I’m Never Where I Want to Be…*

I spent over 8 hours yesterday grading. The night before, I spent about 5 hours. Today, I’ve already spent 3 hours dealing with school stuff, although not all of it grading. It’s time to pay the piper? It’s not pretty, that’s for sure. I’ve still got at least another 6 hours just in science journals probably, and I think I’m officially about to kill someone. This isn’t healthy. I am trying to get it all out of the way so I can get some art brain on this week, because I’m still wallowing in deep sad shit from hell in my brain; in fact, the responsible part of my brain just stood up from her chair, where she is quite sensibly knitting a scarf (I don’t knit) in scrubs (I don’t own scrubs), and she pulled the curtain around the bed where the rest of my brain is connected to tubes and looks quite beat up, and she told me that now is not a good time. Come back later.

Well. OK then. I need to draw. Or something. There’s no fucking time! Groceries and errands and organizing shit and someone needs to take the tux back (boychild) and I’m supposed to go to a work thing tonight and probably I should bring a gift but I don’t have a clue what and then I’m supposed to go over and pick some stuff up from my parents.

Let’s talk realistically about how much can get done in one day (not much).

Last night, black cat (hard to see) lying upside down on the couch near the pile of crap I was grading…

See that pile of notebooks? That’s one class. One of my smaller classes. I have five classes. It was a long night. And then when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep.

I did try to settle my brain before bed. I cut stuff out for a little less than an hour…

Left pile gets higher. Middle pile gets smaller. See the uterus? And I think heart parts are on top of it. Yes, I keep all the trimmings until the end. I am well known for dropping real pieces into that box by accident. Didn’t I say something about being done this week? What a joke. I’m over 14 hours.

I took breaks during the day…I did go to the gym, where I finished this…

So I’ve read both Hyperion books now (yes, I know there are more)…and I really liked them. When I didn’t hate them. When I wasn’t slogging through vocabulary and world-building that was heavy and torturous. Yup. I know. It doesn’t sound like a recommendation but it is. Just because something is challenging to read doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. These are worth it. This is a book club selection for me, and strangely, the book club organizer has set up the next meeting by saying it’s going to be about why we shouldn’t have read these. Interesting.

Then I got the boychild ready for prom and followed him somewhere to take pictures…

He went with a group of kids (this is a small portion of the group)…

And I planted some stuff that was going to die if I didn’t plant it soon. So I took breaks. But it still sucked. I’d like to say I got a lot done (and I did), but there’s still so much to do and I am just behind all the time.

I had plans for today and they all got fucked up. Sigh.

I’m trying so hard not to feel like this all the time. I have all these inner conversations that just suck, and during the last 2 minutes of meditation, when he says to let my brain go and do what it wants, it literally SCREAMS at me, at the top of its brainy little lungs, just full on screaming. That can’t be good.

So last night, as an additional break between grading, I read this…

Short. Really good. Made me cry. I guess the Wall Street Journal might make me cry right now too, but this was good. Sigh. Took me 11 days to read The Fall of Hyperion and less than 12 hours to read this one. Take what you want from that.

Boychild is mad that I’m posting that picture. He’s mad that I won’t take his tux back for him. He’s mad that I exist at the moment, although I did all the grocery shopping for him. So. Whatever. Teenagers. Sheesh. Oh yeah, and he’s only had 2.5 hours of sleep and he’s NOT cranky (my ass).

I’m cranky and I had 7 hours…really shitty hours, but mostly sleeping. Maybe.

OK. Tonight. Sigh. More art, less work. After I go to a work-related party. Yeah. I know. But these are the good people. Maybe I will leave with the brain in a better place, cuz it ain’t there now.

*Peter Gabriel, Solsbury Hill (Sion’s fault)

Better Moments…

Happy Mothers Day to the moms…and the moms of moms…etc. This day has always been bittersweet to me, at least a little, because I never have my kids on Sunday mornings, or at least not since they were 4 or 5 years old. I don’t think I ever had the breakfast in bed or the kids doing something special in the morning. I always had a kid-free morning. Of course, most of my friends with kids are insanely jealous, because all they’ve ever wanted is that kid-free morning, no noise, no clean up after the breakfast, no crazy activities. I get it. I really do. But every Sunday morning is kid-free for me, and it gets kinda old…and TOO quiet. It’s been over 12 hours since I talked to any human in person. I talked to two on the phone briefly, my SIL and my ex, both last night. That’s my life right now. I didn’t want to go out and do stuff. I needed to grade and I did iron last night, but the quiet starts to get to me. The being alone part…the part my SIL and friends crave…it gets old.

I spend too much time in my head as it is.

I did manage to finish the tax board appeal yesterday, except for getting it notarized. I’m waiting on approval. I also did LOTS of really painful math (this is why I had to call the ex…financial forms confuse the fuck out of me, and I needed another brain to bounce the confusing words off of, just to try to figure out what they REALLY wanted); this was for the financial aid appeal. All I do is appeal these days. That one is done and ready to be mailed. I even graded papers for a while.

Then I ironed. This was last night. I was really tired though. I hiked in the morning, long hike, I think I’m finding my limits. I went to the opening at Visions Art Museum…more about that later.

