Vacation…More Time to Work

So. I’m officially on vacation. I traced Wonder Under Friday night for a little while, but I was exhausted and went to bed early, because I had a long hike early Saturday morning. I get up earlier for hikes than I do for school. It’s a little crazy. But it was a good hike (post later) and we went out to eat afterwards, which I almost never do, because you lose the whole day. But I could afford to lose the whole day because I have a whole week of them off. Anyway. It was good. And I came home and tried to function, but the body and brain were old and tired. Eventually, after the second or third cup of tea and some reading of the book club selection that I had to be done with by today (there’s nothing like leaving it until the last minute), I got up and started tracing Wonder Under again…

The fun part (wait, put “fun” in quotes) about tracing this section is that it’s a pile of bodies that are all overlapping, and although I might have tried to be logical about numbering them in the first place, that logic has now left the building, and I am often staring at the pile, trying to find the next piece in number order. Piece 225 took like 10 minutes to find. I don’t know what I was thinking. So the almost-200 pieces in the pile took forever to trace. But I wasn’t going to give up. I wanted it done, so that when I came back to tracing today, it would be straightforward and relatively easy.

The thing is, that pile is gonna kick my ass when I have to pick fabrics out, because overlapping and random behind spaces and I don’t even know what parts go with what body in half of it. Yeah. Way to fuck with yourself, Kathryn. I guess I like a good challenge.

So I’m 4 hours into the tracing and only at piece 287 or so. Like I said, it was a bitch. I have about 5 hours left, I’m guessing, and I’d like to be done today. No really. I would. That might not be realistic though because I still have to go grocery shopping and to book club and to dinner at my parents’ house. Hmn. Are there 5 hours LEFT after all that? So much for vacations, right? That’s why you’re supposed to GO somewhere, so you can relax and stop doing all that other stuff. Then again, I don’t really do anything else right…why start with doing vacations right? It’s a stay-at-home vacation because I can’t afford anything else. I would have loved to have taken the girlchild to NYC, met the boychild there, hung out, got an AirBnB apartment, checked out the city. It would have been cool. It would have been $1500 I don’t have right now. Especially with college apps coming up again.

So we’re here in lovely San Diego, soccer tournament, practices, a couple of hikes, dinner with the close family on Tday. And lots of artmaking. So my plan is to have all the Wonder Under ironed to fabric in a week. Because then school starts back up again and that 3-week stretch notoriously kicks my butt. And then I have vacation again, but only about a week and a half before this next quilt has to be done. So yeah. I need to work hard. Like usual. Like what the fuck is new about that? This is my life. It’s a continuous hard-work endeavor. I’m not always entirely sure what I get out of that. People tell me the art is cool, amazing, etc., but then I just make more of it. I don’t know if there’s a reason for it, except that I’m incredibly unhappy when I don’t make it. And there’s enough of that feeling in my life…I don’t need to make more of it. There must be a better balance though.

I did take time out to finish the book for book club. It must have been cold last night because (1) I was wearing polar fleece in the house (lots of windows behind the light table) and (2) the bitchy old-lady cat was in the living room, curled up tight next to me.

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Which was fine. Notice the pile of dirty clothes on the floor? Girlchild has some cleaning to do. I’m tired of the slob factor. That’s one goal for this vacation…get the mess under control, at least enough to get me through December.

I wanted to show you where I normally write…

Yup. The computer. The computer desk is a mess. The chair has been scratched all to hell by bitchy cat, who often is sitting on the chair (you can see the top of her head in the picture). Right now, she’s not, but that’s because morning winter sun is over THERE on the table, so she’s curled up over there. Thank god. I can actually sit properly. I’m over 42,000 words on the novel, and I will easily hit 50,000 by Thanksgiving. I’m hoping to keep the momentum going and get to the end, whatever that is, by the end of the year or earlier. I’ve already decided no sequel. So I’m writing it that way. I guess I always knew I would. I do have another book started in my head though. Different story, different characters, different location. Still sci-fi though. Not sure what’s up with that.

Here’s Luana Rubin’s review of the two SAQA exhibits at Houston this year…she mentions my piece.

Someday I’ll meet her in person and tell her how to pronounce my name. Or maybe you could do that for me.

Hiking Oakzanita Peak

I’m not in the mood to write about anything in my head right now. It’s not a pretty place to be. To banish that shit, I often hike, so here’s the hike from Saturday, which ironically I think put my head where it is now. Well, that and hormones and life and my plumbing. And my house. And money. And school. So yeah. Hiking is really better, even when the after effects are bad.

Oakzanita is in the Cuyamacas, just south of the Stonewall/Cuyamaca Peak area. We were a small group.

