Buried in Fiber

It’s OK. I did art stuff tonight. I probably should have gone to bed earlier instead, but…I wonder which will prolong my life more? More sleep or more art? I’m voting for the latter. Trying to balance the two, but really? The art is more calming. Sleep isn’t restful. It’s full of bad dreams and nasty sad. I’d rather be playing with fabric. I started cutting out flower parts…

which is complicated by the fact that there are wool parts of flowers and cotton parts of flowers, so I’m cutting all the wool first, and then I’ll find cotton that works with it, since I have a fairly limited stash of wools and a vast stash of cottons. I made it through almost all the flowers…at least the wool parts…and there’s a squirrel and a bunny in there too.

I need to figure out the banners and all the cotton bits. There’s not a lot left…maybe tomorrow night? Except financial aid is still a mess and school stuff needs to get done too.

I stitched at soccer…

I forgot to take pictures of the girlchild playing. He played her tonight, for real. That’s good. She did well. They won. Another game Thursday. It’s kind of a routine now…two games a week, one Academic League match a week. I keep having to remind myself what day it is…do I bring my stitching to school? Do I bring my Uggs and sweatshirt to school? Will I have time to go home first? Too much thinking. My brain isn’t good at thinking any more. It’s obsessive about the bad stuff, runs over and over it, trying to make sense of it, having conversations with myself. But give it a real task? Yikes. It’s done.

I went to the gym. I meditated. I finished two books…The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon…

who is only 22 years old. This is her debut novel, the first of seven in the series. It’s called a supernatural dystopia, and definitely has sci fi overtones, whatever that means. I liked the idea and most of the book, but kept getting lost in vocabulary and this foreign race, the Rephaim, and some other race, the Emim, which sometimes didn’t make sense. Plus the setup of clairvoyant levels is supremely complicated. But it has promise…I would read another one.

The second book I finished was Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke…

Yes. This is a kids’ graphic novel. A group I’m in has a graphic novel/comics book club, and I have never been to the meetings, but thought I could try to read the books at least, and maybe someday swing one of the meetings. I had a hard time with this book…not because it’s written to a younger audience, but because I got confused by events in the story. Plus I honestly didn’t like Zita much…she’s kind of an annoying squirrel, to use a term I use on some of my students. I don’t know if this book would appeal more to a younger audience, like a late elementary age? Maybe. I do have the second book as well. I did like the giant mouse and the round monster thing, and the spider robots were cool (even though they are evil). It was kind of an eh.

Kind of like my life. Eh. Which means it’s probably time to go to sleep. The later it gets, the sadder I get. I did find another hike for the weekend, I think. I actually found two, signed up for one reluctantly, then found the other one and switched. Seems like with the three-day weekend it would be lame not to go on a long hike…so that’s what I aimed for in my planning.

Ugh. I’m hoping with more regular influxes of art activity the days won’t feel so shitty. We’ll see. I’m tired of the shitty feeling. I keep doing things to improve my mood, trying to think positively about my future. Yeah. Well. The fun thing about depression is that it makes it very hard to think positively about anything, and when past experience is slapping you upside the face, pulling your feet out of the mud long enough to even Stand the Fuck Up and Go Make Art is difficult. I can’t be that depressoid who does nothing but sleep. I can mope and iron fabric at the same time if I have to. There’s some chance of surviving this if I keep my hands buried in fiber.

San Elijo Lagoon

This is another one of those…is this really a HIKE or a WALK? I think the latter, although it’s a very nice walk at that. We did about 7 miles…there’s a group picture somewhere, but only my arm is in it (not quite on purpose, but you know how I am about pictures). Here’s the trailhead in Solana Beach (California, by the way…I often forget most people reading have no idea where I live)…

I’ve always wanted to do this walk…driven past the lagoon on the freeway and said to myself that I should go do it, but it never happened…I mean, like for YEARS I’ve been saying this. It is a long drive from my house. That doesn’t help. I can’t just pop up there after work and do a quick walk, although many people are using it for a quick run.

There are many birds in the lagoon, including this Great Blue Heron…who posed…

Yes, I am beautiful. And then flew…

But not very far…just enough so we could get his/her good side.

I do not know how to sex a heron. Sorry. Apparently it’s by size. Well. There we are.

The walk was mostly flat, with only a few minor hilly bits, nothing challenging. There were also some rocky and narrow bits, especially going under the freeway bridge, but most kids and seniors could handle it.

There were about a million ducks.

This is the view towards the freeway and housing areas that surround the lagoon.

This is the view back towards where we started.

And the lovely view under the freeway.

It’s strange to hike with all that freeway noise, but eventually we got out into THAT below, and the noise faded away.

There’s less water in this section, fewer birds as well, and still lots of flat.

That’s the thing…it’s 7 miles, but a flat 7 miles, so we hiked it in less than 2 hours.

And it wasn’t very challenging. Sometimes that’s OK…apparently I felt like I needed a bigger challenge? Who knows. I spent most of my time walking with a Russian yoga instructor who had saved a turtle in Malaysia by massaging it. We talked about the mind-body connection, even in turtles, and lots of other enlightening stuff, from kids, to travel, yoga, Seattle, college, financial aid, self-employment, art, and men. It was entertaining at times, depressing at others. She and I walked fast, ditching the strollers. Again, walk? Or hike? Or run?

There were Torrey Pines about…

And it was definitely a beautiful day for a walk or a hike…

San Diego is great this time of year for such things. There were many flowering plants, even in the “dead of winter”…I sucked at taking photos of most of them (moving too fast), but got this acacia…

And a view of the clouds reflected in the water…

I bet this is a really popular walk during the summer, when East County is unbearable.

We made it back to the trailhead quickly and finally gave up on the rest of them…which was probably a good thing, because they stopped to take a bunch of group photos.

I’d do it again. I might run it though. Put it in the file for summer evening walks…

Emotional Sine Wave

I have another post I have mostly written, but I don’t feel like finishing it tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning.

Today was a numb day. I went to the gym. I managed grocery shopping (sort of a miracle these days…I forgot my reusable bags…again…the world will die because of all the plastic they gave me today). I went to one of my art group meetings (I forgot the quilt I was supposed to deliver for a new show, so I went back for that…didn’t get too far, luckily, and then I forgot the checkbook to pay my dues). Numb apparently equals forgetful.