I only ironed the bird, the hawk. I actually pulled some photos of a red-tailed hawk up on my phone and used them as a reference for picking colors…

It may be the only thing in the quilt that is colored realistically…OK, maybe the humans. Sort of the wolf.

I do this sometimes, drop an almost-real animal in there with all the fantasy stuff…in Disrupted, I was watching lots of Big Cat Diary and really loved how strong and even vicious female lions are, especially when they are protecting their young…so that’s why there’s a lioness in that quilt…she’s the ultimate protecting female.

She’s the one you want around. She’ll kick anyone’s ass. A lot of the animals in my quilts are protectors. The birds aren’t and neither are the snakes. The birds are the talkers, the storytellers, or they are a sign of something, of bad or evil or death. The snakes are just evil, bad, the sign of badness in other people. They lie, they carry poison, they are inside all of us, coiled around each of us.

Some tiny birdwing pieces…

Of course, the next crazy step is to cut all those suckers out.

It’s not a small pile of pieces. I added some different browns to help make the hawk colors.

I do try to reuse colors throughout the piece, to repeat fabrics in other places so there’s a connection between all the bits. So I used some of the browns I’d already used (there’s a lot of brown in this quilt) and then added a few more.

Today…I managed to only cry a bit. I still do that, you know. Cry every day. I think it just is the new me. Part of it was feeling very alone this morning. Part of it was feeling like I missed out on something this morning. Yes, we went out to dinner for Mother’s Day and they bought me a really awesome gift (will show tomorrow), but I bought my own flowers and got into an argument with the girlchild and didn’t feel like anything good. I guess that’s the REAL mom existence, isn’t it? My SIL said something about needing a Teflon coating as a mom, so the really bad stuff, the stuff that makes you wonder if loving your kids makes any sense at all, because they are driving you so batshit crazy that you want to run away (we’ve all been there), the Teflon can just make it bounce off. And she doesn’t even have teenagers yet.

I’m back to not being allowed to talk. It’s kinda been a theme for the last two years of my life. You will not talk. You will not use this word or that word. What you say is bad, it’s evil, it should be stopped. There will be consequences for your daring to speak. You will not like them.

It’s so tiring to feel that way all the time.

So I wasn’t going to iron tonight, because I had grades to do and I’m physically tired from yesterday’s hike…but I really thought my brain needed it. I’ve been feeling depressed (for years) for days…I guess worse than before.

First, though…I picked up the last quilts from a show that recently closed, so I finally dealt with 4 boxes, a tube, and a plastic-wrapped roll of all the quilts that have come home in the last month…

I got rid of all the boxes and other stuff and put them in my bedroom to be rolled up with the others. It’s depressing to have so many come home, sure, but then I remember that they went out there in the world and hung up in front of people…that’s why they were gone…and that’s a good thing. Hopefully it will happen again (but I actually have to ENTER something for that to happen).

I cut out the dog and the giant eyeball with the skull in it.

I’m down to the last 100 or so pieces, and they’re all part of the octopus…so I just need to decide what color he wants to be…

I was going to do it tonight…was considering that purple by the scissors (I spent some time straightening up the fabrics…the mess was driving me bonkers)…but I’m just not sure. So I will let it sit overnight and see what I think. I will be done tomorrow though…that’s good. I think.

I finished this book today, Hyperion by Dan Simmons…

I had a hard time getting into it; the first 50 pages were dense with world-building and strange vocabulary, organisms from multiple planets and lots of unknowns. Eventually, though, when he settles down into the story-telling portion of the book, I was really fascinated. The book is an outer story with 6 inner stories by major characters, explaining their reasons for going on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs, where they expect to meet the Lord of Pain, aka the Shrike. My favorite story was that of the detective, Brawne Lamia. She was also the only major female character, so that’s an interesting coincidence. She’s a tough but interesting character. The Shrike character is pictured on the front of the book I was reading…that is so not how I pictured it. I didn’t really connect the figure on the front with the description in the book until I was near the end. I will definitely go on and read the next one, as soon as I finish all the library books that have recently appeared. It did take me a while to get through this one, about a week…which is a lot, considering it’s not so long (but the font was so freakin’ tiny!). Anyway. It was a good read.

I meant to post this video of hail on the hike in Julian…

I was standing by myself at this point, up against the rocks, but listening to the rain and the wind (and then the hail) going through these oak trees perched on the edge of the trail. It was a beautifully meditative moment. I seem to be pretty good at pulling those moments out of the hikes I’m on. I guess that’s a good thing.

Moving on. I still have to be a mom tomorrow, but this time with no celebration, no card, no cheesecake (she did make cheesecake…definitely good stuff). It’s harder, but you know it will all turn out OK in the long run. I probably have a lot more crying to do, but hopefully that will get balanced out with better moments. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

I Am the Weapon/Boy Nobody Review

The book with two names…

I recently read Allen Zadoff’s I Am the Weapon, about a teenager who was raised to be a weapon, to go in and take out certain people. He is trained to blend in, find his mark, and quickly and quietly help them die of “natural” causes. Then he meets a girl he actually likes, and the story changes. He starts to question his training and it affects his ability to do his job. The psychological aspect of his hesitation is probably the most interesting part of the book, I think more because of the mayor in the story than his daughter.

The book was originally published as Boy Nobody, but was re-released as I Am the Weapon. He does plan a series with this one, and apparently it will also be a movie.

