My Brain and Tongue Just Met

Definitely a Friday tired feeling. I even went to bed early last night. I know! Before midnight even. It’s like the world is ending. But really it was just to make up for the huge lack of sleep the night before. If any raccoons were on my roof last night or if my neighbors were moving all their vehicles into my bedroom, I did not hear it last night. I was asleep quickly and mostly stayed that way. Well, until 5 AM? Don’t you hate that…you’ve got another hour or so, but then your brain starts to rehash all the shit you need to get done, and you’re like, NOOOO, you must sleep that hour, but the brain is seeing the hints of daylight and hearing the dogs fuss. Yeah. My brain is not helpful.

I did take my scissors and accoutrements to the stitching meeting, which is good, because when I came home, between being tired and Simba launching himself at me with toys (I did play with him for a good long time before I started), I only got an hour in. So much for my thinking I’d be done last night. Ha! Three hours in last night, and I still have a lot to do. It’s deceptive. You don’t think about how hard cutting around a bunch of rocks might be. But it’s time-consuming. Waves are much easier to cut. I have all the waves and hills and mountains to do…plus a bunch of little rocks. Probably there’s only a couple hundred pieces left to cut…but they are not the easiest pieces…you can see how empty the box is though.

SO CLOSE. So tonight I’m going to sit here and watch TV and finish. Here’s what’s done so far.

At least I have a 3-day weekend. It’s a post-it weekend though. A weekend when I have so many things to do that I need a paper reminder. My desk in front of my keyboard often has 4 or 5 post-its sitting there, trying to force me to do stuff, until I get annoyed with them being under my arms. One of my important post-its, the one with all the art deadlines on it, got partially eaten by the puppy. It’s OK. I wrote it on the door (on a whiteboard thing), but honestly, I barely look at the door, so I should stick to the stickies (ha ha). I have 3 attached to my monitor, but they all remind me of how to do or access things on the computer that I can’t remember how to do without help. As I get older, this will get worse, I’m sure. It has to be in front of my face for me to see it. Reminders on the phone have to be timed just right, or I’ll ignore them…or not even see them.

I’ve been getting a lot of peer pressure (which you might notice I’m ignoring) to do a penis quilt…at some point, I had this post-it started…

The numbers are for something else. I think. Really, I don’t work like this. I sit down with my sketchbook and I draw. But now you kinda know how my brain works. I have 5 bathtub drawings, with two having been made into quilts already. I’m not sure I want to (or need to) go there. But I wrote it down. I also have a list on my phone, which is where these will get transferred eventually. But probably will never come to anything.

So things for this weekend include some cleaning, some errands, the basic laundry and groceries that happen every weekend, plus grading at least two assignments, lesson planning, updating the website, and maybe sleep. Possibly an art opening or two. But what I really want to do…starting to iron this quilt together. Maybe doing all of it in one day (I suspect it will take more than a day)…I just want to be in here with all those pieces and an iron and my brain…yeah.

Midnight agrees.

I need to be able to walk away from the school stuff a little. We’re two weeks in and this first month is always too much, so I need to find the balance and stick with it.

I forgot. Yesterday a woman from this official state group who comes every year to make sure we have enough textbooks for our kids was in our room. I’m a little irritated (or as my daughter says, salty) about this, because I know they don’t go to the “richer” schools. And they’re only supposed to check 20% of the classrooms, and they always come to mine. Last year, I got busted for having hand sanitizer not locked up. It was the stuff the district gave me. It was in a cupboard, but it says it’s not safe for kids (because they might drink it), and I was like…um…sure, these are 12-year-olds and sometimes they make really dumb decisions, but drinking hand sanitizer IN CLASS WHILE I’M HERE has not been one of them. So this year, every god damned fucking thing they might fuss about was locked up, including the pinto beans, because they might put them in an orifice. And you know what she did? Besides checking every faucet (safety issue?)? Came up and asked me if all my lights were on, or was it always dim in here.

I took some significantly deep breaths. Because she just came in from outside and it does seem dim in here when you come in from outside. But uber brightness isn’t a great thing in a classroom either. I also did not say to her (although I thought it), “You’re dim.” Because this law…I understand why it exists. I know there are assholes in education who don’t give us books…in fact, at the moment, the entire fucking state of California does not have a relevant science curriculum, because the damn state hasn’t adopted one, even though we have to teach to the new standards. So I almost told her all that, but instead, I used my superpowers of momhood to (probably quite scarily) smile at her and say, “No, they’re all on.” Rolled my eyes though. I love bureaucracy. I wish we could trust people to just provide the stuff they’re supposed to in schools so this shit wasn’t necessary.

But yeah. You can see why I need to come home and just make art and not think about work.

*Regina Spektor, The Consequence of Sounds