It Will All Work Out…

Hello vacation. Why are you so stressful? Ah yes, the holiday season. Always kind of a press for time. Too much to do, entirely too much cooking, and so little time to just sit and relax…read a book even. I have been trying to do that. And the kids and I are planning a hike on Wednesday. I’m not done with Christmas shopping yet though, and I haven’t sent the cards out because I’m waiting on the girlchild, and nothing is wrapped, and the tree’s not done. I told everyone they can’t leave the house without putting 10 ornaments on the tree.

That said, although I am grading stuff, I’m not at school and dealing with kids, so that’s a break. I did some art stuff yesterday…but one is a gift, so I can’t show it, because apparently everyone in the world reads this blog. I know, I put it out there, so I can’t complain, right? But honestly, I just don’t even THINK about people reading it…I just spill it all out on the screen so it will get out of my head.

Speaking of getting it out of my head…three drawings in there at the moment, and I just need to feel like I’m enough ahead to sit down and draw. I don’t think that will happen today…but maybe I’m wrong. I did cut out more pieces last night…

I’m actually pretty close to done, probably less than two hours. Maybe today? Maybe. I have stuff in the morning and stuff in the afternoon, and technically about three errands in between, which might just take up all that time, and I’m still not wearing pants. I think they’re in the dryer. There’s a definite pants shortage going on here, but since all I really feel like wearing is pajama pants, that would be fine if I didn’t have to venture out into the real world. Yes, I know some people wear pajama pants out into the real world, but I don’t want to be associated with those people. I’d like to think I can at least get dressed in the morning. I don’t have some major health issue that keeps me from putting pants on. That’s how I measure my sanity apparently, by whether or not I make it into pants during the day. Or a skirt, but it’s way too cold for that.

Here’s the other thing I’m working on.

Some people might be able to figure out what it was from that pile of Wonder Under, but they should be QUIET about it. Shh. Don’t tell. Secret.

I thought I only had 6 assignments to grade over break, but I had forgotten about one…so that’s 7 dammit. And I haven’t finished a single one. I’ll get one done today. Maybe one tomorrow. I don’t want them hanging over me all of break. I’ve got enough crap hanging over me.

Kids are home. The house is noisier. There is happy in that. I really don’t like an empty house. It sucks. Really. It does. That said, girlchild still doesn’t know how to throw anything out or put stuff away, and boychild is still eating all the food I leave in the fridge. So there we are. Some things never change. Like the chaos here, like the stress of having too much on your plate, like the money worries.

Whatever. It’s the holidays. Enjoy. Read a book for a while. Make some art. Bake cookies. It will all work out somehow.

It Was a Lot of Art in One Night…

So first day of my Winter Break starts with a 6 AM wake up call. Apparently no one has explained to the dog’s bladder that I’m on break. OK. I can handle this. 6:02 AM finds me with my head leaning on the door, waiting for the dog to come back from outside, my eyes closed. I know she’ll whine to come back in, and she does. But it’s OK, because I have a lot of days to sleep in. Twenty three of them, I think. Well, I have training one day and will have to be up early for that unfortunately, but otherwise, I sleep. Sleep is good.

Yesterday both kids came back. I missed their noise and presence. Girlchild went right back to leaving dishes and trash on the counter though. Sigh. Boychild make himself an egg and turkey tortilla hash for breakfast. Useful skill. They both cook better than I did at that age. I hang out with them in the morning, because I can. And then I go off and run holiday errands, because I have to. I have three drawings looming in my head at the moment. I need the time and mental space to get them out. Maybe this weekend? Maybe not.

I did cut things out last night. They went to bed before me, both still on Eastern time. I didn’t get very far…

I was very very tired. Still am.

The tree is slowly getting decorated. I need to be home to do that shit.

Maybe later this weekend.

