Hiatus

I know, I know - I've been gone. I know I always say this, whether or not it's true, but I've been busy. No, really, I have. No sooner had Socrates left than I set off on an adventure in illustrating with my good buddy, Ger. Ger was also interested in starting a writing club, and since I've been trying to find the discipline to get my own children's book written and illustrated (not necessarily in that order), so on alternating weeks I'm either having a brainstorming "coffee" on Pluto, or meeting with the writers. I want to keep pretty tight-lipped about my own book, but Ger's got a website if you want to read the story we've been working on - it's Plip and the Purple Princess, which you can find here: http://www.ebookswithger.com

This has been really challenging for me. My drawings have a definite style to them, and I wouldn't describe it as "sci-fi picture book," but that's exactly what I'm doing. Plip is a little Plutonian boy who dreams of having ten arms with ten fingers on each and very long ears like his Grandpa Zoop. Yep. Ten arms. Ten fingers. How do you even illustrate such a thing? Well, something like this:

I stole from Hindu sculpture in order to manage this one. Shiva's only got four arms, but I knew other deities had more, and Kali, as it turns out, has ten. She was the inspiration for the arms.

I couldn't for the life of me think of anywhere I'd seen anyone or anything with ten fingers on one hand, but I laid my two hands on top of each other, and came up with this. I was pretty pleased with it - if we're so advanced (as opposed to animals) because we have a thumb on each hand, how much more advanced would a species with TWO thumbs be???

This is a scene I drew of Plip leaving for his first day of school. On Pluto, you have to learn to count BEFORE you have fingers, so Plip only has one finger on each hand. If Plip can learn to count to ten, he'll have ten fingers on each hand... The educational bits about counting and colors will make some nice graphic layouts, I think, and the colors should be out of this world (pun totally intended there, people).

I'm also trying to get back to the belly. I've been taking lessons almost since I got into Shanghai, but I haven't been an especially diligent student. Sometimes I think this is because there's not a whole lot of review from one lesson to the next, but I know (duh duh duh-duh duh) it's my own damn fault. I need to practice on my own to make progress, and I'm not doing it. I still love the dance as much as ever, but life gets busy and I'm a lot fatter than I was in my "glory days," which might explain why I still haven't bought a mirror to practice in front of. What I lack in quality I'm trying to make up for with quantity - my gym offers a class on Tuesday night, and I'm very likely going to start taking classes across the street, as I've discovered the yoga studio there offers them, and after a tip from the Evil One I've downloaded Kim Pechet's "Shimmy" workout show, which makes a nice (if cheesy) way to start the day...

...but really? What I really need is to perform. I'm doing this in May - I'm going to Azhaar's World Belly Dance Day extravaganza, and she's invited me to dance in her show - but although there are lots and lots of dancers here, I have yet to hear of any haflas or shows, nevermind be given a chance to perform. I have dreams of setting up a group like Azhaar's MECDACK, but I'm not the organizer she is, and I don't have a faithful sidekick like Kim to help me BECOME one, so right now it's just in the research stage. Someday, though...

Doctor Who as a Metaphor for Life

There are so many things I could address in this blog. I could address our fat idiot of a principal threatening me. I could address the fact that Yew Chung eats your soul, even when you don't work there. I could tell you about the old Chinese man shuffling down the street backwards in his brand-new Converse All-Stars this morning on my way to church. But I'd rather talk about Doctor Who.

A significant number of people who have come into my life in the last six years have been Doctor Who fans, and this spring I decided to give it a try. I liked it alright, enough to watch two seasons, and enough to get excited and set the recorder when I found it on BBC America this summer, but it wasn't until a week and a half ago that I decided to start season three. It and four (which I'm halfway through after starting this morning) have been amazing. Why? Okay, I gotta say, I love the whole traveler of time and space thing - repeatedly the Doctor is asked what he does, and he replies, "Travel." That's kind of my life! But what's really doing it for me is the heroines from these two seasons. Don't get me wrong - I liked Rose, I liked what I saw of Amy, but they don't have the flaws that give Martha and Donna meaning. Or their strengths - I love the fact that after a season of pining over the Doctor Martha says, "Look. Enough of this. I'm getting out and moving on." Who has that kind of strength? And Donna, who we meet at the beginning of season three - she's kind of a loudmouthed idiot, but she helps save the world and, more to the point, pulls the Doctor back from the edge that he currently puts himself out on, then says, "You know what? No. Not going with you - ya kinda scare me." She comes to regret that decision, and by the time you see her again at the beginning of season four, she seems like a totally different person. Still a loudmouth, but more with it, more willing to embrace the world, even when it scares her, and still able to help the Doctor remember what makes him who he is.

I kinda want those qualities for myself.

I also love the fact that this show leaves you with that feeling that anything is possible. I don't mean aliens or time travel, but the little miracles of finding your strength, of moving forward and reaching for what you want.

It's November 21, 2010. I've been in Shanghai for three months and eleven days. In that time I've lost some weight - not sure how much, as it's been a while since I last hit the sauna - made some friends, and become a more driven teacher. But I've kind of been holding back. There's so much more I want to do - I want to belly dance again, not just practice but perform, in the body I had when I lived in Korea. I want to write and illustrate my book - I haven't even touched it in almost two months. I want a closer relationship with God. I realized today that the way I feel about one of my friends, who doesn't seem to really care about me unless I'm needed is probably the way I make Heavenly Father feel, even being the patient, omnipotent deity that he is. When I get home from school, there's not much dance in me, or much art for that matter, and let me tell you about how much I feel like hanging out with Mormons for three hours on the other side of town, let alone throughout the week. But I've been that version of myself before, on all three counts, and so it MUST be possible to be me again. And watching impossible things like Doctor Who makes me believe, somehow, that I will.

That's all I have to say, I guess. Except that I wish - OH, how I wish - that the weekends were just one day longer. I could really use another day.