Day 5 of my captivity . . .

  
And the non-fun continues!  Although I am pleased to report that I was able to put on socks in record time today, as well as wash my own hair.

Baby steps!  

   
We take whatever victory we can get at this point, folks, and we are glad to have a reason to celebrate.  The party will continue until I am released from this prison on August 23.  I think I'll just survive that long.

Someone told me that I should not feel frustrated by the things I need to be doing but can't (specifically eleven Christmas paintings) because I knew I wouldn't be able to work on them so no need to waste frustration on them . . . seems very zen and very non-Susan to me . . .

I AM FRUSTRATED.

I have managed to keep up with my drawings, however, and am enjoying finally having an excuse for them!  I should have put my arm in a large cast 30 years ago and then taken myself to art school and just shrugged and held up my sling the day the teacher looked at my first drawing assignments and said, "I don't think this is for you...."

I was talking to Lindsay (my personal guru with the drawing degree) about why my right-handed drawings don't look quite as much worse than my regular drawings as I thought they might, and she explained to me that drawing doesn't change as much as writing does.  She said that it doesn't seem to come from the same part of the brain.  The only challenge is to train the muscles to hold the implement, and you can draw.  This made sense to me, particularly coming from the artist whose senior show was largely comprised of giant self-portraits in which she was drawing using various body parts: a picture of her drawing with the pencil in her mouth, which was drawn using her mouth, or one of her using her foot, which was drawn with her foot, and so on.  They were awesome!

(Not a good image at all, but the only one I could find 

of Linds working with a pencil between her teeth... )

and  here's part of one done using her right foot.  

The caption said, "drawing is exercise."

So in my shoes (or sling) she'd probably be whipping out those paintings by sticking paint brushes in her ears or something, and they would look phenomenal.

Even more impressive than Chelsea's one-girl band sounded the summer she decided to learn to play the piano with her feet so she could accompany herself on the flute . . .

But I feel like rather an old dog for such fancy new tricks, so I think I'll just continue to try to train my right hand to hold a toothbrush and eat cheeseburgers and work the remote.  

And by my calculations, those skills should take about a week to perfect . . .