I Can Do No More

Well. So. Some days you just write off. I did get some of this…

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And honestly, that’s a good thing. I tried grading (almost fell asleep doing it), I tried reading the book I’m supposed to be reading for school (more almost falling asleep), I hung out, I went to book club, but mostly just to hang out. I’m tired and stressed and cranky and overwhelmed and worried about getting the next drawing done and a whole bunch of other shit.

So today is going to be better. I’m going to hang out and do some hobby sewing and then come back and maybe grade a little and then work on the ironing of this small quilt to fabric so I can start drawing on Saturday or Sunday. Don’t look at the calendar for the next week, because it’s ugly. I’m gonna do what I can do. I can do no more.

You’re Just the Gravel on the Road*

Between quilts, there’s usually a few days, sometimes a week, of downtime, of braindeadness, of not being able to take on the next piece because my brain is still in the last one. Sometimes I have the next one right there and I’m able to jump right into it. This seems to work best when the drawing is already done. Certain parts of artmaking take more brain presence than others: drawing, picking fabrics…that might be it! Amusing. Mostly I’m a worker bee completing the task set to me, more than an artist in creation mode. I don’t mind that though. It’s meditative…it’s part of the process.

So I finished a quilt on Sunday night. I came home last night and ironed it and dehaired it for the photographer…it goes today. I have the next one started. Currently it looks like this…

Except bigger…that’s from July 3. Yes, that long ago. I have a page in my notebook with a list of things that need to go into this quilt and I’m not sure how all that is going to happen or whether I might just have to start over (it happens), so I’m just letting it all ferment in my head for a day or too. I don’t want to start and not get it right. The last quilt…I felt really unsure about it until it went together in fabric. Then I could see it. I want to feel better about this one. It’s not about making them fast because of a theme…it’s about making them true to me. Which I do…but sometimes it’s harder than others.

I couldn’t deal with that drawing last night…so I found other ways to be creative. This is where it’s good to have some things lying around. I have some hobby sewing I do…you see it here pretty often. There’s this one…I’ve been working on it for 5-10 minutes a day since Jan 1.

I added two nights’ worth of fern stitch in the bottom right.

Then there’s this one…the bird quilt. I spent quite a bit of time last night spacing out, watching Dark Matter and trying to get this green stem stitched down. Didn’t finish.

And then this one…I traced the Wonder Under back in June. It’s small, less than 400 pieces. I needed something to do last night, so I sorted the pieces into 100s.

I don’t know if I’ll pick fabrics tonight or if I’ll have the brainpower to draw the next one.

But it’s ready to go. I do have a countdown on the next one…it has to be done and photographed in 75 days. I thought I had a ton of time on this last one, and it really stretched me…it was 14 days early, but I had a similar chunk of time, starting August 15 or so, and this next one will be more complicated. It sounds like a ton of time, but it’s not. The holidays are in there…pro: more time to create…con: more not-art shit you gotta do. So I can’t really take time out to make a whole new quilt before I start that one. But I might be able to allow myself two days to pick fabrics before I start drawing. Maybe. I’ll think about it.

Seriously, I’m harder on myself with artmaking (well, and with school) than anyone else could be. I didn’t grade last night. I should have. Oh well.

This morning’s sky. I like being able to see the sunrises…except I don’t like being up early. As the days get shorter, this is good though. Another three weeks of sunrises and then Daylight Savings Time…

And I lose them again for a while.

*Tom Waits, Day after Tomorrow

I’m a God-Dang Rolling Stone*

Monday mornings. You know already what most of the day looks like. It’s gonna be hot. There’s a cool thing you’re doing in science, but then kids have to turn a major assignment in, and that’s always a hassle. “Did you mean TODAY? I’m not ready.” So where I worked over the weekend to make sure stuff was graded and done for YOU, you chose to do nothing, the same kids I caught trying to do their homework in class on Friday. We don’t work at home? I do. Maybe that’s a mistake (I don’t think it is), but certainly it’s something you should know how to do. Being successful in college doesn’t mean getting it all done in class…the same with many jobs. You make time for fun stuff too, true. I do that. Not as well as some of my students, ironically. Ending the day with my favorite past time…a staff meeting. Oh yeah baby.