It really does. I am so forgetful now…hence all the post-its and the calendar reminders…otherwise I’d forget my brain. Some days I don’t even know what day it is. I don’t know what month it is…I wrote a check earlier and dated it October 2013. What the hell? It’s like I’ve had some sort of stroke. My brain doesn’t like to remember stuff at the moment, so it chooses to tune out of everything. Hello, brain…feel free to join us here any time. I don’t think it’s going to get better without your involvement. Really. I know it sucks and all, but this is what we’ve got.

I finished a book, M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans…

It was a gift from my UK family. It’s her first book, about a lighthouse operator in the early 1900s in Australia. It was good; I enjoyed it, even though it was tinged with sadness.

I worked on the third bird of Month 2…

Thought I had finished it, but turns out I was supposed to sew in the moon as well…so I started that but didn’t finish. I sewed in the car on the way up and during the meeting; it was dark on the way back down. I’ll finish it at Tuesday’s soccer game and then start on Month 3’s embellishments. Very exciting stuff. The stitching itself is relaxing. I manage to stop grinding my teeth when I’m stitching mostly. The rest of the time, grind away. I have to consciously make myself stop holding my jaw like the world is ending around me.

Still too many things on the to-do list. Started my taxes because the W-2 finally showed up and I need that for the financial aid, finished the journal for Earth Stories and got it ready to ship, along with a bunch of other stuff I have to mail. Made a new to-do list. Boychild had one college interview today, so I ironed his clothes for him. He commented that men’s button-down shirts are not made for men with long hair. Never thought of that. He has another interview next weekend. I guess it’s good that he made it past the first pass…or maybe they interview everyone. Who knows. It’s all new for him, having to talk to strangers about himself, trying to sell himself, trying not to get annoyed by stupid questions…or at least not to SHOW irritation. I feel for him, but am excited by his having to deal, to manage, to grow up. He’s a good kid…man.

Came home and girlchild had made dinner, which is always nice. She hurricaned the kitchen (yes, that is a verb now) as well, but I needed to catch up on dishwashing anyway, so it was motivation to do so. All these tasks take away from artmaking time, of course. It was pretty late before I started my lesson planning for this week…well, I did most of it last year. I’m not deviating much…can’t handle that on top of everything else. I signed up for two more hikes. I need more outside time…more physical in nature time. More open space with fresh air and sweat and exertion and letting the toxic shit in my head float away into the sky while I stomp along a dirt path.

Two of my quilts are in a California Fibers exhibit at Soka University in Aliso Viejo through May 8…the opening is this Thursday from 5:30-7:45. The weird time is because there is a performance at the university right after that, so this takes advantage of that. I won’t be able to make it up there, unfortunately, but it apparently is a really nice show (that is only open Monday-Friday). I’m hoping to go up during Spring Break, I think. We’ll see. Earth Mother is there…

As is Untied…

Both normally hang in my house.

Then next week, I have one quilt in another California Fibers show in Ojai, California, at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts…Here is hanging there…

ha ha ha. Here is hanging There. That’s funny. OK, not really. It will be there through March 30. There’s word that there may be an artist’s panel with some of us on March 30. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to that, but other artists will be there.

There are three California Fibers’ shows opening in January and February…this was a great group to join to get into shows. All three have been juried, so you still have to have good work that people want, but instead of pulling from 700 people for a show with 40 pieces, they’re pulling from a group of 30. California Fibers is a juried group and the membership call is coming up in April. If you live in Southern California, are willing to commit to 4 meetings a year in Oceanside, and work in anything that qualifies as fibers, you might consider it. Check out the website and contact the membership person.

The other art group I’m a member of is doing a 2-month exhibit in September/October about the border fence. I’m in a subcommittee (I didn’t commit to leading anything…see notes about forgetfulness above) that will be doing some sort of cross-border quilt/fabric construction. This group works completely differently than the other group…but they both are trying to be actively in exhibits and marketing themselves. It’s good, because I feel like my local SAQA group has become less active, even though we had a decent show last month that will be traveling to Georgia in March. We used to meet more down here in San Diego, and now there seem to be very few meetings down here.

If this is my life, if art is my focus, if art is the thing I have right now, then I might as well make it a regular thing. I’ve been looking at life-drawing classes as well, although then I need to balance exercise and hiking and art, because they all seem to want to happen at the same time. But if I can do it once a month, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing. I miss life drawing. Yes, I miss sitting on an uncomfortable wooden bench for hours staring at a naked person and trying to make my drawing look like what’s in front of me. Sounds crazy. It’s a different head space though…not a bad one.

Anyway, I didn’t get to start on even thinking about real artmaking until about 10:30 tonight…and then it was a decision of What Next? I could draw, I could clean off the light table and set it up for tracing the next quilt, I could stitch down the smaller quilt that’s hanging in my office. I decided to finish cutting out all the pieces for the Ivy Memorial Quilt…

They’re freezer paper, not Wonder Under…yes, new and different. The quilt is mostly wool fabrics (or will be, since it currently doesn’t exist) with cotton fabric accents, and then there will be embroidery like you see on the bird blocks I’ve been doing. It’s not something I really expect to exhibit…I just want to hang it in the house, like above a doorway, so it’s wide but not high. Ivy died in May 2012 of liver cancer at the age of 6. For some reason, it was significantly more difficult to deal with her death, probably because of her young age and it happened really quickly. I guess I don’t deal well with unexpected bad stuff. Anyway, now that all the pieces are trimmed, I could start picking wool fabrics and ironing freezer paper to them…maybe tomorrow night.

I wonder if these numb forgetful days are an aftershock to the highly emotional days. I think I’m on some sort of emotional sine wave, up and down on some regular rhythm, somehow controlled by hormones or amount of sleep or exercise or something else I don’t understand (or a combination of all of those). It’s super super low and then I hit numbness…I don’t ever really get to the high point, though. It’s just less painful than some other days. Maybe the numb days are when I get enough of some combination of sleep and exercise and interaction with humans who give a shit. It’s hard to say. I have people say to me all the time, Hey, I read your blog, and then I’m like, well then you know I’m not having any fun with all this. I don’t know what to say to that. Well, then you know I’m a giant pile of depression and awful. Well, then, I guess you know that I was crying yesterday, I’ll be crying today, and tomorrow? On the menu is crying. I guess that’s OK. You won’t have particularly high expectations of me then, will you. You’ll know I can make good art but I can’t remember anything and I’m likely to dissolve into a pile of saltwater if you bring up anything that I find troubling…like really anything. Sigh.

