I haven’t progressed much in the last week due to drying times, but that’s just the breaks. I keep thinking one will dry while I work on another. That’s not exactly the case.

This is where I am on the two in my studio. The portrait has hardly been worked on, so I haven’t snapped a picture of it yet to show what I haven’t finished.

I’m going to be working on this one (West Valley Fiction) today. There are still some wet spots, but I’ll see what I can work around. I just invested in a mahl stick with a clamp. It’s not a traditional mahl stick; it’s more like a handrest. My tremor problems wouldn’t work well with a traditional one because you have to hold it up with your non-dominant hand. Both of my hands shake, and both are weak, so no point in that. This thing will be here on Wednesday, which is pretty soon! I also got a flat, polyglass handrest to work on the table with, but that won’t be here until the 21st. Because of this, I may have to wait to work on the self-portrait, but we’ll see. I’ll need both of these so I can get more work done faster. That is, if they work for me. 

Years ago, before my tremor was this bad, I did have a mahl stick, but I forgot which kind. I seem to remember having one like the one I just bought, and it didn’t work for me, but I don’t remember why. I had a cheaper easel then. It could have been that it just didn’t clamp onto my easel well. I’m not sure if it will fit the fancy easel I have now. I have to wait and see. I have a very good feeling about the flat handrest, though. Seems like a no-brainer. 

Not sure if I mentioned before that I recently put my memoir, Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley, back up on Amazon. I think I’ll leave it there until I finish the new one, Queer as Mud, which I still don’t know whether it’s really a memoir, or if I’m just going to publish it as a novel. I’m using a lot of content from the first book, but mostly rewriting those parts to freshen them up. I’ve been working on the new one on and off (mostly off), and I think I’m about halfway finished (or more) with the first draft. Once the new one is published, I’m taking the old one down for good. I try to work on the new one as much as I can fit in between painting breaks, which is not ideal. I’d rather have uninterrupted time, but my body hurts to sit too long, and it also hurts when I stand at the easel. 

I never got that super fancy drafting chair. The company I was buying it from gave me the runaround regarding delivery. I’d been waiting more than six weeks and they kept saying it was on a ship being sent to them from Europe. Then they said they don’t know when it’s coming because of the high price of tariffs. All that can be true, but I got a bad feeling and cancelled the order. Then I turned around and bought a cheap chair off Amazon. The only crap thing about it is that it’s fake leather (vinyl), and makes my butt sweat if I sit in it for too long, but then again, any chair would get uncomfortable some way from sitting in it too long, right? I do think it’s pretty comfortable for the money. It was a good deal, but I should have looked for a cloth chair. I didn’t realize that until after I got it and Hannah put it together for me. Now it’s too late, but I’m still using it. 

My headaches have been on and off lately. I was using a migraine app, but I’m not doing a great job of logging them anymore, as I can probably guess why I’ve been experiencing the headaches in the first place. Today, I’m going to call the neurosurgeon’s office to see if they’ve any cancellations before my August 5th appointment. They said they’d call me if anything opened up, but I’m going to call anyway. While I wait for whatever surgery I’ll be getting, I can’t really do anything! I can’t drive, can’t walk Ruby, can’t open our sliding glass doors (they are heavy and don’t slide easily), or lift anything. Hannah is doing everything for me. I feel useless. Gah!