I liked the story. It was a bit short (I like really long books though) and definitely of the Young Adult genre. It kept my attention until the end and there were some surprises in the plot, which is nice. Sometimes I think the problem with Young Adult novels is that they tend to dumb down the emotion a bit, maybe to keep the younger reader engaged, and it seems an obvious difference to an adult novel…that said, the violence is definitely there, although not over the top. I appreciate how he makes decisions about violence in a very thinking manner.

I was a little disappointed in how they handled his original story of being taken for training, and for the assumption about his father’s death. Both seemed improbable, but he was young and the memory of the young is somewhat shady.

Anyway, looking forward to the next in the series, if just to hear what dad did that was so bad…and where the heck was mom?

Half a King Review

I recently read Joe Abercrombie’s Half a King, a story of a prince with a crippled hand who becomes king due to circumstances he had not expected…

I enjoyed the story, even though it was highly predictable. I guess once you’ve read one kingly fantasy about the guy that you didn’t expect becoming king, well, they all kind of sound similar. That said, Abercrombie’s writing was solid and the story had enough new details to the standard coming-of-age fare that it kept me reading until the end (which, of course, isn’t REALLY the end). Oh yes, this is a series. It’s all “He Left a Boy; He Returned a Man.” There are shades of George R. R. Martin all over the place, but then Martin is stealing from years of fantasy worlds with kings in charge. The women in the book are few and far between, and somewhat troubled, but then it seems ALL the characters are troubled. The female minister seems a replacement mother, but isn’t. The king’s real mother is Cersei Lannister all over again, minus the incest. There are two romantic figures who show up and are dealt with. The boat’s captain is female, but a drunkard and more than a bit crazy. It’s certain some of those will show up again.

It’s listed as Young Adult AND Adult Fantasy, which is interesting in itself (where is the line anyway? I don’t seem to be able to find it.). There are two more books planned for the series, which seems to focus on Yarvi, the second son of a king who dies in the first few pages. Yarvi is an interesting character, definitely morally good in general, although near the end, he does become a bit more heartless about sacrificing the lives of a few to get his vengeance. A few parts of the story are a bit unbelievable, but it is fantasy, and I enjoyed it anyway.

Would I read the next two? Oh yeah…if they are written in the same way, I will. Abercrombie is not a Faulkner…his turn of phrase is short, to the point, sometimes even brutal. He has written other books that are of a different style and focused more on the Adult Fantasy crowd, and I would definitely try one of those. His writing is interesting enough that it distracted me from the standard plot, so definitely worth a second read. That’s probably any author’s hope…that the first book of theirs that you read brings you back to try another (and then you hope the second one keeps you in).

Stop and Let Me Be

Having a full-time job and being a single mom and being an artist means I never feel like I’m caught up with anything. My ex made some snotty comment about the state of my house yesterday…he doesn’t bring his job home with him, that’s for sure, and I deal with most of the kid stuff. Plus he actually cleans house on the weekends or at night, and I obviously don’t. I’m doing art instead. I keep meaning to schedule 30 minutes every other day or so to pick up, or even 10 minutes each day to focus on one small area of the house, but then reality kicks in and I don’t get to it. Time gets sucked up by stuff like making tonight’s dinner last night or dealing with some stupid tax thing or yet another college thing or an expired prescription.

This is why I can’t pick a new camera, even though I have birthday money to pay for it. This is why I can’t figure out the car situation. This is why the house is not clean. Because I have a brain that would rather be picking fabric or drawing or even reading a book than straightening up the house. I solve so many problems during the day that at some point, I run out of problem-solving ability. Literally, my brain just stops working on that stuff…it’s like a puppy who doesn’t want to walk any further. It pushes its feet into the ground and no amount of pushing, prodding, cajoling will budge it.

The only thing it wants to do is wander off into that calm arena of artmaking.

So I let it. Maybe that’s not the best thing to do; certainly it doesn’t get the house clean. I have a plan for the damn car. I don’t have a plan for the damn camera. And I think some of this looming depressive cloud that is settling over me this week is summer coming. I’ve never been depressed about summer coming. But it’s just another unstructured break that reminds me of badness. Yesterday was sad day. I thought maybe part of it was lack of sleep, so I made an attempt to go to bed earlier last night…which is why this post is happening NOW rather than last night.

I did make a decision about the main figure in quilt…she’s flesh, not gray. She’s still alive. Barely. So I stayed in sorta grayed-out flesh tones…nothing bright.

The other two figures are more on the pink side of flesh, and I’ll use those fabrics for the two hands grabbing her thighs. Need contrast.

The biggest problem with picking fabrics for this section is that there is no way I can pick the whole body out in one night, and I don’t want to iron a bunch of flesh fabrics and then have to re-iron those fabrics with the next batch of flesh fabrics every night. I need to see the WHOLE thing. Usually I lay out the whole body and then iron for hours. Like I would budget a weekend day (in reality, I would have done this during break). Not happening this time. So I started laying them out…

And I realized that I could do all the bone pieces and some other things on the leg, like a stitched scar. I have to cover everything during the day, because I have cats who like to sit on fabric and get things all messed up, so I didn’t want to lay out too much flesh last night. I think I did about an hours’ worth, and I know I’m in the 900s now, but I still have a bunch of random 800 pieces to do, like the eyeball on the leg (you know, because legs have eyeballs) and the grabby hands…oh yeah, and pubic hair, which means I have to decide what color hair she’s going to have.