The hike is mostly through (shockingly) oaks and manzanita…oaks in the lower section, very wooded, almost chilly at times (I left long sleeves on for a while).

The fires have been through here, although some of the dead trees are just dead for other reasons…

There’s lots of brush, and because it’s fall in Southern California, mostly everything is brown and dead-looking…

Fire…

But this is the California I know and love…the California I missed when I lived in Britain, where everything is so green it’s fluorescent. The drab olive greens of a California fall.

The peak on the right is Oakzanita…funny, it didn’t seem like climbing to get there. It was a pretty easy hike, although my legs were dead from not hiking for a few weeks.

I was sick all week, so that’s what made it a challenge. The weather was gorgeous, high 60s, low 70s.

This is Cuyamaca Peak on the left, Middle Peak just to the right of it, and then Stonewall in the middle back.

Here’s most of us with Stonewall and Middle in the background…

The view to the south, where I’ll be hiking in December…there might be snow by then.

The view to the west, with the marine layer still covering most of San Diego proper.

At this point, we’re up in the manzanita and brush that covers the top of the peak.

That’s what we’re aiming for.

And from the top, sweeping views in all directions. I could live up there.

Lots of boulders line the trail to the top.

The last stand of a dying yucca, still looking at major marine layer to the west.

And the south again…

At the top, we perched on the rocks and ate lunch.

It was perfect weather…not really hot, but just warm enough that you dried off (sweat!).

I don’t get many pictures of myself…but Maritie helped out…this is to the east. Yes, I’m sweaty. I worked to get up there.

The trail back was slightly different…

We headed back on the fire road…

Where there was lots of evidence of actual fire…

The Oakzanita sign…

They planted new trees to replace those that were burned…

The fire road back…

Nicely shaded for part of it…

Hmm. Probably should have checked those warning signs out before we went.

Although I haven’t seen a lion up here for over 10 years (I know…it doesn’t mean they aren’t there). Thanks to Maritie and Watson for the people pictures.

Anyway, it was 7.6 miles, a gorgeous day. It’s my fault I hiked it mostly by myself, which is not really a good thing. It gives my brain too much room to think. But it was beautiful and I enjoyed it despite that silly brain…and hopefully I’ll get past this bump and on to the next hike.

I Was Tired…

Yeah. I know. I missed a couple posts. I was really tired. And sick. And then I went on a hike, which made me tired again. And sick is still hovering, though mostly only at night. And when I’m tired. And when you hear me talk. Anyway. Hopefully I did enough sleep catchup in the last few days to last for a bit. Still missing a big chunk of my working voice though. Oh well.

The good news is that I finished ironing everything down on Friday night (yes, I went to Sea World with 180 kids and then came home and went shopping with the girlchild and THEN I ironed).

This is what the tree looked like after I pulled it off the ironing sheet…

See why I was scared to do that? I untangled that thing about three times Friday night, trying to get it to fit on the background…because all of the quilts for this show are supposed to be the same size, which I have a really hard time doing. I can easily do a range, but god forbid I draw the piece so that there’s some leeway on each side. NAW. Let’s make it go RIGHT to the edges.

Yeah, I know. My fault. So I cut the background with about 2 inches to spare on the horizontal and vertical measurements, and then made it work. Maybe. We’ll see when I go to trim it.

And then I put the whole mess on the floor and started putting the parts on to make it fit…and that’s where I have to stop showing pictures. You’ll have to wait until January, when the show opens. Here’s the bottom…

I had some issues with the batik bleeding again. I’ll have to figure out what I want to do about that…you’d think I’d remember to use that stuff when I wash it, the Retayne…but I always forget. So either I’ll be using pencil or pen or something to handle that. More work. Oh well. Maybe next time I will remember to wash it special.

I was going to be all gung ho after the hike Saturday morning, but it kicked my butt (yeah, hiking while getting over being sick all week was maybe not a great plan, but I really did need to get the fuck out of the house and into nature, so I just did it), so I didn’t get anything done Saturday afternoon. And then girlchild had night soccer, where I graded…

We were missing a bunch of kids for a variety of reasons, so even though they should have won (they’ve beat this team before), they didn’t…

And the girls basically had to play all 90 minutes, so girlchild went down with a calf cramp after getting kicked there…

Thought it was her knee for a minute…dammit…never going to get her through a whole season! But just a cramp. She’s fine today. But we didn’t get home until after 8, and my brain was in a mood, so I fed it and made it meditate. I haven’t been meditating enough, because honestly, a lot of the time when I’m doing the art stuff, it does the same thing for me as meditation, focuses my brain, calms me, gives me some mental strength. But last night, I just felt unfocused and cranky and tired, so I did it. And it was good.

