Yeah. I Know. Whatever.

Crying in the morning? Sheesh. Thanks brain. Stop repeating the same phrases over and over. You need to get through the week without all this trauma. It’s only Wednesday. You shouldn’t be panicking yet. Yes, the Have-To list is huge, scary. I hear Julie telling me to Be Brave over and over in my head, but I don’t have Brave left. I just have Survive. Survive will work for this time of year…it usually does. I remember to breathe.

Buried in meetings doesn’t help…I’m having real problems with afternoon meetings at the moment. It’s never been my best time of day…I’m fine if I’m standing, but if I sit down, my body thinks it’s time to nap. I’ve always had this issue with afternoon staff meetings. My solution was to draw…it’s the same thing I did in school when I had afternoon classes (or if the class was really boring). I drew all over the agenda, in the margins, wherever. At one point, I drew on my feet and on someone else’s jeans (high school and college). Drawing keeps enough of my brain focused so I won’t fall asleep. It entertains the part that gets in trouble otherwise.

So in today’s union meeting, while taking copious notes on the meeting so I could repeat the info to my team, I drew…

I didn’t really have a plan when I started with the turtle, and it just went from there. It kept my brain occupied for about 45 minutes (in between the notetaking). When I put the drawing away, the woman sitting next to me asked what I was drawing. OK. YOU look at the drawing above and tell me what you would have said. My answer? “Lots of things.” She was offended. Like she thought I was blowing her off. Girlchild said I should have just shown it to her, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain anything. Whatever. People have the expectation that artists want to share everything we do because we hang art up on the walls (or put it on a pedestal or suspend it from a bridge…whatever), but sometimes I’m just drawing and it’s not yours just because I’m an artist and share some of my stuff. I’m pretty private about my drawings until they’re done…or sometimes until they’re actual quilts. Ironic that I say that, because I put them on here all the time…but that’s not the same as you in person asking me about it. There’s some distance here. I’m really talking to myself anyway…because I need to spend more time doing that? Yeah. I know.

Or maybe I was just tired and misread her tone and look. I think she said, “I see.” But in that tone. I know. Whatever. Meditate your way past other people’s responses. Just deal with your own response. The drawing helped me in the moment. That’s all I needed it to do, and it was successful.

Because otherwise I would have had to say that I was drawing a turtle with a cat on its back and a bust of some woman whose hands weren’t really attached with a sunflower growing out of her shoulder and a UFO buzzing her head, as she flicks a fish out across the eyeball tree that is growing out of the turtle’s head, as a volcano erupts and a bird tries to avoid the lava and ash, and a small thorn bush grows out of a rocky landscape. And that just wasn’t going to fly. Plus I don’t think I could have said that with a straight face.

This was after a long day at school of presenting, duty, chasing down my errant computer cart (apparently reserving it is not enough). Technology frustration today as the server again crashed. The new system we’ll be using next year in February or so will not have this problem because it won’t go through the server. God knows what problems it WILL have, but that won’t be one of them. I am the Queen of Adaptation, though…we made it work. The next 5 days of school will be a lot of adaptation on my part and my students’ parts as they get a big project done for science. Fun stuff. Solving the world’s problems.

Speaking of solving the world’s problems, Sion posted a link to this video describing depression as a black dog…it’s really well done…

Mine is never a black dog. It’s a cloud or a hole…or both. I like dogs too much to saddle them with that. I usually feel like I’m in a hole. It’s cold and muddy most of the time. Sometimes it’s very quiet, but not in a comfortable way. Sometimes everything is muffled and I can’t hear anything right, let alone feel it right. Occasionally something pokes through and really hurts, but mostly it’s like being wrapped in cotton balls…again, not in a good way, but sort of a suffocating way. I wonder how long it will be like this. I do all the right things. Good Kathy. Bark.

Yeah. Whatever.

I’m managing Christmas decorations at home (I still have Halloween up at school…if it weren’t for Janet, I wouldn’t have any appropriate holiday decorations at all in my classroom) very very slowly. We got the tree and I got the lights up. I managed the mantle yesterday evening. Tonight I did 10 ornaments. At this rate, I’ll be done by January 10. Maybe some kid will stop by the tree and hang some things. You never know.

I had this discussion in my head of highlighter colors. I like orange and blue. Purple is too dark. Yellow and pink just suck, but I’d rather use pink than yellow. I used 10 colors of whiteboard marker at school today. That made my day a little better. Stupid stuff. I didn’t even know I had two shades of brown. The teacher just wants to color.

It was pajama day at school today, my favorite day of the year. So comfortable. I even went to the meeting after school with them still on.

I’m hiding from my email at the moment. Trying not to read anything from anyone. Hiding from Facebook. Hiding from school email. Can’t handle anything rocking my boat emotionally. Not feeling stable. Just feeling. Meditation says if we never acknowledge and spend time with the bad feelings, we won’t really understand the good. I do believe that. I know people who think they never feel bad, never feel cranky or irritable when they obviously do. I am less cranky now…the sad doesn’t leave much room for anything else. It’s kinda big. Encompassing. Overwhelming.

I cut out pieces tonight. I didn’t have the energy to draw the rest of last night’s drawing…

Maybe tomorrow night. I didn’t cut out very much…I didn’t have much time.

The leftovers are sometimes more interesting anyway.

We’re worried about Calli tonight. She is in pain from something…hard to tell whether it is her hips (she has a bad dysplasia and will need surgery sometime in the future) or her stomach or something else. We’ve decided to watch and wait until tomorrow morning. Trying to fit a vet visit in right now is a little crazy. I have so many things on my work/home calendar that I probably shouldn’t attempt sleep at all…until the 22nd maybe.

She couldn’t get up onto the girlchild’s bed, which is where she always sleeps. We couldn’t even lift her up…it hurt her too much. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow morning. Poor baby.

Looks like I will have a piece in Ojai, California, February-March. I had to look it up on the map. Besides knowing it was in California, I drew a total blank. More on that later…for now, I need to try to sleep. More sleep good. Maybe then I can hold off the morning weepies.

Braindead…

I’m feeling more and more braindead this season. Intellectual conversation? With whom? Occasionally a kid or two, but on nights when they are with their dad, the conversation is missing. I talk to the cats. I read. I talk to nothing human. Seriously…I have talked to no one since 5:25. Before that, it was the guy at Petco who wanted to know why I looked so tired (gee thanks mister). That’s it. I joined some groups where I might be able to get some of that conversation, but it’s hard to fit it in to days when I don’t get to the gym until almost 6 PM. Am I really thinking I’ll be going out after I work out, shower, and eat? That’s after 9 PM? Yeah. Not happening. The non-gym nights are taken up by kid stuff and soccer games.

Then I realized it’s already December 10 and I haven’t dealt with Christmas much…I usually send a letter (um. yeah.) and I need to do the online shopping like very soon. Plus there’s all the holiday parties with potluck stuff, because I have time to cook as well. Sigh. I’m not a fan of this time of year. I say no to lots, but there’s some things I just can’t get out of.

So once I had finished the gym and feeding the body (don’t really care much about food any more), I had an internal debate between the brain that wanted to draw and the brain that was worried about getting everything cut out before Winter Break. Drawing won.