Who the hell is googling my age, by the way? I’m 46, people. I’ll be 47 in a couple of months. I don’t know why it’s relevant. Feel free to just ask.

OK, taking the sine wave to bed…maybe I’m still on the way up…

Stay Gold, Ponyboy…Stay Gold

I have 12 posts in draft mode at the moment. Two of them I will never write, one because I don’t care any more and one because I care too much. Some of it is because I get an idea about something I’m working on (like that stupid journal that I have to do, which some people might really enjoy, but is giving me mental ulcers at the moment), but I’m not done with the thing or I’m not ready to write it yet…it has to develop itself more. Some need more photos or research before I can write them, and extra time is kind of short at the moment. I do write fast, and sometimes I just save up half-written posts for nights when my brain isn’t working, although that doesn’t happen often. More often than not, I get a phrase or feeling or idea midday and I write a quick draft or outline or even just a list of words or a phrase on a draft post, and hopefully that turns into that night’s post. When my brain is really in a mental slump (can you say DEPRESSION, kids? Say it WITH me! I know you CAN!), I sometimes preload a bunch of posts with pictures that I can use for nights when I can’t even pull my brain out of the gumbo…I have at least one or two of those in the wings at the moment as well. Then I get a wild hair and try to clean out the repository of drafts and post a bunch of stuff. Writing is like meds for me…it clears out all that muck that doesn’t need to be in my brain all the time. Drawing does too. Writing and drawing are therapy…I need more of the latter. I probably write enough at this point…I may even write too much.

Today was a lost day. School starts tomorrow and I’ve been trying to ignore it all day. Couldn’t ignore it completely, but I haven’t done a couple of things I always WOULD have done by now on the Sunday before we go back. Oh well. The New Kathy says Fuck That. School will start up again whether I’m totally freaking out about it or not. My biggest worry is actually being able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, unlike last night’s sleep calamity. Was that sleep? Who knows. Does it count when you start it that late? Sure…it counted somewhere in the world, like celebrating New Year’s in 12 different time zones. I celebrated bedtime the same way…except I woke up in between each one. Dammit.

I did a lot of pre-cooking today, trying to get ready to survive the week. I’ve got multiple casseroles and crockpot items going, because the ex is going back to the UK for his mum’s funeral and I have all kid duty, all the time, and I’m really trying to be better prepared this time, especially since my head will be in a stress spin due to school and quilt deadlines and financial aid deadlines and who knows what else. I haven’t scheduled any hikes for the next two weeks because I don’t think I’ll have time. I did schedule the gym and tried to make sense of all the food stuff, because it’s so complicated…boychild will have to put this thing in the oven at that time and because the oven temperature thing is totally fucked, you have to permanently leave a thermometer in there and monitor the temperature until it’s right (can’t afford to fix that right now), and then girlchild can pop the other thing in there, and odds are I’ll be home somewhere in between all that, but the timing doesn’t work for me to do any of it. Luckily, boychild is motivated to do well by the potential arrival of food he can eat.

I went to the gym, and instead of crying at Hip Abduction, I cried at…crap, I can’t remember the name of the machine…actually, the whole gym thing was rather painful today because the muscles I used on the hike yesterday had apparently never been used in the entire 46+ years of their existence and today they had to tell me about it (which was part of why I WENT to the gym in the first place, because I could tell last night that it was going to be bad…it was going to be walking-like-an-old-lady bad). But I did read an entire book there…more about that in a later post, since it’s an official review. Yes, I was actually ASKED to review a book…probably not because it’s me, but because I put something in my profile that matched their key words for reviewers, like “reads a lot, no really, a LOT.”

I did actually quilt today, although not until nighttime, because grades and dinner at parentals and gym and cooking and kid stuff. Yeah. I wanted to do 2-3 hours and I did 1 1/2. Better than nothing. What was interesting was that when I started, I noticed a problem…

There are many problems, but this was kind of a big one. In the center, where that weird line in the fabric is? That’s a wear mark of some sort, and the fabric was trying to tear in three places. Crap.You can see the three holes here…

It’s OK. I’m a quick thinker. I thought about just patching something on top of it, but instead I made another crack and put it on top…

You can’t even tell. Plus it’s all fused AND quilted. I quilted the breasts and heart and lungs and the left arm and the entire staff…

I’ve been quilting this pretty slowly. There’s a lot of detail and I don’t want to mess it up. I’m trying to be a NEAT quilter. Crazy that.

There’s the heart and the lungs…

I can never decide what color to make the lungs. I know what color they are in real life, but that doesn’t work to set them off from the heart and the flesh, and the heart has to be red, and I’ve only recently added the yellow layer of fat on the heart, so usually the lungs are blue and there are fish in them, but this time, they were green with pink flowers. WHY? Why the fuck not?

I still need to do the right arm and the face and the cat and the owl…not a small amount of work…lots of fussy details. Then I can start on the background. I think that’s why I just reserved the upcoming weekend for finishing my stuff…for one thing, I have the kids all day Saturday, and for another, grades are due next week anyway, so if I’m not working on quilt stuff, then I’m doing grades. I also want to keep working on the cleaning I’ve been doing around the house, slowly but surely, and maybe buy those roses I was thinking about. Money’s super tight, though…the septic tank needs to be pumped and that ain’t cheap. I also got the next quilt drawing ready to go…I had to go copy some filler parts that I missed the first time around, and I got those taped down on Friday night. When this one is done, I will either start the next big one or a smaller one…I have about three of those taped up, but none of them is screaming to be done yet.