So I came in and did the final step of the ironing down…totaling the ironing out at 15 hours and 18 minutes (my estimate of 15 hours holds!). And then I started stitching down. I wasn’t going to, because I was still tired, but I really wanted to get a START on it. Because Sundays are notoriously bad for artmaking, due to the grocery shopping and the prepping for school and the hanging out with parents. I usually don’t get to do anything until late at night. I wish I were more efficient in the morning, but it really is the only morning I can just space out and make English muffin pizzas for breakfast and hang out and not have to DO anything or BE anywhere. Yes, I’m hanging out with myself (actually, girlchild was here this morning early), and that’s often depressing, but whatever. Someone claimed they were going to “laugh at the loneliness” once, and I thought it sounded like bullshit then and I still do…you don’t laugh at loneliness. You stare at it for a while and eventually you just embrace it, hold on to it tight, and if you can make it go sit in a closet for a while because you’re hanging out with friends or family, or because you’re at school, or because you’re in the artspace and haven’t come out yet…that’s awesome. But mostly, you can try to ignore it or yell at it or just accept that it’s there and hold its hand…but laughing at it is kinda stupid. It’s not gone because you laughed at it. I laugh all the time. It doesn’t make it go away. It’s still there, staring at you. Stupid depression. Doesn’t help. Stupid hormones. Also don’t help.

Stitching down…

one of the more boring parts of the quilting process. I know that to stay on schedule, I have to keep MAKING a schedule. So I look back at the Celebrating Silver quilt, because I’ve been basing everything on that one (about the same size and number of pieces)…so I’m guessing 5 hours to stitch it down, another 2 to pinbaste, and about 14 hours of quilting. I want it pinbasted by Saturday night. Quilting starts Sunday? I should remember I have some obligations this week…maybe.

Anyway. Progress. It’s always progress here at Kathy Central. If I keep running forward, then the bad shit can’t catch me, right? Naw, sometimes it’s pretty fast and I’m hiking with dead legs (that was yesterday going uphill…dead legs). Now I’m going to be running forward into the 70 million errands I need to run today in order to be ready for the week. And you wonder why I’m so tired.

Hiking for Peace

Nope. Not what you think. Sure, I want world peace, but I don’t think we can make it happen with a hike. Personal peace though? Damn straight it works. Unfortunately, it takes giant bites out of my time to get art made or papers graded or apparently even sleeping well. We hiked Iron Mountain last night and had to put the headlights (ha ha headlamps) on before we even got to the top. It’s getting darker so much earlier now. And then we had homemade ice cream, smoothies, fruit, and champagne up at the top (it was someone’s one-year anniversary with the group). It was very cool.

Actually, it was hot when we started, but the cooler air coming back was really nice.

Great views from the top, but it was dark. I actually didn’t take many photos. This was at the table with the ice-cream setup etc. It was good to get outside and move around though, even though I’m feeling it this morning. I thought I would sleep better, but no!

By the way, this is what the fridge of a hiker looks like…

I needed my water to be cold, at least to start. I had packed the whole bag up and realized I wasn’t leaving for 30 minutes, so I shoved the whole thing back in there, poles and all (you should always chill your poles). What I love is that nobody in my house says a word about finding this in the fridge. Not a freakin’ word.

Anyway. The hiking does clear my mind, but it also fucks me for the rest of the night. I couldn’t eat when I got home and thought I could just skip dinner, but then I started feeling it later, too late really. But I had to eat. Diabetes Grrr. So easy to mess with your blood sugar by not following your routine. But the hike! Oh well.

So in the end, I ironed for about 30 minutes last night.

I could have gone longer, but I was SO tired. So I went to bed instead (smart choice, eh?). And then couldn’t fall asleep. And then was awakened by stalking cats and peeing dogs and who knows what else on the roof. So this morning I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Not good. Oh well. More tonight hopefully (after the high-school back-to-school night?). I’m getting close, but I’m not close enough yet. I wanted to be fully ironed by Friday night, and now I’m chaperoning girls at a concert that night, so I won’t be home until really late and you know I’m not going to be fully awake then. Oh well. There’s always Saturday night. The night that chases me around the room trying to rip flesh out. Sigh.

Mood is rough besides the hiking peace. I made it home almost OK and then had to deal with some stuff and go back out in the car and the mood tanked. I’m trying to hold on to the mental state brought on by the hike, but the 17 texts from work don’t help and stupid emails don’t help and having to clean up after everybody else’s stuff doesn’t help. But that’s what it’s always like and maybe I just don’t have the right personality for holding on to the peace. Or maybe it’s that I’ve spent the last 12 years plus trying to manage everything without a ton of help and I just suck at it. I know I was better at it for a while, but then the support disappeared and I got worse. It’s hard to know that there’s something that helps but that you don’t have it and you can’t just go get it and it kinda feels stupid that you should need it, but you do. And it’s not like I don’t have friends and family who are giving support, but it’s not the same. I don’t know why. Something stupid in my head.