I have 6 assignments to grade over break. I have an art quilt to finish, a baby quilt to make, one quilt to make as a gift, and another art quilt to start. I need to clean house and organize shit. I need to finish Christmas shopping and wrap everything. I need to ship a box to my brother’s family.

That’s it. That’s all. And enjoy the kids for the short time they’re home and other people too and oh yeah, make a plan for the exhibition in February that gets installed in January. What’s going there and do I have hanging stuff for all of them (of course I don’t). Not a lot. Right? I know the art will rule…I’ll spend more time making art than doing other stuff. That’s OK. Right the balance a bit maybe.

Here’s some more pictures from that Star Wars exhibit from last weekend…woodburning tool used on this one, by Jorge Piña…

Some attitude in Star Wars Kids, by David Russell Talbott…

Quilling at its best in Quilled Storm Trooper, by Iwatsumi.

Raz Holly‘s piece…

Gmonik‘s Rebel Alliance on the left and Ashley Gallagher’s Rebel Princess on the right…one of my favorites.

Although I also love this one by Keith Greene, Rebels, Blast Them!

Then I headed over to a mentorship show in the area at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. The show is called It Takes an Artist: A Show about Mentorship. I’m not entirely sure who did what pieces, because I think students did some of them, and there were numbers on the walls, but the book with all the information in it was in someone else’s hands…so here are some things I liked from the show…I didn’t photograph everything I liked because people were in the way! I know.

There were many of these small origami frames with photos inside…

Then I went next door to my friends’ studio…here’s a wall of Anna Stump’s current work on animals and bones in terrariums…

And a few of Daphne Hill’s pieces about STDs and the like.

Then I went across the street to the Glashaus to see Dripping Glitter by ManRabbit…

Kind of glitzy and decorative…

ManRabbit is two artists who work together.

Anyway. It was a lot of art in one night, but enjoyable enough. I like nights where I’m bombarded with art.

I Can Do a Day…

I’m sitting here at night (last night), on chat hold with AT&T because the upgrade for he-who-shall-not-be-named wouldn’t go through, and I really want to tell the sweet woman named Maria who is helping me that she typed a run-on sentence (because I NEVER do that), but she spelled bear correctly in the phrase bear with me, so I guess she gets brownie points for that. But as I’ve been hammering my students to capitalize I and put spaces after periods, I’m realizing this is the type of job they might do. I did it for Turbo Tax in the old days. It was a sucky job, but I was a temp in those days, and being a temp made me realize I did not want to be a temp, just like being a secretary made me realize I did not want to do that either. Please don’t ask me to make a judgement on my current job, middle-school science teacher, today…with one day left before vacation…because I might feel somewhat negative about the job at the moment. But no matter the job, y’all need to be able to spell. And use capitals. And periods. Seriously. And don’t fucking hang up on me because you cold-called me about doing work on my house and I don’t have the money for it. You’re an asshole.

There has been good news, but I also blew a fuse on the Christmas tree lights and then destroyed the fuse inside because it wouldn’t pop out like it was supposed to, plus I couldn’t find replacements for the lights that weren’t all white, and I wanted old school, but even Amazon Prime couldn’t save me tonight, let alone Target a week before Christmas. Should have shopped back in November, right? So some significant frustration, plus black enamel paint all over my hand, don’t even ask how I did that. And the boychild’s flight got canceled, but he’ll be here today…soon enough. Poor kid. Too many hours to get home. It’s morning now and I know he made it to Chicago and is on the plane to San Diego. Good stuff.

I need cookies dammit.

Nah. Gonna pour a glass of freezing wine and cut out bits of fabric for a bit and try to remember where I hid those presents. I did consider microwaving the wine last night. It’s not mulled; it’s microwaved.

One day of school before I get three weeks off. I have 7 assignments to grade. It could be worse. I got almost all the way through one assignment yesterday. I will try to do the same today. And then the girlchild comes home tonight, so it will be chaos here for a bit as we try to get Christmas handled. Ha! I am so far behind.

