Hiking the Jamul Mountain Range

Last Saturday, I hiked with a group through the Jamul mountain range (a very small mountain range) on the hunt for wildflowers. It had only rained the week before, so we didn’t see many flowers, plus Southern California wildflowers are on the tiny side…but we did have a great excursion. We started on Otay Lakes Road…

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One of the hikers had a GPS device that mapped the trip: 8.5 miles in about 5 hours with a ton of ups and downs and about a 1600′ elevation gain. The blue line is the elevations during the trip. The orange is his speed. The red is that actual trail we took. Cool technology…I’m totally jealous.

This photo was taken about 10 minutes into the hike, so we’re all well-rested and possibly a little goofy (additional photos are courtesy of Ken T. and Maritie, the group leader).

Where the hike begins is a graffiti-covered dam in the distance with the rocks by the side of the road.

Here’s the dam from a bit of a distance…

And right above it…

I thought the blocky quality of the graffiti painted over old graffiti was interesting…

And there’s Otay Lake (aka Lower Otay Reservoir) in the distance…

To the north was San Miguel…

Notice how everyone has poles? Yeah. I forgot mine.

The majority of the first part of the hike, I was OK without poles…the second half? Not so much.

The day was warm in the end…this is looking towards the first summit of the Jamul range.

This is looking towards downtown San Diego over Chula Vista in the front…you can see we’re starting to climb.

A closeup of downtown…

We were pretty spread out for most of the trip…you can see someone way up at the top. The ups were challenging…the trail was fairly steep in places and had lots of rocks.

The Marines and a bunch of rock-pilers had been at the top of the first summit. I suspect this is where many people turn around and go back…

In fact, the only people we saw the entire time outside of our group passed us on the way up to here and went on to the second summit, and then came back past us. Here’s the trail up toward the second summit.

Yes, we live in a desert. In fact, there were very few trees on this trip, although some shrubs could pass for a tree if you were feeling really warm.

You can see for miles up there…this is facing east, trying to figure out what each of the peaks are…

In fact, the little hill in the middle, between the two in the foreground, is probably McGinty Mountain from the previous weekend.

A few of the yucca were blooming…I think that’s El Capitan in the background…

Beautiful flowers…

At this point, we started to work down a rocky trail on the eastern side of the range…

The back side had a lot more rocks, but there was greenery to be seen. In fact, this is where I saw most of the wildflowers.

And sometimes my shitty old camera behaved enough to let me take pictures of them. This is the flower of buckwheat…

I was lucky to have Ken T. also taking pictures (with obviously a MUCH better camera than I have), and he was nice enough to let me borrow some for the blog, so here was his buckwheat…

His blue-eyed grass…

His black sage…

His deerweed…

(I told you his camera was better…I have all of these, but they’re blurry) His Dichelostemma capitatum (aka blue dicks)…

Way too pretty a flower for either of those names…there were apparently only two trees on the entire trail (not quite, but close enough)…and this was one of them. You’re almost required to stop under the tree on a hot sunny day on a hike with few trees, so we did.

You can see green on the hills from the recent rains, off to the east…

And there are more trees down in that valley, but you’d have to bushwhack to get to them…

This was the view to the east off the back part of the range, quite beautiful…

Way down in the depth of that valley below, though, there was this structure…and we all had to try to guess what it was, why it was there…

We had lunch at this high point overlooking the reservoir, with Otay Mountain to the left…it was hot, but not horribly so.

Another group photo after lunch…we are looking a little less energetic…but still ready for whatever the trail might show us…

And the panoramas…this one from Ken’s camera…

And my phone, which is a little harder to control…

But still gives you an idea of what Southern California looked like before we built all those houses…

I was reading about all the trails in this area, and it used to be open to these off-road vehicles until they decided there was some sensitive habitat there and closed it, so there are all these “roads” that aren’t super wide and are definitely not maintained well (which is fine)…so the plus is you’re not walking on a single-track trail, but there were lots of rocks and rough ground.

We saw lots of these caterpillars, apparently for the Salt Marsh Moth…

They were often walking faster than we were, scurrying along the path. I’m not sure where they were going in such a hurry…

This is the red monkey flower…

We also saw people parachuting from airplanes and landing on an airstrip to the south…

At this point, the trail looked nice…flat but some green, looking south towards Mexico over that mountain…

And then started the “sorta crazy” part of the trip (I think that’s how the leader described this section)…downhill at a significant angle. This is where poles were, quite honestly, as someone who didn’t have them, necessary…

I’m not really sure how I managed this downhill portion without faceplanting about 17 times, but I did. And I felt it for the next three days…you can see the airstrip where the parachuters were landing in the middle of the photo.

You can see everyone coming down the slope, which luckily had enough rocks that were planted in the ground to give me some traction going down.

More parachuting…fascinating. It was on many people’s bucket lists to do this sometime in the future (including mine)…

Some landed crazy, some landed calmly…I’m sure I would be doing the former…

I didn’t take a lot of pictures coming down that hill…I was trying too hard to keep from falling (went down on my butt once)…it was hard work.

After that, we had a choice of a very flat trail with part of it on the road or a trail with, as the leader described it, “ups and downs.” We chose the latter, thinking that after coming down that hill, how bad could it be? Well, it was a challenge, because it was about 5 significant climbs, plus more crazy downhills (not THAT crazy, but still…poles would have helped), and by this time, it was warm…low 80s. And we were tired. It doesn’t look too bad in this photo…

Now we are on the western end of the range, and the plants have changed again…

That’s more of what the up and down looked like…neverending…

You’d get to the top of one thinking you were in the clear, that you were almost there, and then you’d see the next one..

It doesn’t look too bad until you see the people climbing and realize how steep it is. Again.