More pieces…the big ones are all leg bones and pelvis…

It’s really hard sometimes to explain to people what I do in the middle of the night, when they ask how much I sleep or how I stay up so late, while they are obviously thinking how fucking crazy I am. When I’m ironing, I’m not tired any more. I’m not stuck in a bad place in my head where some 6-second Vine of derision and uselessness runs over and over again, berating me for my mistakes. I’m in a place of peace. So it makes sense that I would want to stay there for as long as possible, to make that feeling the largest part of my brain, especially as I get ready for sleep; having that be the prevailing thought as I fall asleep helps me stay asleep, helps me have good dreams instead of bad. Helps me wake up in an OK mood instead of the other kind.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get the good sleep last night, despite the early bedtime (“early”…make that 1 AM instead of 2 AM). I have been reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak…

It’s a beautiful book. The words, how Zusak writes a phrase, the visuals of the sky and souls, are absolutely wonderful to read. Yes, it’s a WWII book about Germany and Nazis…but it’s really not. But it is. Death is the narrator, and it’s surprising how human death seems…more human than some people I know. I was reading it at the gym and came to the last 50 pages and started to get very emotional…now have I cried at the gym? Heck yeah. Regularly. Sad, really, but it happens. Too much brain time. Proof that this is a significant depression, because the serotonin levels from exercise should be helping with mood, and they don’t. Not really.

Anyway. I chose to stop reading, because I figured the last 50 pages would be pretty sad. And I was already in sad mode. So I came home and cooked tonight’s dinner AND last night’s dinner (god I hate all that cooking) and ironed for a while and thought I would put off reading the end until another day. Except I couldn’t. So I sat in bed at 1 AM and I finished the book (I read fast). And I cried during the whole last 50 pages. So I guess it’s a good thing I waited until I got home. It’s a good book. Don’t care about the movie.

Anyway. So I’m not really starting off today in the right mood, and it’s kind of a crazy day. I wish I could regulate my mood better, but despite taking all my meds and trying to eat and sleep right, best I can, and exercising every day, my moods have a mind of their own. I’m standing off over here watching them fight and piss and moan, wondering when they will just stop and let me be. Deep sigh.

Quagmire

I really do need to go to sleep. I shouldn’t be up this late. I’m debating leaving this and writing the post in the morning. I could do that. I finished grades; I finished that silly essay for the damn application for a summer job (short…a little bit of money to supplement, but still leaves me time to get the quilts done that I need to get done…talk about the ultimate balance…I need money, but I also need to make art. So I don’t sleep enough and I work too much. It’s all wrong.).

I’ll type for a bit. I’m not quite tired enough yet. I like to be so tired when I go to bed that I can barely find the energy to set the alarm. That’s the best, because then I fall asleep right away and sleep straight through (well, almost). I hate waking up and evaluating my level of tiredness with the level of darkness.

I got started late today. Girlchild and I did a short stint at the gym. She’s allowed to bike and go on the treadmill now, and she’s chomping at the bit to get exercising again. Me? I just want an excuse to get serotonin going and to read a book. I love to read. I really love to read. I had a conversation on the hike this weekend wherein I tried to explain how much I like to read, and when I told them how many books I had read last year, they were a bit shocked. And then I said I read at the gym…so they said, what do you do at the library? Work out? Yeah. Well. I read a lot. I guess that makes me some sort of freak. Here’s me being a freak.

Then girlchild was nice enough to make dinner (this was after we had a screeching argument about how many years of foreign language she needed AND the data plan on her phone AND something else that I don’t remember. I’m kind of done with the part where I know nothing even though I don’t know nothing, although there are apparently lots of people who think I know nothing and most of them are under the age of 18, except for a few who are my age or so and have decided that I know nothing, that my knowledge is always wrong.).

ANYWAY. She cooked and I input grades. It was ugly. I’m not being nice this time of year. Turn the work in. Remind me over the summer to analyze the numbers of kids turning homework in this year vs last year. If it hasn’t changed by a significant amount, I’m not doing these damn detentions next year. I don’t think it’s working.

Boychild and I spent some time looking at cars online…still trying to deal with that issue. Running out of time. Then the Franchise Tax Board is still messing with me over my Head-of-Household status for one year out of the 10 or 11 I’ve claimed. Assholes. Such a waste of taxpayer dollars.

So I thought about not ironing tonight, about taking a break, but my head was swirling into the abyss…and I just don’t want to be in that place. I want some peace, dammit. Some happy. Some content. Some quiet. A portion of time when my brain isn’t berating me for bad decisions and bad people and just plain bad. A moment when I feel like I’m doing something right. That’s it. That’s what I need.

So I ironed.

Electrical thunder bolts…I finished monitor head.

Then I started on the arm I showed yesterday…with Dr. Scully looking on…

These are all the same flesh colors used in the two other smaller figures in the quilt. I’m still debating the large figure…do I make it a different set of flesh fabrics (the original plan), or do I make them all shades of gray? I kinda did that in the Earth Stories quilt, but I don’t know if I want to do that for this one. I’m still debating it. Flashing an image behind my closed eyes of the large figure in gray and then in flesh tones. Two very different images. Two very different commentaries. Flashing back and forth between the two.

