Earth Stories: Drawing It Big

The Earth Stories exhibit opened at Michigan State University Museum in Lansing, MI, on May 11, and continues through November 26. The opening reception is May 16 from 4-6 PM. It then travels to the University of Central Missouri Gallery of Art and Design, Warrensburg, Missouri, January 19 – February 28, 2015. This means I will finally be allowed to post the pictures of this quilt as of the 16th…I thought I’d spend a few posts reviewing how these two pieces came to be.

I was accepted into the exhibit in October of 2012. I wasn’t even going to enter. I got into this huge discussion with the family, intellectuals all (although I qualify as an emotional intellectual…nowadays only barely rational apparently) about what could actually SAVE the Earth. The original plan for the exhibit was to pick a group or person who had made a significant contribution to saving the Earth, to keeping our planet livable, whole, sustainable even. I kept coming back to science in general, but the thought of doing a quilt of people in labcoats with microscopes and water-testing devices seemed kinda lame.

Then I watched this video:

It was Monique’s fault. She posted it. And it clicked a switch in my brain. A huge one.

Understand that I teach life science. I teach biology to 12-year-olds. I teach human reproduction. What do we need to do to save the world? We need to stop overpopulating it. We need to make sure that the available resources are distributed fairly, but also that we don’t overwhelm them with too many people (it may be too late for that, honestly). So when I saw that there were groups that were trying to help women who actually WANTED to control the number and timing of their births, the size of their families, to keep them within the constraints of what they could afford, of what they could handle, THAT was the group I was going to put the strength of my convictions behind.

That was the International Planned Parenthood Federation. They provide voluntary birth control to women in countries where it’s not allowed or where they have financial or religious difficulty in getting the medications they need to make sure they can take care of their families. They can decide how long to wait between births, which is healthier for both mother and child, but she can also decide when to stop having children. Imagine, giving women a choice? Plus helping to conserve our natural resources? All good.

Once I was accepted into the exhibit, which is an interesting story in itself, I sort of looked at how much time I had during the school year and how much time it would take to make a 72″-square quilt, and I planned my time. My goal was to have it drawn before Spring Break, traced onto Wonder Under during Spring Break, ironed to fabric before Summer Break, and then get the whole nasty beast done over the summer.

Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and men, and overwhelmed single moms who don’t even know what kind of shit might hit their fans.

I did OK with the first part, actually…OK, well, not really. I had about 4 or 5 mis-starts to the drawing…in fact, I think I started drawing in February (Spring Break being April). I already knew what position I wanted the main figure in, but I couldn’t quite visualize parts, so I asked the girlchild (who was running a nasty fever at the time that turned into the nasty flu that messed up her system for a while) to pose…

She was thrilled. As I’m sure you can see. Yes, my carpet is that beat up.

She didn’t have the right look on her face. She’s supposed to be Earth Mother. I decided not to make her old…mothers aren’t usually super old. They’re frazzled. Plus she had live trees on her, and it’s not supposed to be alive.

A few days later, I tried again.

Serious issues with the thighs. And the mountains are lame. Plus that left hand? Both hands…way too small.

I don’t usually fuss this much over drawings, but that was the thing with this one. I needed it to say the right thing and I don’t usually care so much that the viewer is getting the message. I figure they will get SOME message and that’s all that matters. On this one, the message mattered.

So I tried again…

Much better belly/thigh area (and the pregnancy finally shows up…notice it wasn’t there before). Her face, though…too spacey. Like she’s contemplating what color nail polish might go with those shoes.

I gave up for a while…a month actually. Then I realized Spring Break was bounding towards me, so I started again…

Ugh. Too small, arms suck. Whatever!

A few days later, though…BOOM!

There she is. There’s the start. Much bigger and the right look on her face…but I filled an entire page just with this part of her torso. I copied the bottom part and taped it to another page and then drew the bottom half…then enlarged those and taped them together.

I finally had the beginnings of this thing.

Now realize that light table is 3 feet by 4 feet, so it gives you a good idea of how big this thing gets. I started in a 14×17″ sketchbook. I think I enlarged the drawing 200-300%. Then I drew the rest of it to size (which is always a crazy tiny-piece mistake for me, and yet I do it every time).

I spent about 20 hours drawing this thing. I’d draw for a while and then step back and look at it (or stand on the piano bench and look at it, because it was the only way I could see the whole thing).

Most drawings take me a couple of hours, maybe four or five for a super-complicated one like what I’m working on now.

I had TV shows running on the laptop (the computer in the back is too slow and sound is an issue) to keep my brain occupied. Here’s me drawing the thought cloud that shows a happy world with plenty of food…

This is back at the beginning, right after I had taped all the extra paper around the enlarged figure to make it 72″ square.

It was a huge endeavor. I’ve never spent so long DRAWING a quilt, but it really did need to be forcibly pulled out of me…it took a good chunk of Spring Break to get it done. This was before all the shit hit the fan at work, so my brain was mostly OK for this type of task. I don’t know if I would have been able to do that now. It was really difficult. Maybe the art brain would prefer that level of involvement in a drawing to all the other crap I throw at it.