Luckily, everyone was a good sport and realized that a trail is a trail…it can be easy, medium, or difficult, but it’s still being outside in the fresh air, and a challenge is never a bad thing out here…we all had plenty of water and were able to keep moving…

Ken’s shot of where we had come (I’m hiding behind the woman in pink) just to give you a better idea of the slope…

All in all, close to 9 miles, a hot day, lots of ups and downs, but there were flowers and wildlife…we saw mule deer and coyotes and California horned toads (I almost stepped on one…too fast for a photo), plus the caterpillars and the hawks and the parachuting folks…it was definitely worth the time and effort to hang out with a group with a remarkably good attitude about a difficult but not impossible trail. Will I do it again in two weeks to see more wildflowers (because it had just rained)? Um. Well. Probably not? But I’d consider it again next year around this time…we decided that some trails are like childbirth…you have to wait a while before it sounds like a sane thing to do again. It was good, though. Definitely worth the walk.

Drawing and Fire

Calling on all powers of patience, of calm. Remembered to meditate tonight. It does help. My weekend just blew up. Sigh. Oh well. Such is being a parent. I will deal. The next two weeks are kind of a mess anyway. Why not drag the weekend down into the morass? Meditation helps me deal with all the crazy uncertainties, all the things for which I cannot plan. I’ve never been good at the not-planning part. I like to know where I’m staying, when I’ll be eating (which is so much more of an issue now apparently), what the plan is. There is so much uncertainty in my life that I am always looking for the certain, for the dependable, for the things I can count on. I tracked my blood sugar all day. Interesting how drastically different it is from a year ago. I’m not happy about that. That’s something I don’t want to deal with right now and I have to deal with it. So I will. Growl.

So I could have ironed the bird tonight and been done with that quilt. But I was watching interesting television (The Amerikans or however they spell it…) and felt like drawing anyway. I just wanted the thing done. So I did it…here’s the top section, which I started drawing on December 10, continued on the 14th, and finished tonight…

The middle section was started on February 17, and then continued on the 20th and the 25th…that’s a pretty big gap between the top section (which is interesting in itself), but remember I finished some major quilts in that time period.

Then I started drawing the bottom on February 19, continued on the 28th, and finished (?…still not sure that part is finished) on March 11. I’m not copying it yet, so I can add to it if I want to. You wanted to know how the drawing goes, right? Assume an hour or two each night, so that’s 9 nights, somewhere probably around 15 hours. Wow. I used to be able to crank out a drawing in 2 hours, maybe 4. Of course, those were one-page drawings.

I seem incapable of one-page drawings at the moment. This sucker’s got a lot going on in there. What’s it about? Menopause. Loss. Pain. Grief. Anger. Genetics. Aging. Me.

Fun stuff.

I drew during the union meeting too (AND took copious notes. Because I am amazing like that)…

I am really trying to take deep breaths and go with the flow. Every day there is something else that someone needs from me, something else I need to manage. I’ve decided the classified staff at the high school are idiots. There are issues at my school with testing. A giant cart with 38 Chromebooks showed up in my classroom today. There was no room for it where it needed to be; suffice it to say that I had to make room for it. Higher-ups don’t consult staff. I think it will be OK though. I’m looking forward to being able to use technology whenever I want, and not just when a cart is available. I will have to migrate everything I do onto Google Drive though. That might be my summer project. Better yet, maybe I pay the boychild (with my nonexistent funds) to do that. Funny that. AP exams are coming up…between the two kids, they are taking 7 of them…at $89 apiece. I emailed about a fee waiver. Seriously, is there not a bulk discount? You can only be smart if you are rich enough to take the tests apparently. By the time we get the scores, boychild will already have acceptances and rejections and will have picked a school. What’s the point again?

An old friend of mine bought a quilt from me back in I think 1995 or 1996, somewhere around there. This was before I was doing art quilts really…I had taken a class in that watercolor technique, where you used squares and tried to move the shading from dark to light. I actually have two or three finished quilts lying around here like that, and this was one where I did that in the background, but then appliqued this bridge on top; if you drive north on I-15 from here, you see this bridge over the freeway north of Escondido…and then I did all these silk-ribbon-embroidery flowers in the border and at the bottom. I had a studio space downtown, and was working downtown at the time. It was very convenient, before kids. I would leave work and go screenprint at the studio afterwards. I loved that space. I probably couldn’t afford the rent now…it’s all near the new ballpark and probably horrendously expensive. But back then it was cheap and kind of unsafe at night, but it was all artists, and we would do Open Studios during ArtWalk, back when ArtWalk wasn’t just crappy stalls for blocks in Little Italy. And my friend, who was another editor at Harcourt, where I worked, loved this quilt and put it on a payment plan (you don’t even want to know how little I sold it for), and she bought it. And then I left Harcourt and had kids and we lost touch, but I’m pretty easy to find, apparently. She emailed me two years ago to tell me that she had been living somewhere back when the wildfires of 2007 were blasting through San Diego County and the quilt was in the fires…

Seriously. It survived, but only barely. I don’t even have digital photos of this quilt, it’s so old. I plan to document it sometime soon, when I can chase her down (and a decent camera…working on that…)…but it was actually in the San Diego Quilt Show in 1995…

This is before I had kids…I think I was pregnant with the boychild that year. I was. I was so sick, I was off work from early June until late August or September. Ahh…pregnancy. Ugh.

Anyway, she wants to know how to preserve it…and my understanding of burning is that it leaves the fabric so acidic that there is really nothing you can do long term…but even in terms of storing it? I personally would frame it under plexi or glass and let it continue to deteriorate until gone…but anything else? I’m not sure what to tell her.

Interesting to finally see it. I’ll have to poke around for photos of it pre-fire. They would be actual PHOTOGRAPHS. I know. Weird, huh? I didn’t have a digital camera back then.