I’ve been really missing my regular drawing time…I had managed to integrate it really well into my life on a fairly regular basis, and the change in my life screwed that over. I haven’t been able to revise my practices to allow for it…I could draw at soccer games, but there are too many people hanging around for me to feel comfortable with it (I used to draw at indoor soccer and it caused some strange issues)…so maybe I will have to schedule one night a week for that. I don’t usually find that to work for me, because I do need to be in the mood for it, but maybe if I go back to the smaller drawings for a while, there will be less pressure to make something AMAZING on the first try. Maybe Friday nights need to be drawing nights from here on out…except those are notoriously low-energy nights. Sigh. Sometimes I think too hard about everything, and then I feel bad about the hermit existence as well, because I know it’s not a good existence, but I have so little time for myself as it is, and to spend it trying to be happily sociable in situations that I don’t really want to be in just seems stupid. I do miss art openings, though…not sure what’s up with that, but maybe with the holidays over, there will be more of those.

Anyway. Fuck you, sad. Fuck you, tense and stressed-out. You’re downers. Go mess with somebody else’s head. For this week, I need to be SuperMom and Teacher Lady (I don’t aspire to be SuperTeacher). Oh yeah, and I need to be The Finisher for the art stuff. It would be nice if my brain would get with the program and remember all the stuff it needs to remember this week as well, but barring that, can I please just remember to put it on my calendar so my technology will remind me? I would settle for that. And the first thing I’m going to remember to do is drop that little sketchbook back into my work bag, just in case my brain tries to explode at school. I’m sure there are meds for that, but drawing seems the safer option.

So that was it, Winter Break. Three weeks, survived. It was eh. I can’t even enjoy vacations any more. That just sucks. I’m not sure what reminded me of this, but…this…

Message to the brain? Who knows.

San Miguel Mountain: A Metaphor for Life

Saturday I hiked San Miguel Mountain…this mountain was a bitch. It was incredibly difficult, so difficult that if I were a different person, I would have given up about 700 times. But I’m not that person. Once I started, I think I would have had to pass out to NOT make it up the mountain, so I stopped a lot to catch my breath, because OXYGEN. But I kept going and I made it. All the way to the fucking top. And no, I don’t ever EVER want to do it again, but I can’t promise that I won’t, because sometimes the crazy takes over, but I did it. It’s about 5 miles round trip from Butterfly Way in Chula Vista, and about 1725′ in elevation gain. There are no switchbacks and no shade, and there’s rocks everywhere.

Once I had signed up (committed myself) for this hike, I kept staring at it…here it is from the parking structure at my doctor’s office…

Although I can see this mountain from just about everywhere in the town where I live, I had to drive south quite a ways to get to this trailhead…you can see it in the distance here from the 125 toll road portion.

You go into a residential area to park at one of the trailheads…and there it is pointing up in the distance.

There’s a fairly easy hill up to the electrical tower…in this photo, San Miguel is right in the middle.

We stopped here for the obligatory group photo…

About half of us had never done this hike before (and one of them would drop out before we even got to the flag). Most of us carried poles. It was the first time I’ve used poles, and hell yes, I needed them, especially on the downhills.

I didn’t notice them going out, but coming back, the wires were humming.

This is the first section of the trail up to the flag, which is where most people seem to turn around and go back. Yes, it’s steep.

This is about halfway up the first slope, looking back at where we started, on the left in the middle, which is where that tract home community was.

From about the same place, looking up toward the flag (which I never actually went up to, but it’s up there somewhere).

This is the view of Otay Lakes and Chula Vista, with Mexico in the distance. It was a gorgeous day, a little warm, but not bad.

We did start early-ish to beat the heat. From here, you can see the trail is leveling off (the flag on the rocks is to my left), and San Miguel is in the distance.

The saddle between the two mountains is mostly flat…well, sort of. There are some ups and downs, but not too bad.

There are great views in all directions…this is east, with Lyons Peak pointing up in the middle.

This is looking north, toward El Cajon and Bonita.

And south again…

This is north, and that little pointy mountain on the left is Cowles Mountain.

This picture actually shows the gym where I work out…not that you can tell…but I see this mountain from the gym parking lot…ironically…

From the saddle, you can barely see the skinny brown trail snaking up the middle of the mountain to the antennas…I still have to go down into the valley and back up from here.

I’m still not all the way down. It’s a little daunting looking at it from here…

Honestly, I tried not to think too hard about it. I would hike until it hurt my quads too much or I felt dizzy, and then I would stop, turn around and look at the view, and breathe for a minute. Then I would turn around and keep going. This was at the very bottom of the saddle looking up at the antennas.

On the way up, looking west towards downtown San Diego, which is right in the middle of the far distance.

This is looking back at what I’ve already come up and over…

And looking back to the south toward Otay Lakes.

The antennas pull you upwards…they are a good landmark for judging distance.

This is Liar’s Rock…because you’re NOT almost there…I mean, I guess you are in terms of the whole trip, but you’ve still got some serious climbing to do.

This is looking back at where we parked, way the heck down there.

And finally, at the top…this is the view to the east, with Lyons Peak in the middle.

The antennas are fenced in at the very top…

And a photo of the group from the antennas…

Yes, that’s a road. There is a road. We didn’t walk on the road. Apparently you can also drive on the road.

I took this panoramic shot, which is just the southern 180 degrees of the view…

It took about an hour and 15 minutes to get up to the top…and much less time to get down.

I used the poles a lot going down…I had surgery on one knee about 18 years ago and this kind of steep, slippy, rocky downhill is tough, but I did it. On the flat areas, I would jog to keep up with the group. I didn’t take many photos going down, but here’s one pretty close to the end of the golf course next to the last bit.

And as I’m driving home, there it is again…

And after I got home and showered and ate (burned a billion calories and felt it all day)…there it is again on the way to the library to pick up new books…

This mountain was a challenge…I’m glad I did it, because now every time I look at it, I think, yeah, you climbed that…and I see that sucker every single day. It was hard…no, it was REALLY REALLY hard, but I climbed it. Kind of a metaphor for my whole life at the moment. It’s hard. Every day I get up and it’s hard and every day I try to climb that damn mountain. I hope someday it’s less of a daily hardship, but I guess once I get past all this, I’ll be able to say I survived it. I’m kind of a persistent, stubborn bitch that way.

And before you freak out about two posts in one night, I wrote most of this in the morning…I was just waiting for the organizer to post the official group photos so I could slot those in…

Draw More. Make Art. Be Content. Find Happy.

From my first post of 2013: A year ago, I wrote my 2013 resolutions: Draw more. Make art. Catch up. Sleep some. Clean up. Throw out. Use up. Be content. Find happy. 2013.