I did cut things out last night eventually, although only for a little over an hour. Here’s where the boxes stand at the moment…

Pretty exciting stuff. Still not halfway. OK, I just went back and looked at the other Bathtub piece, and it had 200 fewer pieces and actually took 7 1/2 hours to trim fabrics for, so I’m not feeling so bad now. I just really wanted to be further along. I need to do some serious drawing in the next week. Sit down with some Netflix and just draw for a day. I think that’s allowed. Maybe.

I just left the room to heat up my tea and worried about 17 things that need to be done. My brain is in overload. And I’m supposed to wear a Santa hat and an ugly Christmas sweater today. I own the first, but not the other.

OK. Anyway. It’s a day. I can do a day. And then I can relax a bit. You too. You should relax a bit as well. Because I said so.

There’s a Line

So apparently I was done with school last night, because I came home and made art for three hours instead of working. It’s unfortunate that I have to go back for two more days, but whatever. Certainly the headache that started yesterday morning is notice that I need some time off. Or it’s the weather. Or that crick in my neck. My chiropractor says I should get regular massages. Um. OK. But those cost money. It sounds lovely and all, but…I can pay for college or pay for massages. Suspect my kids would prefer the former. Speaking of kids, both bedrooms are clean and vacuumed and one kid comes home late tonight and the other, the girl, tomorrow. Her roomies will miss her greatly of course, because they will only be able to read her mom’s blog and not have the fun of harassing her. I’m being stalked by her roomies…it’s OK, I stalk them on Facebook and Instagram…and as soon as they send me photos, I’d be glad to make a giant-ass nude quilt of them, a la Botticelli? The Three Graces?

Or if they’ve been eating too much junk food, it might be a la Rubens? A sign of wealth, all that chub…

Or my favorite for simplicity (aka fewer drapey lacy fabric bits), Raphael’s Three Graces. The girlchild gets the butt view…y’all can fight over left or right.

Actually. That would be a cool idea. I did Crone/Mother/Maiden already. The apple thing is stupid though…are those even apples? They should be brains or heads or eyeballs. Seriously ladies, I think I’m doing this drawing. Good thing I have your photos off the web.

OK, enough crazy. I finished the fucking wine glass…it only took 11 fabrics. Here I was trying to decide about the color of wine. Red is often easier to do in fabric, but the glass is right next to the heart and I didn’t want to compete with that.

Now I don’t remember what color the wine bottle was. Oh well. The quilt doesn’t have to pass a logic test. Certainly I’ve put screwier mess-ups in my quilts before.

I used a whopping 102 fabrics…for a quilt this size, that’s a lot. Don’t know what to say about it, except that’s what happened. Some of it is because I took so long to work on it, I think…

The more stretched out the time in between picking stuff, the more I forget about what’s actually in there. When I was sorting the fabrics out by color for that photo, there were a couple that I didn’t remember using. I also had some fussy moments with the blues in the end because stuff I thought matched before didn’t seem to match now. OK then. Eleven hours and 24 minutes of ironing for only 770-some pieces. I started Dec 6 and finished on the 16. Not super fast. Eight days of actual working on it…most less than 2 hours at a time.

Bathtub 2 only took 4 hours to trim the fabrics. I’m already 4 hours into this one. I started on the 10th, but haven’t been doing it regularly.

Here was the pile I started with…

By the end of the evening, I was working slowly through it. There’s a few more hours of cutting there, to say the least.

Wish I could take it to school and just get it done, but I need to be grading stuff still. I have 8 assignments to grade, including the one due today and the three due tomorrow. Some are easier and less time-consuming than others. I’ll probably have to come by school on Sunday to clean my room up for the custodian and work crews, but also to pick up all of Unit 3. Ugh.