So in good news, I finished the quilt. My photographer’s not answering email (minor issue)…but it’s ready for photography. It took almost 100 hours. Seriously, like 7 minutes short of 100 hours. I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday and Sunday sewing down binding and sleeves. Big is not fast in this instance…

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Saturday night was out and about…this had no name…but I loved it.

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Plus this sign…

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And these lights…

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Home relatively early, so I did three nights of catchup on this…

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Finishing the eyeball. Still not as free and loose as I’d like, but maybe that’s just me.

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Last night, I inked the quilt…just some additional shading and detail. Sometimes I feel like they need it…sometimes they don’t.

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And then I piled it up on the ironing board, ready for ironing and dehairing for the photographer.

It’s hard when you finish one (late, like 9:30 at night) and you have the next one ready, but you’re not ready to start it…mentally. I often don’t have a lot of down time between pieces, and the next one is a drawing that’s enlarged and ready for all the rest of it. But I needed some space from this last one. I graded for a while…was really efficient for once. But I’d been on Facebook and Instagram, and the #MeToo stuff was getting to me. For one thing, I don’t like following a lot of trendy/fad stuff online. But this was legit, in that I think most men don’t have a clue that every woman or female-identifying person around them has dealt with this…and not just once…many, many times, some violently, some so vague that you didn’t know it happened until you were processing the day in your head. Some annoying, some creepy, some downright scary. It’s harder having a daughter, because you know she’ll deal with it too, and you’re fairly sure you didn’t prepare her for it, especially because she comes home and tells you about some incident where her friend behaved the way you would have, shut it down, but your own kids thought you were just paranoid, when in reality, you’d just tried to impart years of bad experiences, and obviously didn’t say it right. Or because of that mom/daughter thing, she doesn’t listen. She has to make her own experiences, and you hope that it’s more of the mild instances and not the scary ones. The irritating, annoying, is that all you think I’m here for? instances. Instead of the ones where you’ve got your keys in between your fingers and your heart is racing and you’re evaluating all the ways out and how fast you can run. Or even worse, it’s your boss and the way out means losing your job and benefits and you can’t really afford to do that.

So I drew. It’s not an awesome drawing. It’s just a drawing. I’m a visual person. So there it is.

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And I’m lucky to have one of those men in my life who’s sitting there shocked at all the women in his FB feed who are typing out that hashtag, and who comes in and hugs me, says he’s sorry, sorry for all those assholes who don’t get it, who think they’re entitled, who may not even realize what they’re doing, because they don’t think before they act, or worse, those who have thought about it and can’t see why not. Does this hashtag rebellion reduce the impact of what Harvey Weinstein did? Fuck no…because he’s in a position of power, but even those who aren’t think this behavior is OK, and we need all those men who do NOT think it’s OK to yell about it too…because we women already know it’s all too easy to tune our voices out.

On that cheery note, happy Monday. May y’all survive the start of the work week, and maybe the catcalls and abuse will abate slightly today because of everyone putting it out there.

*The Roots, The Seed (2.0)

I Ain’t Wasting No More Time*

I finished tracing Wonder Under. This is very exciting. OK. It’s not. Well. Last night was hard, because my feet were tired from standing and walking, and here I was, standing some more. So it was exciting to be done with that.

I thought the piece had just over 800 pieces, but it was closer to 900…

It’s lots of bigger pieces, so it took up a lot of Wonder Under, about 7 1/2 yards.

