I’m in my second week of my figure drawing class, unfortunately I have misplaced the cord to my camera or I would show the results—sad as they are. I am not teaching the class, and being in an art class I’m not teaching is an odd experience for me, a good one but an odd one.

Question of the day: yesterday during preschool art, one I do indeed teach and do not just attend; Elliott said, I have a question for you Teresa, and then proceeded to ask, “Do you wear boxers or briefs?” It was one of the most delightful things anyone has asked me in ages.

Yesterday I got an email from Illya saying he has finished my book and he was either wonderfully kind or lied a lot. It made my day, week, month, year. He is such a brilliant writer…..now I must dutifully and once again go through the notes he has given me, Carolyn’s notes, Ballard’s notes.

Today when I drew this woman’s foot for forty minutes, I thought—this is useless, trying to make the perfect arch, to draw the light of the ankle, it is useless to begin again and again on blank sheet of paper. It is essential.

It is essential to understand something that needs no explanation---the manuscript is essential to me. It is my ankle on the page.