It’s been a while. I have about 17 drawings in my head. I’ve taken notes on some of them; they’re on my phone. This one obviously isn’t done. More crone/menopausal stuff. I do have a couple more in the sketchbook that I still haven’t finished, though. I need some concentrated time to draw without other things weighing on me (cough school cough). I’m already thinking ahead to what’s next, trying to make plans.

I’m hoping to finish the quilting of the Love quilt sometime in the next week (it’s probably only an hour or two), plus finish cutting out all the Celebrating Silver pieces. There’s a soccer tournament right before Christmas that will eat up a ton of time…I’d like to have the quilt all ironed down before Christmas, but I’m not sure I can pull that off. I need to have the Silver piece done by the end of break. I think I want to do a couple smaller pieces to start the new year, but there are also two larger drawings I’d like to make into quilts. BUT, I have another piece I have to finish by November as well. I haven’t drawn it yet…maybe my goal over break is to just get it drawn. I think I’m OK on time even if I toss another big quilt in there somewhere.

Of course, reality usually kicks my ass, so we’ll see. I like to make plans, though. People always tell me how impressed they are by how much I get done. I write it down. I have time spreadsheets in my head. I hold myself accountable here. I probably chastise myself for not getting stuff done too much…obsessive? Yeah. I guess. It’s a drive, though. It’s so strong, I feel sick when I don’t make/create. It’s worse now…miss one DAY, and I start to get antsy, like I’m coming out of my skin. It really is my sanity at the moment.

I finished Kevin Hearne’s Hexed tonight…

It’s the second book in the Iron Druid Chronicles…easy but interesting read…vampires, werewolves, druids, witches, and a variety of gods and goddesses…always fun. Quick to read and enjoyable. Not sure what book is next on the list…there are quite a few. There’s another book club book, plus the third book in a series I’m reading, plus I don’t know what else. Hard to choose sometimes. I have about 6 real live paper books on hold at the library, some are on their way for pick up and some are hold 43 of 280. I don’t know when I’ll see that one. Then I have another 4 books on hold through the online library, which is the same library but a separate lending system, which is often confusing. Then the girlchild has a couple real live books for me to read and wants to loan me a series of three or four books that are on her Kindle, which means I have to be able to read them within 14 days, because that’s how long she can loan them to me. Confused yet? I am. I see so few people reading these days…except for Facebook and email. It’s sad. I love reading.

I also seem to be getting back into reading graphic novels, partially because of NetGalley, but also because I just like them. I don’t have the money to go to the movies as much as I used to, so this is the next best thing, when I can find them free…which is hard sometimes, because I like the more alternative stuff and it tends NOT to be available that way.

Anyway. I blame my braindead status on reading and drawing tonight. Oh and the gym. I don’t know if braindead is good or bad. I did meditate too…it talked about change. Do I want it? Yes I do. I just don’t know how or when. That’s always the problem, though, isn’t it? I don’t want to change so much that I am no longer making art or spending time with the kids. I don’t need something big. I need a change IN me more than outside…a change in how I feel about life, because this isn’t fun. But that’s the harder thing, isn’t it? Being able to change this cloud over me, the hole I’m in…that’s just slow and plodding. There’s no magic wand or pixie dust for that. Meanwhile, my brain is blank. Maybe it’s just tired. Try again tomorrow.

Apparently Balanced

My brain is kind of drained at the moment. All the activities of the day have sucked out any relevant thoughts for now. I had plenty of them before. I’m not sure where they went. Maybe they got bored and wandered off.

It was a really busy day. I have duty before and after school for two weeks, which tends to suck up a lot of time and energy (morning duty at the tables? Makes me want to shoot myself. It’s early, I’m not really awake, it was bloody freezing this morning, and it’s all about picking up trash and their high energy vs my incredibly low energy at that hour and temperature…they win). We had a meeting about students, then I had tutorial after school, which is like herding peeing puppies who are constantly yapping and snapping at each other. I did manage to get work out of them today, though. Miraculous. It restores my faith every time they do that…I guess that’s why I can teach, because I constantly believe they can do it if I just work hard enough to persuade them to do it…and many of them DO. Freaky. We have meetings galore in the next two weeks to deal with kids and grades etc…which sucks up a lot of time too.

After school, I booked it to the girlchild’s soccer game. I’m actually glad I was only there for the last 27 minutes, because I almost froze in that short period of time, even though I remembered boots, two sweatshirts, and gloves (two sweatshirts were not enough). Plus I was trying to sew and had to take the gloves off. Mistake.

Home to make dinner…oh no, no you don’t…back to the ex’s house to retrieve Biology book and practice shorts while girlchild tries to get her head (and nauseous stomach) ready for tons of homework. She literally has tons of homework. Realized today that with ex gone for two weeks, I will have to provide dinner EVERY NIGHT. What the fuck? Shit. Not ready for that. Can barely manage what I’m doing now. Would let the girlchild cook, but she is buried in schoolwork. Need Meals on Wheels for busy working mom.

Made dinner, had argument (discussion? is it ever a discussion with two teenagers or is it always an argument?) about sexist portrayals in fiction. Read some examples. Confirmed sexism. Don’t know if I care…the books are good so far. Did grades for a while, then onto the bike for nightly exercise, followed by meditation aka crying and breathing. At the same time. A feat unknown to man? Well sure, but woman is pretty damn good at it. Then finally…49 minutes of cutting out pieces…

I’m only 3 1/2 hours in. I’m not getting much time at night at the moment. Sucks. Not home enough. Anyway, I’m doing it. The green? Lungs. Yup. Aren’t your lungs green with pink flowers? I’m sure mine are. There are some bitchy pieces to cut out in that bin. If I’m tired, I just cut out the easy pieces and leave the hard ones for when I’m more awake. I think I’m hoping cutting fairies will come by and do those. I guess that’s unlikely.

Busy. Tired. Telling the brain to fuck off. Half of my brain says one thing, thinking logically, making plans and decisions, seeing the Big Picture. The other half is a fucked-up mess and is just flailing around in emotional crap so deep it can’t get out. It wants to draw. I almost let it tonight, but then I saw how late it was. Need to sleep. Maybe I will have time to draw tomorrow night…I’ll be minus the tutorial, the soccer game, and the grading…or will I? Huh. But I will add the gym. Another time sucker, but definitely a good cause. Trying to just sit in the emotional half of the brain and let it do what it needs to do. Either I’ll understand it more or the emotions will be less of an issue. Or something. Meditation helps. Even when I sit there thinking about 1-2 1/2 hours spent every night meditating and exercising, I wonder if that’s sustainable…it has to be. If it keeps me sane, keeps me moving, keeps me calmer, it’s worth it. So just do it. My priorities have changed. More art, less school. Less work at home. More exercise. Meditate. Fewer people (that might not be a good thing). Apparently cry…that’s a daily thing. I could do without that one. Wonder if I ever will.

This morning, as I was updating some of the website, I was feeling all cranky about only getting into 7 exhibits in 2013, but then I realized that it was 8 exhibits, and I already have pieces in 4 shows in 2014 and 2014 hasn’t even started yet. So shut up, stupid brain. You’re doing fine. Stop being such a mope about stuff. Make the work. The shows will come. And if they don’t? You will still make the work. That’s the logical half talking to the emotional half. They don’t really get along at the moment. The logic is frustrated with the emotion, and the emotion thinks the logic doesn’t listen…because hey, most of the time it doesn’t.