Wow. Nothing’s changed except the year. Well, and me. Sigh. It’s good that I have the same goals, even though my life is a fucked-up mess and so is my brain and everything in between. It sucks that I didn’t really achieve any of those in 2013, but I do still have them in mind. I sleep less now. I am less content, less happy. I make more art. Not sure what to say about that. Haven’t figured it all out yet. Maybe I never will.

This song kicked my ass today…

That’s the problem with quilting. I need to have something on to occupy my mind, and it used to always be music, but music just fucks with my emotions now, and there’s no way to tell Pandora to lay off the sad stuff. It doesn’t know what will set me off, stuff from high school or last year. I don’t even know until I hear it and have that bad reaction. I finally gave up and turned the TV on, which is distracting in another way…but at least I wasn’t crying and trying to move a needle up and down at 500 miles an hour around my fingers at the same time. It’s really better that way. I think.

Fuck, I don’t know.

I hiked this morning, early. The mountain (San Miguel Mountain) tried to kick my ass too, but I’m way more fucking stubborn that that. I’ll post about the hike later, once I get all the photos dealt with, but I did it. And it was good. And I’m feeling it now…some serious muscle pain for tomorrow morning. Oh well. It’s a good thing. My counselor wanted me to promise that I would admit to being an artist at the next hike, during all that stupid introductory conversation stuff that happens, instead of always answering the question of “what do you do?” with “I’m a science teacher.” She says that’s not who I really am. Yeah, but who I really am is a really long explanation and uses more words than I want to right now. Anyway, this was not a talking, chatting hike. This was a kick-your-ass hike with very little talking, so I failed at my task (not the hiking, but the admittance of being an artist). Oh well. She says I am isolating myself. Damn straight I am. I’m trying not to, but honestly, people kind of drive me bonkers at the moment. I just want to crawl into a hole most days, even now. Depression is a fucked-up monster. People suck. I can’t deal.

I managed to quilt some today, about 3 1/2 hours’ worth. It’s also not easy, but I got through the rest of the Mother and all of the Maiden, plus up the Crone to the breasts, and one of the birds. I wanted to be further, but it is what it is. I need to deal with school tomorrow, but I’m hoping for two or three more hours of quilting. I am trying to pretend school isn’t starting. It’s not working.

All I’m doing right now is outlining things. I have to decide what to outline and what to leave alone. I don’t think too hard about it. I just stitch and it tells me what wants outlining. I missed part of the milk ducts below…that’s why the pin is in there…to remind me to fix that.

I managed grocery shopping too, but hell…there is something so depressing about grocery shopping on Saturday night by yourself. It makes me want to just eat desserts. Not healthy. But at least I don’t have to deal with it tomorrow.

I ate Brussels sprouts instead of desserts. I don’t really like food any more. Girlchild was upset because her dad didn’t want to go somewhere interesting for his birthday dinner. I tried to explain to her that her dad likes his routine, not change. I think I will just take her out for mine. She and I can go somewhere interesting. Maybe I will be able to afford dinner out by March.

Meditation: I’ve made it a third of the way through a year of meditating. I finished the Discovery series and now they are moving into 40 days of Creativity. I probably don’t really need any help with that. I’m pretty damn good at it. It might be the only thing I’m good at. He talked about visualization and the connection to creativity. The first thing he says is, “Imagine the body is transparent.” Wow. He’s channeling my art. He says too much thinking and tension restricts your creativity. No shit. That’s why I can’t draw right now. Too much stress. I’m going to schedule some of this stuff out tomorrow, the stuff that HAS to get done in the next three weeks, because the next three weeks is a little ugly fugly. Then maybe I can fit some freewheeling creativity into my life.

It was 7 PM and I was feeling low. I was dealing with some lame-ass dinner and finishing a book (more about that later), and was just not feeling happy about life. Girlchild texted two words: “love you.” That’s it. Some day in the future, I will be able to explain to my kids how they held me (pulled me) up this year without even really trying, how their mom wanted to give up on everything about 400 million times, and they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t think all this shit had really affected the boychild, but he said something yesterday that made me realize that he HAD been affected and he would basically beat the crap out of people for me. Nice to know. They got my back.

We just recycled almost all of the college crap the boychild has received over the last three years…it was two huge piles of brochures and cards (and that doesn’t even count the hundreds of emails). It’s a whole new world. One of the things he asked for for Christmas was The Color Purple…I’ve been watching the movie tonight and it still makes me cry after how many years? Awesome story.

This is the rambling post for the week. My brain is kind of a mess.

I finished All Clear today…

It’s the second of two books, starting with Blackout, by Connie Willis. Honestly, I don’t think you can read the first and NOT read the second, because they are the same story…and I think she should have edited better. I am not a history fan, and there was way too much history and worry going on. There were about 500 pages in each book that were engrossing and good…and really good, honestly. The book club I’m in is only apparently reading the first book. It will be interesting to see if most people read both, because it’s about 1200 pages total, but you can’t read one without the other. That said, the story was good, even with my dislike of history, especially war history. There were too many words. This could have been one fucking amazing book with a good editor.

So there we are…life, reading, and a fucked-up mood. Nothing new.

Seven Bridges in Six Miles

Or something like that, because I think it was eight bridges, and at one point she said it was seven bridges in seven miles, so who the hell knows how far we hiked. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t a hike…it was a walk. I did this a week ago…there is a reason I didn’t write about it until now…read on.

The Canyoneers’ Seven-Bridge Walk is what this was based on, and reading the description at that link sounds pretty familiar. We started at the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in Balboa Park (ie, that place with all the roses across Park from the fountain). I got there a little early and wandered through the roses…strangely, this section of pruned roses made me miss having roses…we had them at the old house, where the kids were born. I had to prune them a couple of times a year.

I actually LIKE roses. I know. Strange. I like the complicated ones best though…the ones with colors that change over time…

or the really old-time roses that wander all over the place…

I didn’t do a very good job taking care of them, but seeing these pictures reminded me that I liked them. Not sure where I would put them here, and then I’d need to take care of them.

Our group was relatively large, which was interesting because it was taking place at the same time as the Chargers’ play-off game (I didn’t care). This is with the first bridge in the background, from the rose garden over to the Natural History Museum.