Looking forward to doing some drawing and ironing a quilt together, and even making a baby quilt, and a few things for Christmas, plus seeing my kids and not having to see the other kids (the ones I teach) for a while. Not looking forward to grading stuff and cleaning, which needs doing…my dad finally got the shelves up that have taken so much time and energy on all of our parts, thanking him for that, but now I have to get my act together and put stuff on them, which means going through stuff that’s been packed up for a year and a half. Obviously desperately important stuff. Not putting the CDs back up there.

I really do want to draw that three graces thing now. You can totally see me making that quilt, can’t you. Huh. Wonder what it will bump in line…because yeah, there’s a line.

Still Need to Iron Glass…

I thought I would be done with the ironing last night. I just had that relatively smallish pile of Wonder Under pieces. It looked like something I could bang out in an evening. Well, if I didn’t deal with grades first. I went through an entire assignment where fully half of the kids didn’t scroll down to the second page. It’s like not turning the page over and looking at the back. And I know I told them how many questions there were and to scroll down, but as you know, the words of adults somehow bounce around inside the brains of teenagers and fall back out without resonating.

I tried to order materials from Staples so I wouldn’t have to go in…didn’t have time, free shipping, blobbity blah, but it always took like a day to get stuff from them, until this order. It still hasn’t shown up from last Thursday, and when I track it, there seems to be no movement at all. Troublesome since I needed that stuff today…I have some I can use for the kids who are fast, but I may be at Staples tonight after all. So much for being reliable people. And now their website isn’t even coming up. Interesting.

Anyway, I did iron…I ironed hair and a heart and blood vessels and a clock and a uterus, but I forgot the ovaries (they’re there…I just need to pick a color). I used to always make uteri bright pinks with fish swimming through them, but as I age, my uteri age (the fabric ones and the one still inside me), so now they are grayed-out purples. Still pretty but not as alive, not so vibrant. The figures have cracks in them…have for a few years. Wonder where that came from. No I don’t…suspect I will carry the cracks until the end. They will get smaller and more filled in, but they’ll still be there. She’s still crying because I have to say that these perimenopausal hormones are fucking nuts. I cry at such stupid stuff…although the book I finished Monday night, it was a legit cry. The Man Called Ove…good book, by Fredrik Backman. But you will cry at the end.

Here’s the pile of stuff I still need to cut out…

It got bigger. Mostly because I didn’t cut any out recently and I keep ironing stuff.

I still need to do the ovaries, the eyes, the lungs, and that damn wineglass…this pile…

I’m over 10 hours in right now for less than 800 pieces. That’s a lot. Not sure what’s up with that. Slow ironing at the moment, I guess. The problem with the wineglass is that it’s transparent, but it fucks with what you see through it. And then the part with the wine in it, it fucks with it even more. But you can still see through it. The part with the wine is a little easier, because you pick your core wine color and then some shades past it, however many it might take, and you construct the section with the wine that way. The glass part is a little harder, because technically you know you should be able to see flesh colors etc through it, but then it gets harder to see the glass in the actual piece of art, so reality is that you have to fuck with what the eye perceives to make the glass obvious in the quilt. There are some amazing quilt artists out there who make quilts JUST of mostly transparent or reflective things, and they do a great job with it. I just have one glass here though. So it might not be amazing. I am totally leaving it to the end though, because I can’t be super tired when I do it, but basically I will be tired no matter what, because that’s the way this week is.

I did vacuum the kids’ rooms yesterday and finished washing the girlchild’s bedding. I’m ready. Well, except there isn’t enough food in the house. Can’t do much about that right now. Apparently we’re driving through In ‘N Out on the way home from picking up the girlchild. Amusing since she would barely eat it when she was home. I guess the food at Brandeis really does suck…which is sad.

Anyway, with any luck I’ll be done ironing tonight and I’ll move on to the long period of cutting stuff out. I’m hoping to be ironing down by the weekend, but who knows. Maybe Monday…no school and all. Looking forward to that.