Here’s a video Luana Rubin of eQuilter did of the SAQA exhibits at IQF Houston, including People and Portraits…

You can decide if that quilt is truly whimsical, or just plain old disturbing. Funny that it’s about being Fully Medicated, but I keep trying to get away from meds, and I keep having to take more. I should do one called Over Medicated, except I’m not. I have this Tshirt that says USDA Organic…which is ironic, because I’m not organic…I’m full of meds that keep my systems apparently balanced because my body doesn’t know how to, even though for half the ailments I have, I was told if I lost the weight, they would all go back to normal. Fucking liars. Well, the meds are supposed to keep everything balanced, but I don’t think I’m there yet…I’m freezing again. Under Medicated also might be fun to draw.

Apparently balanced: despite all the mindfucks that are going on at the moment, I seem to have found a balance between art and work that is somewhat functional: basically do very little grading at home. Do art every night. If there’s a question about how to use my time? Art wins. That’s sustainable. I hope.

The Haiku of Exhaustion

I was too tired last night to even write the Haiku of Exhaustion. I seriously had the whole thing written in my head, but I fell asleep while meditating, and then I decided that multiple nights with less than 5 hours of sleep needed remediation. Intervention. Luckily my brain went along with it, because god knows I’ve thought that before, and my brain doesn’t always put sanity first. But I slept…hard…and well…until Kitten wanted to pee. But that was in the morning. And I had slept…the sleep of exhaustion. Meanwhile, I can’t remember the damn haiku. Maybe I dreamed myself writing it. I’ve dreamed myself writing novels before…dreamed the entire plot and outline and writing it and then woke up and lost it all. I’m probably a pretty amazing person in my dreams.

I drew tonight…

I drew at the South Park Walkabout. Yes. I went by myself. I went Christmas shopping and actually managed One Whole Item off my list. I ran into a friend and her family and got to answer the question of “are you here by yourself?” with clarifying questions twice. I held it together…although at one point I said something about being alone forever. I hope that’s not true, but it’s not off the table…that’s for sure. I did correct myself. I guess you’re never alone when you teach middle school. You’re never alone when you have kids…even when they move out. You’re never alone when you’re a cat lady in training. So there we are. Plus in my head, I might never be alone. Yes, her eyes are crooked. I was drawing in the dark…

I was drawing at the Station Tavern. One of the pluses of being alone, dammit, is that it’s easy to find somewhere to sit at restaurants where there is never room for two. The waitress asked if I was alone too (I guess I need a shirt…or a hat…or a sign…yes…yes, it’s just me…alone…thanks for reminding me). Then I got glared down by many bearded hipsters and their leather-clad vixens for taking up space at the table. Whatever, bitches. I was here first and I’m not taking up that much room.

Yes, that is Hipster Santa awkwardly flipping you off. That was what I was drawing to the glaring people. Let the old lady eat her dinner, people. It’s her treat for the month. She deserves it. Be nice.

The food was good. I brought half of it home. I felt OK. Then I got in the car and sobbed the whole way home. Whoops! Oh well. Shit happens. In my case, tears happen. Move on. I came home, built a fire in the fireplace, meditated, and started writing this post in that room (it’s warmer than this room…I’m in my office with my sweatshirt hood on my head, wishing I knew where my fingerless gloves were right now.).

So tonight was marginally better than last night…I cut out fabric pieces last night for a whopping 17 minutes (OK, that’s more than I did today). Work stuff got in the way…work holiday party. Sigh. Such a complicated thing, my work existence. Yes, the eyelid is still twitching. The last two weeks before break…brains are mush. Grades. Sigh. Wish I still had that mental buffer against work issues that I had back in September. But now our team has been approved for the first round of one-on-one computers, rolling them out in February or so. Deep breaths. I’ll get my head around it during Winter Break. We’ll have tablets for monitoring the kids and their work. And somehow magically everything I teach is going to migrate to the web. In three months or less. Yeah. And the Easter Bunny still exists. Santa too.

Today was gym, rain, soccer, rain, and errands, and yelling, and wow. Girlchild’s whole game was in a monsoon, I think.

OK, this was in between monsoonal bursts…there was one before the game even started. I went and sat in the car and graded during that one, only coming out about 5 minutes before the game started. Then we had about three downpours in the first half…

But I stitched through them.

I didn’t stitch much. My hands were cold and I was trying to keep stuff dry. I had the big umbrella, but it’s not made for rain…only sun…so it leaks. And then the rain was going sideways for a while…

It’s really a miracle I wasn’t more soaked through…

It’s blurry because of the rain. The monsoonal rain.

The girlchild made a really nice left-footed shot at the goal…she’s on the right with her leg in the air. Everyone is looking towards her, and I can’t figure out where the ball was.

It was cold and wet, but at least I wasn’t in the mud like some people.

I’m in charge of laundry. Away games they always wear white. Nice. The friend I saw at the Walkabout said Martha Stewart would have a recommendation for removing the mud stains from the socks…they do always seem to come out of the shorts, but not the socks (different materials). Sigh.

Anyway, they won. This is a pre-official-high-school season tournament…two more games next week and then semis and finals on Saturday, which ought to be interesting, since that’s the extended family party. Not looking forward to that either. Except I’ll get to grade or stitch in the car on the way up. Sometimes I have to focus on the little things that please me…like Christmas lights…

Which is my favorite part of this season. The trees and lights…

I draw those lights all the time. Seriously, they’re in lots of my quilts. I tried to explain why once, but I don’t really know why. The mood? The color? The shape? The long string of them that can be wrapped around things? Don’t know. They’re just there. I don’t think of them as sinister, but as safe. Happy even? Maybe. I don’t know that I can qualify anything as happy.

I finished a book today, The Round House by Louise Erdrich.

I’ve always liked Erdrich’s books. Most of this book was amazingly good…there was some drifting off into history or something that lost me for a while today. It deals with conflicting federal, BLM, state, and Native laws regarding rape on Native land (or land that has territory issues, as in the book, where literally take a step one way, and it’s federal law, a step the other way, and it’s not). Her books aren’t happy, but there are happy moments. There are also tragic ones and painful ones, but there is always a good dog. It was a good book.

I like to use the cover of the book I actually read when I post about books. Strangely anal, I know. Whatever. I read it as an ebook, too, so even less relevant. So that’s the cover I had. Then I saw this cover…

Interesting. The snake? The tree? The religious connection…tenuous. I do like the graphic quality.

And then there was THIS cover.

This is my favorite, although probably also not relevant. The book is about the plight of raped Native American women, but told from the perspective of a 13-year-old son of a rape victim…so the cover is good, but? I don’t know. Maybe relevant. I have now officially caught up with all the Erdrich books I had missed in the last 8 or 10 years. I need my reading app to tell me when my favorite authors have a new book out. It sort of does, but I have to remember to click through. And then I don’t like to list a bunch of books in my To-Read list…I don’t know why, really. Because I’m afraid I will end up with a giant list of books to read and no time to read them? I do have a list…it’s on my phone. It’s just not in the app. I have to think about that…consider why I’m resisting using that function. It might be really useful. Maybe.