So yeah. That took about 10 seconds. I have a shoebox in the bookshelf in my office that says “Stitching/Art photos.” Guess what I found? Really CRAPPY photos of the original…

And a closeup of the hand-applique of the hills (which look surprisingly like breasts to me now)…

And the embroidery…

And there is one of my very early “art” quilts. See? There is a process…I did evolve. This was April 1995 (that’s what the photos say), almost 20 years ago…the month I got pregnant with my now-18-year-old. Kinda looks a little different from what I do now, eh? I was such a different person then. It’s not all bad. I think I’m much more of a fiber artist now than I was then. Then I was a screenprinter for the art, and the quilting was more of a hobby…just trying stuff out and messing around with fabric and fiber techniques. I took lots of classes with famous teachers and dipped my feet into a lot of techniques (Hollis Chatelaine, Ellen Anne Eddy, Laura Wasilowski)…it took me a while to find my voice, my place, in fabric. I was lucky in that I had already found it in drawing and screenprinting. It took Joan Colvin and Wasilowski to help me figure out how to do it in fabric…that was probably around 1995 or so. Maybe soon after.

Anyway. It’s an interesting story of a Nida quilt. Next step? See it (and its owner, more importantly) in real life.

Mood Management

Managing my moods is becoming a full-time job. There’s food, there’s situations, there’s stress, there’s exercise. I’m now carrying my blood sugar tester thingie (it needs a name, like Ralph…or Daisy) with me everywhere I go. My meds get tested again in another three weeks…I’m suspecting my diabetes meds are off. I’ll email the doc before testing so she knows what to look for. I’m a little paranoid about hiking this weekend…in fact, I’m not sure I will do this hike, because it’s supposed to be really warm, but I really WANT to do it. So. I can pack carbs and sugar and…dammit…sigh. It’s not like I didn’t hike last weekend with no blood sugar problems. In fact, I’ve hiked ALL the weekends with no problems. I’m just paranoid now. The last thing I want is to be in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of people I barely know and have a major problem like last night. That would be bad. I remember one hike post-divorce with two guys I knew fairly well and my blood sugar dropped (it was also hot), and they dealt remarkably well, but I had all the right stuff in my pack and was coherent enough to tell them what was going on. And I’d warned them beforehand. It really has been a long time since I’ve had issues.

The moods are tied to blood sugar, but also to hormones and then the emotional sine wave that I seem to live on…I had the wave graphed earlier today (in my head, of course), with a listing of what made it zoom up and down and hold steady at numbness. Trying to control the seemingly uncontrollable (blood sugar and mood swings) tosses the curve downwards. Yet another art rejection (too many of those lately) sends it downwards even further. Analyzing my own life? Hell, should just stay away from that most days. It’s down down down, all the way down. Girlchild tells me I am in a bad/sad mood on the days I have detention. She’s right. I should just give up. Is detention creating world peace? No the fuck it’s not. Then why do it?

But I didn’t give up. I got my hairs cut. They needed it. They are getting fussy in their old age. And then I made it to the gym and that was good. I read. I cooked and ate dinner. I forgot to do a bunch of stuff (sigh. I always forget a bunch of stuff…I am the Queen of Winging It). But then I was ready.

So I drew.

And I can’t even describe the peace in my head, my heart, that drawing gives me. It’s like a wave of calm washing over. It’s therapeutic. It’s stupid that I don’t do it more often (I run out of time, no more hours in the day). I haven’t meditated in a few days (more time/energy issues). I completely forgot tonight, but it’s OK, because I drew. And that is Kathy Meditation. It was so worth it. So the bottom is mostly done. I think. And the middle section is done. So now I need to go back to the top, to the first page, the one I started in December…and I need to finish it. I don’t know if this is next in line to get done. I haven’t decided. Maybe. It could be. It’s kind of a crazy beast. The ones I love don’t get into shows. At the moment, nothing gets into shows. Artistic angst. Why am I making all this art if it never gets out to be seen? You make the art because you have to. It keeps you sane. The getting out and being seen? That’s the least of your worries. Just keep making it.

You’re so lucky. You get to hear all the conversations I have in my head.

Meanwhile, I remembered that I hadn’t finished ironing the Mammogram fabrics, so I headed into the office/studio/national disaster area and pulled everything out, reminded myself of what I was doing whenever I last worked on it (March 7), and started picking blood vessels and heart parts…

so often a part of my quilts, the heart. My heart, the one that’s destroyed, eh? So yeah. This drawing was done before all that. Broken hearts. Shattered. Cracked. This one is still whole. I wonder what that feels like. Maybe some day I will know.

I keep thinking I will be better. I am better. But I’m not BETTER. If you know what I mean. I’m someone else. That someone may never be truly better. She may just be OK. My hair person asked (sort of) if I was done with love, like how some (old) people say they have experienced great love and they feel OK with that after their great love dies and they don’t need to go through it again. But I don’t want to be alone for another 30 years. I still don’t feel like I’ve done it right…that sounds awful. But it’s not right if they can’t stick around, if they can’t make it through the hard stuff, if they can’t be supportive, if they can’t stand next to you as an equal. So no. I’m not done. I haven’t given up, but I don’t have a lot of hope. I’m not OK with any of it. I think I need a dog. Dogs are nice. Except then they die of cancer at age 6, and it takes you two years to get over that too. Maybe I just need to sit alone in my house for a long while. Quietly. In a corner. A dust-free corner. Then everything will start to make sense again. Or not. Because maybe there is no sense to be made.

I still cry every day. In case you were wondering. I don’t know when that stops. Maybe never. I was never a crier like this. This is hard. I would cry when really bad shit happened. I cried at sad bits in movies. I cried when I saw babies born (usually in movies or on TV…when I teach human reproduction, I cry every time the baby is born on the movie I show my students). I cried during PMS if something was really funky in my head or in real life. It wasn’t a daily occurrence. It was rare.

Now? Not so much in the rareness. I’m always on the verge. So if you’re wondering when you’re talking to me if you hear tears in the background, you do.

I ironed a lot…

And I was pretty sure I was done…until I started to fold up all the fabric…

And realized I hadn’t ironed the bird. That damn fucking bird.