Anyway. I have another drawing in my head for a piece that needs to be done by January 1 (oh yeah, baby), but should be smaller (I’m really thinking about how to do that and still have all the details I love). And I’ve almost survived September, one of the worst months of the year for school and life and soccer, and I’m not sure I was even paying attention. My to-do list is growing exponentially, but I’m still getting it done. And hopefully this quilt will turn out well. It’s all still colored in my head and I think it’s turning out OK, but I won’t know until it’s ironed, and then I can’t really show it to you until the opening. Oh well. I’ll show you details. And I’m still working on my brain. I take it on hikes and give it pen and paper and fabric and books, and it’s coming around, really awfully slowly with sometimes what feels like massive steps backwards, but it’s coming. It’s reluctant. It’s having a hard time getting out of bed. It needs lots of encouragement and mental stimulus and I try to provide, but I also know it was badly broken and damaged, so I keep glue on hand. Some of that glue is climbing up a mountain, even when it seems like you’ve got better things to do.

Keeping Track

I don’t know what the fuck You’re doing right now, probably sleeping unless you’re in the other half of the world from me, but I know you know what I’m doing. Oh yeah, baby. I’m tracing tiny little pieces into Wonder Under. I’m not curing cancer or delivering damn babies. I’m getting a tan from my light table and smearing my hands with synthetic lead, while you quietly snore, happily curled up in a nice bed, dreaming the dreams of the contentedly asleep.

Imagine Rambo or Chuck Norris being art quilters, and that’s kinda how I felt last night. I needed to finish tracing one section, a logical section, but I had hiked earlier, just a short one, and I even meditated like a good girl, but I had to psych myself up to finish that little bit. I wanted my 200 pieces last night. I was tired after 100. A normal person would have stopped after 100 pieces, brushed her teeth, taken her meds, and gone to bed. I guess there’s no question in my mind about my normalcy. Or my sanity. But I’m getting close to the end on this task. I’ve worked on it every night, just like I planned. I was a little light on pieces Wednesday night, but I knew Back-to-School Night would probably kick my ass, so I was pleased to even get 100 pieces done that night. I’ve met my goal every night. The fact that I’m too tired to keep my eyes open right now, even though I need to leave for school in 20 minutes…that’s OK, right? That won’t be a problem tonight?

Huh. Yeah.

Because never-ending photos of tiny Wonder Under pieces are really interesting.

Here was my hiking crew last night, a fairly large group. The dog was a sweetheart…

Her name was Luna. She had her own light on her collar for when we came down the mountain in the dark.

Cowles Mountain is one of the most-hiked mountains in San Diego County, I think. The front path…I’ve been up and down it probably 50-100 times. So has most of the county. It’s way too crowded, but more importantly, there are way too many people who don’t know hiking etiquette and are completely rude and annoying. Hog the path, run past you and almost run into you (the runners are often the worst ones out there), leave your dog’s poop in the path, break the trail. So we hike up one of the many paths on the back of the mountain. The other plus with that on a hot day like what it has been is that you’re in the shade for most of the hike.

We got up to the top around 7, just in time for the sunset, although it wasn’t particularly spectacular.

This is facing southwest, with Lake Murray in the middle and the ocean in the distance..oh yeah, and trashcans in the foreground. Mostly people use those.

There were lots of people at the top. Kids do this hike; it’s only 3 miles round trip on the main trail. This is facing east, a little southern-facing…my house is in that direction.

And this is northeast.

I prefer a little longer hike, but honestly, the shortness is probably the only reason I got anything done last night. I was definitely on a roll, though. Not watching the clock. Just tracing the next piece. I’m in the mid 800s at the moment. The male figure is completely traced and all I have left is the tree and everything hanging in it, about 210 pieces. It doesn’t sound like much, but the tree is cranky to trace…all those curvy branches that are overlapping. I’ve been tracing for 9 hours and 17 minutes. I had guessed 10-11 hours, and I think that’s pretty accurate. I can make guesses like that now because I keep track of my time using an app, and I can go back and estimate based on similar-sized quilts, or quilts that are about the same level of complication. It’s nice to be able to do that. I can budget my time better that way, motivate myself to get the next step done. I think I would have a really hard time getting a 2000-piece quilt done at the moment, so I’m glad it didn’t go that high. “It”. Like I have no control over it. Well, sometimes it feels that way, that the art brain is just doing her thing and I have to try to rein her in occasionally.

I’m going to have to try to finish this later…I have a staff photo this morning and should probably get there on time for that (eh…).

Later: it’s not even 11 AM and I have officially reached my quota of drama for the day. Meditating now. Finishing Wonder Under later.