Anyway. That tired sleep thing is back. I got no art done today. It was a lost day. Not really, because I did a lot, but the art centers me. So I will have to make time for it tomorrow. Wow. Tomorrow just laughed at me. It doesn’t think I can do it. Well, fuck you, tomorrow. I’m a stubborn old bitch and now you’ve gotten me pissed off…so there WILL be art tomorrow (hopefully more than 17 minutes of it, but you never can tell). Sleep first though.

Ironing the Crone

I originally named this post “I Just Want to Sit on Your Ironing Board, Bitch: Stories of a Petulant Cat,” but it seemed like a really long title and I didn’t have a photo that went with it. Just know that a certain cranky old-lady kitty had to be forcefully (claws in the cover) removed from the ironing board about 7 times today. She’s a stubborn bitch. I don’t like cat hair on my ironing board…plus she tends to knock fabrics down onto the floor…

She doesn’t like my telling her what to do.

When I’m not actually ironing, I move the board out of the center of the room…but she still jumps from the back of the office chair to the board (which often ends in the board hitting the floor, because it’s not very stable). You can see all the fabrics I’ve used so far piled up on the right side, some more in the middle. I leave the drawing up where I can see it, so I know what I’m ironing. I’ve had to draw about 10 pieces that I apparently missed before. Whoops…some were double numbers, but some I just plain old missed completely. They weren’t even numbered.

So I have 11 hours into the ironing at this point. I managed three hours today…mostly I got the flesh part of the Crone done…

I used almost all of the lightest flesh color…there is very little left of it…

just little tiny bits in between the other pieces. I still have about 40 or 50 pieces in the Crone that I haven’t done…the heart, lungs, bits and pieces that aren’t flesh or hair, because I finished all of those. So I’m through piece 1122, but I haven’t done all of them. You can see some of them below…

And now I have a bunch more to cut out…which is what I’ll probably be doing a lot of this month.

I managed to finally get my head out of the emotional mud today, at least once I picked the kids up. The morning was a mess, but when I started ironing, I was able to distract the mopey part of my brain with X-Files and a complicated part of the drawing…it really does require a bunch of concentration to try to figure out what color each piece is supposed to be. Sometimes I write notes on the pattern, like what number in the color range a piece is (1-6 on this one), in case I forget. I like to iron an entire body in one go, so I don’t forget where I was…so I have to figure good places to stop and start. So it took three hours today JUST to pick out and iron all the Crone flesh pieces…she’s about 400 pieces, so that’s reasonable. I’ll get the lungs, heart, etc. done tomorrow hopefully…it’s almost done. I have to do an owl and a cat (like you do) and some thorny bits…maybe another 2 hours? Hard to say.

Unfortunately, I also have to go back to school tomorrow. I’m mostly caught up on grading, but the next three weeks will be challenging. I’m going to try to be really efficient so I don’t have a ton of stuff to deal with over break…knock on wood. We’ll see how that goes. I always make plans and get screwed up by real life.

Meditation has moved into a new series, focusing on the mind (like they don’t ALL focus on the mind?)…

Mr. Meditation changed his clothes for this series…there isn’t a video every day…it’s usually every 5th day before the actual meditation. But he wore the same gray sweater for the last 40 days, which was the Discovery Series, and now we have a blue shirt for the Mind Series (another 40 days). I thought maybe you’d like to have a picture to go with my descriptions of what he tells me. No, his name isn’t really Mr. Meditation…I don’t remember what it is. It doesn’t really matter. Mostly I just listen to myself breathe and sometimes he tries to talk me through some process of reflection or being in the moment with my feelings or letting my brain go do what it wants (usually a mistake at this stage of my life).

I was feeling actually fairly settled when I started meditation tonight. I had spent those three hours ironing, although I made dinner and hung out with the kids in the middle of it…I even drew a little. So I’d done everything I could to help my brain settle a bit, but then he starts talking about training the mind to appreciate and reflect (I do OK with that…the reflection at least. I’m working on the appreciation)…and he asked one simple question and I started crying. Not just a little trickle of tiny tears, but a full-on waterfall. Damn brain. I know why. And it’s interesting, because we’re back to the thinking vs the feeling, and I am very good at allowing my brain to have the feelings and work through them. Sometimes my thinking brain gets angry about WHY I’m feeling, why I haven’t been able to get OVER it, and why I can’t just ignore stupid anniversaries that aren’t anniversaries any more, but I think I just have to accept that part right now. And it sounds like Mr. Meditation will be making me work on that for the next 40 days.

Two of my pieces will be at the SOKA University Art Gallery in Aliso Viejo (Southern Orange County, California) from January 13-May 8, 2014, as part of a California Fibers exhibit. I will unfortunately miss the opening; it’s on Thursday, January 23, I think (that’s a school night…not driving that far), but I will probably go up at some point to see the exhibit. It will be a good variety of fiber work from this group. It was juried by Kevin Wallace, director of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, California. That’s good news, getting work into shows. I will keep working on that.

Out of the Dirt

I managed the gym, finished a good book (in one day…no idea how many pages it had, because the Kindle app says things like Location 405 of 3606, and I don’t know what that means), graded one period’s worth of journals (I only had one period left, so that was OK), bought thread so I can quilt up in the mountains, hung out with a friend for an hour or so, and ironed fabrics. Not a bad day. I managed it. There were some bad moments, true, but that seems to always be the case. I weathered them. I cried, but it wasn’t as bad as some Saturdays have been. I do miss going out to dinner and the movies. I wish I could go out dancing, but that seems to be out of my cost range, plus requires more people skills than I have at the moment. Doing things with other people is not my strong point. I even meditated, but my brain was like a 5-year-old with ADHD, so I just let it wander and reeled it back in over and over again. I’m not sure it was particularly helpful tonight. Oh well. It can’t always work ideally. That’s the wonder of the damn brain. It’s fucking unpredictable. Or maybe it’s predictably random.

I have about 2 1/2 hours in on the fabric choosing for the Celebrating Silver quilt…

I’m about halfway into the 200s as well. I’m up and out of the dirt as of tonight. When I start up again (maybe tomorrow?), I will be in the flesh of one of the daughters…I think of the Maiden and the Mother as daughters of the Crone…not sure why. Because they’re smaller and younger? Who knows. I didn’t want to start dealing with flesh yet…too tired tonight for that. Flesh has to be a run that flows, and with a quilt like this, it might need 7 fabrics in the run. Or I might decide to do two different runs, two shades…with the daughters in a lighter, pinker shade, and the crone in a more muted, greyed shade. Who knows? I won’t know until I pick them, and I kind of feel like I need to have a fresh brain for that, and I don’t have that right now. I have late night tired brain.

All the 200s are laid out…

There’s a bird in there too. And a heart, I think. Maybe a fetus. All that before I even get to the daughter, whichever one it is. Can’t tell…maybe the Maiden. There’s only 1237 or so pieces in this thing. I’m going to be ironing for a while. It would be nice to get it done before we leave, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

My plan is to start cutting these out at my rescheduled quilt class Monday night and continue up in the mountains.

I’d like to have half of it ironed by Tuesday…more if possible. It sounds like a lot of time, but I have a hike and dinner tomorrow, then doctor, soccer, groceries for Tday, some other errands, and quilt class on Monday…and Tuesday morning is a mess. So I don’t know how far I will get. When I type all that out, the thought of getting 615 pieces ironed seems unrealistic…that’s another 400 pieces, probably another 4 hours. When I’m not tired. Ha! OK, I have a goal. I’ll do my best to meet it.

