black monday grrrrrr

very beginning of a sore throat today... i hope it is not the evil cold, but i think i am one of the only people who has not yet had it, so it is probably inevitable. blech.
.
also i suddenly hate both my paintings, which is a total downer, because up until this point i was feeling quite encouraged. the portrait i took a look at from ten feet away at lunch today (you can't really get ten feet away from anything in the studio, but i had optimistically brought it home thinking it might be finished) and realized that i had given her a black eye instead of sensitively rendered nuanced eye socket shadows what i was aiming for. and the maja desnuda full figure painting has suddenly taken on an evil life of its own, in cahoots with sarah jane herself to drive me round the bend. yesterday was right hand day, and today was left hand day; she kept moving her fingers grrrrr while i was trying to paint, and i ended up with a left hand that was half the size of the right, with fingers pointing all different directions. so frustrating. we are allowed to call for pose checks, if we think something is slightly different than it was before, but i don't think i can say "pose check, please: STOP BLOODY MOVING YOUR FINGERS" (and i was the only one painting hands today so noone else cared/noticed.) it's similar to the universe-shrinkage that occurs when doing a surgery rotation as a medical student: your entire sense of selfworth becomes dependent on your ability to accurately predict how short or long the attending surgeon wants you to cut the suture when you are assisting in surgery. here my well-being is entirely dependent on whether the model does or does not twitch her index finger three millimeters to the right when i am trying to paint. also i spilled solvent all over myself. so not the best, as painting days go. but L has one more 'so you think you can dance' episode left which we are going to watch tonight and which i am hoping will restore happiness to my soul.

just a few more days left; tomorrow evening is portrait night, wednesday evening we are going to maulevrier to eat at a posh-ish restaurant for my going away; thursday night i have to clean and pack and i have invited everyone to the pub for a goodbye drink (hopefully people will come?? - eek), and then friday morning i leave for deutschland. my goal is to eat all the food i have before i leave - (a small tarte alsacienne, five eggs, some potatoes, two leeks, mushrooms, green beans, a bit of pont-l'eveque, some creme fraiche, two pears, two grapefruits, four clementines, half a packet of fusilli, and six dark chocolate orangienne sticks mmmmm) - with no leftovers and no emergency trips to shopi.

okay, time to unplug myself.