Next post? Numbering and tracing pieces…

The Many Hours of Quietude

There’s a fine line between quiet and quietude, between an uncomfortable silence that is sort of filled by television noises and to-do lists or a peaceful place of calm in your head. Quietude: a state of stillness, calmness, and quiet in a person or place. I’d like to achieve that. Sometimes I do, especially when making stuff. Art. Not dinner. Making dinner does not instill a state of anything, except expectation of food in the near future…assuming I don’t burn it. Depression brain is like chemo brain. I forget about stuff. I don’t hear the timer. I leave the oven on preheat. It’s a mental fugue that sometimes leaves me wondering whether my brain will ever wander fully back. Cooking requires more of my brain than is often available. Besides, I’m a lazy cook.

Perhaps I need to tempt it with more of THIS…

Girlchild made me cheesecake from scratch for Mother’s Day. It’s delicious. Delightful. Incredibly good. Really. She’s good at that cooking thing, and she likes it. Unlike me. I tolerate it. I put up with it because I like the products from freshly cooked food. I don’t like most pre-packaged stuff. So I cook under duress. I’m usually reading at the same time AND watching bad television. I’m glad she likes it. I hope that continues.

The kids also got me poles for hiking…

I’ve been borrowing dad’s old ones. These are lightweight and fold up much smaller than dad’s, AND…they’re purple. Very nice gift. They did well. I guess I was a decent mom this year, despite the brain mess. It’s nice that they listened to me.

I have a new car. My parents, dad especially, busted their butts to find me something…my car’s registration is up next week and we don’t think it will pass the smog test because of the catalytic converter. It was starting to be kind of a desperate issue, like I was going to have to start walking to school. Or not. But they did a bunch of internet stuff and phone calls and some trips to see cars, and it was delivered today. It’s still old, but has low mileage and will get me through the kids’ college years at least, and hopefully longer than that. It’s sad to be my age and not be able to afford to deal with cars and other stuff…but that’s the reality of being a divorced mom…the statistics show that we often never get our heads financially above water, even if we’re making decent money.

Anyway. It’s a bit of a relief.

I am now in the cutting-out fabric stage…

So I can get through all the saved episodes of shows on Tivo, right? I didn’t actually get much done, just an hour. I’m 3 hours in; based on the last few quilts, it’s at least an hour per 100 pieces, so it will be at least 18 hours. I suspect it will be more like 22…but maybe not, because a lot of the really tiny pieces I don’t cut out until I’m ready to iron them down, so I don’t lose them.

I need to put away all the fabrics I used and clean up the office. I’m thinking I might spend some of the upcoming 3-day weekend ironing the other quilt together. It doesn’t have a lot of pieces and I’d like to have a couple of things I’m working on at the same time. I like to feel productive. I also miss drawing. I haven’t drawn in a long time. I have a union meeting tomorrow…I often draw there.

My mood is really flat tonight. I think some of it is tired, but also I just don’t feel like feeling. The phrase “Use your words” keeps bouncing around my brain. I don’t know why. I haven’t been looking at enough art. I haven’t been reading enough blogs. I’m managing exercise and meditation and eating (damn, speaking of eating, my blood sugar is really wacky during the afternoon these days…annoying…need to remember to carry extra food tomorrow). Girlchild and I are still butting heads. Work is still a clusterfuck. It’s hot too…supposed to be 102 degrees tomorrow.

Anyway. The mood will go one way or another…improve or descend into that pit of depressoid bleck. Whichever. This flat mood is worse. I don’t know how to feel normal any more. What does it feel like to get up and not feel like the world is weighing on you, like your whole existence is a stupid mistake?

I don’t know. Make more art. Probably sleep more. Rejoice in the homemade cheesecakes of life, in the purple poles. Read a book. Take a hike.

I Think I Did It Wrong

Yesterday. I think I did it wrong. I tried to do it right. I went to the gym. I did not engage the girlchild in any squawkiness until I knew she could handle it (basically waited until she was asking me for a favor…ha!). I even got done with the gym early and went to FINALLY buy my new camera. Decided that I was never going to find exactly what I wanted and it wasn’t really that crucial, but the Canon has gotten to the point that it randomly refuses to open the lens unless I eject the battery (I think I did that about 20 times on the last hike) and I didn’t want to do that again. I knew my price range (gift card and birthday money…I actually didn’t spend it all!). I knew I wanted rechargeable batteries. I knew I wanted real zoom for part of it, not optical all the way. I also knew that I’m hard on cameras and it will only last a couple of years, so stop freaking worrying so hard about this little tiny decision that will NOT be the end of the world!

Anyway. So I did that. And then I tried to deal with my normal evening plan and fell asleep in meditation, even though it was early. So my brain had this argument about whether I needed to go to sleep, because I was really tired, but my blood sugar has also been off the last couple of days, and I have a long hike tomorrow, and I don’t want that heavy-leg feeling, which might be hormones and might be physical rest. I wanted to FEEL rested. But then balance that with my mind. Either my body’s rested or my mind is. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium (or even a content medium).