And over 11 hours of tracing. But it’s done…and now on to cutting it out. Let’s assume another 10 hours or so…usually it’s less than the tracing time, but these are bigger pieces, so they’ll take longer to cut out. I wanted to be ironing to fabric this weekend, but that would mean doing a couple of hours of cutting every night. It’s certainly possible…I can’t guarantee it. Although I won’t have to stand to do it, so that’s a plus. The transition from a summer of sitting whenever I like to standing all the time is somewhat traumatic to my feet. Perhaps I need new shoes? My podiatrist would say so. But he doesn’t pay my bills.

The weather here is a little weird…we got a brief spurt of rain (and thunder) yesterday in the middle of a heat wave.

It’s supposed to be really hot again today and tomorrow. At least it’s cooling down at night…although it takes my house a while to realize cooler weather.

Meanwhile, adjustments abound. On the left is Satchemo…on the right is Kitten. It’s an uneasy truce at the moment…

I feel sorry for all of them, but hopefully there will be just a few more days of drama and then they’ll all calm down.

Meanwhile, best thoughts to Texas…may the rain end soon. It doesn’t matter what we think about climate change at the moment…real live people and animals are trying to survive. Let’s take care of them and then figure out the science.

*The Strokes, Someday

A Good Place to Be…

Well yesterday I managed to post my blog in the wrong place, but then fixed it. And then lost my keys. Or couldn’t find them. For long enough that I thought I might not make it to work. I “lost” my purse too, but since I knew I brought it out of the dentist with me, I assumed (correctly) that it was in the car. I did eventually find my keys and make it to work in 7 minutes flat (yikes…you can’t really be late when you’re a teacher), but it threw me for the rest of the day. Honestly, I don’t know where my keys are now either, but I usually drop them in the same two places every day, so they’re probably there. I hope. Unless the beginning-of-the-school-year brain did something crazy with them.

I’ve been misplacing a lot of things lately…too much chaos. That’s one of my goals for today at school: control the chaos. I have too many piles and pieces of paper. I need to get those organized and handled. What’s on the counter reflects into the brain. I’ve never been a particularly neat person, but generally I know where shit is. Organization doesn’t have to be neat by the way. I get nervous in houses and rooms that are totally and completely neat and minimalist and put away. Which is funny, because people generally clean up before you show up…but that’s not always who they really are. I can never get really truly clean and put away. I try. That’s all I can say. And no, I never volunteer my house for meetings. That would be crazy.

So I draw in class. We do cover pages for each unit and mine are generally a little crazy because I’m trying to get kids to think about what we’ll be studying and go outside the box. Plus I guess it’s another intro to their teacher. So this is Unit 1…

It’s basically the nature of science, how we explore and figure stuff out etc. The kids told me to put a student under the desk with stuff dripping on them…and then I added the wing mutation.

I always try to toss female scientists into the mix, so the girls get into their head that they can be a scientist. I tell them about my Physics teacher too, the one who basically thought girls couldn’t science and turned me off it.

Plus we’ve already done some days about safety in the lab, so it’s good to reiterate those things. I think it turned out pretty well.

I have to admit to not having a ton of energy when I get home right now. Girlchild reminds me that it will get better…that the first full week or two is really hard. Yup. It is. But if you think I’m always go go go…nah. I stop on the couch and barely move sometimes for like an hour or more before I find the energy to get up and do stuff. And then I get up, because just sitting on the couch is boring honestly.

So I forgot to do this the night before, so there are two night’s worth on here…

Stems and leaves on the roses…

And the sheaf stitch…totally forgot about that one.

That’s why I have so many stitch books…to remind me that stitches exist…brain extension.

So I started tracing around 9 or so and worked for almost 3 hours…

It’s really boring to just post pictures of what I traced. I think. Maybe you’re inordinately interested. I have I think 5 yards I’m working on right now…

I quit right before having to cut yard number 6…because there was a long piece that wouldn’t fit on the Wonder Under I already had cut. So I’m on piece 555 with about 7 hours into the tracing. More than halfway done…but no way am I gonna finish tonight. Maybe tomorrow? It depends. I’m already really tired and I have a show to go to tonight…so the odds of my being up early tomorrow are pretty low unfortunately. And I’m still trying to get on a good gym schedule, to make it routine again. It’s hard to do when you’re tired, but it’s important. So that’s tomorrow as well.