The Disk Shouldn’t Be Full

This time of year seems to force retrospection, looking back at previous holiday seasons, nearing the end of the year, where are you at and all that. Is it where you wanted to be? Well, if it isn’t, then here’s where you look forward and try to figure out how to get there. Again. Because life seems to be a constant rewriting of expectations. Some things are better, some are worse, and some just are. Personally I’d be much happier if I could figure out how to get the new Windows to backup disk space in a manner that made sense. Because I’m fairly sure that damn disk shouldn’t be full.

So my tree is up. No, I don’t have a picture of it. It’s still crooked and has nothing on it and is much bigger than I remember it. I got home and graded last night, because I’m back to that crazy (I only took two days off). Then I predictably headed in here to iron, but got sidetracked by the kids’ rooms. The boychild’s room is now clean. Needs vacuuming, but the bedding is on the bed and everything else is straightened up. The girlchild’s room is in process…needs a serious vacuuming (she didn’t do that before she went, and no, neither did I) and all her bedding is in the wash, because the cat keeps sleeping on it and depositing hair. Her dog was quite sure I was doing all that for her, so she wanted to climb into her mom’s bed, but I wouldn’t let her.

THEN I ironed. I did well, but I should have started earlier, because once you’ve started picking flesh fabrics, you can’t stop until you are done, and done means they are all ironed down. Yeah. So that was a couple of hours…and I started too late.

It took 15 minutes of rummaging through the flesh drawers to come up with this run…

And in the end, I replaced the last one with something darker. I wasn’t sure there would be enough of fabric 2, but in the end, it was fabric 3 that was the small one. I used about 2/3 of what I had on the pieces ironed on it. Fabric 2 had plenty. You can see them all laid out below…

So that was at about 11:45 PM, and I needed to iron them all down at that point. Eh. Who needs sleep? Especially when you get cranky with not enough sleep and you’re teaching 12-year-olds, and they make you cranky anyway. It’s all good. No one will know the difference.

I didn’t cut anymore out last night, but I’m getting close to the end of the ironing…that’s all that’s left…

Eyeballs and heart and lungs and weepy bits on the face. A uterus. It looks easy, and most of it is, except there’s a wineglass in there with stuff showing through it, and that’s just about 50 pieces of pain in the ass. So I have to think about how to iron that. Maybe tonight. Except I have to grade as well. Maybe I’ll get some grading done today at school. I got none done yesterday because I had to help students make phone calls home about the F assignments they needed to get signed and had forgotten. I got through 25 of them, but there still a few to go. They get all upset about calling, tell me that they’ll bring it tomorrow, beg me. I guess I’m pretty heartless, because I gave them all last week and they forgot all week, and I don’t have faith that all of a sudden they’ll remember, unless they feel the pit of fear in their belly about calling home. Tomorrow I send packets home with all failing kids. I’m pretty cranky about all that too, but not half so cranky as I am about personally counseling all these kids and then having them turn absolutely no late work in.

The art is what I want to spend brainpower on…not all this school and stressful stuff. And the work stuff starts to eat up all the spare time and mental space. There’s a moment of reflection for you. I don’t know how I did it the last two years, but I know I spent less time and energy on school. I think. It feels like I did. Speaking of which, somehow I got roped into a meeting this morning with a student I don’t even have (special ed meetings require a general ed teacher), plus a meeting with crazy tomorrow morning…so I have to leave early two mornings in a row. Ugh. Survival week. Seriously.

Everything Might Be Late This Year…

So I had 17 things on my to-do list for each day this weekend, and I think I got through 3 or 4 each day. That’s realistic, although everything seemed to take longer than it should, which is why the Christmas tree is still leaning up in the entryway instead of installed in the living room. And dinner made it in the oven just before 8 PM. And I decided to blow off grading yesterday because I missed ironing fabrics so much. It’s not that I didn’t work yesterday…I sent the parent email and did my warmups and updated my school website and made a powerpoint for the warmups. That’s not nothing. And checked school email for more crap from the little widgets. Interesting that after Friday and Saturday’s flurry of messages stating “I turned it in! I fixed it!”, on Sunday, there were but two or three kids quietly telling me they cared about their grade…and two of them are already passing. They just don’t like their grade as it is.