What decided it was that damn wolf. I don’t know what color to make the wolf. Usually when I have a problem picking colors, I put that piece of the quilt in my head and let my brain work on it all day (or days). It’s not really conscious work…it’s just up there, like a little neuro-reminder, and occasionally I’ll see snippets of trying to solve the problem, coloring here or there, and then all of a sudden…BOOM! There’s the solution.

Mar 12 14 001 wolf crop

There are parts of my brain I love. Not all of it, for sure. Seriously? I’m being artistically bamboozled by a section with like 20 pieces in it that might MIGHT need 5 or 6 colors of fabric in it. My brain is like, gray wolf? Brown wolf? Red wolf? Can’t be a black wolf. Won’t work with the background. Dark gray? Light gray? Can’t see light gray against the arm color. Pink wolf?

Fuck. Maybe that’s it. The wolf is like a freaky color because it’s obviously a major issue for me.

Sigh. So I did that last night. Tucked the wolf drawing up in there and told my brain to go at it. Went to bed early. Woke up this morning and I still don’t know! Oh well. I have all day.

But the morning has been hard. I have a stressful meeting today that might NOT be stressful, but until I know what it IS, it’s stressful. Hate that. Thank you, brain, for your PTSD crap. I’m getting significantly behind in grading again. Suck. I wanted to be done with the fabric ironing. Not. Despite saving one baby possum this week, I found his sister in the pool this morning, along with some other baby rodent that I don’t recognize. DEAD BABIES. Fuck. Way to go. I’m going to Home Depot this afternoon, I think, to go get something to put out there for water so they don’t have to drown on my account. I can’t handle any more dead babies at the moment. Because if I put a pond out there and they STILL drown in the pool, well that’s Darwinism and I can handle that? Whatever.

I am trying to get back on track. My brain is really in wander mode and I have all this stuff I’m responsible for (shocking, I am an adult) and I’ve slacked off on some of it because I’m finding it hard to care about it, or really it’s just that it’s overwhelming to care about it. My SIL said I needed to simplify. Huh. OK. I should stop hiking so much maybe. Except that’s sanity in its own way. I know she wants me to clean out my house. I’m trying. I have two major issues on my plate right now…it’s my goal to get them taken care of this weekend, so they stop weighing on me. I’m going to work on them tonight and tomorrow and Sunday, and they will be done so I can cross them (violently with a big black Sharpie and a Fuck You yelled at the top of my lungs, because that’s what they deserve) off the list.

Then I can maybe be less of a blithering sobbing idiot for a while. Maybe. It’s good to have goals.

Little Pieces

I’m 18 hours and 23 minutes into ironing fabric for this quilt…this quilt that does not yet have an exhibit to call home, and is probably destined to be like a couple of the other quilts I’ve made, where no one wants them in a show. Oh well. I like them to be in shows, but honestly, that’s not why I make them.

I’ve made it into the 1400s, but not very far, about 20 pieces in. So I’ve got about another 350 pieces to go. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’m in the fussy little piece section now…

See all those little pieces? There’s like two tiny pieces ironed onto one little piece of THIS gray and two tiny pieces ironed onto one little piece of THAT gray. It’s a little piece bonanza. So it takes more time. Or maybe it’s just that this thing takes X time and X seems to be a larger number than normal. It’s still not taking as long as the Earth Stories piece. But it seems like no matter how much ironing I do each night, I still have about 4 more hours to do…I find that strange. Like time is stretching out and the fabric is breeding or the Wonder Under is undergoing mitosis.

Or I’m thinking too hard.

At least there will be no shortage of things to work on this summer (besides my sanity, a clean house, and a better yard). I have a lot of stuff in progress and a whole new quilt I have to make by November that only barely exists in a sketch in my brain.

I’m not worried. My summer is pretty empty. Well, except for soccer and working and all the other shit that will rain down upon me that I don’t even know about yet.

You know, like it does. All the little things. That’s what’s overwhelming me at the moment is all the little detailed crap that I’m supposed to be handling and getting done every day, and which is really NOT getting done because I keep doing healthy things like meditating and exercising and making dinner and then I do other things like making art, because if I didn’t do that, I don’t know who I would be. I’ve really thrown the balance up in the air this year, and I don’t know how successful it’s been. I think I need some distance from it to decide.

Here’s what it looked like last night when I was picking fabrics for the face-in-a-cloud section, which is only like 8″ square…

Each fabric had no more than 4 pieces on it…and some only had one. I’m running out of room on the ironing board.

See the face in a cloud in the top right? That’s what I was ironing.

I also ironed the headphones and cords…basically all I have left is the wolf, the iPhone, the snake, the bird, the dog, and the giant skull eyeball. It doesn’t seem like much when you realize how much I HAVE done, but it requires some mental attention. I quit last night right before the wolf, because I was too tired to think WOLF. I had done over an hour of ironing, which seems to be the right amount for working every night at the moment. In my old life, I would work on it every other night, but for longer usually. I actually didn’t usually get ironing of big projects done during the school year at all. So I guess that’s changed.