I did go through the older sketchbook and marked some of the drawings with post-its. I don’t know if I’ll get more serious about making some smaller quilts this week, but I’m trying to at least keep it in mind, since two of my smaller non-nude pieces will be in Poway starting next week, so there is a market for these. I think I’m afraid to NOT have multiple pieces in progress at the moment…I don’t want any down time. Down time leads to depressoid time, and I’m good at that without any encouragement from a nonbusy brain. Trying to keep the brain occupied is an important task.

After finishing the cross stitch I’ve been working on for my SIL for the last 3+ years, I was trying to decide what to do next and decided that the girlchild’s Xmas stocking should be next on the list…I mean, I started it before she was born and she is now 16. Seemed to make sense. So I pulled it out and stared at it for 20 minutes, trying to figure out what in hell I had stitched…

I really did think I had stitched more, but more importantly, this line of stitches didn’t appear to match anything on the pattern…until I realized I had stitched it in the wrong color. Wow. I was about 9 months pregnant with the girlchild and the boychild was about 18 months old when I started it. It’s surprising my brain didn’t just fall right out of my head. I ripped out all the stitching from over 16 years ago and will start again at my next stitching meeting. Fresh start. Funny stuff. I did tell her not to expect it until she was 21, based on how long the one for her aunt took me…it’s not that I’m a slow stitcher…I’m not. I just only work on it for about an hour and a half a month at the one meeting.

I’ve been staring at this card all day…it was sent by two good friends sending me encouragement a few months back…but I love the dog and birds. Bright colors and funky.

Much appreciated. They’re the ones who posted the article that talked about the meditation app I use, Headspace…so it’s their fault I’m calmer now. Damn them. No, not really. I did actually use it the other day with a student who was in a mood…and it worked. Welcome to the calmer Kathy…or something.

I started and finished this book today, Every Day by David Levithan.

I liked it. I thought it was well-written. I can’t remember why I read it, although it could have been as simple as seeing someone else’s review. A person (hard to tell if A is male or female) inhabits a different body every day, and one of those days, falls in love. It was nicely done. I would read another book by Levithan. Because I don’t have enough books to read? I remember the boychild worried once about what would happen when he ran out of books to read. I don’t think it’s happened yet. I have two more books on the library ebook system and another two on the Kindle app at the moment. I guess vacation is time to read.

I’m hiking tomorrow; far as I know, the hike is on…looking forward to this one…will be dispelling some head demons up there, I think. Hope. Trying to figure out if taking the sketchbook makes sense. I can’t draw and hike, but maybe I can draw in the car (mountain roads? Might be a mistake…don’t know).

Out of the dirt…into the snow.

Time Off

I didn’t post last night because I think I finally hit absolute exhaustion mode. Thursday was a bitchy day, nonstop bullshit left and right, too much to do. Counselor says I thrive on stress…but then by the end of talking to me, she had revised…she said that I had been living that way for so long that I didn’t know how to stop…that I didn’t like it, but I functioned well that way. True that. I try to reduce stress, but that’s hard to do when the world keeps throwing shit at you. The meditation is helping, but we’re going to work on the rest of it. Today feels like more of it, the stress…but I know if I can power through some of this, I can get it done and do the stuff I want to do and get more time for that.

Yesterday was two potlucks…my students were amused because I forgot to put the mashed potatoes in the microwave early enough in class (lunch is after 4th period…I was supposed to microwave them between 3rd and 4th and then put them in the slow cooker…duh), so I stomped (wearing Uggs, feet cold) into the prep room, slammed open fridge, microwave, and stomped back out…they knew they were being typical kids on the day before break, so they thought I was mad at them and was going into the prep room to get something to punish them with (wait, what? Because I do that? like what would I have in there…leftover sheep hearts? cow eyeballs to lob at them? Oh wait. I do have those things.). So that was funny.

Then we kamikazed north in that crazy East County thunderstorm last night to another potluck…it was totally dry and rainfree in North County, but flooding here. Weird stuff made for fun ride. By the time I got home and my body was trying to deal with two different potlucks of food that it wasn’t used to…I meditated…then I sat silent with my cup of tea and stared at the blackened TV, off. Too tired to do anything. But I remembered that I wanted to think about doing a few smaller pieces for shows that need them, and maybe some without nudity (same deal), so I pulled a couple old sketchbooks…

And started thumbing through them. Wow. That was a mistake. The last five years of drawings in these books is mostly at dinner and it’s really painful to look at them. I found a couple that might work for size, but not nudity. The top one isn’t even full. The bottom one is, though. I don’t know if I can open them back up though. Maybe next month.

I found another sketchbook this morning that was a little older…it might be more useful. But I really can’t do that right now…I was looking at that for December (which, yes, is only a week away) and maybe over break if I finish these two. And I already have two in line for after that. At least. Plus there’s another invitational thing to do by next November AND I want to do another big one for next summer. Because I have no life and I might as well fill it with artmaking and fuck the rest of it. It’s really my fault for documenting where I drew each one…I like the history of that process, but for future reference, sometimes history hurts. Counselor says I need to be OK with hurt at some point. I think trust also needs to come back, and neither are lurking behind the curtains waiting for me to call them out…they’ve fucking run for the hills, terrified that I’m going to kick their asses. I think I have a lot of time before I deal with either of those two things.

Or something.

There’s a hike planned for tomorrow to Cuyamaca Peak, but we know it snowed up there…ironically, the last time I went on this hike, it had just snowed too and it was freezing and there was no view. And my co-hiker was a fucking physical wimp, so it was a pain in the ass. Remind me of that in a year. We’ll see about the hike. I’m OK with going and OK with rescheduling…I have plenty to get done.

What’s really calling to me (is not the grading I have to do at school later today, once I get my butt to the gym and run errands) is this…

I want to just pick fabrics out for this quilt for the next 24 hours until it’s done. I can’t, of course, but that’s what I want.

It’s going to be an amazing quilt. I’m really happy with the drawing. I just hung it up Thursday night and I’ve been walking past, in and out of the office to do stuff for school, and every time I look at it, I get excited. That’s good. That’s healthy. Fuck the rest of it.

Calli agrees…

As long as I throw the toy.

I think my other goal this week is to get enough rest…I will be going to the doctor Monday to figure out all my test results (I’m sure she loves that I read and analyze them before I come in, but I want to be able to reduce some of my meds and so I need to know what to look for, although now it looks like I will have to ADD fucking meds for the anemia…bastard body…if you’ve seen my piece Fully Medicated, you know how I feel about being on stupid meds). Maybe some of that is related to my sleeping issues.

I must have REALLY been exhausted last night, because I did mostly sleep, although it was an interesting night, apparently…this is my sleep app from last night…

I don’t usually see peaks like that. Usually it’s more like this…

from the night before. The sleep of the dead. Lack of sleep. Yes, it’s also a work night vs a non-work night, so that helps. Anyway. I’m hoping for plenty of the good sleep and less of the awake time, and longer periods of it…to hopefully recharge for the next three weeks, which are a little chaotic, as always, but complicated by the ex being gone for the holidays this year and college applications being due and balancing my needs for art and a life that isn’t sad and depressing. I had issues with that yesterday…but was too tired to even deal with them. Drawings! There are drawings crowding my brain, but a lot of them involve warrior women taking over the world and burning shit down, so that will be fun to draw. Boychild offered to get me a spear and legal advice…such a good kid.