I ironed pieces 626-720…

Not EVEN 100 pieces tonight. Oh well. I did the whole arm on the right of the quilt. I still need to do the DNA and then the headphones, and then I’ll be able to start ironing the larger figure…

Which should take me about a million years.

There’s the left leg. With a hand grabbing it. That hand is attached to no one in the quilt. It creeped me out when I drew it. It creeps me out now. This whole quilt creeps me out sometimes. I know where it came from, the depths of the bad shit in my head. The pieces of menopause that are scratching at me. The sense of loss and grief. The splintered mind. Trying to reconcile the brain that is sad and depressed and disconnected and hopeless with the part that makes the art, that doesn’t give up, that doesn’t stop, that is always re-evaluating and trying to find The Way Out.

Deep breaths. Making art shouldn’t make you cry. Life shouldn’t make you cry (nonstop). I showed a video in class today of a family affected by Huntington’s Disease as part of our genetics unit. The mom with HD talks about how she can’t be a good mom because of the disease, and she’s so sad and fragile. I almost lost it about 5 times today.

Am I doing it right? Are my kids going to be OK? Did I hamstring them by putting them through divorce and another bad relationship? Will they be able to do it right with absolutely no role models? Neither parent is competent in relationships, whether it’s the actual BEING in one or PICKING the right person. Either way, we both failed. Me, multiple times.

I hope not. As a parent, all you want is for your children to be happy. The boychild is so observant and aware of human interactions…I’m impressed, because I know it is a learned behavior, not built into his wiring. I did that. Girlchild? Sigh. Emotional hurricane still. She will figure it out. She’s better than she was. I pick my battles, and unfortunately, today there was more than one battle. I fought them all bravely and with minimal emotional investment. I feel it NOW, but in the moment, I was OK.

Here’s the current pile of fabrics…growing…steadily.

Sigh. I wish I could say this process is making me happy, but it’s not. I am in a quagmire. Hey, when boychild and I were in New York, we saw a real quagmire. One with a name. It’s such a lovely word, quagmire: a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot. That’s kinda like my brain. Boggy and giving way.

Next step? Big body. Need a decision about color. Then it will take me a few nights…because the body is pieces 744-1347, a little more than 600 pieces. That WOULD be 6 nights, but all the fabrics will be the same for the whole figure. Let’s hope I have a better chunk of time Wednesday or Thursday.

Yeah. Sleep. She’s right there, tugging at my arm. Begging me to head down the hallway. Claiming a warm bed and trouble-free thoughts. Wish it could really do that.

Fish and Seaweed

I tried to post last night, but WordPress was being cranky. I finally gave up trying. As the week drags on, my brain is more and more challenged. Tiredness kicks in harder, kids are more frustrating. They’re testing right now, the first version of Common Core, but they don’t count this year, so it’s kind of a strange place we’re in. Usually testing is a really big deal, like you don’t teach anything that might challenge their brains, so they have all their brain power for the tests (honestly, there isn’t a lot leftover for anyone after 2 hours of staring at multiple-choice questions). You don’t give homework. Usually it’s also about 3 weeks later in the year and NOT right after break (a challenge in itself). None of it applies, this year, though, so I’m trying to teach genetics when they’re spending two periods a day testing. Not necessarily the best choice. Hopefully it will schedule better next year. Hopefully they’ll be done soon.

Luckily, last night’s ironing was pretty simple. Of course, I didn’t DO very much ironing either. I was too tired. I ironed fish and seaweed…

That’s it. Can you see the seaweed? Exciting. I also ironed some blood. There is blood in this quilt, ironic, since it’s about menopause, when the blood is supposed to stop. But that’s not the only blood out there, of course. (A vision of Dexter pops into mind, probably a disturbing thing)

I stopped watching Dexter eventually. It got old. I stopped watching a lot of things in the last year. I’ve been watching X Files while picking fabrics. They all start to melt together, but basically I’ve got weird images and events and aliens on my mind. And I read a lot of fantasy/sci fi as well, so that doesn’t help. The kids are both watching all the episodes of House, so if I’m in the living room in the evening, that’s what’s on. When I was a kid, you couldn’t serial-watch all these shows like you can now. You had to wait each week (or all summer) for the next episode, and if you missed it, you missed it. We didn’t even have a VCR. We couldn’t tape anything.

I don’t know if this is better or not, being able to access so much right when you want it, but I’m sure it changes how we deal with the world. A relative made a comment about “this generation” (speaking of her own kids, who are about 7 years younger than me), that when the going gets tough, this generation bails (she spelled “bails” wrong though, resulting in hilarity in MY household, where jokes about baling cotton and hay ensued. You can’t be a bad speller here…you will not survive). Huh. I don’t think I’ve bailed. I’ve been bailed upon, but haven’t bailed myself. I don’t know what that means, and technically, her kids are a generation younger than mine. My students don’t have persistence, many of them, true, but they are in middle school. It takes time and energy to develop persistence. I do know adults my age who bail. It seems like an easy childhood makes it more difficult for some people to deal with hardship. Then again, I think some people just know how to step up and some don’t. How much of that is the generation, how much is parenting, how much is the world we live in now, the environment? I’m sure someone is writing self-help books about that.