Everything’s changed.

I was going to write all this last night, but WordPress was having issues, so I went to bed (a little early!) instead. I should try to do that more often, but then I’d get even less done. It would be nice if I could get some sense of life fulfillment from my job…and you’d think as a teacher, I would, but it’s so much hard work and paper pushing that it’s hard to see the good stuff until you’re 6 months past it.

I realized how much irritation I was carrying yesterday at work, but then I remembered that we don’t have much of the school year left, and this is normal. The kids want to be on vacation already. There’s all these end-of-year pressures of awards, grades, cleaning up, preparing for next year…I have a boss who sends messages demanding meetings at certain times without ever thinking that we might already have things on our calendar. I seriously get emails that say “See me during Period 2.” or “Meet here at 3:45.” and you’re thinking, wow. Dude. I already have a parent meeting during Period 2, thanks for asking, and at 3:45, I’m doing this presentation thing. And there’s often no information telling you the purpose of the meeting, so then you’re left wondering if this is a bitchslap event or just a check-in. A decent boss emails you and says, hey, we need to talk about X, here are the times I have available. I realize you’re busy doing your job; when would be convenient for you?

I guess that is too much to hope for. I just take a deep breath these days, do a little weird dance in the hallways to make the kids laugh, or randomly yell “Dress Code!” into the hallway (that’s actually really fun to do…I’m not even dress coding anyone, but they’re so paranoid it will be THEM that they all jump). OK, yes, it’s time for vacation. Someone on last week’s hike (which is still in a picture file and not in a blog post) said they were surprised I wasn’t in a tower surrounded by a bunch of guns. Well, isn’t THAT a nice image to put alongside my teacher image.

Now you know why I exercise so much and make so much art. Otherwise I’d go even more nuts than I already am. I’m leaving the guns alone though. I do better with pen and paper. And honestly? The kids aren’t the problem…they may drive me bonkers on a regular basis with their shenanigans and laziness and moody crap and drama, but it’s the adults that cause the real trauma. I know the kids aren’t old enough to control their shit. I wish the adults remembered that they are.

In My Head, There Are Wobbles

I’m reading a book that is a lot like many other books I have read. There is a person who wants one thing and is forced to follow what’s expected of him, until they try to kill him, and then he becomes something larger or better. I can’t decide whether or not I like the book because the plot is so standard, and yet it’s not, because of the specifics of the story. I want to keep reading, because I’m interested, but I already think I know the gist of what will happen.

This is like the opposite of my life. I don’t know what will happen. My story is pretty typical (OK, except for the part where I stay up all night and make art while y’all cuddle with your pillows and mammalian bedfellows), and maybe I’m the character with the crippled hand or the one sold to slavery by her uncle. Where I’ve left the characters now is huddled in a tiny, hot, dark room, waiting for the command to rush out and vengefully kill everyone who wronged them, to somehow right all the wrongs with violence and death.

I don’t know why my brain is focusing on this now…in my head, there are wobbles. Hazy areas that I travel through where the brain just sort of wanders off and explores weird ideas (yes, art comes from this). It’s hard to let it wander freely, though, because I have a counselor who tells me that those wanders are often what pulls me back into the serious bit of depression that I seem to be having a hard time shaking. That part of my brain tends toward the negative, the depressoid, the hopeless. Unless I’m outside hiking. Or staring at my sketchbook. Then it can still be unhappy or dissatisfied, but the clean fresh outdoor air pulls that black smoke out of my head and it disperses in the sky. I can almost watch it. If you hike with me, you’ll hear it…you’ll hear me take a few giant breaths, great big sighs, like it’s a relief to finally be in this place (because it is). I can’t explain that.

The drawing, the sketchbook…hell, I just draw the damn wobbles. I draw the negative. I draw the pain. I draw it and then it is less in my chest. It’s less in my heart (my heart, so small, so broken).

While I’m waiting in this tiny, hot, dark room, looking for vengeance? I don’t want that. I just want an explanation. I want answers. I want it all to make sense, and the fact is, it probably doesn’t make sense. It’s someone else’s messed-up brain that caused all my pain, someone else’s delusions. And you can’t do anything about what someone else’s brain is thinking if they won’t listen to you. If they aren’t paying attention. That’s their deal. These are the wobbles.

It’s been really hot here this week, up to 100 degrees. I can handle the heat, but it makes it hard to hike. We joke in my hiking group about going earlier and earlier (I think in August that means we hike at night and not during the day…I do have a headlamp!). I have a hike for tomorrow, when it’s supposed to cool down to 83 (wow)…and I’m a little concerned, but will take plenty of water. It’s a big group tomorrow, which I’m not thrilled about, but my regular group is all training for Mt. Whitney, so they’re up in Idyllwild doing San Jacinto…and I’m not. I’ll still be on the PCT tomorrow, though. And yes, I still have two hikes to report about, but this weekend really has a huge pile of to-do messing up its pretty, so who knows if I’ll get to that.