Fabric Soothes My Soul

I don’t know where to start. I have been all over the map today. It wasn’t good. So I saved myself in the end with fabric. It’s a temporary fix, though…it only works as long as I am tracing, cutting, ironing. It stops as soon as I stop, unless I do it for hours, and then sometimes I can hold on to the feeling of almost-peace. Tonight I earned 41 minutes of almost-peace. I wish I could bank it for later.

I’m apparently anemic. Don’t know why yet. I can interpret blood tests to a certain point and then it just gets confusing…there’s too much data. I’m hoping it’s simple, a lack of iron in my diet…there certainly probably is a lack of iron in my diet. I don’t eat red meat at all any more…well, maybe once a month…and girlchild bogarted the spinach in the freezer for her back. It’s been defrosted and refrozen too many times to eat. I keep meaning to buy more, but it’s not like food is fun for me anyway. I just eat to fuel the body. I don’t eat for pleasure. I don’t know that I do anything for pleasure…hike…read…OK, and draw. Some things. Not pleasure, but peace.

Girlchild made varsity soccer. This is a good thing. Well, except for the back thing. We’ll deal with that. She’s happy. I’m happy she’s happy…it’s a big deal to her to play in her junior and senior years. I realize I have 700 soccer games on cold metal bleachers ahead of me, but I will survive (well, I will be cold…see anemia above). I don’t have a life…I have to be pleased with the lives of my children. Don’t worry…I’m not living through them. I do have a life, I guess. It’s just limited at the moment…probably more by me than by anything else. I don’t want to interact with most of the world, so I don’t. It’s a source of pain. I try to limit my pain.

There were cookie issues this week. I brought home leftovers from a school reward and boychild apparently bogarted all of them in some bizarre logical maneuver. Basically, it comes down to his being a hungry teenaged male who does not necessarily always think about other people before scarfing food. To his credit, he did give her about 13 hours of opportunity before he ate her share, but it would be nice if he would learn to ask. So when the book club was canceled last night, I stopped by the store and bought more cookies on the way home…and then this happened…

I don’t really know how the cookie divisions played out. I don’t like chocolate chip (I’m allergic), so I think she divided them in half and then subtracted the ones he ate the other day, and then I don’t know what happened. I gave up one of my sugar cookies to my ex-husband, who I believe shared it with a very happy Golden Retriever.

Here’s the boychild’s share…

Yeah. She’s a bit vindictive at times. (It says, “who cares?” about how many of what type of cookie he gets…I’m not really sure why each bag has a count on it.)

I was joking last night about the core difference between me and my brother. My mom wants to do a family portrait. I hate them, but it’s her deal…whatever. My brother and sister-in-law do them all the time and they’re nicely done…it’s just not my thing. So we all have to dress in blue jeans and white shirts (you missed my brother’s and my emails to mom about SHADES of blue and SHADES of white and should they be skinny jeans or acid-washed or what?). This means, in my house, that two of us need white shirts (me and boychild own no such thing) and one of us needs jeans (girlchild doesn’t wear jeans…mutant child…although I only got the boychild to wear jeans as of 2 years ago, so…). Girlchild is swearing that she is wearing a dress and putting a jeans skirt on underneath and then flashing the photographer, boychild is going to use spray paint to paint an anarchy sign on his shirt, and I’m thinking that mom didn’t tell me the shirt had to be PLAIN, so what obnoxious thing can I have on the front of it (Tardis? swear words?). Meanwhile, my SIL says that she will just TELL her kids what to wear and they WILL. Hmn. That is the core difference between my brother and I right there. I’m trying to figure out how to fuck with the system and he’s doing what he was asked to do. Not really…he’s a devious beast…he just flies under the radar.

Don’t worry. I’m sure it will all work out fine. I don’t know how anyone will force all of us to be smiling though, because I don’t do that any more. It’s against my religion. Not really.

Meditation tonight was difficult. I battle myself sometimes. Well, actually, I don’t. I succumb to sadness. I don’t really fight it. I watch it. I feel it. I let it wash over me. I try to figure out where it comes from, but I don’t resist it…or do I? I don’t. Yes, it’s unpleasant, but I don’t really know HOW to resist it, which is good, because resisting it is not helpful. To be at ease with my existence, I have to note it, but not run away from it. I don’t usually run away from uncomfortable things. They suck, but they don’t go away if you run. They’re still there. I live with uncomfortable things. I hold them inside me and pet them, like they are porcupines or hedgehogs…only petting in one direction or you will get stuck. And sometimes you just get stuck and you suck it up and deal with it because you don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice. I don’t understand people who run away from their own feelings. You live with one person your whole life…there is one person you have to deal with…you can’t run from that person. So be with that person. Be as strong as you can as that person. Be as honest as you can with that person.

Mr. Meditation asks what I am getting swept away by…and does that cause discomfort? Well, sadness, duh. And yes, it does. But I don’t run from that. I watch it, I let the tears roll down my cheeks, I write about it, I draw it. I don’t criticize myself (usually) for being sad. I have good reason. And even if I didn’t, it’s still my sadness and as long as I’m not purposefully wallowing in it in a stupid way, and I don’t think I am, then this is what it is. Sad. Sad is what it is. Someday hopefully that is not what it will be. Someday it will be something else and so will I. Except I think I will always carry this sadness inside me, like I do the destruction of my marriage, like other things that are such a core part of me that I will never be free of them. I live with them, I pull them into my arms and embrace them…spikes and all. What else can you do?

He says if we’re not aware, then we’re not able to do anything about how we react to situations. I think I am doing better with that, although tonight a work thing raised its ugly head. I reached out and I think it’s under control, at least temporarily. I got support. I think I am just being paranoid (although I have good reason). I think I know how to protect myself better now.

So I went to the gym and freaked out for about 2 hours (seriously…17 texts later)…and then I came home and made beer sausage mac and cheese for tomorrow night’s potluck and real live mashed potatoes for the work potluck (no, I never do those, but two friends are in charge and I want to support their endeavors to take over the shitty climate at work, so I did my deed). And I made dinner at the same time and watched that show about the people who live out in the boonies in Alaska, and thought about how I totally couldn’t do that, but some part of my brain really does just want to run away to a homestead in Alaska and get off the fucking grid, but I couldn’t eat fish or kill bears or live out there for a long time, so that’s just silly escapist crap that doesn’t get me anywhere. Wanting to escape doesn’t mean you can or you should. Wanting to leave the town where there are so many memories…that doesn’t mean you can.

And after all that work and meditation and some shitty moments of crappiness (god, people can really be shitheads, can’t they?), I decided that even though I am tired and run down and sad and depressed and really done with the world, that the only way I would get any clarity or peace tonight was if I played with fabric. I got everything cleaned up and folded and put away that was covering the ironing board and the table (sometimes I do not know where I get the emotional strength to do such crazy things at 10:30 at night), I figured out what threads I needed to buy for quilting, and I took a deep breath and started on choosing fabrics for the Celebrating Silver quilt…

(drawing hung up on the left, Wonder Under laid out on the right; yes, my office/studio is a total disaster)

I didn’t get very far…

(the first 100 pieces laid out in 10s)

Honestly, I didn’t have a whole lot of brain power left and it was fairly strained during the dirt fabric choosing.