Once we crossed that first bridge, we headed directly across Balboa Park.

It was a Sunday morning AND football, so very few people were there…

It was a gorgeous day as well…

The second bridge we crossed was the Laurel Street Bridge, which goes over the 163. It was built in 1914 and is being retrofitted (again?) right now; hence all the construction equipment on the left of the photos.

The bridge is much wider than in this photo; cars used to be able to drive in over this bridge. Presumably they will again, but not right now. I have actually walked over this bridge multiple times.

We then wandered through Bankers Hill to the First Avenue Bridge, built in 1931.

It had a great view of the bay and beachy bits…

and apparently is the only steel-arch bridge in San Diego.

I don’t think I’ve ever been over that bridge. Then we walked north and east to the Quince Street Bridge, a wooden-trestle bridge built in 1905.

I’ve been near this bridge but not on it before…the obligatory group photo (I’m hiding in the back like a good hermit)…

Graffiti at the other end…I believe I am following that instruction for now…I’m even making a Not Love quilt. Whoops.

At the 4th-street entrance, there was this small book lending library. If I’d known, I would have brought some to put in there…

Here’s the side view of the trestles…it doesn’t look very sturdy, does it?

The next bridge was my favorite and one I didn’t even know existed…it was the Spruce Street suspension bridge, built in 1912. The entrance is right there in the middle, but you wouldn’t even know it was there…

This is a bouncy bridge…

It is especially bouncy if some person in front of you who weighs about 100 pounds more than you is jumping up and down on it. That said, kids would love this bridge. Heck, I loved this bridge. I would just love it more without other people…

And obviously the neighbors have some issues with the noise and behavior that the bridge (and the canyon below) seem to engender.

From there, we hiked (um, walked) back to Balboa Park for a quick view of the house…crap…and this is why I take notes while I hike…the Marston House. I should remember, since I think Monique’s bridal shower or engagement party or something was here. Of course, I was still married then and her oldest is now in middle school, so I guess it’s OK I forgot the name…

We did not go in. It was expensive for the tour. Besides, honestly, this walk was incredibly slow. By this point, we had lost one woman to an achy knee and another two or three who wanted to go watch the game, plus it just wasn’t very fast. Not the fault of the organizer…she did state it was going to be leisurely. Apparently I don’t like leisurely.

Here’s a squirrel who posed for me near the Marston House.

There were lots of interesting houses around the hike…from the Marston House, we stopped in the park to have a snack, and then headed north or west or something like that.

This used to be the City Deli for years, and now Harvey Milk has taken over. The frieze above of vegetables used to be in color…

We then wandered through Hillcrest, where my brain took a nosedive into shitty town (not the fault of the organizer). This is an extra bridge, but apparently not a historic one…

The bridge over the 163 for University Avenue. Yes, people sang Bridge over the River Kwai. That was not the most annoying thing on this hike. The most annoying thing was my brain and one of the other people…I did not have a great time. Not the fault of the organizer…I would hike with her again. I just won’t pick in-town walks (unless that’s what I want) or parts of town that make me want to claw my eyes out. Personal issues. The bridge part was cool.

This is the Vermont Street Bridge, built in 1995 to replace a 1916 wooden-trestle bridge.

It has many quotes on the sides of it…

Thanks, Eleanor…doing that all the time…and messages…

This goes from the Hillcrest shopping area across Washington to a residential area, and is another bridge I drove under many times without ever having been over it…

I guess exploring my city is not a bad reason to walk. There were definitions in the concrete of the bridge…all definitions of the word ‘bridge.’ There are many of them.

There were more quotes down at the end as well…

including this one by MLK. I’m not sure I qualify for either creative altruism or destructive selfishness…

I am kinda tired of the latter. I guess I’m more on the CA end of the spectrum. Maybe most teachers are…

There’s where the bridge goes into the residential area…and then we walked down to the Georgia Street Bridge, another one I had driven under about a million times and never really noticed…

This is a concrete bridge built in 1914 to replace a redwood-truss bridge from 1907. It’s a landmark bridge, but very short…

And not so pretty as some of the others. Here’s the view below of University Avenue. Sigh. Deep breaths. Don’t let memories fuck with your enjoyment of the bridge.

From there, we wambled back to Balboa Park (wamble was the Word of the Day yesterday on Dictionary.com)…by this time, we had lost one group to the Hillcrest Farmers’ Market (tempting), another group to general tiredness or something, and I don’t even know where we lost the other two people.

Coming through Balboa Park down Park, looking off to the southeast…

and finally through the cactus garden, which has lots of interesting stuff hiding in it…

with a view of the first bridge again, which I had to cross to get back to my car.

The Canyoneers’ article claims it’s 5.5 miles, but I know our leader added blocks on because she was trying to get to some lucky number of bridges and miles…not a feng shui hike, per se, but some sort of magical combination of numbers that obviously allowed the Chargers to win the play-offs (I still don’t care).

Why did this take me a week to write? The walk itself was fine. I was lost a bit in my own depression and memories, and some of the people were either really slow or really annoying, so I didn’t really have a great experience. I would hike with the organizer again…but I would also realize that if I’m in the mood for some serious walking/hiking, I should choose something else. This was more of a social see-the-town kinda hike, and although I won’t avoid that completely, it’s really not what I want out of a hike. That said, it was totally worth it for the suspension bridge…

Dear Self

Dear Self: thank you for ever so briefly getting your act together in December and copying everything for the next two units of school. I went in to school today and it was all there, ready, planned. Seriously. Like I had a brain at some point. It’s nice to know that someone is looking out for me sometimes. Am I done with the grading? Heck no. But I can teach for the next 6 weeks with very little planning. And honestly? I needed that. So it’s nice to know that my brain CAN kick in and behave at times.

So yeah, I went in to school this morning and learned a little bit about the silly tablet we’re supposed to be using and then signed up for computers for some of the upcoming assignments (because we won’t have access at all for some portion of the Spring, due to Common Core assessments), and I sort of dealt with my classroom and organizing and putting stuff where it belonged, and then I went home, because there’s a plumbing issue, and it should have been something small, but it’s not…it’s not difficult, but it’s expensive, because expensive is something I need at the moment. If we’re eating something besides ramen at the end of the month, it might be a miracle. Who knows what will die or need to be fixed next…I’m ducking at this point.