Yesterday I was tired, so I didn’t post. I survived work by being a little on the crazy side. I’m leaning more and more that way as we get to the end of the year. Keeps the kids on their toes. Keeps me from crying in class. After counseling I had told myself I had to go test drive cars. I need to make a decision, and my parents are helping because I am significantly poor (ask UC System…they said I was) and can’t afford to fix the old car, let alone buy something that won’t die tomorrow. So I drove. I, who hates dealing with salespeople, went to three different dealers and told them what I wanted to drive, and did that, and then they all tried to double-team me and force me to buy TODAY TODAY TODAY and I did the tough old lady thing and gave them all fake phone numbers (OK, I didn’t actually do that, but I thought about it) and walked away. So we have a plan and Dad is helping me because I basically said I couldn’t deal. I had too much other crap to deal with, so he’s looking and he’ll be my filter. I need that. I need someone to be my secretary, my assistant, my aid. Too bad he can only do the car stuff.

By the time I got home, it was after 6. I graded, I cooked, I exercised, and the girlchild finally came home and that was explosive. I get tired of people not listening to what I’m saying, not respecting anything I’m saying. It was too close to all the shit that’s in my head about the last year, about not being respected, not being a part of the conversation. Except she’s 16 and that’s normal for the mom/teen girl relationship. So I walked out.

And came in here and then went in the kitchen and washed all the dishes and the boychild came in and confirmed that I wasn’t crazy. Thanks kid. Who’s gonna do that when you’re gone?

So then I ironed…

Oh wait! You know what’s funny? I didn’t iron anything. I’m still trying to find all the flesh pieces on the main figure, so I spent 48 minutes sorting and trying to place them by color value…you can see above that fabrics 1 and 2 in the flesh range are where all the big pieces are (the one on the top left is cracks…the fabric for all the cracks; flesh 1 is actually the second from the left on the top row). I have all of the body picked out and sorted…now I just need to do the face and THEN, only THEN can I start ironing. That’s my goal for tonight. And when I actually start ironing, it will probably take me two hours just to do that, so I might need to budget my time carefully. (MIGHT?)

Today is not a free day. It has things poking into it that have to be done. I can be lackadaisical about school planning because I’ve taught this stuff for 12 years now and although I tweak stuff, I’m not starting from scratch. I do still have to deal with a bunch of college and tax stuff, though, and then there’s grocery shopping and the gym.

But I will finish ironing that damn body today if it kills me (it might).

The funny thing is that I’m not done picking all the bits INSIDE the body: the lungs, heart, weird tattoos, the uterus, all the details I stuff into the body shape…

Because they will be all different colors, so I just put them aside until the main figure is done. Because there isn’t room on the damn ironing board for all that right now anyway. All those pieces? They’re all waiting for me to finish ironing the body. The body has pieces from the 700s-1300s. I’m finally in the 1200 bin, searching for flesh pieces, but it was midnight last night and my brain was tired and I knew I would have to get up at a reasonable hour this morning and deal with piano recital. So I decided to embrace sleep for once.

But then I had to cover the ironing board so the cat couldn’t jump up on it. I’m super paranoid that she’s going to knock the whole thing down at the moment…

This is probably the biggest reason I want to get the flesh done today.

I don’t know what occupies YOUR brain when you are trying to wake up on a Saturday morning or go to sleep on a Friday night, but this is what mine does. I know you’re jealous.

I forgot to post this picture of my daughter’s Christmas stocking that I started before she was born (yes, she is now 16), just to keep documenting the Incredibly Slow Progress I’m making at my monthly stitching meeting.

Yup. That’s a lot of cream colored thread. I’m amazed by how slow this is. Maybe I should stitch the damn leaves first and then stitch around them with the cream? Fuck. I’ll think about it NEXT month.

More progress next post…fewer wobbles maybe. Or maybe the wobbles will be let out onto paper or into the sky. Need more of that. Certainly I will have finished the book where the once and future king with the crippled hand is in the dark hot room, waiting to kill his uncle…and then maybe I’ll know how my own story will go.

Stupid Fucking Titles

One of the things that’s been out of whack the last two days was my blood sugar. I kinda blamed it on going back to school, but it turns out it’s all hormones. My body went all girl-ballistic today after 2.5 months of nothing. I’d be OK with that, with having an explanation for the random-ass flurries of crying in parking lots and into my pillow…at least I have a good reason now…but today was not a good day for hemorrhaging. Luckily, I wore my black (OK, I have lots of black…this is not a new thing), because right about the time I was thinking, yeah, this method of staunching the flow is not necessarily working, the whole school went into lockdown. Some (as my boss put it) “bad guy” was being chased around the neighborhood by police, and there was some possible danger to our students, so we covered windows, locked doors, shoved kids under desks. Kids were convinced it was a drill. Hell, I knew better. It’s testing. No way in hell would my boss do a drill of any sort during testing. So we waited a bit, with a few freaking out and a couple showing me their true colors (please get your head out of the window before you become a target), and then they told us we could “continue to teach” with lights on etc.