Should.

I’m watching a tiny hummingbird (yes, tiny even for them) hovering around the tree outside my window, landing every few moments, but not able to stay still. It peers around, flies off a little further, and then comes back and settles, resting briefly. There’s no flowers out there, nowhere for it to find food (go to the other side of the house!), and I don’t know why it can’t just SIT there for a moment.

Huh. I’m a tiny little hummingbird.

I wrote yesterday’s post while sitting in my car, waiting for the other hikers to show up. I’ll post the hike later…it was OK. Not too strenuous, although I was tired from sitting too much in the middle (it takes too long to feed that many people). And I was home early enough to deal with the cable guy (apparently the positioning of the planets is causing my cable/internet issues), grocery shopping (hate the store always, but especially on Saturday nights), 14 errands (not all successful, unfortunately), trimming (not done…couldn’t reach the worst of it, but rescued two birds nests), packing up shit for the boychild (by myself), and finally eating out, because I wanted this one thing to eat that I didn’t feel like cooking myself.

Here’s the thing about me and cooking. I don’t like prepackaged food. It tastes funny. I cook mostly from scratch. It’s healthier too. I do that most nights, with help from the girlchild sometimes. I don’t really LIKE cooking. This was an issue in both relationships, that women are supposed to be those who cook, but I don’t LIKE it. It was supposed to be some proof of my feelings towards them, but really, I cook all the time. It feels like work. It IS work. Why do you want me to show my love for you with WORK? With something that makes me feel BAD, IRRITATED, ANGRY? I could lesson plan for you too. It would still be WORK. Girlchild? She loves cooking. She gets in the kitchen and she’s the happiest little bunny in the world. Me? UGH. Now I do the same with sewing, which girlchild hates. So I get it…I understand. But I get TIRED of cooking all the time. So I try to give myself one meal every two weeks or so that I don’t have to cook (and it helps if girlchild is cooking, because then I just count that one and I don’t have to try to find the money and calories to go out). When I was first divorced (a million years ago), I would occasionally go out to dinner by myself, because I didn’t have anyone else to go out to dinner with, and I would bring my sketchbook and/or a book and it would be OK…not great, just OK. The waiters are usually pretty nice to you and it’s easy to find a seat for just one person, so you don’t usually have to wait, and yes, it can be a bit depressing to eat out by yourself while everyone around you is chatting away, but hell, it would be just as depressing to be eating at home alone, AND I would have had to cook.

So after running the 17th errand last night, I walked into a restaurant, sat down in the bar, started drawing, and ordered dinner…

And ignored all the people around me, because honestly, who the fuck cares. I just needed to be somewhere besides home. I had already fought through a ton of depressoid thoughts and crying that afternoon and I was done. The waitress was a little freaked out by the drawing, wanted to know if it was just something in my head (do you see me copying from something?), and really, it was Tanya’s fault for reminding me of the perimenopausal random hair growth, because girlchild’s stolen my tweezers again and I think those random hairs COULD IN FACT take over the world if they wanted to. And my younger readers are thinking, “But why are there snakes around her nipple?” and my perimenopausal readers ALREADY KNOW, and yes it’s annoying (it’s not really gross, although some people will say that, because we do in fact have hair all over our bodies, and our reactions to said hair are kinda lame, you know? Really? So there’s HAIR. And it’s going to hurt you how?).

And when the food arrived, I read my book while eating. I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since the early lunch I ate on the hike. Well, snacks, but they weren’t really satisfying. It was a satisfying meal and it wasn’t cheap (sigh), but I have to be able to do that once in a while, or it really does feel like life sucks shit because I can’t go out and I have to do all the cooking (holy shit, when the girlchild goes to college…). SIGH. Fucking sigh.

When I got home, I glanced at the list I made yesterday for this weekend…

I went old school. I had stuff on the phone, in email, on post-its, and I needed to see the WHOLE FUCKING LIST in all its torture-me glory, so there it is. On paper. In RED pen (really only because I couldn’t find a black one…not for some other reason). And I keep writing more shit on it, which is just crazy. And crossing things off is a little harder. Sigh.

And then I tried to at least set the stage for good drawing last night.

Obviously this picture was taken this morning, not last night, but you know what? I cleared the table and carefully put everything away and found the start of the damn fucking stupidass drawing and laid it out there. And then I went and sat on the couch and read my book and realized how fucking tired I was and gave up and went to bed, where I slept fitfully all night, worried about all the shit I have to do and unhappy with the silence and the absence of people and talking and friendliness and FUCK.