I did quilt for a little while…

Not as long as I wanted, but some. I always want the stressful things to stay away and leave my brain in peace, but they don’t. They keep me from getting the art stuff done, tying my brain up in knots. I finished the whole dirt area, the little black and white bird, and about half of the Mother. My goal is to get a ton of it done tomorrow afternoon and evening. We’ll see if that flies.

I’m about 3 hours in…I think. I had my stitching meeting this evening with friends and my kids…I worked on the binding for the Love (not Love) quilt. It’s STILL not done. I’m slow.

Julie brought a cool coloring book of flowers and leaves and birds…

There were lots of owls. I’m developing a fascination with owls lately…

It makes me want to draw…I really miss drawing. I used to draw more. Now I don’t find the time as easily. It’s a place thing, I think. When I was waiting, I would draw. Now I am waiting less. Plus I am incredibly overstressed about deadlines at the moment, and so I find myself either rushing around dealing with those or completely immobilized by too much. So I do very little or I read a lot or I clean a lot. That might be beneficial to the house, but it’s not beneficial to my brain. My brain needs to do a better job of clearing all that stress out.

Julie also gave us bird ornaments for our Christmas trees…but my ornaments are all put away in the garage until next December, so I will hang it on something else for a while and see if it notices that Christmas is over.

I think it will be quite happy being a Spring bird for a while.

Anyway. I’m going to bed early. I’m tired. I have an early hike in the morning. I want to read for a bit, even though it is still World War II, because the time travel has returned and the book is back to being interesting. And I want to have enough mental energy tomorrow to finish quilting, or at least get a lot of it done. I can worry about school and money and getting all the other crap done some other day. Saturdays should be for good stuff…not work and stress and sad. Yes sad. It’s there. It’s always there…lurking about and stalking me. Asshole.

Dear Self: Get rid of that sad guy. He’s a jerk.

Until the Feeling Sticks…

I planned a hike for this morning. I figure once school starts up again and the soccer season hits me fully upside the head (that starts tomorrow), I won’t have as much time to be wandering all over the place. I’ll write about the hike later. But I was sitting in a parking lot getting ready for this hike, and I had had a bad night and a bad morning, and I was already trying not to cry (as usual, what’s new), but…my ex emailed me (and a little while later, the girlchild texted me) that his mom had died last night…and I lost it. I’m not the most emotionally stable person at the moment, and I haven’t seen her in years, and yes I’m divorced and all, but she wrote me every year, usually more than once. And even when it was getting hard for her, she still wrote…to me. She kept up that communication for 10-plus years post-divorce and I always greatly appreciated her doing that, for not cutting me off completely, for keeping the lines open, for her news of a family I no longer officially belonged to. She was a caring woman and I will miss her spidery handwriting with her tales of music and fruitcake.

So I guess I didn’t start the hike out in the best frame of mind.

I’m not processing most of the day any better. I hiked…well, walked really. I went to the store. I weathered the teenaged girlstorm of last-minute planning (I’m kind of tired of that storm, I must say). I graded papers. I read a little.

More importantly, there was art. I think no matter the pain in your heart, whether sadness or loss or just a plain old bad day, being creative, even in a stupid paperwork kind of way, is good for all that. I’m not happier right now, but I am less anxious, more at peace.

I managed to iron down the whole Celebrating Silver quilt this afternoon…

I did it all on the entryway floor (luckily I chose to do this BEFORE we removed the very dead Christmas tree from the house, thus scattering pine needles into corners where they will not reveal themselves until some time in August). I had the whole quilt ironed together in a few large chunks: the earth base, the lower torso of the Crone with the Maiden and the Mother attached, the one bird, the upper torso with arms and staff, and the head and hair entwined with cat and owl. There were also some smaller loose pieces that couldn’t be attached until the whole thing was down on the background fabric.

It took a couple of hours, maybe three, to get the whole mess attached. At one point, I was looking at it and noticed the one dirt piece was much longer than the others…

Why? Fuck if I know. I cut it off.

Once I had everything sort of tacked down on the background, I moved it to the ironing board and tried to do a better job of attaching it, spraying each section with water and heat-setting it for at least 30 seconds.

I can’t show you the whole thing until the exhibit opens…in October. Seriously. I’m sorry. It’s really cool though! Seriously. It is. I’m happy with it.

Of course, I have hours of stitching left, so I should hold on to my feelings of relief for a bit longer. The happiness is a temporary feeling, chased away by anxiety over getting it done this week.

Despite having prewashed every fabric in the quilt, about three of the darker browns bled…

It’s not too obvious and I don’t know if I care. I have used colored pencils in the past to deal with that. I can do that again.

I set up the machine for the stitch-down phase, to start tomorrow. Meanwhile, it’s under that towel.

Which is under that cat. Yeah. I know. Damn cat. She has a T-shirt that says Occupy Mom’s Quilts.

My brain is already thinking ahead to how it will stay occupied when this one is done…I have the breast drawing I showed you yesterday? Friday? Can’t remember what day it is now, let alone when I posted about that…I had enlarged it months ago and started taping it together tonight…

Once again, brain short-circuiting reveals itself. One section is copied at the wrong percentage (how the hell did I do that? Must have been unconscious) and I missed another two sections completely…so tomorrow, I will be going back to the copy place to deal with that.

I also started cutting and taping some of the smaller drawings I copied earlier during break…

I want a whole stash of drawings ready to go…this one needed to be filled out on the right. I often run out of page (I have been drawing things off the page since 4th grade, maybe earlier…the problem is not solved by bigger paper) and have to tape bits on to finish the drawing. I need to draw feet for one other one I got taped…

Anyway. These smaller ones are about 14×17″ or so. Maybe I will do one of those first? I do have another smallish quilt top that needs to be stitched down as well. Maybe I will find time for that this week…just continue the stitch-down process after finishing the big one (the big one with tons of pieces that will take me forever to stitch down, who the fuck am I kidding?).

I only got three of the smaller ones done, and now I need to fix another copy issue with one of the drawings. I really did not have full brain power when I went in to do these…amusing (or not) since they were done on two different days, about four months apart. Apparently my brain will not be returning soon. It has left the building and wandered into another time zone.