Teach. During a lockdown. With middle-school kids who were supposed to be released to lunch 10 minutes ago. Are you smoking crack? I put in a movie, turned the lights down, realized I needed to deal with blood flow, and asked my co-teacher to watch my class; I think she thought it was a blood sugar issue. They released us about 30 minutes later and adjusted schedules, and I dealt with blood again. Hmn. This is not working. I still have three classes to get through. I’m in trouble wardrobe-wise. I love being a perimenopausal woman. Really, I do. It’s a challenge to not go out and kill people some days, because the sleep issues, the erratic bleeding, the hormones, the mood swings, fucking hair falling out…there is no fucking way to be a normal person when all that is going on without some serious help (mind-altering drugs, alcohol, I don’t know what else). Deep breaths. My workplace has a nurse’s office. Nurse offices have additional supplies…I brought in the heavy artillery and made it through the rest of the day, medicating myself for the cramps from hell. This is why we female teachers have very little patience with a 12-year-old who says she has cramps. Sweetie, I just lost a tenth of my blood supply and I’m still standing…what’s your problem again?

Anyway. The quilt I’m working on is so fucking relevant at the moment.

Before all that happened, during my prep, I made the mistake in my delicate frame of (weepy) mind to preview some videos about Huntington’s Disease for next week’s homework. Yeah. Watching videos of people you know will die a nasty death. Watching videos of people trying to decide whether or not to get tested. Hell, I should have just watched videos of babies been born and promptly dying in their parents’ arms or young cancer patients falling in love. Crying ensued. I’m a freakshow at the moment, a disaster area of salty proportions. Watch me lose it!

Like I said, at least now I know why. But I got home and was supposed to go to the gym, but between blood flow and cramps and general crappy feelingness, gave up the ghost on that. Sat around and read for a while, then watched those two episodes of House where Amber dies (OH MY GOD, because that’s not weepy at all) with the girlchild. It made her cry too, though, so I felt a little bit more normal. A tad.

It’s OK. I have the bike at home. Eventually the meds kicked in and I could sit on the bike for a while, plus I meditated and ate and did a little grading. I read.

Then it was ironing time, my special time with fabric, when my brain wanders off to its Not-Quite-Happy-Place (we still haven’t found happy…it’s a fucking lost cause), where my scissors and iron cheerfully dance in the summer surf. Or something.

It might be past my bedtime. Or I’m lightheaded from blood loss (certainly a possibility).

I knew I had to iron the lower body figure tonight, and those are generally a bit more time- and energy-consuming, trying to figure out what shade of flesh-colored fabric each part needs to be…I started with a run of 7, but that strangely turned into 9.

I’m not sure how. OK, I think it had something to do with not having enough of the first two fabrics, but wanting to start with something lighter than the third fabric, but not finding exactly what I wanted, so I kinda used the first two interchangeably. I can tell you the last one is something I hand-dyed myself. I call the formula FleshMud. OK, not really, but I have no idea how I got the colors in there (it’s not as black/gray in real life).

So I ironed down a bunch of pieces.

While Director Skinner observed. He’s a nice guy. He was very encouraging.

This is the chick I was ironing down…

This was in the early days of the drawing. She ended up being way more complicated than that…just like in real life! Wow. So philosophical tonight.

She started at piece 316 and went through 469, but then I had forgotten to number the face, so that was piece 1211-1247…or 1248. So 153 plus 36 (ugh, math in my head…) equals 189 pieces. Ahright. I’m up to about 6 hours in this thing. The ironing part, that is. I really need to do grades this weekend too, though, so I don’t know how much I’ll get done over the weekend. Hike. Meeting. Boychild in the house due to soccer tournament. Not a lot of free time.

But I am getting it done. There is progress. I can get my head around progress. It makes it somewhat better…it being LIFE, the practice of living. I actually find it very difficult to STOP ironing and go to bed. I just want to keep going and going until I’m done…like 1776 pieces done.

Anyway, with any luck, tomorrow will have less blood flow, no lockdowns, grading success (really unlikely), exercise, meditation, and fabric fondling. Hopefully there will be less screaming obscenities in my head as well, because I’m not finding that helpful. The section of meditation I’m doing now is about releasing bad feelings towards other people by imagining them happy. You start with yourself (this is very difficult for me, imagining my own self happy…I usually fail in the time frame they have allotted for that), then someone you see as a role model or someone important to you in some way (I have about 3 people I slot into this section), then the second person is someone you’re very close to (my kids alternate in here, based on which one seems to need it most, like today it was girlchild and her hives), then the third person is someone who don’t know very well (there are lots of these at work and on hikes), and the last person is supposed to be someone with whom you regularly have a negative reaction or negative feelings. There are two people that are obvious picks for this, but I am supposed to imagine them with happiness suffusing throughout them, and I just don’t think they deserve it. Mr. Meditation realizes that and tries to persuade me that my anger/frustration toward those people is hurting me, not them (fuck you, Mr. M…do you think I don’t KNOW that?), but I just can’t let them be happy in my mind. They don’t fucking deserve it. Anger strong. So there’s all this conflict in my head over meditation at the moment, which, shockingly, makes it hard to meditate.