Anyway. I have plans for getting organized at school, maybe walking the dog this afternoon, since he’ll be on his own tonight, and finishing the tracing sometime this weekend (ha ha ha…because this weekend is kind of a mess for that). Hopefully I can get it all cut out next week and then start ironing over the 3-day weekend? That would be cool…sounds like a nice way to spend a long weekend. A breakfast out, maybe a walk somewhere with the dogs, and then some ironing. OK, I know that sounds weird to most people, but I really love the part where I’m picking out fabrics. It’s very relaxing and meditative. A good place to be…

I’m a Challenge to Your Balance*

I’m starting to get caught up with some stuff. That’s good. Nothing to check off the to-do list really. I admitted to the girlchild last night that I had just shoved some stuff in her room because it was more than I could handle…this as she’s showing me her dorm room…where she’s shoved everything into the corner. Yeah. So there we are. I’ll have to deal with it before she comes home in December, but I don’t need to be looking at it every day and stressing out about it. Maybe pick a day when I don’t come home after 6 PM because the dentist couldn’t make the filling fit. Sigh. My poor mouth.

I did clean some stuff yesterday, and then I tried to box up some of the older books and I couldn’t. My family is made up of bookaholics. I figure if I’m getting that much resistance to what I’m trying to do that there’s a reason for it. And maybe it’s not worth fighting it. I mean, cleaning the garage? Lots of resistance for that. Still needed to be done. But old Kipling and Stevenson books? They are not the problem. I don’t buy a lot of new books these days…mostly check them out from the library. So I’m trying not to add to the problem. I did actually get rid of some books. Like what do you do with the books that you tore apart for an art project? They’re missing pages? (I recycled them…but it took me a year to figure that out.)

Anyway. I try. That’s all I can say.

That’s what I said last night when I finally cooked my dinner at 8 PM or so. I forgot to do my daily stitching until almost midnight, and then I decided peeing the dogs and going to bed was more important. So it didn’t happen.

But I did trace stuff…not for a super long time, but you know, it just takes a little time every day to make art. I like it better if it’s at least an hour, but 30 minutes is good too. Just do it though.

All I’m doing at the moment is tracing Wonder Under…it pretty much looks the same to you guys every day…but I can tell the difference between tracing huge base pieces to tiny background stuff. I was wrong yesterday about being almost to tracing the head. I had to do the other arm and the three octopus tentacles coming off of it first…and that was a lot more pieces than you would think.

So I’m still on the female figure…I made it to her neck, finished that (also had more pieces than you would think). So tonight I can start with the chin.

Because I tried to keep this thing simple, it’s meant drawing fairly large pieces on Wonder Under. I have four yards out, because I keep needing a big section for a large piece, so I cut a new one and then try to fill in the old one with all the tiny pieces. At some point, I remind myself that this stuff only costs $3 a yard and I always buy it on sale. It’s not the end of the world if I throw some of it away. Although then the environmentally responsible part of me gets irritated with me. That part also doesn’t like disposable floss things (although it’s the only way I can floss parts of my mouth…gag reflex) or my new diabetes pokey thing (it’s really wasteful, with a new set of pieces each time I poke).

Then again, making art is almost always going to be somewhat environmentally troublesome. Unless you’re just using the stuff you found outside and you don’t disturb a living organism’s environment by making it. So. I try to reduce my impact, but I am not great at it.

I forgot these two art-related things. Catherine Segura of CAS Photography took this awesome picture of Sonya Sparks, owner of Sparks Gallery, and my quilt is on the wall. It even looks good in black and white…Segura specializes in tintype photography…so this is over a 10-second time period…Sparks sits still but my quilt is apparently moving. OK, not really. But a great photo…

And this was my staff meeting drawing earlier this week…

It’s got some environmental stuff going on right there…

*Natalie Merchant, Wonder

Crazy Thoughts Have Quick Wings*

Eclipses are cool y’all. That’s all I have to say about that.

