but with the summer months approaching, I'm starting to get a little antsy. Hopefully it's silly of me to think that the summer Olympics will at all impact our ability to find a nice, affordable place to live (*cough*in the area we want*cough*), but... there it is. Who knows. Regardless, I'm getting excited about finding a new home--some place we can cozy up in for three years--one with new walls for our art, and new drawers to put spoons in. I'm going to miss our Seattle home (our building is the prettiest!), but a fresh start is becoming more and more an exciting notion. (I'm even looking forward to going through all of my clothes and trinkets, deciding what things to store and what to give away. All I need is the time to do it! snort.)
Writing's been going well this week. I should be able to spend the next few days polishing before I send my beginning-of-a-thing off to Workshop Assignment Land. I'm fairly nervous about the residency and how my writing will be received*, but most good workshops are full of warm individuals who want to help you improve, so that's exactly what I'll hope for. I am pretty darn excited about my study proposal for the term, so hopefully that works out. So much Magic Realism.** I am obsessed.
Speaking of lovely, bookish things: I put Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red onto my proposed reading list. I read it once in undergrad and thought it was breathtaking, so I'd like to read it again. I opened it up today and re-read the first intro chapter--sometimes words, or pairings of words, are so beautiful that become emotionally overwhelmed. In fact, it wasn't until I picked it up that I had any success with writing today.*** Whatever it is that I'm working on is not nearly as beautiful (at least at this point), but that does not cheapen the inspiration.
Also, Daniel is reading A Moveable Feast. He totally loves it, and his new crush on Hemingway is downright adorable.
*TERRIFIED, ACTUALLY.
**novels AND nonfiction analysis. oooOOOOoooh!
***1000 words by 7pm! And at 5pm I only had 54.