I’ll grade today and tonight. I swear. Last night though…last night, I let my art flag fly…for a little while.

I’m in the 400s, finished the bathtub and moved on to the fixtures…faucet, knob…

There’s only one knob…presumably the foot is covering the other one, although that doesn’t really seem possible, but whatever. There are some baths that only have one knob, but usually they sit above the faucet. This is not one of those tubs. This is a made-up-in-Kathy’s-head tub.

I got to the water next…

Luckily, there isn’t much water in this one, because the fabrics I picked for 1 and 2 in the range had very little left of them. They’re fabrics I really like, so they get used in a lot of quilts…and there isn’t much left of either one. I love using those fabrics in all the quilts though, because then I get to see them all the time. I couldn’t get into two of the blue fabric drawers though because Midnight was sleeping in them. So I had to make do with what I could see in the other blue bins.

Here’s what I’ve used so far…

I stopped there, because flesh is next, and that’s a long time commitment to do that next. It’s easier to do it all in one go, pick all the flesh pieces at once, so I’ll try to do that tonight. I’ve gotten through most of the 400s…the body is all that’s left.

Because it wasn’t midnight yet and I wasn’t tired, plus I was in the middle of a rather interesting episode of Defiance, I cut stuff out for a little while…

Cut-out stuff is on the left. To-be cut-out stuff is on the right. I’m way behind where I wanted to be. Oh well. It will get done. All of what needs to really get done will get done eventually. Same with the next three weeks of break. The plus is the boychild’s room is almost cleared out. I never got through the rest of the crap in my studio, but maybe after he goes back to school, I’ll pile that up in his room. He’ll love that. As long as I clean it up before he gets back in May, that is. And it’s motivating to know someone needs to live in that space. Then again, he’s been threatening to get an internship and not come back at all, so there we are. Then I’ll never have to clean up.

Good attitude.

Saturday, I did make it to four openings. The other one had too many parking challenges, so I gave up. I have lots of photos that I have to resize, so maybe I’ll just post a few every day. It was dark when I finally got out of here, which isn’t saying much because it’s dark by 5 PM…I parked right by this…

And then I went to La Bodega Gallery’s Star Wars exhibit…this is by Waster One…

Probably not his real name. And yeah, I’m assuming that’s a guy…not sure why. Lots of small art about Star Wars, some of it disturbingly good. More pictures from that exhibit later. And yesterday I went to a craft fair in a brewpub, which helped with a few presents. I’m still flailing on a couple. This is a crazy time of year. Meanwhile, dad was installing my shelves…finally.

It required some level of engineering that I’m incapable of imagining. You have to understand that I repainted this room two summers ago, and since then, the shelves have been gone. So the stuff that lived on the ugly pink 80s Southwestern shelves before has been living in boxes in my bedroom mostly. So over the summer, I had the boychild stain and varnish wood for the shelves and we bought brackets that I thought would work, and then the boychild left one in the cart at Home Depot, so I had to go back to Ikea for one more, and then I asked his dad and my dad for assistance in installation, and that never happened. I might actually have shelves done this week. I’m excited by the prospect, even though it makes the room look smaller strangely by installing them. And eventually I’ll put art up on the wall next to it, but the big piece I want to install is going to be in the Grossmont show, so I’m holding off.

There’s a whole ‘nother giant ass thing I have to plan for. Anyway. I’m doing a little at a time, a little each day. The house is still the same disaster it was when the kids left…slightly changed, maybe for the worse. Hard to say. Bringing a tree in for Christmas made me put a couple of things in the garage to get them out of the way. That was good. Having shelves to put the stuff in boxes away would help too. So would being home occasionally, but this weekend, that didn’t happen. On the other hand, I can’t always be a hermit and stay home. I need the socializing and the art openings (oh yeah, and I crashed a mortgage company’s party to watch a band play…you know, like you do when you’re in your 40s) or I go crazy.

