Borrowed a chair with an actual back for the studio instead of spending the evening balanced on the stool, and discovered I have ribs on the side I usually fold over the palette. When I leaned back, the whole tight area under my shoulder blade stretched in a way that was pleasant until I tried to make it more pleasant and overdid it. Excellent judgment. I sat still after that, glasses off, eyes relieved of the assignment of finding a wrong color in every inch of canvas. The room was cool against my forearms. I ate the sandwich I'd brought before it became the sad midnight version, which involved considerably less chewing and resentment.

My brother asked if he could buy a small painting for his house and I gave him the family-discount speech before he had even finished describing where he wanted it. He said he wasn't asking for a favor. I felt pleased, then suspicious, then ashamed of being suspicious of the man who drove my entire life to art school in his trunk. He likes a picture with a face in it. He has a wall. This shouldn't require an inquiry into motive. I told him he could come and choose, and now I'm worried he'll pick the one I consider mediocre and I'll manage to spoil a perfectly decent afternoon by explaining why.

The portrait I'm working on has become too symmetrical around the mouth. I keep correcting it toward the face I remember, but I suspect what I remember now is the version I've painted three nights running, not the woman who stood at my counter. She had been trying not to smile for the license photo and there was a slight pull on one side, impatient and amused at once. I can remember the movement more clearly than the shape. I'll leave the mouth alone tonight and look at the rest of her expression tomorrow, before I sand the woman down into another person politely enduring a portrait. Six out of ten. No appeal scheduled.