I was reading an article about how the Brits assumed there would be all this psychological trauma during the Blitz in London, with all the bombs dropping, and the people in charge set up all these psych centers to help people deal with the psychological damage, but in the end, most Brits just went on with their days, going to bomb shelters at night, going back home in the morning. Suicide rates went down. It actually helped them feel better about themselves if they continuously survived the bombings. There was some sense of achievement, however illogical that seems. Obviously, those that died…well, they died. But their psychological health wasn’t an issue any more. Those that survived seemed to rally in a way that the government really hadn’t expected. The psych centers closed because they weren’t needed. Interesting, that.

Anyway. Yes, it’s possible I think too much. Or read too much (naw, impossible).

I didn’t iron for long. I was tired. I mentioned that. Tired. Still tired this morning.

More fabrics in the pile now…added orange (fish), green (seaweed), and red (blood).

I would have ironed more, but the next thing is one of the large figures or the guy in the boat and that requires way more brain power, time, and energy than I had last night. I try to iron all of each section before I move on, so it would have been another hour and a hundred or more pieces, and that wasn’t an option. I did grade, exercise, and meditate…all good. See, I do better with a routine. Or do I?

Part of the problem was the night before. I went to bed and had crying issues. Not sure why. Couldn’t sleep, brain goes into overdrive, unhappy. Finally slept, woke up, that mood is still there. Cried going to work, couldn’t get it to stop even in the damn parking lot. Don’t know why. I hate that. Used to be I could pin that to hormonal stuff, time of the month, and it would be really short-lived, but who knows at the moment? Body doesn’t know if it’s coming or going, thyroid meds finally kicking in? I hate not being able to figure out where a specific emotion is coming from. That’s the stuff that makes you feel crazy, out of control. If you hear something sad or feel something bad, crying makes sense, sometimes is even a relief. But just randomly? That’s just crazy talking. It’s been a salty year. So done with it. Someone says something or I hear a song or see a stupid ad for a stupid movie and I’m almost bawling (that happened last night with the girlchild in the room…I got up and walked out…don’t remember what movie…just know I won’t be going to see it).

I had to go buy some AP study guides for the girlchild, which meant venturing into an actual bookstore (because she left it until the last minute). This is just as dangerous as going into a fabric store at the moment (can’t just buy ONE), so I rewarded myself (and the boychild) by buying Saga Vol. 3 (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), which came out recently…

It was good. More weird alien stuff and creatures making moral decisions plus things haunting you and making you crazy. And wings and horns. Nothing bad about that. That’s the kind of crazy I can handle.

Holed Up in My Head

When I don’t write, why? Why am I not writing? I’m holed up in my head (hold up? That’s what I wrote the first time). I’ve obviously set a schedule for myself to help process my brain so it doesn’t fuck with me as much as it wants to, but when I’m really depressed, when I feel like I won’t be able to write anything but WAHHH, then I don’t write. I’m tired of feeling WAHHH, tired of thinking WAHHH, don’t want to be like that, but it doesn’t just stop because you want it to. Wow, the world would be a different place entirely if we could stop the bad stuff just by wanting it.

I think that’s where most of the world misunderstands depression the most. I do want it to stop. The counselor and I often talk about my attitude toward things making them more stressful or depressing, but then she admits that yes, your life is really stressful and suggests I distract myself more from the depressing things. So then I do that, I go on a hike, I go to a cocktail party, I go to an art exhibit, I read a book (or 10), I go to the gym, and the real problem is at the END of all that, then the depressing things, which have been hiding out in the corners of my brain, they come rushing out, ten times bigger and louder and scarier, like they were multiplying back in the shadows, and then I am alone, by myself, staring at them, and the WAHHH is bigger and longer. Plus last night, I was tired (hike plus jet lag, because yes, I’m still jet-lagged), so WAHHH plus tired is a nasty-ass duo that does nothing but fuck with your head.

So I went to bed, to sleep…which was fine until 3 AM when my brain couldn’t handle that state any more (I can’t tell you how welcome the blankness of sleep is sometimes, although the dream I had where I was on a Quilting Arts episode with my ex-boyfriend’s mom and she was trying to do this crafty thing and I was supposed to be helping her and I just couldn’t do anything right, wow, Freud, have a field day with that, eh?…well, that wasn’t really the blankness of sleep, was it?)…so at 3, I was wide awake. So that’s not so good. It was a rough night, so I’m still in WAHHH mode. Seriously. Sigh.

I drew this one in Ithaca while watching a movie…I think…

So I wake up in analytical mode, how can I force the WAHHH back into hiding (the WAHHH is some version of the depression, the one that just makes me cry all the time and feel like my guts have been ripped out of my abdomen), how can I make things feel less raw, less painful? My brain is throwing things out there, things it thinks will work, but also reminding me that school starts back up tomorrow and grades are due and today is Easter (not a huge deal in our household), and my yard and house are a fucking disaster area, and if I were NORMAL, I would clean house and pick up things and sweep and trim and go buy some flowers for the front entry planters and all that might make me feel better, which isn’t WRONG, but I don’t think it works as well as making art. The Have-To and Should brigades are rearing their ugly heads and slamming in on all sides, and some part of me just doesn’t really care about all that. What’s the point of cleaning house? Of putting away the piles of books in my room? Of uncovering the table yet again? What is the point? It doesn’t really make me feel better. It’s pointless.

