Update

[summercomfort]

Just dragged Jono to watch "Up in the Air" at the budget theater where it was still playing. It was really good. It's marketed as a romantic comedy, but it's really not. It's more about romantic dysfunction. In some ways it reminds me of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" in the sort of mood it left me in, although it did so through completely different storytelling methods. So yes, haunting treatise on relationships and love and connections, well-crafted without being ostentatious. Characters that you can't really love or hate because they're human. I think I like these sorts of movies more than the ones that just tell a story like Star Trek or something. (Although those are fun, too).

Had a talk with Jono about how sometimes I feel boxed in by the desire to spend time with him at the expense of interests and friends that don't intersect with him. It was a good talk, and I think we've figured out the right direction to tackle this. :) I'm going to try to email him in the afternoon every day to sketch out our evening moods. Once I get into a habit of telegraphing my plans, I'll feel less like I'm abandoning my husband when I want to hang out with non-intersecting friends.

My only 3-day weekend of the spring is coming up. (This is the one Sunday where I don't have Chinese School between January and June, and as luck would have it, there's no school tomorrow because of the annual Benefit that our school hosts.) Last year, me, Jono, and Cat went to the Grand Canyon and had a grand time and I kinda got proposed to. :) This year we're going to Yosemite with Jeremy. There's been a bit of minor drama involving first Jono realizing that he had a bunch of deadlines coming up, and not wanting to take Friday off, and realizing this a day too late for me to sign up for the Benefit on Friday. But then Jono was able to take Friday off. In exchange, however, Jono had to work extra hard the other four days this week, and as a result has started on a cold trajectory. (He's currently in the Sore Throat phase. He'll be moving onto the sniffly fever phase soon.) So instead of camping in 40 degree weather, we'll be just rooming at the hotel thing outside of Yosemite, which should be fun nonetheless.

Jono is working hard on Yuki. It's really cool to see it slowly take shape. I really love the beautiful line work that he does. I'm also excited about his goal to finish Chapter 1 by November. The plot will be starting! One of the things that I love doing with Jono is going on a walk and talking about these and other things. :D Watching him make a comic that has a specific story has made me kinda want to do that, too. But I also feel not ready. Plus I like the voice/tone that I've established with my China comic. It's something that I struggle with -- the stories that I want to tell and finding the style that is natural to me. For example, I really want to tell large epic stories, but it's not something that I do. When I write, my natural voice seems to be didactic/silly.

On the other hand, maybe I should try a short one. I'm teaching a 4 day class on comicking to my high schoolers, and I should really have some narrative-comic practice that extends beyond 1 page and that is written by me. (In other words, not CGU.) I've also just gotten Manga Studio EX for a reasonable price (yay teacher discount!)

Anyway, some updates on various fronts.

Comments

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Ha! And here I worry about stealing Jono's time from you :P

It's pretty cool that you're both doing webcomics. It's inspiring me to think along those lines... once I get all the OTHER projects out of the way :P

[summercomfort]

You're an intersecting friend, so there's no stealing involved. :D!!

Maybe you can combine all your OTHER projects into a mega webcomic?? :X

But seriously, I think it's all about finding the right medium to tell your stories...

[conejita.livejournal.com]

*nods* evening planning is something that charlie and I work on a lot. Similar discrepancy too, I like having a plan and he likes deciding more spontaneously. When we're both home we both feel compelled to spend "together time" when sometimes that's really not what one of us (or either of us) want. Google calendar is our friend, but that is also trumped by whether we need to take care of each other (ie bad day) which we try to communicate the afternoon of. We do a lot of outside activities on our own (which doesn't really have to do with poly, I know what you're thinking :P), which works for us because we make a commitment to the time we spend together. Not like we really know what we're doing, we still have a really hard time "passionately debating" topics. The last one debating if the moisture from cream cheese would soak thru cocoa powder, didn't end well. (Later when we were calmer, we determined by experiment that it does not soak thru ;_; (its not fair that 正 is his middle name (we have determined my chinese name would have to be "trouble with doors" (what is it about LJ that renews my passion for parenthesis?))) um... yes passionately debating, still a problem.

comicking: yay you should try something longer, even if it's just 2 pages :P Your voice is what you speak and think in. Who gets to practice epic storytelling these days? And who says epic stories can't be didactic and silly (I'm looking at Neal Stephenson) Yay! Makes me wanna start comicking instead of just drawing sexy ladies ^^;
ok enough of menstrual insomnia, time to try to sleep again