Typical Day
Well, not exactly a typical day, but an average of what I do in a working day during a week.
I wake up usually around 5:30am to 6:30am. If I wake up on the early side, I usually brush my teeth, comb my hair, put my rubber shoes on and go out and take a walk around the lake. On those rare times I wake up at 5:00am, I usually walk the lake with Johnny, one of my Komikero pals. But since I almost always sleep late, I don't get to wake up that early. If I wake up around 6:30, I usually go straight to the computer to check my email, teeth unbrushed and hair unkept. I stay there long enough to get my email , messageboarding, and blogging done, which is around an hour or so. If I can't stand the smell of the dog shit in the garage, I'll put off emailing for a while to go out to the garage and clean the dog shit. I can always count on our dog to shit like 1.5 to 3 kilos of shit overnight. That's not counting the random shitting that the dog will do throughout the day.
After the Internet stuff I go and prepare breakfast. Yes, I'm the one in the family who always prepares breakfast because Ilyn doesn't wake up until 8:00am to 9:00am. Sometimes she does the dishes, sometimes I do, when I don't have a deadline, which is most of the time anyway. I hate washing dishes. I love to cook though. We usually get to start work in our little 5'X5' studio/room at 9:00am. In this little room we have our computer, air-con, phone, the TV and DVD, her work table and cabinet, my shelf of comics art and comics and her drawing table which I use. I have a drawing table at the old house which has a lightbox...but it's simply too big to fit in the room. It can't even fit in the door. So I borrow Ilyn's table and use it when she is not using it.
When we usually start working, she tunes the TV on to Oprah on Star World. It's a show that my mom just loves to watch but I never got to watch it myself on a regular basis. Turns out Ilyn loves watching it too. It's fun, specially when they do those house makeovers and people makeovers and stuff like that. I get to mostly listen anyway since I'm hunched on the table inking or drawing or whatever. I can't work without having some sort of noise going on in the room which I find somewhat entertaining. Music is fine, but a show that doesn't attract too much visual attention is OK too. Mostly I put on a DVD and listen to commentaries of movies I've already seen. Sometimes I listen to fan made commentaries and listen to that.
Around 11 we start talking about what to do for lunch. If we get too preoccupied with work and we see it's 11:30 and we haven't done any cooking, we usually decide to go and take out food at a nearby Binalot place. Or go out alltogether. I go and feed the dog atfterwards. Sometimes Ilyn gives him a bath first. Eugene our dog is lots of fun. He's a dalmatian and a huge one at that. Always playful but extremely nervous of large groups of people.
At 1:00pm it's back to work and it's OPRAH again on Star World. I sometimes I nap for a couple of hours after a page or two of book reading. I get so sleepy easily nowadays. I can't go reading a book without falling asleep after a page or two, no matter how exciting the book is. That's probably because I'm Boy Tulog, or maybe because I don't get too much sleep. I only get to sleep 6 hours a night and it's just not enough. That's probably why I take another couple of hours of sleep in the afternoon. Right now I'm reading Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. What's everyone complaining about? It's not that difficult a read. In fact, it's quite easy. Unabridged Les Miserables it is NOT. I guess I'm just used to reading. And I sometimes get to read a lot of difficult stuff. Shakespeare...now THAT is tough. I never get to read it fully myself. But I'm totally enjoying reading LOTR. It's fascinating to read after watching the movies over several times. Lots of stuff had been taken out or changed, but considering the time in which a movie can tell a story, a lot of the changes do make sense.
I usually go out in the afternoon to walk, and it's actually quite nice to do so here in San Pablo around Sampalok Lake in the late afternoon. If we don't have dinner I usually go and get some to take home, or most of the time, Ilyn just cooks. We usually watch the news at ABS-CBN at 6:00pm, but for the most part I can't stand Korina Sanchez. I don't know why. Ilyn can't stand Mike Enriquez either on GMA 7. I think Mike is fun to watch with his nostrils flaring and all, but I have to give way and I'm stuck with Korina. I just tune out and wait for the weather with Ernie Baron. I think Ernie Baron is funny. Years ago when we didn't have TV, I usually tune in to Ernie's nightly show on the radio where he answers questions of all kinds. Who invented the Xerox Machine (Chester Carlson), who invented the radar (Sir Alexander Watson Watt), stuff like that. Me and a friend called up one time and asked Ernie why the handle to our wrench is red. He babbled something about pigments and promptly hung up on us. he.he.
At 7:00pm Ilyn usually watches Neil Buchanan on ART ATTACK! But it seems Disney Channel is no longer carrying it nightly at 7. Neil is another funny guy. His accent is so crazy. He's responsible for indoctrinating millions of Pinoy kids in the fine art of the British accent.
Tuesdays it's MONK, Wednesday it's CSI. I love CSI Las Vegas but hate CSI Miami with a passion. I liked David Caruso as the scared rookie in First Blood and he was actually quite fascinating to watch in the first season of NYPD Blue. But after marvelling at William Peterson's Gil Grisson in CSI Las Vegas, David Caruso's Horatio in CSI Miami is just plain annoying. He does nothing but act and look cool, but Grissom is witty, intelligent, and best of all, he's a NERD. And I think that's so cool. His one liners that start the show are instant classics.
Fridays it's CRIME NIGHT at Discovery. Ilyn just loves to watch that forensic, crime investigation stuff. That's probably why she likes CSI and why her favorite Kurosawa movie is High and Low.
After a days work, I usually scan pages that I inked late at night and FTP it over to my current employers, in this case it's DC Comics. My editor is Eddie Berganza, but I mostly talk to Assistant Editor Tom Palmer Jr., who is the son of legendary comics inker Tom Palmer (X-men, Avengers). Tom Jr. used to write for Wizard Magazine spotlighting indie stuff.
I check my email intermittently all throughout the day, and I do some surfing for half an hour or so before going to sleep. I usually turn in anytime from 10:30 to 12:30 in the morning. I continue to read LOTR before going off to sleep. I can't sleep without having some music on, and lately I've been putting on Disc 3 of the Essential Bruce Springsteen. It's a bonus disc of previously unreleased material.
Then I go off to sleep. If I'm lucky, I get to dream one of those awesome disaster dreams I usually get. The last one was Mt. Makiling erupting and damaging our house here in San Pablo. I put one of those disaster dreams in the current issue of Crest Hut. I'm putting the finishing touches on it now.
Good Night!
