Fake It if You Feel Like Infection*

My brain doesn’t know where to start. I’m listening to Talking Heads. I finished grades yesterday afternoon (I think…I’m always paranoid I missed something). My lunch is put together. All the animals are fed and medicated and settled…well, no, I had to go get the Golden Retriever because she’s being destructive. Paper is her issue. She likes to rip it up and eat it. Nice habit. I need to leave for work in about 25 minutes. I’m fed. I obviously don’t have enough caffeine in me.

Girlchild has been in Copenhagen for 5 or 6 days…her school had a few days off and she and a friend found a cheap flight, so they’ve been living it up in a tiny bedroom belonging to some young couple and their kid. I hear from her a couple times a day, so I know she’s alive. Boychild complains about the weather and sends comics. I know he’s alive. That’s all good.

I’m trying to finish up this quilt so I can move on to another more lighthearted one. Ha! Because the next one is about climate change, and that’s still depressing. Sigh. I did enter another show last night and there’s another few coming up in the next month. My solo show comes down in a week and a half, so all those quilts are coming back here. I didn’t expect to sell anything big, unfortunately…it’s a harder sell. The little ones are safe and relatively cheap. Time is worth money. I’d rather have the quilt than be underpaid for my time.

So finishing grades at work yesterday meant I came home and totally spaced out for at least an hour or so before I came in here and started ironing. I think I made dinner first. Can’t remember. Oh wait. I entered the show, THEN made dinner, and THEN ironed. I have half a brain. I wanted to walk the dogs, but it was hot. Bleck.

I’m considering a change to the head with the target…I didn’t purposely pick head colors…just wanted a variety. And this is less about the colors of specific students and more about all students as a whole. So I’m debating how to deal with that. I have a couple of ideas…one is embroidery and the other is more random. I’m letting it percolate.

The chalkboard…you know, the thing teachers don’t use any more.

The head goes in…

And the writing. The date is the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting…that event had a huge effect on my local school district…it’s when we started locking the campus, fencing it all in, locking our doors for that 6 months afterward because the kids were so freaked out. So were the parents (and the teachers), but we do this stuff for the kids.

Some more stuff on the board…

And that arm in place…

Finally working on the last figure…some may be offended by the American flag, but I think we have a deeply rooted issue with guns that you don’t see in other countries. This school shooting problem is a purely American construct. From Columbine on, we keep seeing these shootings occur and we don’t do anything to stop them.

As a teacher, I have some issues with that. More about that later.

Anyway, I have about 110 pieces left to go, and then I hope it all fits together…it could be a little wiggy where all the hands meet bodies. Hopefully that’s tonight…ironing it down to the background. We’ll see.

*Seether, Fake It