I didn’t have the energy to do the bird. I couldn’t even imagine the bird, let alone decide on her colors (orange. black. maybe some turquoise.), so she will have to be done tomorrow. Thirteen whole pieces. I know. I should have just done it. But sometimes the brain just rebels and yells NO NO NO over and over again and you don’t really want to push it too hard, because it is your brain and it kinda controls all the important stuff, and you kinda need it to keep doing that. So maybe tomorrow.

Now that’s two quilts I have that are ready to be cut out (or nearly there). Maybe my goal for Spring Break will be to trace this one I’ve been drawing and then draw the one I need to have done by November, with the assumption that I will work on it over the summer.

Or not. I do know that the mood is better. Drawing AND ironing: the cure for a fucked-up mind. I don’t know what the permanent cure is. Maybe there isn’t one.

Poking the Finger

Wow. So that was low blood sugar. Not sure why, but I think that’s what happened the other night as well, both after exercising. Sigh. It’s so exhausting and scary to have blood sugar drop like that, especially when the kids were already in bed, so I had no one to check in with. I had graded tests with the girlchild helping me, and I wanted to get something art-related done, but I had exercised in between 7th and 8th period’s tests, and I was sitting there finishing the grading, trying to figure out why I was so dizzy. I was too shattered last night after the blood sugar dropped to do much of anything. It’s OK…I took care of it and it went back up to normal. But my bigger question is WHY…why now? What’s different? Who knows. I will log it and will bring it up with the doctor next time. I’ve had the diabetes under control really well for about 12 years now…I didn’t do anything different. And this was lower than I’ve ever had, unless I wasn’t eating or I was sick.

Oh wait. The Google says it could be hormones fluctuating with impending menopause. Wow. Really? So I could be dealing with this crazy for another year or so? Seriously? Sigh. Deep breaths. When the physical body is this out of control, it’s really hard to keep the mental body on an even keel.

Then this morning, I’m down on myself because I haven’t gotten any art stuff done in DAYS due to grades and being tired and fixing computers and grades and tired. There seems to be a pattern there. And yes, there’s no point in berating myself about what I didn’t get done. I just get more depressed when I feel like everything I do is just work and slog and clean and work and then do it all again. The art is what gets me out of bed and in a better mood. It’s necessary.

Yesterday was also girlchild’s pre-surgery appointment…she’s having two screws put into bones in her lower back next week. It was the first time we’ve seen a clear scan of the bones in her back and it was kind of a shock to see the two fractures…hell, no wonder she’s been in pain. So she’s going to have to spend at least one night in the hospital (which probably means I have to spend the night as well, which is fine). My work brain is trying to plan out in time in case I have to be out for more than three days (the worst-case scenario is that she’s out of school for 2 weeks, but we’re hoping for less than a week). Unfortunately, my parents are out of the country, so me and my ex will have to juggle work and the girlchild best we can. She’s convinced she will need no help; I’m on the more cautious side (let’s see…how can I move a bed into the prep room at school?). I warned my students…but there’s always chaos when teachers are out for more than a day. Plus I’m teaching DNA and non-science guest teachers are notoriously non-science-educated, so it’s got to be easy, yet engage the kids and give something that keeps them on task. Not an easy job. I can’t show movies for a week.

Suffice it to say that I have art on the menu tonight. I also need to go to the gym, though, so I’m going to have to hope the low blood sugar doesn’t hit again. Seriously, both times it’s been after I ate a healthy meal and exercised. Everything’s out of whack. Sigh. Back to poking the finger three times a day. My doctor gave me permission to stop a few years back because my blood sugar was so controlled. Guess my body is telling me something else. Got the message, bastard. Whatever. One more thing.

The Truth about Alice

I recently read The Truth about Alice by Jennifer Mathieu…

The release date is June 3. Mathieu is an English teacher and this is her first novel. The Truth about Alice is YA fiction, a story about a girl who has more rumors flying around her than one of the Kardashians (OK, maybe not THAT bad). She apparently slept with two guys in one night, and then it’s her fault that one of the most popular guys on campus is dead. There’s a bathroom stall dedicated to making her look even worse, and through all this, Alice continues to come to school and attempt to function normally.

The story is told from a variety of perspectives: Alice herself, a former friend of hers, a couple of popular kids on campus, and the token geek boy. Each perspective lends some insight into what actually happened, but also into the minds of teenagers (always a scary place to be) and how they negotiate relationships, conflict, and their own inner issues.

Alice herself is not perfect, by far, but it’s a telling view into how rumors can affect someone. I did like the book and the writing; my only complaint is that the story is fairly obvious. There’s no real new insight…of course, I work with teenagers and am an adult who has apparently survived high school, and since this is geared towards the demographic of teenagers, it’s possible they may not realize what they’re doing and this might help them deal with issues at school or with other teens. So I would say it would be a good choice for teens. There is another version of the cover, but I like this one because of the reference to the bathroom stall wall.

The Weekend Saga

I feel like my weekend was a saga…

sa·ga

ˈsägə/

noun

1. a long story of heroic achievement, esp. a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic.

Synonyms: epic, chronicle, legend, folk tale, romance, history, narrative, adventure, myth, fairy story

OK. Minus the Old Norse/Icelandic. And maybe the heroics. Maybe my whole LIFE is a saga. I’d be OK with it just being a life for a while.

I had plans. Lots of them. Most of them disappeared. Well, they didn’t disappear forever…just for a little bit maybe. I got zero art done. I mean ZEEE-ROH. I managed to finish grades Friday night, except for one kid. That was good. I planned that and executed it and nothing got in the way. I got up really early Saturday morning and headed out for a hike south of here (more on that later) after waking the girlchild for the SAT. She apparently had to call her dad from the testing location because she forgot to actually BRING all the paperwork I handed her the night before and then handed her again on Saturday morning, because she’d left it somewhere again. So that was amusing. Yes, he got there in time with the paperwork. Yes, she has a 50% success rate in remembering paperwork. Luckily, they didn’t grade her on that.