NASA has way better pictures than I do…not surprisingly.

I’m realizing that I’m still adjusting to new eating times…blood sugar was wacky yesterday, but then I figured out that we have a different schedule on Mondays. Hence my body’s complete confusion by the end of the day. Working on it. Still. Forever.

I’m a little tired this morning. Sure, I went to bed late, but I do that a lot. Puppy wanted to bark at everything last night though, so I remember 1:53 AM and 3:21 AM and 5:38 AM. I think those were all coyote responses, but I’m not sure. Ugh. Still can’t keep my eyes open all the way. Blargh.

Tired the dogs out after school yesterday…apparently not enough for Simba. We did over three miles…

I love how the old seed pods are mixed with the new…castor bean plant. Freaky beast.

I did…um…oh yeah! the three roses on the bottom right. It’s a stitch called rambling rose, which consists of French knots and stem stitches. Very simple.

I was mostly horizontal with Simba. He liked me then.

Eventually I made it upright and cooked some dinner. On Mondays, that usually means reheating leftovers…because if I’m not getting back to the house until after 7 PM, it better be easy.

So I had enlarged this one just because I thought it should be a quilt. And I taped it just to get it done. It’s not huge.

Who knows when she’ll get made…I have a waiting list at this point.

Then I started tracing the newest piece. The pieces are bigger than what I usually do.

I was really trying to keep it simpler than some of my recent pieces. We’ll see how that goes. I only traced about 87 pieces in an hour. Not bad. Not spectacular. But because I don’t have a lot of grading when I get home at the moment, it means all I have to think about is art stuff. So as long as I can fight the tiredness, I can get some stuff done. That gets harder as the year goes on. That part always stresses me out. I’m trying to keep my head in a positive place about school…I wonder if admin realizes every crazy-ass thing they do, messing with the master schedule, assigning yet another thing to teachers to keep track of, making us do a 2-hour homeroom with lunch 45 minutes late. We absorb all of it, try to cope, adjust the peeing/eating schedules, take lots of deep breaths, and come home and walk three miles out in nature to clear our heads. Yeah. Well.

*Jem, Save Me

There Is Still a Chance That They Will See*

Well I’m staring out at a cloudy sky that will probably clear by 10:23 AM, but it won’t matter, because our school district is not letting kids leave the classroom for the eclipse. It’s also not letting the teachers leave, which I find irritating (although I guess understandable). I teach science, but we can’t actually experience this part of it. Wait until they find out we do labs in the classroom. They’ll pull that as well, citing liability. I hope wherever you are that you get to go out and see it without burning your retinas. I’m trying to figure out how I can see it…and yes, I know there are live feeds, but how do you get kids to believe in science in a video when so much video is made up and contrived. Faked. Sigh. Frustrating day.

In the not-frustrating part of my life, I finished the drawing yesterday. In the long run, I think it turned out the way I wanted. I think. We’ll see.

Lots of doggy play these days with only me to entertain them after school…

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So I did a little over an hour of drawing on Friday night, after a bunch of work stuff got done. I really tried to keep it simple (don’t look at the heart when you hear me say that)…

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On Saturday, I did another two hours. This hand had to go over an arm that was already drawn…hence the white out. It happens. These are working drawings…

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Again, trying to decide how to put the message in there.

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I’ve been avoiding these spiders in my yard for weeks now…there had to be one in the drawing…

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This was last night, while trying to meditate. He’s not particularly helpful with that.

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I did two nights in here…more feather stitch in green in the bottom left, plus lazy daisies. I think Saturday was the blue French knots in the top feather stitch. Not sure.