A good mix of batik, hand-dyed, and commercial prints.

Yes, that’s all I did. Dirt. So fuck you. What did you do tonight, eh? I mean, look at that hand-dyed fabric…and rejoice in the fact that it will be fucking awesome at the bottom of this quilt.

You’ll be able to see this quilt in Houston next year, assuming my anemia is not caused by some horrible cancer that will slay me before I finish. Not a joke. I know that happens. That’s why I’m so focused on my health. That shit terrifies me. I really really wanted some of my meds to go away (one might, maybe two). I really, I guess I really did want my diabetes numbers to come down and they didn’t, proving again that it’s not weight-related.

But fuck that shit. I got started on the fabric choosing. Hopefully I can get it all done over Thanksgiving Break and move on to the next stage…and then I can make another quilt…and another…and maybe by the time I get 10 or 12 more of them done I will not be this sad crying person any more. See, that’s my discomfort. I am not comfortable being the person who cries all the time, who is always sad. I rarely cried before. This is painful…the crying itself just wears on you. But maybe this is the new me. Who knows? I don’t. I’m just keeping my eyes on the fabric…it soothes my soul.

Wait. So This Is What You Want?

My brain betrayed me this morning. I kept waking up last night…a pattern now. I look at the phone; it tells me how much time is left. Either a sigh of relief or a sigh of suffering for not enough time. There were 30 minutes left. I can sleep for 30 minutes. Apparently, I can hit dream sleep in 30 minutes when I’m really tired. I woke to the alarm in the middle of a dream, the brain betraying me with what it wanted. I wrote this post title two months ago and then couldn’t write the post. I’m still not sure what post I was going to write for that; I just knew that it hurt. Today is a hurt day. Why? Who knows. The dream was what the brain wanted, and it took me a while to wake up enough to realize what it was saying and then again to realize that it wasn’t reality any more…but that it HAD been, but it took me a while to remember that it wasn’t any more. And in that little while, the brain felt happy. Ouch. I tried talking to the brain, reasoning with it, telling it how that wasn’t going to happen any more, listing all the logical reasons for giving up on what it wanted because it wasn’t healthy, and it just turned away, gave me that sad look, then said something about hope. And I stopped. Because that kind of hope? It’s gone. It’s not something that can be achieved any more. I tried to explain that, explain why it didn’t want what it thought it wanted, that the person didn’t really exist, that it had all been a lie, and it shook its head again, sad, crying quietly, and walked out the door, shoulders all hunched up. It wants what it wants. It wants the unicorn, the Yeti, the fire-breathing dragon. It wants magic and Santa Claus and benign ghosts watching over you. It wants love and hope and people who think about someone besides themselves (ironic, working in a middle school). It wants what it can’t have. It wants it to be different. I feel so bad for it…I want to follow it out the door, run after it and explain the world, reality, to it, but I know it’s not listening. Maybe I should just give it a hug. I have two students right now who hug me every day. One boy came to me two periods after he had me, shoelaces loose and all over the place, and said, “I forgot to get my hug.” Another boy had a sign. He had misspelled “desperate” (I don’t remember the whole sign…yes, I hugged him AFTER I told him there was a spelling issue). I can’t tell you how much those hugs save my life some days. It’s sad, so sad, to know that a hug from a 12-year-old is my salvation on a day like today. Some goofy kid needs a hug and writes a sign and that’s why I get out of bed and shower and go to school. And they don’t even know what it means, how screwed up I am, how much importance I place on that simple act of kindness. They don’t even know.

So that’s the sad I woke up with this morning, and the image is still seared on my brain, the one thing it says it wants…like a little kid watching all the pre-Christmas toy commercials and picking out some piece of crap that will break two days later and needs 17 D batteries to run. As adults, we try to persuade the kids that those toys are worthless…we may even decide not to buy any of them, or we may look at a child’s wish list at Christmas, their hope to Santa for whatever goofy thing it is, and we may just fulfill that wish. I know we did with the girlchild many times, because she was always convinced that’s what she wanted, and being divorced parents, there is always a feeling of guilt that you already fucked it all up for them…and you have to make up for that. This year she wants nothing, she says. This year, I can’t even come up with anything big for her. This year, I don’t even think there will be money for a whole lot anyway. My brain is off having its own dreams and hopes and can’t focus on trying to guess the dreams and hopes of two teenagers. My money is paying for college application fees and test-reporting fees. Lots of them. Maybe they are just wishing mom were more present, less sad. I don’t know. They would never say that to me. What do I want? Me, not the brain? Because they’re separate? (betrayed) I just want to get through…through to the other side of whatever sad hell this is…through to another place. Like walking through a wormhole onto a tropical beach, drinks with umbrellas, a quiet but purposeful massage, some music, somewhere to dance and be present with some level of calm happiness. Leaving that part of the brain behind, the part that is so damaged and caught up in all this sad and grief. Just leave it.

Not to be. Must fix.

So as I keep going through this part of the meditation series, which is focused on wanting things to be different than what they are, realizing that’s what triggered this dream (I so rarely dream these days…I used to dream all the time), maybe Mr. Meditation will help me figure out how to persuade my brain to revise its wants to something that makes sense or that might actually be beneficial to both of us. I hope so, because this isn’t good for either of us. Mr. Meditation says it’s not a bad thing to want things to be different. It’s normal (holy god, I’m normal…). He wants me to pay attention to how often that happens (holy shit. Really? Not enough fingers.), so that I can eventually “develop a sense of ease with the way things are.” He’s into a sense of ease. When he puts it that way, I’m OK with it. I need that…to be at ease with my existence, because it’s too painful otherwise. At the end of each meditation, I am more calm and clear, but I am often still very very sad, despite all that. I can’t get out of it. It’s just there. Calm and clear sadness.

I was supposed to go to a new group meeting tonight, a book club. I got all the way to the place, and found out it had been canceled. If I hadn’t been rushing around, trying to get dinner made etc., I might have checked email and known before I left. As it was, I came back, bought the girlchild cookies (day 3 of tryouts, she’s made the first cut to varsity, but her back is an issue…imagine her lying on the kitchen floor crying and you’ll know why I bought her cookies), and listened to her read me Huckleberry Finn (no, I don’t know why she was reading it to me. It doesn’t matter.).

When I left, I almost turned back to get my sketchbook, but she said no, I needed to be sociable. She said I couldn’t take it. I got in the car and realized the sketchbook is my security blanket. I felt unsafe, unprotected. Drawing as protection? I often have it with me, just in case, even though I rarely pull it out…because then I have to deal with people watching me draw or asking me questions. Aargh. Just let me draw. It’s also a stress releaser…I can draw and let some of that nervousness and anxiety go…I don’t like being around new people and trying to figure out where to go and where to sit and how to act and whether I’m allowed to use swear words or not (seriously…I considered that on the hike last weekend). They’ve rescheduled…we’ll see. That week is a bit busier than this one was…actually, this one was supposed to be busy, but everything is moving around. All of a sudden there is space where there wasn’t before.