Long weekends. Not my friend. It’s OK. The girlchild comes back today, so it will not be as bad, but I certainly need to find a way for it to be OK for no one to ever be around by the time girlchild leaves for school in a year, so I don’t just crawl under my light table and dessicate there. Fucking free time. Should be able to enjoy it. Should be able to look forward to having it. Should. FUCK.

Completely Braindead

I can’t even tell you how many things I’ve already forgotten to do and I’ve only been up for an hour and a half. I’m leaving on a hike soon and realized I forgot my sunscreen…could be a problem, but I’m hoping someone else remembers theirs. For a paleface like me, it could be really bad. I just considered driving back to the nearest grocery store, but parking is at a huge premium in this area of town. Sigh. Duh. Stupid brain. I’ve been doing all these night hikes where you have to remember to bring a headlamp, which I have to tell myself to remember. My big pack has sunscreen, but there’s no room in this one. The old car had sunscreen in it always, but this one has not been fully outfitted yet.

I’m making lists of what I need to do and buy and pack this weekend, and that wakes me up at 5 AM, breathing heavy and twitchy feeling, wondering how to get back to sleep, because I can feel the adrenaline pulsing through my chest. Is there any good reason for fight or flight instincts in response to having too much to do? Probably not. My meditation practice has been absent this week. Time to insist on it.

I’d like to say I got a bunch done (on anything) last night, and I guess between me and the girlchild, all the quizzes and warmups are graded and input in the gradebook (although not online yet), but I forgot the homework at school and will have to go back for it (yes I put it on my calendar) and I couldn’t move off the couch after exercising, partially due to inertia, but also because the girlchild was not in a good place. Hopefully it will be better after next week. She worries about everyone.

I think I have to get out of the car and put my shoes on now. I’m hoping this hike, which is an urban one, so not my favorite, but it was available and doable, important at this stage of my week, will clear the brain and set me up for a productive weekend…kick some of this shit off my list so I can be more…more…I don’t know what, but less this crazy stressed person who can’t finish anything.

On a Tuesday Night…

In which another thousand words of a sci fi novel randomly pop out of my head into Google Docs…where they righteously belong. For no apparent reason. After hiking 6 miles. Really, I shouldn’t be capable of much after a night hike, but apparently those words needed out. I don’t actually read what I’ve written, unless I’ve forgotten something, but even then, I usually just tag it with a comment to be fixed later, because I’m over 35 pages at this point and trying to find that one paragraph where I explained whatever it is I explained (probably something to do with government takeovers) is pretty much impossible.

There is a cat ballet going on in my house at the moment, as the most likely petter of cats has left for college. Yes, boychild was home the most and would search out cats and scratch their heads and pet them and sometimes comb one or two of them. Without him here, they are constantly gathering around whatever space I inhabit and I will turn around and try to shepherd one into the space and one out (none of them like each other, some actually hate each other). Last night, while letting one out of the laundry room (home of food and litter trays), Babygirl came kamikazing out of the boychild’s room, front legs cycling like a windmill, caterwauling at Kitten like she was a foreign invader. Made me scream. Little pyscho. Aren’t you the oldest one? Kitty equivalent of 80 years old? Feisty old bitch. It’s the only excitement I get at night.

So I hiked last night after school. It was nice, but it will be my tutorial day in a few weeks, so I probably won’t be able to do it again. It was hard enough to find the energy for a Tuesday night…I suspect Thursdays will be considerably worse. When I showed up for the hike, I was told I looked like I was moving slowly (I was…it was after school…I was tired), but my body eventually figured it out and got moving. The group I hike with mostly looks normal…until cameras come out, and then the weird happens…

See? Normal…for zombies. Well, we started out normal.

We did Cowles Mountain to Pyles Peak from Barker Way, leaving at 6 PM and coming back in the dark.

Yeah, it was hot yesterday, probably in the high 80s when we started, but it wasn’t too bad…do you see the little tiny thundercloud in the back of that picture?

It got bigger.

I kept trying to get the color that was really showing, but my camera wasn’t quite up to the task.

The sunset reflects off the clouds to the east. This one is from the top of Pyles Peak.

It was nice and cool by the end of the hike. And dark. Yes, dark. But in the beginning, you could see all the clouds and marine layer in the distance to the west…this is from the top of Cowles.

This is facing north from Cowles, looking out toward Pyles Peak, which always looks a million miles away from here.

And from Pyles, here’s Cowles Mountain. At this point, we’re halfway through and it looks like a million miles to get back. It’s not really. It’s only 1.5 miles to the peak and then another 1.5 down. At 8 PM. On a work day. Before you’ve eaten dinner. Yeah. A little crazy.

As the sun set, we had popsicles! It felt really good to have icy sugar with the heat.

It’s hard to capture the look of the hills. I love looking at them, but I can never get a good picture of what I love looking AT. The graying out of the different layers of hills in the distance. Totally opposite of what they taught us in painting class.