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Midnight is very judgmental sometimes…

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So then last night I did another hour…

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And finished it…

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It’s not small. That’s why I was worried about time and number of pieces. Keep it simple.

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OK, there’s nothing simple about his back…

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Or the chalkboard behind her head…

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Almost 5 hours into the drawing full size…there was more time in drawing the two starter heads, but I don’t usually keep track of that because so many of those drawings don’t become a finished piece.

Then I spent about an hour numbering it…

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Good news, though…it only has 800 and something pieces. Fewer than the last one. It’s about 50″ square I think…maybe a little bigger than that. Tonight I start tracing Wonder Under. I actually have a decent amount of time to finish this…but I say that while knocking on wood, because y’all know how plans go, right? OK. Well. I can probably finish tracing it this week…maybe. We’ll see. It was hard to keep the recent events with the Alt Right and protests out of this, because it’s not really about that. It creeps in, though, and that’s hard. So many things to not stress about…hence the meditation. Tonight I’m going to try the other type of meditation…the one with dogs on a leash and outside in nature.

*The Beatles, Let It Be

Now War Is Declared, and Battle Come Down*

First Saturday attempt to sleep in after school officially starts. Pseudo fail. Puppy bark. Cats cleaning butts. Neighbors banging doors. Today’s list is a mile long. That’s what got me out of bed…the to-do list. What’s new?

I had some serious artbrain meltdown last night. I’m still not sure I’m past it. This drawing is just so difficult. I often work in symbols or metaphors. I don’t always draw an actual event, but sometimes the effects of the event, or I hide the issues in tattoos or the objects someone holds or wears. It’s easy enough to tell a story with words, but I also tell them with pictures. This story is so easy to tell with words…it’s one most of us teachers know at the moment, but it’s harder to show. But I’m trying. I don’t know if I’m happy with it though. I almost pulled the whole thing apart last night and started over. That’s rare. But it wasn’t working.

I did this first…played ball until they were both tired…

Then I did a green feather stitch over the orange one in the bottom left…

And all that was after working on school stuff for about 2 hours, finding all the student photos and trying to print them and going to buy a new color ink cartridge and I still need to print the damn things.

Finally, after all that, I stood up (feet recovered…I think I need new shoes. My arches are killing me by the end of the day) and headed to the drawing. This is near the end…the wine didn’t come out until after 11:30 PM. I did a bunch of stuff in pencil before going to ink, which was good, because I changed my mind about three thousand times.

Pencil first, vague lines showing where shit should go. I don’t use pencil most of the time. But this thing isn’t fully coalesced in my head, so I have to see it somewhere first. This is probably how most people draw.

Then ink. I’m trying to keep it simple. It’s big. It can’t be super complicated. I won’t get it done in time.

Says the woman who just drew octopus tentacles.

I didn’t want to fight violence with violence. I write that as my daughter is considering going to the protests in Boston. One part of me wants to tell her not to go, but I’m fully aware that we need to stand up and not be afraid in the face of this crazy shit that’s happening. If I were the mother of a child of color, I would be terrified all the time of sending my child out in the world. As a mother of a white kid, I still get scared…they’re adults, but I worry about them. But they have privilege; this means they and I have to be willing to stand up against all the racist, sexist, and what’s the word for being anti-religions that aren’t your own? All that. So I tell her to be safe, stay with a big group, stay away from cars. Stop drop and roll. Whatever. Because it’s not a safe world we live in and we want it to be better for everyone. Even the dumbasses who think fascism and terrorism are acceptable. Maybe if enough faces are staring back at them that mirror their own, without the anger against others, maybe then some part of their brains will start to turn against what’s in there right now, stop blaming others for their lives not being golden and amazing. I know that’s unlikely. There’s no magic answer.

So octopus tentacles. Nature fights back. Symbols. I won’t shoot. I won’t pick up a gun. I won’t lynch someone or kick them out of the country or tie them up or drag them behind a car or mow them down with one. I won’t fight a war. I won’t launch a nuclear missile. I won’t hit or kick or punch. I say that, but if someone were coming after my students…I would. I’d throw things at them. I’d trip them up. I’d bodyslam them. So there’s that.