I drew this on the plane home, upgraded to first class because they messed up our flights, while watching Ender’s Game, which I picked because it was least likely to make me cry. It made me cry. Just so you know. By the way, the movie kind of confused me for about the first 10 minutes, because it seemed to leave out a huge chunk of the story, enough that I wasn’t sure what was really going on (and I actually READ the book), but then the rest of the movie was fine. Strange. It didn’t really go into the deeper emotions of the kids either.

I wanted to be further along in the quilt, but that is always the case. I accept that I am always expecting more of myself than my self is apparently capable of providing.

So it’s morning now, and I still shouldn’t be writing, because the WAHHH didn’t go away overnight…around three in the morning, it turned into some force of nature that woke me up and slapped me around, and yes, I’m still tired and physically tired and mentally tired…did I mention tired?

I’m just going to save this as a draft and hope that the afternoon/evening brain is a more focused place, a less drowning-in-the-shit existence.

Street art on the back wall of the Weber building, where I was going to an art closing reception…

So it’s night now. And I’m still tired. I’m maybe ready to start school tomorrow? Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter if I’m ready; I have to do it. So much of my life is that way. I just roll. I didn’t manage to make art today, which is too bad, but I did clean up the office/studio enough so that I can start picking fabrics tomorrow night, if I can find the energy. I just have to put some fabrics away from the last fabric-choosing event, and then I can start. It will take a long time; I know that. Plus grades are due soon, so I did spend time today doing that. It never puts me in a good mood to grade, I have to say.

The other side of the mural.

WAHHH is still there. I exercised, but now am too tired to meditate. I know I will just fall asleep, so I’m going to finish this and then head for bed…yes, early! Apparently last night’s interrupted 8+ hours was not enough. Meds are still off, I think. Sigh. A body in balance…something I dream of.

I’ve finished a bunch of books this week…Delirium by Lauren Oliver…

read on the first flight, from San Diego to Minneapolis…recommended by the girlchild. A solid YA dystopian novel where love is some horrible disease with a cure…her writing and world are interesting enough to keep you reading, even when you think you know what will happen next. I’ll definitely read the rest, as soon as I can get through some of the library holds that have recently shown up…all at the same time. This is the second Oliver book I’ve read. Plus the girlchild has the rest of them on her Kindle, so I just have to carve out the time to read them.

Then I started one that I read about on another teacher’s website…I was a little leery of it at first, when I started reading it, but quickly fell under its spell…The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker…

This has fantasy and reality and intrigue and politics. It is LOOONG, and sometimes the story drags a bit, but the tale of how a jinni is trapped and a golem comes to life and both survive in 1899 New York City, combining folk stories of the Jewish and Arabic culture, is really fascinating. I enjoyed this book, although it did get noticeably long. I read it on three flights and in two airports and at two separate gyms. Impressed? Anyway. Definitely an interesting story.

The last one was kind of a last-minute choice of something I could get from the library (this is before all the library holds showed up), because I was afraid I wouldn’t have anything to read on the plane…Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn…

This is sort of a murder mystery, but then again, maybe not, but then again, yes. The story of a married couple is told through the eyes of each partner as the wife disappears and the husband is investigated for her murder. This story does not go the way you think it will, which adds to the suspense. It was hard to put down, even though it was a little crazy at times.

Anyway, I have permission from my counselor to distract myself with books and art and exercise…she prefers that to any bad habits I might bring on instead to hide the depression. So although I am holed up in my head, rarely coming out for air, I’m not overdosing or gambling, so that’s OK then. Maybe the WAHHH will get bored with all the other stories I’m filling my head with, and it will wander off into the sunset to harass some other poor old depressed person. It’s good that at least a couple of the things I like to do will let me close the depression door and hide out for a while. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the door completely closed and locked, but…well, there’s nothing I can do about that except continuing to do what I do. Probably more sleep wouldn’t hurt.

The Word Exchange

I recently finished, after some long stressful days, The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon.

The stressful days weren’t caused by the book, I should add. So. This book. I alternately loved, hated, was exhilarated by, and was irritated by this book. I’ve noticed a lot of the reviews of this book have ranged from 1-5 stars, so it’s not just me. What I can say is that I think this book is challenging to read, but I also believe that is part of what makes it awesome. Because the story is about losing language, when characters start to sound like Jabberwocky (which YES is hard to read, on purpose, people), then it adds to the experience of the story. It is just like it would be if you were living in a world where electronics and a weird word flu had taken over.

So. The book is about the future when we are even more addicted to our electronic devices than we are now (shocking), and a virus seems to be attacking people’s abilities to speak and corporate moneygrubbers are out to control language and there are good people and bad people and people who don’t know what they are. At times, the story was difficult, especially when some of the characters who were troubled by both their wavering ethics AND the word flu were trying to tell their part of the story, but it was such a relief when Doug or Anana would report that it made up for most of that. I’ve said before, this is NOT an easy book to read. Then again, neither are many of the classics, and I don’t think we should only be giving good reviews to books that are easy on the eyes and don’t challenge us. This was definitely worth the read, although it took me a bit longer than normal…I did enjoy it in the end (there were, yes, moments when I did NOT enjoy it). So. Read it.