Insert crying there too. Fuck me.

Seriously Mr. M…I can imagine them dying in volcanic explosions, as firebombing victims, in horrible plane crashes, from nasty cancer that makes them vomit profusely. And you want me to imagine them happy? I can only be ironic about that and imagine them in situations that would make NORMAL people happy (like weddings or traveling to foreign countries to lie on the beach and party), knowing damn well they would be miserable. Then I smile. In a sort of evil manner. Really, I shouldn’t be allowed out.

So yeah, not so healthy.

Back to the fabric. There’s a meditation that doesn’t inspire anger.

Yeah, I also gave up on a good title tonight. They all sucked.

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.

Where Am I, Part 2

I know where I should be in about 4 hours; unfortunately, Delta has once again messed up my flight plans, so I am stuck in a hotel in Syracuse, New York, ready to fly out at some ungodly hour in the morning. Last time this happened, I was headed to Quilt National in Ohio, and I missed the opening. I was really unhappy and stressed when that happened. I had to get a sub for my class and I was just messed up by the whole experience.

This time? Eh. It might help that it’s Spring Break, or it might be the influence of meditation or the distance depression gives me. I don’t really care. We got to the hotel and I went down to the gym and exercised for an hour. I drew for a while…

This is actually a really confusing drawing…there’s a metal tube and someone is zooming through it. It got a little crowded in the end. Too many overlaps. Might do it again on a larger piece of paper. It was (strangely) inspired by the first part of Angels and Demons (the movie, not the book), which was vaguely entertaining me after dinner in the hotel room.

Things the boychild has learned from this delay that his mom already knew: hairdryers are useful for drying damp shoes and clothing, although my Uggs are still wet from Tuesday (it’s OK, I brought my flipflops…oh, and hiking boots); you should always carry extra pairs of underwear and socks, and a shirt if you can; hotel staff have bandaids and it’s OK to ask for one; and most importantly, the line your mom picks will always be the longest one, so get in a different one (seriously, I’ve always had this issue).

Our flight leaves early, so I need to go to bed soon, although I have a hard time getting myself to sleep, even though I’m not on West or East coast time. I have no idea what time zone I’m existing in at the moment. Kathy Zone.

Six hours later! Yup, I’m awake and in an airport. We don’t have seats, but we’re checked in…somehow, we get in to San Diego before lunchtime (probably because it’s early enough that I would just be going to bed if I were home). One of my students wants to know her grade…sweetie, you turned everything in late! Plus I can’t input grades from here. Work raises its ugly head. No! I have 4 more days! Holy crap, where did Spring Break go? Apparently it wandered off…with my brain. Need to put a leash on that thing.

I’m missing life drawing this morning. That sucks. I will have to persuade Calli (the Golden Retriever) to do some poses for me (asleep, asleep on her back, asleep in a ball…you get the gist).

So wish me luck…hopefully the next post will be from the comfort of my own home, where the cats have been ignored by the girlchild for days.

Where Am I?

Such a philosophical question. I am significantly damp, somewhat peckish, with blood sugar definitely dropping. I forgot an umbrella, I left all my snack food in the motel (brain not functioning), and I’ve been up since 3:30 AM Pacific time.

Where am I? Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University, where the boychild will probably be spending the next 4 years of his life.

It’s a little mind-boggling and even sad to be here. I’m excited to send him here, to have him be moving on to being a college student…but with all the upheaval of the last year, it’s also really hard to be here.

Plus it’s pouring rain and getting colder, with snow expected this afternoon. In 5 minutes, I have to put all my wet outerwear back on and venture out to meet him at some info session, but right now, I am (shockingly) sitting in a nice comfy chair and drinking tea, texting the girlchild (who is not even up yet) about what color shirt she wants.

A few hours later…we did the info session and food and shopping for family, but by then it was hailing and windy and significantly chilly. On the one hand, worst day ever to visit this week, but he now has a better idea of what clothing he’ll need to live here. And he still likes it! Me, I’m happy to be living in Southern California. I spent a year living in Britain and constantly feeling damp and having my glasses fog up.

In San Diego, everything is green, that lime leafy green, right now. In a month or so, it will start to turn brown. Here in New York, everything is brown and dead-looking right now, with the exception of a few trees setting out buds. Spring isn’t quite here.

I’ve been reading a lot. It’s hard to stitch on the plane if you don’t know the people around you. They want to talk, or it just takes up too much room. It’s easier to read with headphones on so you don’t have to engage. Same with drawing…I did draw on the plane, but only when I got to sit with the boychild. Drawing is even more personal. I really don’t want to discuss it with strangers. But, yes, then I post it on the web…seemingly an incongruent act…but you are all out in the ether, not sitting next to me for four hours. No one can disapprove of reading, right? It’s an educated thing to do. We want our kids to do more of it…it helps us deal with the world, increases vocabulary, makes you more empathetic, protects against Alzheimer’s…hell, it’s unhealthy NOT to read.