I went on the hike. It was supposed to be 9 miles, which it was…but most of them were significantly canted upwards or downwards, with very little in between. Before my parental units left for Australia (which is where they are now), I remembered to borrow my dad’s hiking poles for this trek, because they were mostly required, and then…well…I forgot them on Saturday (my forgetfulness is actually out of character…hers? Not so much). So. I hiked the damn thing pole-free and only landed on my ass once (a miracle…I was sure I would face plant about 20 times). So I’m a tad sore today. Tomorrow it will be worse.

Coming home after hikes is usually a downer…my blood sugar is low, I’m tired from the hike, and my mood is usually not great. I was feeling mopey and down and blah, and then I got this in the mail…well, this is half my pages, because I can’t show you the whole quilt yet…

The catalog for Earth Stories, which will open in Michigan in May (and I’m not allowed to show my whole quilt until then, even though one is on the cover, so pretend you didn’t see it)…

(I’m only showing you my half with the words and the detail anyway…not the one with the whole quilt on it)…and then I was still mopey, because aargh…I’m not even sure I like this quilt…so I went on to read the juror’s statement, because she had emailed me for a larger-resolution picture of my quilt a while back, so she could see it all close up…and then sent me a very complimentary email about it…and what she wrote for the catalog made me cry…

Kathy Nida’s Wise Choice is a tour de force. The intuitive genius of Nida’s piece is quite arresting in its commentary on women and presents a vital and poignant message. Her captivating work bravely addresses one of the most important issues on our planet–population control. Earth Mother and family stand firmly rooted and intertwined with the earth. The piece represents all Earth Stories is about. –Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi

OK. I did something right this year. It’s OK. It will be OK. Because that’s what I meant to say, and she got it. So yeah, it will make some people mad and they might freak out, and someone already said something about my piece maybe not being in all the shows (it has nudity in it too, so that’s been an issue in the past)…but I did it. What was in my head will be hanging on the wall. Deep breaths.

I had vast art plans for last night, but ended up grading papers and then falling asleep early (body finally rebels against burning a million calories and not enough sleep). I was OK with that. I was going to get up, go to the gym, get all this art stuff done, post about the hike and a book I needed to review, get my lesson planning done! It was going to be an awesome day! Really!

Yeah. Well it was also my birthday. I’m not sure I really spend a lot of time worrying about my birthday any more, except I do feel like I should be able to do something I like doing, something I WANT to do on my birthday. I planned for it. I did . I had it all worked out.

And then the computer died. I was in the middle of getting photos transferred and emails answered for school, and I was finally installing the stupid external hard drives to deal with the memory problem, and I pulled the computer out from under the desk, and it shut off. And it wouldn’t go back on. And yeah. So I don’t know about you, but my entire fucking life is on the computer, including my job and my art and everything. And it’s my birthday. And the universe hates me. And I’m cursed. And karma.

So once I talked myself out of all of that, which is difficult when you’re in my world at the moment…depression is not your friend when it comes to persuading yourself that the universe is not out to get you…then I started googling things (with the iPad)…and watching YouTube videos. And first I figured out that it wasn’t the electrical outlet and it wasn’t the surge protector and it wasn’t the cord…and then I thought the CPU fan might have an issue because it was making noise a while back and I hadn’t cleaned it because that was somewhat frightening (software? I do well with…hardware? yikes.), but then it might be the power supply. So I drove out and bought compressed air and a power supply, and then I came back and cleaned the fan and the inside of the computer, but it still wouldn’t restart, so I knew it wasn’t that, and then I installed a new power supply, which was way easier than I thought it would be, except when I went to try to turn it on, it still wouldn’t turn on.

Fuck. FUCK. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Yeah. So. I put it in the car and drove to Fry’s (our local geek supply house) and waited in line behind a woman with a dog (yes, in a computer/electronics store) and another woman with a tattoo on the back of her arm, on her triceps (is one arm just a tricep?) of a bottle of Jameson Whiskey and two shot glasses that had quite a nice example of both reflection and refraction on them (almost took a picture for my students, but decided it was inappropriate…and YES, I was going to ASK her before I took it), and then this nice young Indian man who talked faster than I do (damn, that’s fast) asked me what was wrong, and NO, I didn’t launch into my life story (although I considered it very briefly), and I told him what I had done, and when I said I had changed the power supply and cleaned the CPU fan, he looked at me and breathed out “That’s sexy” (no, seriously, he did), and I briefly considered laughing out loud at him, but because I am a middle-school teacher and have incredible powers of control, I managed to keep a straight face, and he told me EVERYTHING WOULD BE OK (gee, where the hell have I heard THAT before, lying ass…oh wait, that wasn’t you), and then he opened the sucker up and found THE ONE connection that I didn’t fully seat (BASTARD! the connection, not the nice man), and then we tested it and he wanted to know why my keyboard thing didn’t work with my computer thing, and I explained that I hadn’t set that up and it didn’t really matter and it was OK and I didn’t need him to fix that, and we confirmed that it worked and then he said something while his head was under the counter (I don’t know why), and I said, should I shut it down, and he said, “Wow, are you psychic? Because yes, I was thinking that, but it wasn’t what I said, and are you a Pisces?” And I rallied (because he was still talking faster than normal people), and said, “Why yes, I am a Pisces.” And he said, “No way, really?” “Way. Today is my birthday” And then he said “Happy Birthday!” and told me his mom was psychic AND a Pisces, but she was also bipolar (WHOA! Oversharing), and I said, “What are you trying to say?” and he tried to back himself out of calling me bipolar, at which point I just started laughing because I truly was messing with him. So we closed the machine up and I hugged it to my chest and said, “How much?” And he said “On the house.” At which point I told him I loved him and left with a big smile on my face, because even though it took me 3 hours and 2 trips to ~~Penis World~~ (oops, sorry) I mean Computers R Us, I managed to fix my computer. With only a little help (from boychild, who wielded compressed gas with gay abandon; from some kid who found me the right power supply; from YouTube videos and PC Magazine articles online; and from a goofy Indian man…from India, people…), I overcame all that shittiness and am currently USING MY COMPUTER. THAT I FIXED. SO THERE UNIVERSE. FUCK YOU.

