update

Happy Birthday, Bryan!

Thanks so much for the letters of support and advice re: my sore arm, which I'm still figuring is tendinitis. I apologize for not being able to reply to each right now; typing e-mail still tires me out. I'm posting this Blathering in hopes that some of you who wrote will come across this update. I'm typing bits at a time, with lots of breaks.

I did switch my mouse to my left arm. Unfortunately now my left arm is worse than my right, obviously rebelling against all the extra work I'm trying to make it do; for a couple days I did everything with my left hand, including day-to-day chore stuff. It's frustrating not even being able to hold up a paperback book to read without my arms getting tired after only a few minutes. Jeff found a lap board to set my book on (the kind with a small ledge at the bottom - he made it himself a while back), and that works fine.

It's not so much the pain now that keeps me from working as it is the lack of strength in my arms. Kinda weird; it's like the muscles in my forearms have turned to rice pudding (I almost typed "jelly" but rice pudding is so much more interesting, especially with cinnamon sprinkled on top). I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday.

At least until I see my doctor, I'm trying to do as little as possible with my arms. And WOW is this hard. The first day I took off from using my computer, I did some office purging, but then realized that moving books was doing as much of a number on my arms as typing did. So does playing guitar, harp, flute, piano, holding a phone receiver for longer than a few minutes, even writing anything by hand.

I have to do some computer work every day because of my daily publishing column, but I'm not doing work on my novel or actively seeking out new freelance assignments. And of course that highlights another downside to the whole freelance life...it comes with a lot of freedom, but the fact is that if you can't write, you don't earn money. :-(

I'm trying to grasp at the silver lining and turning this into an opportunity to do more walking outdoors, visiting museums and art galleries, spending more time with my dad and my nieces. Spent an afternoon last week wandering around The Grange House, the first brick house built in Toronto and the original location of the Art Gallery of Ontario. One of my novels (waiting to be revised) has a section that takes place in 19th century Toronto, so it was ideal opportunity to look at the rooms, furniture, chat with the volunteers about what day-to-day life was like in the early 19th century.

I've also been renting a lot of movies. I discovered that I can rent six movies for a week at Blockbuster Video for less than the price of a regular movie ticket, as long as the movies aren't brand-new. As a result, I saw "Best in Show" and "Doctor Zhivago" for the first time. LOVED both.

Movies I currently have lined up to check out (I've never seen any of them):

The Godfather
Cast Away
A Chorus Line
Tortilla Soup - someone had once suggested this in Blatherchat

I would VERY much appreciate suggestions of other movies I should see. I'm not interested in movies with depressing endings unless they're very very good, am especially interested in "classic" movies that I somehow missed when I was younger. I only recently saw "Fiddler on the Roof", for example (thanks, Luisa!).

---

Today's Blatherpics:

A keychain I received with a wonderful letter from Ee Lynn Wong in Malaysia. Thanks, Ee Lynn! :-)

Mar/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