So I was going to input grades, but then I thought…why? I’m not in the mood. I cried on the way over there, I cried on the way back, my SIL was talking to me and telling me she understood about something I was trying to explain, why hanging out with a bunch of married people right now just hurts, because it’s not that I want to be married…I just don’t want to go through this whole beginning relationship, developing relationship crap again. I don’t have the mental energy. I don’t trust anyone. At all. I don’t want to be a part of that world again. I don’t feel like I will ever fit into that, that I will ever be able to be in a relationship that works.

I know that’s negative thinking. So instead of doing grades, which honestly just shoves me back deep into negative mode, I decided to finish cutting out Wonder Under for the Celebrating Silver quilt. Art dispels some of that negative shit. Do art, not grading. Fabric saves lives.

I thought I had a whole yard left, because it was folded up on itself, but it turned out I didn’t even have a half yard left…

The one on the right is all the trash and leftover pieces. I don’t throw it away until I make sure I didn’t drop some real live pieces in there (because I do). Plus I have some where the web is releasing from the paper, so I might need to redraw/recut those, so I just hold on to that box until they’re all ironed down.

I got the whole thing cut out in about 40 minutes…

totaling 7 hours and 34 minutes for the whole quilt. Not bad. So just to give you an idea, I’m 24 hours into this quilt and I haven’t even touched fabric, unless you include choosing and washing the background fabric.

It’s over 1200 pieces, but it doesn’t look like much in the box from the side.

Then I took just under an hour to sort all the pieces into boxes by hundreds…

I love my light table…it’s so much easier to do this now than it used to be, when I did it on the floor. Can you see the dog? Top left, asleep on the couch. There’s a cat twining herself around my legs in this picture too.

It’ll take me about 12-13 hours to pick fabrics. I might start tomorrow night…if I’m not too tired. Not sure how much time I’ll have over the weekend, and part of next week, I’ll be out of town, so I can’t do fabric then, but I’m hoping to have all the fabrics picked by the end of my Thanksgiving Break…plus have the other quilt done too (which means I need to go thread shopping at some point. It doesn’t sound like much time, but it’s hard to just start and work straight through for that many hours. My brain gets tired. It’s coloring and recoloring the picture in my head, trying out colors up there before pulling them in person. There will be a lot of flesh colors in this quilt…with three bodies. I’ll probably pull those fairly early on, after I do the dirt. Do I really have to go to school tomorrow? I’d rather do this. There’s something almost exciting about starting to work with the fabric…it gets to be almost real now.

I had a ton of blood drawn this morning. I’ve seen the results. Mostly good. I think it’s funny that people ask me if my diabetes will go away now that I’ve lost so much weight. I was first diagnosed about 10 months after the divorce, when I weighed the least I had in years. I was pre-diabetic at 19, so I held it off until age 35. Now I weigh less even than I did at diagnosis, and no, it’s not gone. There’s no magic there. My pancreas is not behaving. Welcome to genetics. The thyroid also tends to be weight-based, but no, it’s not behaving either (hence my consistent chill, with a down comforter on the bed since mid-September, and this is Southern California, not Minnesota). So the diabetes meds get to stay. The thyroid meds too. Bastards. Doesn’t matter what I do. The doc told me the stress of the divorce accelerated the diabetes…but I had hoped my numbers would come down, and they didn’t. Others did, but not the diabetes numbers.

It’s disappointing, but not the end of the world. I’ve spent over 11 years dealing with the diabetes, so I will just keep on…keeping on. With the meds, with my brain, with art, with my life, whatever it looks like. I will keep on trying to make a new life, trying to find something akin to peace, maybe happiness, whatever that looks like, because I don’t remember, and the brain is just damn faulty at this point. What I want? It’s not worth thinking about right now. Less sad. Fewer tears. Health. Occasional sleep. I’m not asking for much.

Brain Overflowing

Stupid fucking hormones. Watching a benign video of hot-air balloons makes me cry? How much of that is depression and how much is fluctuating hormones?

Really? That’s cry-worthy? It’s cool and all, but I don’t know any more what sets me off. I think life, living set me off.

Batik fabrics made me cry today. Different reasons. I think. I don’t know. I picked a deep dark complicated purple for the Celebrating Silver background…

Of course, it doesn’t look really complicated or dark in this photo. Dark blues, purples…they never photograph correctly. I feel like I’m in a background rut. Maybe the next quilt needs to have a red background…or yellow (yuck. I’m not a yellow fan.). I don’t like black…it’s not deep enough. I prefer dark blue, dark green, dark purple. I picked purple because it seemed more magical, mystical, and this quilt seems like that to me.

Anyway. I’m getting close to the end of the Wonder Under…

I know. It doesn’t look any different. I only have one yard left to cut out, though…I got a whole yard plus a bit done tonight, while I was sitting there, watching TV, talking to no one. Exciting life. Really. And meditation goes on about “is there anything you want to be different?” Well, fuck yeah. Except that would mean trusting people, and I can’t do that yet. Sigh. Anyway. So I’m in a space by myself with myself. Still. It was harder to be me today. Hate days like that. I know it’s all hormones and sad and grief and even tired. They conspire against me.

I also bought this purple…I considered it for the background, but it’s way too busy.

But I still liked it enough to own it. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of shopping time. I basically walked in and got those two and left, but while I was staring at all the batiks, I got this wash of Holy Fuck Sad over me and started crying. Really? Why? I managed to stop crying in the driveway of my house. Good thing…I don’t know that boychild knows what to do with Crying Mom. Meditation was another total cry fest. Funny, ironic, yesterday I thought I was done with the Blubbering Meditation. Apparently not. I guess I will never be able to meditate with an audience…well, besides the cats…

Who ignore me unless they’re trying to sit on me.

I’ve watched the first two episodes of Almost Human…

The main detective is the actor who plays the young McCoy in the most-recent Star Trek movie. I only say that because it’s hard to watch without seeing McCoy in the acting. That said, it’s been a relatively good show…with some highly amusing moments about his testicles. I guess I’m glad I don’t have an android assisting me in any way. I have a lot of TV saved up on the Tivo. Some shows I just can’t watch any more. The people in them are too assholular. I guess I’ve experienced too much of people being shitty to each other this year to tolerate it in my entertainment. I also have a lot of new stuff, some of which I can’t decide whether it’s any good or not. I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV, so it’s hard to clear the stuff off without just doing massive deletion sessions (which I do occasionally).

Anyway. Tomorrow, I’m venturing out into the world again. We’ll see how it goes. Tomorrow is crazy busy, actually. Sigh. Too tired for all this activity. Hoping I get to sleep some next week. Ha! If my body lets me. I have 7 hours into the Wonder Under…I’m hoping to be done in one more evening of cutting, probably Thursday. Then I can sort them and start picking fabrics over the weekend, maybe. I need to get a bunch of grading done too…if I don’t finish grading the science journals in the next three days, I’ll have to deal with it over break…don’t WANT to. You can’t MAKE me (well, you can, but…).

I also want to draw…my brain is overflowing with images it wants to spill out onto paper. I should indulge it, let it get it out of its system, vomit the garbage up onto the page, make myself feel better with a pen gliding over paper.

Have I mentioned the hormones? And the exhaustion? Sleep calls. I listen.