Well when you email the photographer about taking pictures of the quilt, that makes you finish sewing the sleeves on, right? Except I haven’t. It’s OK…I’ll get them done tonight. My stitching meeting is tonight, plus I don’t have to grade. Well, I always have to grade, but it’s not entirely required. I should have nights off, right? I graded last night…I’m trying to get through these essays, short ones, that I thought we had set up with such an obvious formula…but as always, listening to and reading instructions are skills that even adults don’t necessarily value. There are times to think outside the box, but that doesn’t mean you can make up what happened in a science lab. Aliens! It’s always the aliens. Um. Not always.
I’m up early for a parent meeting. Fun stuff those…but if it results in that kid behaving more like he’s capable of and less like a small child, I am OK with that. Parents forget that middle-school and high-school kids sometimes still need guidance and redirection. Or they just don’t know what to do with them. I guess I was lucky…mine kinda figured it out. Don’t be a dumbass. Mom will be pissed.
So after grading and dinner and some spacing out last night, I stood and stared at the big blank spaces of the drawing. I thought about what I was trying to say…about what was important and why. And I started sketching some stuff. And because it’s sketching, it’s super light and really hard to see. OK, yeah, like in this picture, you can’t really see anything. But know that I’m filling in this space with a mountain and plants and animals…
And as I was going to bed, I was thinking over and over, a ribbon runs through it. I’m not sure how that will play out in real life, but somehow I need to connect her to the landscape or maybe put her more solidly In the landscape. The arm is there, the legs…I’ll have to decide how that will look.
A coyote…some burned-out trees. My Cuyamaca Mountains…
A bobcat…I’ve only seen one in the wild…and it was while I was driving at 75 mph. It was alive. Manzanita and poison oak. I’ve seen them a lot in the wild….
California mule deer…more trees…
And right before bed, when I started to ink some of it. Gotta remember not to go tiny (um. might be too late for that).
So more of that tomorrow. Maybe tonight. Figure my drawing out in my head all day and then spill it out? Maybe. It depends on how awake I am.
Satchemo won’t be doing any of that, man. Not finishing the last class period of those essays for me. Not going to the post office. Not working on the drawing. Totally not doing the dishes.
Damn lazy cat. OK. Parent meeting. A million presentations on landforms. Stitching meeting. Somewhere in there I’ll get some food and maybe some sleep.
Kathy Nida 