I meditated with cat on lap.

At least she’s warm. I’m always cold these days. I take my iron pills and the higher thyroid dosage, but it’s not helping. I’m constantly freezing. I need a fur coat (not a real fur coat, but a grown one, like Babygirl has…just carry it around on your skin). I’m OK with genetic modifications that might keep me warm in winter.

Meditation is focusing on feelings still…I’m good at the feels. I’m not good at good feels, just the feels themselves, mostly sad or anxious, occasionally angry. Some people think I should be angry more…more often, more angry. I can’t find a lot of anger. So the meditation says that intellectual, rational thought can obscure underlying feelings…yup. Not mine, though…I told you. I’m good at the feels. I’m not so good at the rational part. I can be intellectual, but I am ruled more by the emotion, the instinct, that gut feeling…Mr. Meditation says that feeling is about knowing what’s right for us. Sigh. That’s the part I’m having issues with right now. I know what’s right, but it isn’t making me happy. It doesn’t feel particularly good. I get little twinges of it, I remember what it feels like…sort of, when I got the whole quilt ironed down (yes, the one I can’t even show you right now)…so that is a good thing. I will just keep doing that until the feeling sticks. And if it happens to stick around for any other part of my life, awesome. I don’t expect much at the moment. But I will be prepared with lots of artwork to pull me through the coming months. Art Saves Lives. Seriously. It does.

Geocaching in Hollenbeck Canyon

I knew I had New Year’s Day free, and despite my No-Resolution attitude, I did want to start out on the right foot (ha ha ha), so I picked a hike. I’d been curious about geocaching for a while, so I picked a hike in a group I belong to that went back to Hollenbeck Canyon (was just there last week), but would explore the geocaches hidden all over the park.

I haven’t hiked with this big of a group for a while…it was different…

It was a gorgeous day for it, though…all you people back East, it was about 75 degrees max, beautiful blue skies, light breeze…

We found about 17 geocaches during the whole trip, which was interesting and fun (well, for a while…). The first one (which I didn’t take a picture of) was in the parking lot, a microcache with just a log in it. The second one, though, had dropped into a deep crevice in the rocks and we needed a long curvy stick to get it out…

Which we did…ammo box with stuff inside.

Honestly, most of what was left in the caches was crap…there were a couple of decent things, especially farther out. It’s not surprising, because a lot of young families come here and they probably find the closer caches and so there’s lots of hairbands and plastic toys.

And expired Souplantation coupons (really?). The caches were in a wide variety of containers…this one was a mini-M&M container painted over…

Some just have logs in them where you can sign your name and the date; some have stuff. This one was a Bob Dylan theme…

And contained a book (not to take)…we had to struggle up a steep slope to find this one, and getting down it without poles was difficult…I guess I can see now why some people carry them.

I just slid down on my butt. This one was cool…each geocache has a name and this was Someone’s Watching You…and there she was…

The cache itself was hanging on the lower screw. There were a couple we couldn’t find and one we thought had been stepped on and broken. I was traveling with a group that were half veterans and half virgins of the geocaching experience.

This was Mike’s Star…

The same people didn’t find all the caches…and there were a wide variety of types and hiding places. I left some of my Shrinky Dinks in some of them but didn’t take anything in return. There wasn’t really anything I wanted.

One thing I will say about geocaching is that it is SLOW…it’s not a hike. It’s a lot of wandering around and looking, and then standing around, and the people with the technology are trying to find things, and it’s not necessarily the most interesting thing to do for HOURS. At least for me. YMMV. I could see doing it for a couple of hours with the kids. I did download an app onto my phone, the Geocaching Intro (which was free)…it was fine when there was internet. That’s the problem, though…there isn’t always internet, and it didn’t have all the caches. You can pay for a premium membership, which is only $30 a year, but you’d have to think that one through and decide if it’s worth it. I did log 15 caches (although I had to do some when I got home because internet was spotty and it wouldn’t show me all the caches even when I was standing on top of them). The app wouldn’t let me log two of them without the premium membership. The guys with the GPS devices were the most useful in this place.

This is what standing around waiting for the next PING looks like…

At least the landscape is nice, eh?

We spent about the first 3 hours geocaching (and stopping for lunch)…

I even found one…it was here…you can just see the corner of the plastic box poking out from under that rock…

Lucky find. I actually suck at this stuff…

Despite being a highly observant person. I think I don’t have the patience for it.

That’s Lyons Valley Peak…

Apparently there’s a crazy man on it with a gun who won’t let anyone up there.

A pill container for a geocache…

A heart-shaped box (I might have been the only one humming the Nirvana song when we found this one)…

Sandwich container…

Microcache on a fencepost (see, you can see a different person is finding them every time…it is a nondiscriminatory game)…

Around about here, we realized we were a good 3 miles out from the parking lot and it was getting late. I suspect a smaller group might move faster. Plus we kind of had the mentality that we had to find ALL the caches, which I think is crazy when there are so many of them…

So we lost a few people here who had to get back to somewhere…

And we sped up the walking part…love the old California oak trees…

Weather still good…

Meadows stretching endlessly…

This was the last cache we found…

And then we had some trail issues…it doesn’t seem to matter how many maps and devices you have…

Or how many brains, for that matter, because at some point, we went the wrong way…

and the trail ended. And someone said, “Hey, let’s just go to the top of that hill (mountain) and see where we’re at,” and then we were ALL climbing the mountain (it’s only 5 minutes…and 1000 calories burned…up that thing). So in this view, we’re at the top of the saddle (I did not go to the top of the mountain, just the saddle)…and where we NEED to be is through all that brush in the horizontal dark stripe about the middle of the photo…

So we bushwhacked…and climbed down into and up out of ravines (at least three) and avoided snakes and barbed wire and found an opening in a fence so we didn’t have to climb through barbed wire and eventually all of us got down the mountain. In the picture below, the mountain (OK, it looks smaller here) is in the middle…my group came over the saddle to the right…

So. What do I think? The hike was fun. I enjoy actual hiking more than geocaching. I would geocache again, but with an understanding of how slow it is. I don’t have a lot of geocaching stamina…it gets boring for me after a while. Now I know all these things…and at some point, I will realize that all hikes take at least an hour longer than I think they will, even after I add on an extra hour.