That Never Happens in My Real Life…

Yesterday, I went on a road trip to Aliso Viejo in Orange County (California) to finally see the California Fibers exhibit at Soka University, where I have had two pieces since January.

It’s a beautiful campus, at least what little I saw of it.

It was obviously Spring Break, because otherwise, I’m fairly sure these pools must be filled with students, right?

There’s no way they’d stay out of there.

Julie was my companion (and driver, which was awfully nice of her)…

It was a gorgeous Spring day in California, although a little on the warm side…

I’ll be posting about the exhibit (again) on the California Fibers blog, as soon as I find some free time to do that…today is kinda overbooked. Again. I know.

Julie and I spent quite a bit of time discussing this global map, especially how it wasn’t the way we were used to seeing maps laid out, with Japan at its center (Soka’s founder is Japanese and the sister school is also in Japan).

Relative sizes of countries and locations of islands and the equator were part of the discussion.

Then we headed outside again to check out the fountain…

Especially because it appeared to have dead bugs all over it…

That may be a commentary on university costs right there (a definite discussion point in my household at the moment). I hadn’t been able to come see this exhibit for so long because it’s only open Monday-Friday, which is kind of annoying. I mean, I guess I understand in that it’s on a university campus, and their staff isn’t around on the weekends, but…hell, I would have had to take a day off work to see it otherwise. I’m not sure how many non-retired people who aren’t students at the university have been able to see the exhibit, which is too bad, because the space is really beautiful. It’s up through May 8…if you’re in town, you should check it out.

It was a nice trip, and I got home early enough to get some stuff done…although some of that was following the kids around. Girlchild is cat-sitting (or checking-in-on-cats really), and Maus decided he didn’t so much LIKE being in the garage, but definitely liked being TALL.

There was some worry and some kitty squawking and a ladder was involved, but we found out later that he does this all the time. No worries.

I sat outside while girlchild did all her feeding and cleaning and trash stuff and kitty-petting, because I had an ebook that was due back today and had holds on it (not sure how the renewal policy works on that) and I wanted to finish the book…it was Parasite by Mira Grant…

It’s a story set in the future, 2027, where we have developed intestinal parasites that help keep humans healthy, but as always, in the future, our meddling with science will cause issues. This is the first of a 3-part series called Parasitology, and I’m looking forward to the next one. I really liked this book…it was scientifically intriguing (although the reason I gave it a 4 out of 5 on GoodReads is because some of the science wasn’t explained well enough, and that bugged me). There’s some obvious stuff going on and some political/corporate intrigue and a bunch of crazy people acting in the name of science or money or both. And dogs. Dogs are good in this story. All good stories should have dogs in them.

Interestingly, Mira Grant is the pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, whose Rosemary and Rue I read last year. I thought this was much better of a story, more solid and grab-at-you than the October Daye series (although I would probably read more of those as well). McGuire as Grant has also written the Newsflesh trilogy, which is now on my to-read list.

Then I finally made it home and managed to get to work on the last few hundred pieces on the newest quilt…I finished tracing around 11 PM (I fixed dinner and did other stuff in there, really)…and here it all is, laid out…

It’s probably 7 yards…I try to cut about 1-yard pieces, although I don’t actually measure them, because that would be way more anal than I am (I know, I seem that anal, but I’m not). It took a total of 21 hours and 36 minutes to trace all of them, which is interesting because like I’ve said before, usually I can do 100 in an hour, so this one must have been more complicated. There are 1776 pieces officially (although I know there are probably 10-15 more due to mistakes in numbering). The quilt itself, well, the image anyway, is 34″ wide x 73″ high (so add about 10 inches to each of those measurements for a finished size).

In comparison, the quilt I did for Celebrating Silver is about 40×70″ and has 1227 pieces. So. Yeah. And it took only 95 hours to complete. I’m sure I can cut that time! (Are you kidding me? Tracing Celebrating only took a little over 11 hours. I am fucking nuts.)

Anyway. I’m going to start cutting those out today, knock on wood. I have a busy art day planned, with a new life-drawing class I’m trying out as a plan for the summer, lunch with friends I’ve never met in person (ah, the wonders of the internet), and then a stitching meeting afterwards (that’s where I’ll be cutting stuff…it’s not appropriate to cut out Wonder Under at the other two places, you know?).

I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep when I finished, but I also wasn’t ready to cut the WU out, so I debated cleaning (I debate that a lot…mostly I do it for about 10-20 minutes and then I figure there must be something better to do). Then I remembered that I only had a little cutting left on the Mammogram fabrics, so I pulled that out…

and managed to finish. It took a total of about 7 hours to cut this one out…interesting, because it only has about 360 pieces in it. But many of them are big and complicated pieces, difficult to cut out. So now it’s ready to iron down as well. I will probably save that for after Spring Break, because it’s not a difficult task…it doesn’t require a huge amount of brain power. I really want to get to the fabric-choosing phase of the big quilt over break, which is looking more and more impossible as the days disappear behind me. Oh well. It will all get done. And I need to draw! I have two I need to draw in the next few weeks. I’m not worried. They’re smaller than this one, but inevitably, I will make sure they have 12 trillion pieces in them.

Yup. I’m a little crazy that way. But you knew that already. But I finished two tasks! In one day! It must be Spring Break. That never happens in my real life.