I actually believe many of those things apply to drawing as well…it’s just harder to draw for many people…although no one doubts their drawing ability when they’re young. We haven’t mastered reading and we draw like little crayon ninjas, taking over the visual world with our interpretations. I have students who don’t like to read, who fight it, won’t look for key words, won’t practice. Sometimes it’s a language issue, sometimes it’s parents not making an effort to read TO their kids, to read IN FRONT of their kids (something besides Facebook status posts, folks…because that’s not reading unless you click through and read news stories and blogposts…and even then, your commitment was for a thousand words instead of pages).

I never had to make my kids read. But they saw both parents reading all the time and we read to them every day.

I wonder, though, what happens with the drawing? I wonder what kind of world this would be if we made drawing or visual expression (dance?) or even music as important and crucial, at home and at school, as we do reading? What kind of world would it be then?

Certainly I would be able to draw on the plane then.

Where My Brain Goes…

Almost 5 hours of tracing Wonder Under today and I still have 200 pieces to go. Out of 1776, that’s not bad. There’s actually more than that, because I have some pieces that are a’s and b’s of the original number. I forgot to number a nose, for instance. I’m getting close, though. That’s good. I’m 19 hours in. It gets to be kind of a slog…I have to force myself to not distract myself with blogs or books or whatever else I’d rather be doing (even cleaning house raised its ugly head, until I beat it into submission).

I could use the same light-table photo every day and it wouldn’t matter. There is a much bigger pile of Wonder Under sitting on the couch now…6 or 7 yards of the stuff filled up with tiny traced pieces…which then need to be cut out. I made it through all of my saved SVU episodes…it’s easy to trace to SVU because it’s not a difficult plot and they’re all kind of similar after a while, so I don’t really have to watch too hard.

I wanted to be done today, but I have to get up tomorrow because Julie and I are going on a road trip. Julie is good at those. Another two hours though…I’d be done. If I had just started earlier (OK, so it’s not like I did nothing all day…I had errands and the gym and a kid to take to school and I don’t even know what else…I just know I deleted a bunch of stuff off the Spring Break to-do list, and then added twice as many more tasks, because I’m a freakin’ idiot like that).

I had cats helping me all day. Babygirl came in and was lying on the floor for a while. She never does that…and then Midnight, this is her territory in the house, so she was around…

Couch World is HER world. But Kitten has also been coming in, and she rarely ventures out of my room, so that’s new…

It’s nice to see her out and about, venturing throughout the house. Babygirl, when she goes to sleep in the early evening, pretty much stays there all night. She doesn’t do a whole lot of rampaging at night any more…it’s mostly in the morning. So Kitten feels safe enough to come out, apparently. That’s cool.

Anyway, I’m feeling kind of brain dead because I haven’t talked to any human beings since 5 PM and I’ve been mostly tracing that entire time, with breaks for dinner and some other stuff, like airline mileage programs and emails and hell, there’s a bunch of computer stuff I haven’t even touched and I really should, and then there’s grading, and I’ve totally blown that off for the last two days. Dammit. Oh well. This is what happens. I get art on my brain and everything else flees before it. This is why I will be a hoarder. This is why my house is not clean. This is why the yard is a disaster. Did Picasso have to do yardwork? Did Matisse need to sweep up the damn leaves? And if they NEEDED to do those things, did they just blow them off, or did someone else do them, or did they use those tasks as breaks from the artmaking? I just don’t know. I want to know if Dali did the laundry. I want to know if Mary Cassatt did the grocery shopping or if Frida Kahlo needed to go buy batteries for the damn smoke alarm. Did Hockney have cats? Who bought the cat food? Did da Vinci go through the pile of mail and recycle the stuff he didn’t need? Who handled Mapplethorpe’s receipts for taxes? Who emptied Georgia O’Keeffe’s fucking litter trays?

I really really want all that stuff to go away. OR. I want someone to help me slog through it all. The to-do list is taking over my brain. I feel guilty when I ignore it and I feel horrible when I let it take time away from making art. There is no happy medium for that. It all just fucking sucks. Girlchild bawled me out yesterday for a pile of papers that I need to deal with that was way too close to the stove and was dangerous. I KNOW. I know. I just have to prioritize, and that stuff…it’s not a fucking priority. I need a secretary. An assistant. Kids that put their dishes in the damn dishwasher.

I barely feel human. I am just the body at the end of the mechanical pencil. I just trace and then I trace some more. My brain literally goes mostly blank when I’m tracing. Part of my brain is paying attention to the TV and the rest is just watching the lines and counting the pieces and deciding what piece goes on top and what piece needs additional space drawn on for the overlap. It’s kind of cool that it’s that all-encompassing, the tracing task. Or not. Maybe it’s disturbing.

I don’t know how I feel about it. The brain is blank. I should be done tomorrow…will start cutting it out then. Probably will take another 20 or so hours…maybe a little less. I usually take less time to cut than to trace. Then ironing…probably not going to get to that before the boy and I leave for New York. Oh well. Life goes on.

All the SVU episodes are gone though. What shall I watch next? Something that doesn’t set off emotional land mines. Ha! There is no such thing.

How do I explain where my brain goes? I don’t. I explain nothing.