윤

Not an original idea, but I’m glad to have finally put it to paper for the sake of the boy’s creativity. The script was easy enough to come up with—I say that looking back, but the truth is the pentameter took some tweaking, the 昇龍拳 gag on one of my nightly runs over the bridges—though drawing hasn’t been in my wheelhouse for almost a lifetime, and a first go at inking compounded the challenge. The 0.5-0.7 gel pens I had left either too thick a stroke or not enough of one at 0.38mm, and didn’t erase at all cleanly as advertised. That and the economy of spacing for lettering, one really gains appreciation for the artistry of professionals even on a silly project like this. Not to bore you with other details, but if this wrap-up is to serve as its director’s commentary, I’d also like to add that among my many distractions (such as the lyrics to my next one) was the amusing notion the story could’ve been animated in a single continuous take.

About a month ago I was abruptly reassigned to another manager (incredulous reason I was given later was that my previous one was at his capacity for underlings), which must’ve prompted a dream where I was enlisted into a small cohort of unfamiliar folks from different departments as a part of some team-building exercise, the sort I’ve had to participate in more of since joining this company than in my entire career, and after taking a bathroom break, returned and was immediately put on the spot by the host. I was questioned as to the kind of person whose response to a new subject is to ask ‘of what importance is it’ or ‘how does it affect me’, in a rhetorical way, as if this were the enlightened course taken by our leaders. “Does this have any bearing on discussion during my absence,” I inquired, no, she answered, then snarkily replied, either someone who doesn’t have very much time or a narcissist. It’s attitudes like this that are really hurting my upward mobility, aren’t they?

In another more recent work-related scenario, Andy Hsu and I were onsite like we haven’t been in years, though I did have to remind him how our respective project responsibilities have changed as they have since. Alvin Jardin, from even further back, was the representative on the client side, and the three of us shared a connection which only made that special kind of sense it does in dreams whereby Andy’s piss flowed wirelessly through his bladder, but I regulated its entry into the toilet, hoping that by pausing and resuming ever-so casually I could reduce the embarrassing impression that I had let it accumulate for too long tonight.

When the fuck will I stop dreaming that I’m still in school? 윤대섭 and I were sharing a small room with flattened carpeting, and I realized I was late to class, took my backpack with one hand and a stack of books with the other, but not before his students began arriving and asking each other if I was his son. No time to look up directions—I had been to the first session so only a vague idea which direction to take on campus would have to do. There were several elevators in the building, and the nearest one open had filled fast; the up and down indicators lit above another across the hall, and I ran for it. Running always seems to require an unrealistic amount of effort (no doubt mirroring the bleak future that is come), but in this unusual case it produced the desired result and the nice old woman at the front of the passengers inside welcomed me. Half the service-sized large compartment was unoccupied, and I walked to the back and knelt against the wall on the empty left side to sort my things. An irascible gentleman who resembled Sean Bean in a red wig and black suit approached and told me that the space was reserved for riders with strollers, despite my taking up very little of it, not to mention a place closer to the others. It should have been quite clear from the expression I returned that he was free to go fuck himself.