There was wildlife. This scorpion is maybe 2-3 inches long.

I decided this was a gopher snake because it’s skinny and has a pointy tail.

Lovely. Spider creepout.

When I got home, I was feeling tired (OK, physically exhausted but mentally alert), but I really want to make a point of art every night. It makes me feel better. I’m still falling into these nightly downspaces, especially on the nights when the girlchild is not here. Plus I have deadlines. I want to be making progress. I need to be able to show that something is getting done. That there’s a purpose to everything. That it’s not just Go To Work. Go Home. Watch TV. Like some people.

I had decided in order to reduce the price on the two quilts that will be in the Art Produce show, which is being installed this weekend (some pressure to get done, eh?), I wasn’t going to bind the edges. In the olden days, I used to participate in a weekly or monthly challenge (don’t actually remember) that was one word? Maybe two? And you’d make a small quilt for it. I have about 7 or 8 of them. I’ll try to find them maybe. They were fun to experiment with, but I didn’t want to spend the time binding them, so I remembered a technique that I think Ellen Anne Eddy taught us using cording to help satin stitch an edge. Now I’m sure I could do the same thing without the cording, but for some reason, the cord seemed to make it work better.

Unfortunately, I think it took 20 minutes last night to FIND the cording.

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Once I did, I finished the two edges…it was kind of amazing that I had thread to match the lighter one.

OK, maybe not so amazing. I do have a lot of thread. Now I just have to figure out how I want to hang them. Keep it simple.

I was really tired when I finished all that, but I think it was better going to bed with something completed, something that I’d accomplished…yes, besides teaching all day and hiking 6 miles. I didn’t say any of it made any sense. I do spend a lot of hours not talking to anyone though and it wears on me. Girlchild is still coming to school each day with me, so that helps, but that ends this week. Then I go back to talking to myself. I already know how those conversations will go. Anyway. My goals for the week are to get the other three birds and the house done and get that damn drawing done. Holy moley. That needs to happen.

Apparently I will also be writing more sci fi…it’s crowding into my brain even now, waiting for the end of the day when it can all spill out. I guess that’s a good thing.

Dyar Springs Hike

I picked last Saturday’s hike because of my knee…it was supposed to be about 5 1/2 miles with very little elevation gain/loss. The knee doesn’t like going downhill at the moment. So we went out to Dyar Springs in the Cuyamacas. I’m always amazed by how many hikes there are out there. I’ve been on so many hikes out there and there are always new ones.

It’s a typical California landscape…

I always imagine native people hundreds of years ago tramping across the landscape and what they would see.

It’s August, so it’s warm even in the mountains…it hit the 80s really quickly.

Some of this area had been hit by the fires over the last 10 or so years…but also bugs have killed some of the trees…

But those rolling, brown, grassy hills are what I see in my mind’s eye when I think of MY California…

With pines in the distance or oaks…

There was wildlife…a California horned toad (aka a horned lizard)…cute little creatures, aren’t they?

And a stick insect…

He had some plant life tangled around his head? Is it a HEAD? We tried to pull it off, but he wasn’t having it. Fought it the whole way. Don’t know that I’ve ever seen one of these in the wild. Belongs on WTF Evolution.

We hiked off trail a bit for some reason. I don’t remember what.

And then back towards the springs.

There wasn’t much in the way of springs…mostly mud. We stopped for lunch here, near these oak trees and rocks.

Those old California oaks are part of my sense of home too…

There weren’t a lot of flowers around this late in the season…

And some of the trees looked a little worse for wear…

Hard to know if they’re still alive sometimes, especially at this time of year…

This was the view back the way we’d come…

And here’s where we set up our potluck picnic…

Lots of good food and debating how many calories we’d burned so far and how many more we’d have to burn after eating everything that was laid out for us.

The path back was that typical mix of grass and trees…

Mountains in the distance…I think that’s Stonewall Peak to the left.

More dead trees from the fires…

Some monuments to the destruction that keeps this area alive.

And then? Strangely? A patch of watermelons. No water to be seen around. No reason for them to be there…WAIT! My loyal reader Julie (who is a bit of a native plant expert, certainly more than I am) tells me this is calabazilla (which is the funnest name around), aka buffalo gourd or more interestingly stinking gourd (glad we didn’t figure out why). It has a great Latin name, for sure: Cucurbita foetidissima. I’m always looking for the word foetid involved with food.

We kept hiking…

It was good. It was peaceful. It was 7 3/4 miles instead of 5 1/2. Oh well. And there was dirt and mud and I sunburnt the BACKS of my knees (nope, didn’t even think to sunscreen those). And my knee hurt briefly…but that’s it. Good.