And if you’re waiting on a Christmas card from me, they’re here. I’ve written my part of the letter, and for what it’s worth (it might require you to use a dictionary), the boychild has written his part too…we’re waiting on the female stress monkey, who is telling me Friday. You know, the day she flies home. Uh huh. They might be late this year. Everything might be late this year.

It’s Time to Get Out of Here…

I made no art in the last 36 hours. I did nothing except some social stuff and grade crap. I went through three weeks of emails from students and Google Classroom, searching out all the last-minute work kids have been throwing at me. On Friday, I got through most of the F counseling, but there is very little change in grades so far. I will have to clarify that handing me stuff on Wednesday, when I have already printed out the list of special students who need additional work to prove they know what I have been teaching since August, well it will be too late.

It makes my neck and shoulders tight. It makes me grind my teeth. I’m going out to about 5 art openings tonight to make up for it. Of course, it’s dark and bloody freezing out there, and I don’t have my regular gallery companion with me tonight, so it will be a little weird. But I need to get my head out of my job for a bit. Because tomorrow I am going back to the endless grading and checking Google Classroom for their late assignments. (Dear Google…)

And hopefully I will be ironing tomorrow as well. Although my day is already looking semi-crazy. As always. The week before break just kicks my ass on a regular basis.

I don’t even have a picture for you. Hang on…

I was cleaning out the last of the stuff that was in the boychild’s room. I found some screenprinting drawings and mockups from probably the early 1990s…I think at some point I was considering making them into quilts…this one used to hang in the house somewhere…

dated 1994. Can’t remember the name…

And this one…this one started out as a Sharpie drawing on a 4×8′ piece of plywood that was partially painted in enamels (cuz that’s not crazy enough) and then I got rid of that, because it got termites. That painting was started in college. And then I drew it smaller and screenprinted it. This is the color mockup for the print…

You can see all the colors I was going to use on the left. This did get printed and hangs in my laundry room. It would make an interesting quilt. But you can see that I’ve always been a bit weird and the Christmas lights were in even then. The original was probably done in 1988 or 1989. It might even have been 1986. Actually, I just looked in the laundry room and it’s not hanging there. Not sure when that happened.

Well, and that explains the last ten years of my brain right there. Art openings it is. Now. It’s time to get out of here.

Today Is Under Control…

Oh man I’m tired this morning. Probably the staying up until after midnight thing is part of that, and the other bit is where I’m working my butt off. And the dog just threw up. Dammit. That’s one thing I just can’t deal with in the morning: dog vomit. Aargh. I’m not even awake, let alone competent. So yeah. Throw a paper towel over it and hope I feel better about it later.

I did get some fabric stuff done last night though, mostly because I almost completely blew off work. I say almost because I did spent 45 minutes posting an assignment on Google Classroom, watching the videos, looking up viruses, and making a document to attach. I’m not looking forward to the next three years as we implement entirely new standards that take everything I teach and throw it to 6th and 8th grades so I can come up with completely new curriculum with no assistance from the state or the district. Yeah. I won’t have a lot of spare time for those three years. Labs, materials, units, assignments. All new. Fuck.

Anyway, so I finished all the stuff around the outside of the bathtub and then cut out the fabric for the tub as well…there’s some tub stuff…

A lot of whites just added to the mix…

Plus I think I did a sketchbook and a cat and some rug bits. Now I have the faucet and handles, and then I go into the water, which is laid out here…

The water’s kind of a pain in the butt, but there isn’t actually that much water this time, compared to the last bathtub. Because I see flesh down there too…the toes are in the 80s pile.

I did go to quilt class yesterday and started cutting pieces out…

So things are progressing…more slowly than I would have liked, but whatever. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. And I got socks for going to class…knitted by Susan…

Very cool…or warm, depending on how you look at it.

