pain in many forms: egg paintings, undead rabbits, and yoga

dauphin baby finished! isn't he sweet?
so i was such a good girl today, bouncing out of bed at 8:00 pleine des haricots to get going on my dreaded egg homework (SO tedious. in an effort to keep myself from cracking it against my forehead in boredom, i picked a fun speckly brown egg out of my large collection (i went a little wild and crazy at the egg stand at the market, and was rewarded for my irresponsibly profligate egg-purchasing by being given my eggs to take home in a plastic bag, no carton, no nothing. does this seem like a good plan to you? no, it didn't to me either. but somehow they all made it home with their little eggy selves intact, and one of them now has even had the honour of having its portrait painted, nestled in my red corduroy jacket).

anyway. what a horrible masochistic project. but i spent two hours on it, decided honour was satisfied, even if the teacher would not be, and went on to the next masochistic exercise of the day, which was yoga hour with swami torquemada and the girls. it wasn't quite as excruciating as it was the first time we did the full hour thing, but i suspect that i may still be sore tomorrow. oh, while i am thinking about it -
MC telling the zombie rabbit story

in brief: MC lives in (very) rural quebec on the family farm where there were lots of animals running around; her brother was instructed to dispatch one of the rabbits, who had been growing a large and unsightly tumour on its head. her brother duly took it outside, whacked it on the back of the head to kill it, and threw it on the fire. two minutes later, they heard a log fall, turned, and there was the rabbit, dragging itself out of the fire... repeat x two until the poor thing was finally dead.... :(

eek. anyway. after spending an hour twisting myself into shaky pretzel formations and listening to the yoga sadist saying things like, 'FEEL the sound of your breathing cleansing you from top to bottom; this position helps rinse out your endocrine system, and washes your liver and spleen and being upside down is also good for the heart muscle' (where do they get this stuff??) and (my personal favourite) 'this position will help air out your brain - you want that static out of the attic!') i concentrated on starting my next master copy. the next one is going to be a bit more complicated and difficult than the ones i have done up until now - it is a double portrait of 'the money changer and his wife' by quentin metsys, and it is one of those dutch old master paintings in which there are a million different little things going on, stuff on shelves behind the people, reflective mirrors, a mini street scene visible through a doorway, lots of stuff on the table in front of them. etc etc. so i might give myself a bit longer for this one. we'll see. i got the very top right corner sliver painted today, and the rest of the painting mapped out in charcoal pencil.

THEN (yes! the good girlness continues! i know, i amaze even myself sometimes) i went for a run in what was left of the early evening sunshine and then came back and cooked myself an Extremely Nutritious Dinner (followed by apple tart...) I think my shopi boycott might be tested soon - i bought some gorgeous cocoa at the market on friday, but realized today it is supposed to have sugar added to it, and we don't have sugar.... hmmm. i have gone two weeks with no shopi - i would hate to crack for something which is admittedly non-essential from a nutritional standpoint. does it count if i borrow sugar from someone else? i don't think it should.

demain (sunday) le plan is class all day (first day of a two week pose in painting...wowee zowee) and then in the evening we are going to ted seth jacobs' open house - he is a realist painting guru dude who is/was head honchos' teacher, and the reason they ended up here (he got fed up with new york, moved here, and all his students followed him). his house is apparently amazing, every surface painted, and he opens it up once a month as sort of museum. he is also apparently writing his masterwork - a self-published 900+ page treatise on the structure of the human body as it relates to drawing. should be a real page turner. top of the amazon bestseller list as soon as it comes out.

a moment of silence for the passing of a computer (given that it died just as my ipod came back to life, reincarnation as something else technological may be possible - a cuisinart? an AA battery? an MRI scanner? - but we won't hold our breath). the sad story is that M apparently tripped while carrying his open laptop from one room to the other in his flat yesterday, and ended up with his elbow through the laptop screen. i haven't heard anything about the elbow, but the laptop is very definitely no more, a late laptop, and he went into angers today to get a new one. quelle tristesse.

okay c'est time for bed. mucho love to all.