#experientialblog

I finally got up this morning around 9:30, and went to go eat breakfast. Stupidly, I made toast, not thinking about how I could not possibly spread butter on it very successfully. I realized my mistake after it popped, and could not ask either of my parents to help me, because they were busy.

I went to ask my two little sisters, and they blatantly refused, while my toast shivered and wished it had a jacket in the freezing downstairs. I immediately got extremely frustrated and started yelling about just how glad I was that they were so helpful. I grumbled a few angry words under my breath, and proceeded to melt the too-hard butter in the microwave. I thought it would be a great ploy to make the butter softer and therefore easier to spread, but all it did was slide around the plate and refuse to stay on the knife, causing some to fall on the floor.

I ate cold, badly-buttered toast, downstairs, alone.

I couldn't even sit in a chair, because my mother had been cleaning the (now slightly buttery) floor and had put the chairs up on the kitchen table. I couldn't get one down for fear of causing a huge dent in the wall, or dropping the chair, or some other scenario, and I couldn't even eat at a table. And so, the first half-hour is spent.

Later, I grew steadily more frustrated and angry at how unable I felt, and threw a fit. Yes, I admit it. I threw a tantrum and yelled and screamed like a five-year-old denied a cupcake. I cried over not being able to butter toast. I'm being completely serious.

You have never understood the difficulty of putting on pants, dear friends. Zippers have never been more frustrating. Washing your hair has never been more tiring. Cleaning up has never been so slow.

I think frustration may ruin my mood permanently for the whole week. That's definitely something to look forward to. Thinking about it, I most likely won't be able to do much for a while (I started using my right hand just now...dang it). At least typing is getting easier...sort of.

Hot dogs for lunch...they're fun to eat with one hand. I got mustard all over my hoodie sleeve, and then went on to unconsciously cheat and used my right hand to clean it off. Whoops. At that, I began using a sling to further limit my hand movement. It's very annoying, and itchy, too, but I have to live with it. I don't trust myself not to use my hand.

I was on Youtube earlier, and a new video by LenaDayna (amazing painter, by the way) came up, and I clicked on it. It was a video of her painting a beautiful portrait of a girl with watercolors, and I was suddenly overcome with the uncontrollable urge to draw. It was ridiculously frustrating and I felt annoyance coil up in my stomach like a cobra waiting to strike. So help me, if I become magically inspired during this week I will begin to repetitively smash my head against my sea foam green-painted wall. Though I can't say my brain will be very happy with me if I go along with that unintelligent ploy.

Major failure today, you guys. I wrote one and a half sentences of a story before I remembered that I shouldn't. My best friend Ellie showed me a page on StumbleUpon that detailed a writing idea where one person writes one part of a story, and the next continues that story, and so on, and I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and said I wanted to do it. I wrote one and a half sentences. One and a half sentences I shouldn't have written. One and a half sentences that, when written, sealed my fate.

I broke the rules, already! I forgive myself for using my right hand without thinking about it, force of habit, but I completely forgot I wasn't supposed to write! Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb! I've decided I hate that word, dumb. The silent b annoys me.

Note: This is my second attempt at this project, as I lost quite a bit of data while beginning it during fall break and became discouraged. I have started again as of tomorrow.

Starting Saturday, which is tomorrow, I have lost my right arm, and it is gone forever. And by forever, I mean a week, the first week of winter break. With my arm has gone my ability to draw and write, as I am right handed. I can't even try to draw or write with my left hand, there's simply no way to do it neatly.

I am not ambidextrous.

That ability would sort of defeat the purpose of the project in the first place. I sit here at around nine at night, wondering how I am going to be able to get dressed, brush my teeth, tie my shoes, and even type this blog with only one hand. All those things I need to use my dominant hand for will be quite difficult. I think our ability to use our hands and arms is taken for granted, especially for me. I don't think anyone knows what they're missing until it's gone, no matter how cliché that might sound. It's very, very true.

A hand, or an arm, something that we're born with and something that I have kept in full working order for fourteen years among a few sprains and one broken bone, will have become completely useless. The right hand that my brain upped and decided would be the one that I used for learning writing when I was very little, and for everything else that it could do better than my left, as its skills developed, will be gone.

Another thing that I have taken for granted and have enjoyed is being able to draw and write. Writing and drawing, you could say, is my outlet of feelings. If I'm angry, I'll write about it, or draw a picture, and it'll make me feel better. If I'm sad, I'll do the same, and then I will feel just a bit happier.  Perhaps you could call it therapeutic. I have found that I actually tend to draw or write better when experiencing a strong emotion, and have always liked the results more when I've just sat there thinking, "Oh my god! I'm, like, so angry, I can't believe Tiffany, like, got with my ex," or "I'm so sad that there isn't going to be a season 2 of [insert anime here]," for example.

The river of my inspiration will be forcefully withered away into nothing but a dry desert of loneliness. Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day comes to mind.

I might get ideas for a drawing, or some great epiphany for a new novel might come upon me, but I will not be allowed to write it down or sketch it out.

How lonely my poor little baby sketchbooks will be, abandoned for seven days straight, pushed apart from their one true love, graphite and ink. And I'm sure my laptop Veronica will miss seeing her old buddy Google Drive and my oh-so cleverly named attempt at a novel, "Demon Story In Progress." It's only about thirty-six pages long, and the Internet has distracted me from what I really need to do, as usual, and my short attention span and I will receive a good old slap from my inner author who will undoubtedly come up with brilliant ideas when I can't write them.

Anyways, let's set some official, straightforward perameters.

1) I will not use my entire right arm (hands, fingers, and all) for a full week.

2) I will not write any of my stories for a full week.

3) I will not draw anything for a full week.

In the case that I fail at my objective, I will learn from that as well. I will not purposely ignore the rules.

We shall see how this turns out.

Even if I could predict the future, I don't think I would look ahead to see what I will go through. I want to take the problems and issues I will have as they come, and attempt to get over them as best as I can. There will undoubtedly be lots of problems, because it is the holidays, and my family and I will, no question about it, be doing many things that require two arms while I sit there like a useless lemon. Opening Christmas presents should be fun. Don't worry, though. My mother has assured me that I won't be getting any. However, I don't really find it necessary to believe her.

Now for the last nights' sleep with two functioning arms for an entire week. In the morning my right arm shall be dead weight.