Because It Has to Be…

So I hiked last night. I think it will be very difficult for me to pull these hikes off during the school year, though…the mid-week after-work hikes? I didn’t get home until 9:30 and then cooked dinner and laid around like a sloth for a while, which is what you do after a 5- to 6-mile hike at the end of a long day, and then I did some more stuff on the floating house, but it really sucks hours out of your day. Three hours just gone. And I’m gonna need those hours. Sigh.

We did Iron Mountain again…

It’s a nice hike. Not too hard. Harder coming down in the dark. We led a Swedish team of kids down (actually, although I was in front, I led no one…Gail had to tell me where to turn, because I suck at that).

It was beautiful at the top. We ate snacks and talked and watched the sun drop below the marine layer and the colors reflecting off the mountains and clouds to the east.

Every time I get to the top of a peak in San Diego County, I look out and see this beautiful undulating, rocky landscape that is home. Maybe I need to put mountains on my floating house (shit. I don’t think I have the right colored organza for that). The surrounding landscape is home too. Living in the UK for a year, it never felt like home. It was too green and verdant, and although it was undulating (I was in Wales), it wasn’t very high or rocky. It was hills with sheep cavorting across them. It didn’t take long to climb to the top of anything. You were never very far from sea level.

And I tried to figure out last night, Why Hiking? What is it about putting the pack on, pulling 720 foxtails out of your boots from Saturday’s hike (seriously, I am not kidding), slathering deoderant on so you don’t smell too bad, stomping up a steep slope in the late-afternoon August heat, into the cool shade of the back side of the mountain, shading your eyes from the low-slung sun as you come around the corner facing west, summitting the peak, taking your pack off so the sweat drenching the back of your shirt can dry before heading down, thinking the downhill might never end, slipping a bit because you’re hiking in the dark, blinded by the lights behind you that splash your giant silhouette across the trail in front of you. And you don’t have dinner waiting, you barely ate all afternoon, you had a handful of peanuts and two grapes and five carrots at the top. And you come home covered in dust and needing to shower, sweaty to the core despite the cool night breeze for the last half of the hike. Why do this? What does it bring? There is this sense of accomplishment, of survival sometimes on the longer/harder hikes, this mental rush from the adrenaline, the serotonin release, and it makes you turn up the music LOUD on the drive home and you feel all I Am Strong for a while, and then the rush slips away and you are sad. Because there is no dinner waiting; there is only silence. And yeah, you did it. Good. You will strengthen this body and make sure it lasts as long as possible. This is one reason why you hike. And you hike so you actually TALK to people in the evenings or Saturday mornings, because otherwise the silence overwhelms you. But that feeling doesn’t last. It’s not sustainable. And that is the depression talking. It always has a cord around your neck, pulling you towards the hole, and when you are tired from the hike and you haven’t eaten yet and the thought of cooking something is already exhausting, then that cord can pull you back down really easily.

I came home and meditated while dinner was cooking. Jake, the German Shepherd, was not very respectful of my meditation time and kept plopping toys into my lap (I had left him alone all day). Tired won for a while. I worked on the house after professional development yesterday, before the hike…

I started the veins on the other side of the house…I run the stitching line first and then trim…

And then I put a second layer on top. Because if you’re using organza, you should overlap it.

And I’m not sure I like it at the moment. I liked it last night, but today I’m not so sure. I have some other stuff that needs to go on it. But I may just leave it hanging there for a bit to get used to it. Maybe. And I have another idea for something I want to do, but I’m supposed to be simplifying my life, right? So it doesn’t overwhelm me right as school starts?

It looks so different in artificial light…

I just don’t think that’s in my nature. Simplifying. I mean, maybe on some level, because last year, I worked really hard to streamline stuff so I wouldn’t have to bring so much work home, and I think that worked, but…reducing the amount of time I’m in the art mode? Or the number of things I work on? That doesn’t seem healthy. I know I cause more stress to myself by taking on artistic projects, but these are also the things that keep me functioning. They keep me from falling into that hole and staying there. Even though I’m barely out of the hole, hanging on by my fingernails, slipping back down on a regular basis, at least I’m mostly out. And that’s the art. The hiking might help a little, but it’s the art that sustains me.

Anyway. Back to school again today and tomorrow. In the old days, I would have fought it more, stayed away longer, but in the old days, I had more that was at home that sustained me and kept me recharged. I don’t have any real rechargers any more. I don’t feel like summer has given me the break I need to start a new year of teaching, but I think it will be OK. It will be different, and I don’t know what that different will look like, and I’m sad about some parts of it and excited about others, but I also know at the end of every day, I can come home and draw or sew or cut up pieces of organza and hang them from a coathanger in some crazy-ass desire to express what home is. And for now, that is enough. Because it has to be.