Sigh. Deep breaths. And I eventually got some stuff done like laundry and groceries and breaking the glass loaf pan (not on purpose) and cleaning the kitchen floor (to deal with the glass), and then went out to dinner with my ex and the kids to Crazee Burger, which I always wanted to try, and girlchild had Wild Boar and I had Antelope (and yes, I googled sustainability of antelope meat before I ate), and boychild riffed on about meat we eat, because he says meat is just a vehicle for other food items, and doesn’t understand why I would want to eat antelope, although I drew the line at kangaroo…they’re just too damn cute to eat. And I explained what being on the top of the food chain meant and he quoted liberal media (hey, I am an omnivore). And I opened presents and had cheesecake and survived another day.

Interior shot…would I eat here again? Yeah probably. It wasn’t the most amazing burger in the world, but it was interesting, and the inside is kinda fun…including Mona…

and her doobie. On the bar menu…

I never did get his number…and now I am a prime number. And tomorrow is another day and maybe I’ll get to do something artistic.

Ignore ALL the Voices…

So the good news is that I didn’t eat a donut today and that I finished all my Trimester 2 grades before the weekend started and the whole house smells like garam masala and the girlchild cooked so I didn’t have to (why I was able to finish grades so early). And I cut out fabric too…

Although I’m still not done. Not sure why this fucking thing is taking so long. It’s only got 300 and something pieces, but I’m 4 1/2 hours in…usually I can do 100 pieces in an hour. I still have most of the 200s to do and a few 300s. Basically, I need to do the heart, the lungs, and the bird…and the eyeball still. Then I think I’m done…

Not sure. It’s really not crucial though. I’m not on deadline. I’m just filling time and space with artmaking so I don’t go totally depressoid insane. I have to get up freakishly early for a hike, and it’s supposed to be hot tomorrow. But I packed my bag already and my water’s even in the fridge getting nice and cold and I have a plan for breakfast so I don’t get the dizzies. So there.

Then I will come home and deal with the post-hike downers and try to figure out how to install these external hard drives and I don’t know what else I will do to hold off the nasty depression beast.

But tomorrow is another day. Actually, tomorrow started 36 minutes ago and I need to be up really early, so there we are. I’m mostly incoherent and wishing I could stay up and iron EVERYTHING down, but mom voice is telling me I need sleep. Trying to listen to the voices…all of them. They clamor for my attention. Sometimes I just ignore all of them.

Sometimes

Sometimes the body just whacks you upside the head and you have to listen. I don’t know if it’s months of tiredness catching up to me or if I’m coming down with something, or what, but last night? Everything stopped working right, so I just finally went to bed. Early. I didn’t sleep well, but I got an hour and half more than I normally do, so of course…instead of feeling better this morning, I feel really tired. Sigh. There is no win in this. I don’t know if it was blood sugar or what (because the damn battery on my blood tester was dead…yes, stop worrying, I’m going to buy a new one today), but I was spacey and dizzy and yuck. I’m hoping it’s not impending sickness because I have a cool hike tomorrow morning and I don’t want to miss it.

Anyway. So I didn’t get much done. I did do this in class yesterday…

Because teachers like to color too. What’s funny is that kids always want to copy mine…actually, that’s how I find the kids like ME in the classroom…look for who is drawing something totally different to what I did.

I also did go hang out with Julie and did some of this…

My daughter’s long-not-so-lost Christmas stocking that might be done when she’s 21. I always forget how long it takes to do cross stitch.

Then Julie gave me this…

My very own ZombieMan. She’s been making fairies and somehow I inspired her to do a Day of the Dead Frida-Kahlo-esque doll a while back, and then we got on mummies or zombies or something, and I had the skulls, so she had to think on it for a while (because zombie-making is not one of her natural-born skills), but look what I got! I like him. Julie has some talent…

Midnight agrees.

I think some of my problem last night was that I was exercising and used the wrong program on the bike, so it just kept going instead of telling me to stop, and I hadn’t eaten enough and I went for too long because I wasn’t paying attention. Once the blood sugar crashes, it takes me a long time to recover.

Anyway. I feel somewhat better this morning, so hopefully that was it. Who knows, though. Trying to suss out the body’s reactions to food/no food or sleep/no sleep and to take care of it properly when you are depressed and overwhelmed and don’t really feel like doing any of it…it makes it really difficult. I know my hormones are completely out of whack too, and I don’t know how much of this is that, and going to a doctor and having them write you off because of how old you are and the fact that you’re female is not helpful (I should interject that my own personal doctor would never do this because she is my age and smart…but some of the urgent care doctors are not so).

There were so many things I wanted/needed to do last night…now I felt like I lost hours. But that’s the way life is. You plan and plan for time to do this or that, and then life whacks you upside the head and you do what you need to do…which in my case was to sleep fitfully. Sigh.

Setting goals helps, remember? Like Julie said last night, having a list and checking things off it is good for something, even if the things you check off the list are not magical fix-alls like some people think they should be. Get rid of depression by exercising…check! Go out into nature…check! Eat healthy…check! (probably should have done more of that last night…I ate healthy but…honestly, I don’t know what the issue was) Get out of bed and shower every day…check! Fucking lists. Stupid perky people making happy lists. Try making a happy list when you’re in MY mood. Sometimes it’s a struggle to get this body and brain out of the house for anything, including groceries or work, the stuff I have to do…let alone the stuff that is supposed to fix me. Sigh.