I am feeling totally exhausted this morning. I am counseling every failing student in my class, personally…sitting down with them and going over their progress report and what they haven’t turned in…they seem legitimately shocked by that. “I didn’t know!” Um. So I guess I have to go through how to check if you’ve turned stuff in? I started talking to all of them yesterday, and didn’t come close to finishing. It means I can’t get anything else done (cleaning up my room for Winter Break, which has to happen at some point; grades). Some kids are just blowing it off and making excuses to me. Some are honestly asking questions and taking it to heart, which would be nice if they follow through. Some honestly…I feel bad because they really don’t understand and they probably can’t ever do well in my class…we are so overwhelmed at the moment that we can’t process some of the kids who probably need testing, and even that, we know that half of them (or more) won’t qualify because they’ve only been in school for three years, if that, and there is not a large enough gap between what they are doing and what they should be able to do for them to get services. So they will continue to flail. And there’s not much I can do about it. I can’t teach a child to read in 7th-grade science with 34 kids in the classroom who need to learn science.

The damn dog wants back in. I want a long sleep with no interruptions. I need more time. I’m not ready for the holidays or even next week. But I can get through today. Today I have all under control, as much as I ever do. Well, except for that pile of dog vomit. I can’t handle that right now.

Best-Laid Plans

Are often completely sidetracked by exhaustion. I have a lot of sick students at the moment, so when my body is reacting and is exhausted, sometimes I just listen and go to bed…with a really good book…which I then want to finish (I didn’t. But I wanted to…). I’m reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness…

Which is apparently for young adults (see, I’m still young!). It’s a different type of dystopian book, where the characters can hear the noise in your head and sometimes everyone’s noise spills all over the place…like here.

It’s the first book in a series, and so far I’m hooked.

I originally went to bed with some warm tea and the book because I had been grading stuff and fighting Google Classroom on the iPad (I’m afraid they’re going to come back and say my iPad is too old…which is an issue, I’m sure, but it still fucking works and I’d really like to still use it to grade stuff). I did a lab at school yesterday, which was cool but exhausting…where else do I get to make kids smell a succulent…and what I really love is when I say “Smell this”…they do. No hesitation. LOVE THAT. Then on to a union meeting, not as long as usual, but still tiring at the end of the day. I debated blowing off book club, but I had read the book and I don’t talk to normal(ish) people enough. OK, these are all geek girls. Everybody at the table had see ALL of the Star Wars movies. I guess normal(ish) compared to me.

So I went. And it was nice to check in and see everyone and talk feminist smack and literary criticism. So I’m glad I went.

But then I came home and I’m still trying to grade one assignment a day until I catch up, but this is warmups and the damn Google Classroom app was crashing like a bitch on the iPad, so then I was on the computer wasting time in the forum, trying to find a solution, and updating the OS like that would help (it didn’t) and restarting the iPad and reinstalling the fucking app. I swear. Sometimes technology just kicks my butt. And I finally finish all that crap and Period 8’s stuff and it’s 10:45 and I’m exhausted. Fucking A. I can’t pick fabrics. I’m too tired to stand.

So I went to bed an hour early and got no art made (ugh) because I socialized instead of hermitted. I’m sure there’s some moral story there…artists can’t be social because then they’ll be too tired to get art made. And there’s some argument for that sometimes, but then my sanity depends on some socialization with people older than 13 years. Who think soap might be alive because it makes bubbles.

As far as the reward for kids turning in work, I’m not doing that. I have a few days in the next week where kids are working independently (for some definition of independent) and I’m sitting down with every failing kid. I’m going to set up a mini office for them. Or go table to table, I haven’t decided. I’m going to go over every missing and incomplete assignment with them. I may have to call home on some of them. In my spare time. That’s what I can handle and then I’m putting it back in their court. If they choose to blow me off at that point, OK then.

And tonight I’m making art. It’s already in the schedule.