Anyway. More of the drawing today, I hope. I really am hoping that when it’s all done, it’s what I want. It will work. If not, maybe I will start again. It’s rare that I do that at this stage, the full-size drawing stage…but I do redraw at the smaller stage pretty often. We’ll see.

*The Clash, London Calling

Shed Our Skin*

The first day of school is always exhausting, even when you don’t talk as much as you used to. Really. I try to talk way less than I used to. They don’t need to hear me all the time. They need space to hear what’s in their own heads and process it. I also got the opportunity to hear what they thought a good science teacher was…interesting. It gave me the opportunity to tell them that HELP doesn’t mean giving them the answers. It’s good that they’re hearing that on the first day.

I’m having to adjust my eating schedule to my new prep period, which is proving difficult. I think I’ll get used to it eventually, but I’m not there yet. And honestly, the real test is today, when I’m too tired and nauseous in the morning to want to eat a decent breakfast. I won’t make it to lunchtime if I don’t eat, but I don’t want anything right now. I will figure it out. Just not this morning (why I buy a few Evol breakfast things for the freezer…I’ll take it with me and hopefully be able to stomach it before the bell rings).

I managed to remember to bring my sketchbook with me to school, though…not so I could draw naked things during my prep (although I had a year when I did that, because everything else was so painful and I needed a place to park the depressive thoughts midday)…but so I could go enlarge the drawing of the head. Normally I do 250-300%, but this is already big, so I went for 200% instead. I copied the meditation angel that I finished as well, but I don’t know when I’ll have time to work on it.

When I got home, I succumbed to exhaustion. Even napped for the requisite 20 minutes (I was reading and fell asleep…I never used to fall asleep while reading. Proof of aging.). Literally couldn’t barely move off the couch for about 2 1/2 hours. It’s OK. It gets better. I just tell you that because of all the people who think I work relentless hours. Well maybe, but I have my exhausted moments too. It takes will power to get off the couch and work at 9 PM.

I finally ate dinner (hallelujah for leftovers) and was able to stand up and cut shit out. Actually, I did this first…

Orange feather stitch on the bottom left.

Then I took Tuesday night’s drawing and attached it to the drawing from early summer.

I got rid of the other incorrect bullet. I also started adding paper around the two pieces for what I’m seeing in my head. I don’t want her to be too huge or I won’t be able to finish her. I don’t want to talk about what I’m thinking yet either. This is a difficult concept for me to make obvious in a drawing. In fact, it may not end up being obvious at all. But I know what’s in my head and ideas are now trickling in about how to make it. It even has a title already. But not sharing yet. Still drawing. Probably will be for a few more days. Being tired doesn’t help. More standing after standing all day. Anyway. The hardest part is that the drawing is emotionally difficult, and then I’ve been watching all these British dramas that are kind of dark and difficult as well.

I guess it’s difficult times in which we live. Not as difficult as say the Dark Ages, but still. Not sure Netflix helps…binge watching is not always a good thing.

Calli sleeps through it all. She occasionally comes over and noses me for attention. Simba sleeps right next to me when I take breaks on the couch (feet hurt). Midnight too. Kitten was antisocial last night. Not sure why.

I’m feeling kinda lost by the kids being gone. I know they’ll be back in 124 days or so though (ah, apps…there is no mystery any more, is there?). But I miss them. And at some point, they won’t come back. That’s hard to think about.

I need to be finishing up the house tasks that didn’t get done over the summer (there are always many of them), but there’s no energy for that this week. Maybe Saturday. You know it’s bad when you can’t even pick up a needle or a pen. Well, for me, that’s really bad. I don’t just sit and watch TV unless I’m sick or exhausted.

Better next week. It will be.

*Ivy, Edge of the Ocean