So today. I can do today. I have lunch already made (smart use of time last Sunday to make all my lunches for the week). I need to finish grades at school so I don’t have to do them this weekend. I have counseling. I need a battery for the blood tester thingie (I’m sure it has a name…I just don’t care what it is right now). Pack up bag for tomorrow’s hike so I don’t have to rush around tomorrow morning. Get the sticky mud off my boots from last weekend. Exercise. Meditate. Eat right. THEN…draw. Or iron fabric. Or cut things out. Don’t work tonight. DO NOT WORK TONIGHT. Make art. Make it good. Make it sit in your head and banish the bad into the corners where it can rot in on itself and get swept out by the cleaners the next time they come through. Tell the shitty feelings and drag-you-down thoughts to fuck off and die. Get mad at the paper and the pen and make them work for you. Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Take care.

How It Makes Me Feel

I read a status post from someone that said something about not wanting to be around a particular someone because they are always bitter and negative. I feel that way a lot, not the part about not wanting to be around someone, but the part about being the person who is not a positive person…but more on the sad and mopey side of it. I try to squash it down around other people (although I am obviously not doing that here) because I don’t want them to stop talking to me or hanging out with me because I am that SAD person, but I don’t really know how to make that stop. Sometimes I realize my anxieties are taking over and people are reacting to them, and so then I don’t talk about them for a while. It doesn’t make them go away, but…it keeps people from going away. I’ve had too much of that. I can’t magically be a happy perky person at the moment, or even the sarcastic funny person I used to be, because I don’t have it in me most of the time. In fact, if you see a remnant of the old Kathy in a conversation, it’s probably me faking it because I don’t feel it, I don’t feel like I’m that person. It feels fake to talk like her. Then again, you don’t want to hear me talking like the new Kathy, because she mostly sucks and she cries and is depressed and has very little hope and doesn’t think she will ever get out of this hole.

It’s amazing how deep I am in the hole some mornings…probably I had some dream where the same old shit happens over and over again and I have no power to control any of it and just going with the flow gets me back in the hole and I have to climb out over and over again, and sometimes I’m just too damn tired or sad to do even that.

So you get to this point where you can’t really act like yourself (whatever that is, honestly, because I don’t know who or what I am any more…I keep looking around for someone who sounds or feels familiar or safe and it just doesn’t happen), because you’re afraid someone is posting about you on Facebook, about how they can’t be around you any more because of the disease you’re fighting. Because that’s really what it’s about…that’s the super-sucky part of depression is that people who have never experienced it think that you can just snap out of it and it’s a choice to stay like this, even when they can see that the person is doing everything they can (although someone said something about taking meds, and let me tell you, you don’t get to tell someone that meds are the fix-all because they are different for everyone and being on them can be even worse than not being on them). So they say stupid-ass shit like “I can’t be friends with that person because they are a total downer,” and yes, that person probably feels the same way about herself at the moment. I know I do. I know I don’t want to be with myself a whole lot because my self isn’t fun to be with. She’s a pain in the ass and sad and I keep telling her all she has to do is just fucking snap out of it.

Yeah. See. It doesn’t work that way.

And she doesn’t really want you to have to deal with her when she’s like that either. She really wishes you didn’t ever have to see her or experience her like that. But that means never leaving the house. Never going to a social event. Never hanging out at all. And that does often seem like a viable option. Except that continues the depression and the sad, and is NOT listed on the Long List of Things That You Should Be Doing if You Are Depressed So That You Don’t Have to Be Depressed Any More. Because it’s like magic, you know. If you do the things on the list, that’s the magic. It just happens. You GET to be happy. Otherwise? You didn’t expend the effort, you suck, stay in the fucking hole bitch.

And when you post something like that about not wanting to hang with that person any more (I actually remember my mom talking about a friend of hers in a similar way, and I’m not saying she’s wrong…because they always tell you to surround yourself with BETTER people than that, right?), then every sad and depressed and down friend or acquaintance that you have thinks you are now talking about them. Because there are a lot of us. Which makes me wonder what kind of world we are living in where babies starve to death and parents beat their children and sad people are made more sad by the people who should have some level of understanding, not a level that stops after X number of days, but just plain old understanding.

I am depressing to be around. I depress myself. When I fake it and hang out with other people, I am temporarily less depressing. I have to admit, though, that the low I hit AFTER faking it? It’s way fucking lower than I was when I started. It’s Sobbing Low. It’s Holey Crap I Don’t Want to Live Like This Low. It’s not a good place to be. It’s some sort of force reaction…more force here brings the wave UP, but the resulting LOW is LOWER due to expenditure of energy HERE.

All in all, this is a seriously vicious cycle. I don’t know how to break out of it. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do.

I went back and read my blog posts from last March, and wow. Who the fuck is that person? She sounds so upbeat and perky (which is ironic, because I don’t think I was ever either of those things, but compared to how I am now? Holy shit.). I don’t know who she is. It’s sad when you don’t recognize yourself.

It was the soccer banquet tonight…I had some wine and read my book through most of it. Then came home and communed with the girlchild, because she needed to vent. Exercised. Talked to the SIL, who worries when I don’t answer my phone. Interesting. Then did some work for school (ugh). Meditated, mostly unsuccessfully. Then ironed some more…it’s taking a really long time because I don’t even start until 11.

Ah yes…hair. Trees on the fabric? Makes good hair. Normally I cut pieces out in order, but I just can’t get my head around that right now with this quilt. I’m all over the map. What that means is that I have no idea how much ironing is left…usually I can guesstimate based on how many pieces are left, but I’ve ironed a bunch in the 300s, plus most of the 100s and earlier. I don’t think I’ve done any of the 200s. Or maybe I have. I just don’t remember. I have lungs and heart and all the bits and pieces that go with them, along with the bird. Oh, and the eye and non-flesh surroundings of the eye (mostly eyelashes). It should go quickly. Says she who is taking fucking DAYS to get this done. Tomorrow night won’t be any better. I’m 3 1/2 hours in…

Oh well…the box is mostly full of parts for cutting…

I make. I create. I keep going. This is not the time to stop the artmaking. Is this me? Is this who I am? The chick who is making the art at 1 in the morning and not getting enough sleep and whose eyelid constantly twitches from not enough sleep and too much stress? Is this all I have to look forward to? The girlchild had an existential (weepy) moment in the car today on the way to the soccer banquet (which she did not want to go to…hell, neither did I)…about NOT wanting to be like her parents (what kid does?), but in terms of being happy vs unhappy. Plus a discussion of everyone being in couples but her. Yeah. I get all that. I don’t have a solution. Acceptance? It’s not really a healthy state to accept that which makes you unhappy. I don’t have any answers.

I just have a lot of fabric. And I haven’t read all the books in the world yet. And I pointed out the landscape as we drove from El Cajon down into the valley where the Sycuan Casino is located (home of said soccer banquet)…which is a beautiful valley. Gorgeous. Drop-dead. It seems strange that the mountains and rocks and native plants can give me a sense of peace where nothing people say to me can, where nothing I say to myself does. The land, sitting there, majestic, dry, half-dead with the drought. It speaks to me. I can’t explain how it makes me feel. I just know it does.

Hamlet Murdered Me…

I was thinking about artistic influences over the last three or four days…I remember being influenced by the psychedelic rock posters of the 60s and 70s (Mouse and Kelley for starters, some Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, ), but that was probably in college. I also remember being fascinated with Robert Rauschenberg, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Mary Cassatt (not quite the same as the others), and Frida Kahlo…but I think that was all more college, except for Cassatt. I remember searching for female artists…and being given Cassatt and O’Keeffe, and not a whole lot else. I also credit Dr. Suess and Richard Scarry. Seriously. I do.

And years of life-drawing classes…those were definitely a big part of my being able to draw what I draw. But what is it about my brain that makes it obsess over making art and drawing and putting together pieces that can be shown, and the brain of one of my artist friends who is content with decorating her house? We both have art degrees, but I couldn’t give a lesser shit about that stuff; the art holds me together like glue. Everything else leaves, but the art stays with me. It’s always there, sometimes lurking under the surface. It always pays attention, it never acts up, it doesn’t leave me in the lurch, doesn’t hang me out to dry, doesn’t have a midlife crisis and make me wish I lived on another planet, where humans have brains in their heads. It doesn’t make me wish I could go to sleep and wake up somewhere where everything made sense again.

It’s just mine, the art is. All fucking mine. I try to explain where my brain goes when I create. I don’t even feel like myself at the moment unless I am creating. Seriously, ironing fabric makes me feel more like Kathy than any other thing I do all day, every day. And even that is just a shadow of whomever I used to be.

I tried to do grades this evening, but either my computer or the interface between my system and the county’s grading program are just not happy with each other…I had this problem last time…it takes forever to update. I’ll have to finish at school tomorrow. There are only so many hours in the day. But grading and inputting numbers is just plain old depressing, even when you see that one kid, that one you’ve been working on for like 3 months, her grade finally pops up…she’s finally made up like 30% of her grade and she will be passing this trimester. Cry a little, happy tears, and then realize you have another 5 who are completely blowing everything off and up.

Confessions of a middle-school teacher: it’s hard to care about every kid all the time. Sometimes you have to cut your losses on some and focus your attention and energy on the kid you know will actually change their behaviors with your attention. Some kids, they’re never going to change anything…you’ve given them a 12-week window and they’re still not getting there. So I stop caring about that kid? Do I stop harassing him every day for work? Do I stop getting on his case? Of course not…I’m just not expecting much out of him.

Anyway. I graded until I started to cry. That’s sad, really, but at least I stopped there. Then I started ironing fabrics again…

Honestly, I didn’t get far. I’m tired and my head hurts and I’m in that depresso mode that doesn’t work well. It gets frustrated easily. I finished all the fleshy bits…but then I needed to make decisions about hair color, and my brain, well, it just full on creaked to a halt. Fuck. Dammit. Obviously I need to sleep on it (the problem, not my brain). I feel like I’m constantly trying to modify my mood with breathing and rethinking and exercise and reading and drawing…like I can’t just exist here on the planet…I have to work my butt off in order to exist. It’s kind of exhausting. And even more depressing.

On the way to work yesterday, I was thinking about the morning mood, which is often particularly shitty, and I thought, “Goddammit, I forgot my sketchbook. I’m tired, I’m cranky, and I don’t want to deal with grading or students or whining about a test tomorrow. I just want to take a nap and then finish my book.” Good mood to start the week.

I did finish my book, Going Bovine by Libby Bray,

About a teenager who gets mad cow disease and tries to fight it in a variety of amusing ways. It’s a good story. That said, I need to stop reading sad stuff when I’m going to be at the gym. Most of the book wasn’t sad, by the way. I will definitely read some more of her stuff.

Boychild sent me these…

He was doing an Ophelia project that required help from his sister…

It’s amazing how creative they can be. Downed eucalyptus branches from the storm, old dead roses from Christmas that I still haven’t thrown out (they made it outside), and a sign about Hamlet that is now strangely in my bathroom. I don’t think the dog was supposed to be part of it. I think he got rid of the sign for the final…it was too fucking obvious.

Speaking of not being part of it, Babygirl insists on sitting on the back of my neck tonight.

I’m getting a nasty crick, but she’s in a mood.

I understand that…I’m in a mood. I really did want all the fabric ironed tonight and it’s not. Fuck. Oh well. Progress is slow, but at least it’s progress. That’s the closest I get to hope these days. Oh good, you did 39 more minutes on this project. That’s 39 minutes closer to the next project. Maybe that’s the one that will make a difference, that will kick your brain out of quicksand and into happy mode, into satisfaction, into something approximating Kathy-normal, not to say real normal, but where I don’t feel completely WRONG. Because that’s how it feels now, like my skin doesn’t fit, like the eyeballs are in the wrong place, like everything feels wrong, fits wrong, sounds wrong. It’s just fucking wrong.

I go find my sketchbook and put it back in my work bag. Maybe it will save me.