Three-Dog Late Afternoon

Weekends are for catching up on sleep. For catching up on errands, although I did a pretty good job of that on Thursday. For catching up on grades, unfortunately. And hopefully for a little free time and relaxation. I’m going to see the Visions exhibit this evening…looking forward to that.

But before that, I gotta wake up. Ugh. My head.

I walked the dogs again on Friday…by myself this time…

I took them over three miles, trying to tire them out. It worked. Tired me out too…but then I’d already had a long walking day at work. The kids played a rock cycle game and I always have a few who need me to walk them through it. It went well otherwise though. My legs were dead by the time I got to the dog-walking part of the day, but it was good for all of us.

After dinner, I eventually persuaded my legs to stand up again. I didn’t trace for long, because I didn’t realize how late it was…but I’m in the 300s now. I wanted to be much further along, as always. So tracing is on my list for today as well. A nice big fat chunk of it please.

I sat for a bit…Satchemo love…and Simba putting up with the cat.

Who knows whether he likes it. He always looks nervous. That cat has sharp pointy bits.

Anyway. Art tonight, by other people, hopefully making my own as well. Same for tomorrow. I’ll never get caught up with grading anyway.

Happy birthday to my dad, who is hopefully still in Spain (if he’s not, I don’t know where he is)…he’ll be home soon, and then his dog will be at HIS house, making all the caterwauling noises that she makes. Plus walking the dogs will be easier.

(Before the Sleep Part)

Ah yes, best-laid plans and all. To be fair, my to-do list for yesterday was longer than the space allotted in my calendar and I crossed off most of the things, so that’s a plus. The minus was that art totally fell by the wayside. My exhaustion won out. I guess art didn’t totally lose, because I cleaned up and packed up two quilts that are shipping out this morning. Doing that required a trip to UPS and one to Home Depot, so it wasn’t a small task.

And now those get crossed off the list. That’s a plus. I also sent all the emails I was supposed to send. I went to the photographer’s and got my quilt and sent the stuff for that. I guess that’s art too.

This thing changed its name at the last minute. I wrote a short poem back in 2013 and that’s what this piece is based on, for a show called Women: Art and Poetry.

Originally I was going to take one line from the poem, but at the last minute, staring at the pictures, I changed my mind and took another line from the poem (this poem is super short…there are not a lot of lines). So here is Sweet Delicious. She’s 33″ w x 51″ h. And she’ll be at the Lyceum Theater downtown in November. The opening is December 1 from 7-8 PM. Parking sucks (well, there’s Horton Plaza), but there are many places to go eat dinner afterward, so that’s a plus.

Calli. Still disturbed by the mess in the backyard. The mess is stalled.

Really we’re trying to find MORE places for you to pee, sweetie.

I did make it to my quilt class, although I decided not to take any of the Wonder Under to cut, because I can still fit more stuff on the pieces I’ve got. I worked on the butterfly instead, bullion knots in freakin’ rayon thread (tear your hair out sweetie), plus some Pekinese stitch and I can’t remember the name of the other one…crested chain? Maybe?

Slow going on this, but enjoyable. I’ve already spent probably 4 hours on this butterfly, just to give you an idea of the time it takes to do these. But it’s very relaxing. Except for the rayon.

Coming back home, I had all the intentions in the world to get some more tracing done…at least a few hours. I ate dinner, graded for a bit (I finished NOTHING in the grading world yesterday), and then fell asleep multiple times on the couch. I would rouse myself and think, OK, get up and trace, and then I’d realize I’d fallen asleep again. At some point, I gave up and did that in a bed. It made more sense. I used to be able to shake off one night of shitty sleep. Hell, there was an 8-month period when I rarely got more than 5 hours a night (not healthy), but now, now apparently I need more sleep.

Tonight though…tonight I can trace. I’ve got nothing else on. (I’m going to start earlier. Before the sleep part.)

Exciting Piles of Wonder Under in My Future

‘Tis early. My brain is fog. Or oatmeal. Not sure which. Oatmeal is stickier. So that.

Yesterday’s lab was much mellower than the previous two days. Maybe that’s because I’d done it before? Or because it was more like direct instruction instead of their reading instructions. Reading is always an issue for us…so many language learners.

Calli had to go to the vet yesterday, more pee issues, but at some point, the boy decided the little one needed some exercise. There’s playing that happens when Katie’s not here, but Katie has toy issues and Calli has jealousy issues, so we hide all the toys while Katie visits…which sucks for Simba.

He likes toys.

Calli isn’t allowed to play because she’s a bully. She gets sticks thrown for her outside. Katie doesn’t actually fetch anything…she just tries to herd everyone who is fetching. It’s a pack of dogs…not just two.

After dinner, I didn’t do any grading. I figure I will do a bunch today. I took the day off to sit in a waiting room hopefully for not too long. But it means I’ll have some wait time there and here at home, so I can get a chunk of grading done.

So I started tracing pretty early last night. I was starting to think I was totally OK on time with this, but then realized I’m going to Boston and I don’t know what’s happening with Thanksgiving. So I panicked.

I traced for about 3 1/2 hours and got two yards mostly filled…and another one started.

I’m only in the mid 200s though. They were fussy pieces to trace. So I’m a quarter of the way through and it took about 3 1/2 hours. So another 10+ to go? I’ll do some tonight (maybe today? Although right now, a nap sounds lovely) and some tomorrow night, but that won’t get me done. We’ll see.

Anyway, gotta get out of here. Exciting piles of Wonder Under in my future.

I Feel the Chemicals Kickin’ in*

I left school yesterday and went to an art opening instead of straight home. It was a good choice, even though I’d walked so much during class, dragging trays of sand and water back and forth from the classroom like some sort of crazy piece of construction equipment (couldn’t the robotics class make me something that would do this?). And tutoring where this one girl I was trying to help with the most confusing math website ever, and I would ask her questions and she would say “No English” but she knew enough to tell me she speaks Pashto. OK. I can’t do that. I tried German and Spanish and she looked sadder and sadder, and I stared at the math website, trying to figure out what it wanted, but it made no freakin’ sense. Teacher fail.

Today is another, different lab, this one with crayons and hot water (could be a mistake…nah, it worked pretty well last year). We’re frantically trying to plan the project that starts next week. I feel buried and overwhelmed. Still. Ugh.

So the art opening was at Grossmont College and is up until Oct 26, and includes two artists I like, Cheryl Tall, whose piece here is Casa de Manos…

I never made it back into the room with her work to take more pictures…you’ll have to go check it out. Very impressive.

And then Gloria Muriel…whose mural art has been on here before. But this is a tiny little watercolor drawing. This is Deer Memory.

A much larger piece, Woke Up From a Mayan Dream…

And Florentina, which is smallish and beautiful.

Despite my exhaustion, it was a good stop to make. Home to an empty house (well, there were cats and Katie)…I graded stuff for a while. And then started numbering this thing. I took a break in the middle to check in with the musical guy who lives here (he eventually showed up after practice)…but then finished up before bed. I wanted to be under 1000 pieces, just for my own sanity (there is a deadline on this thing), and I was.

991 pieces. Unless I fucked up somewhere and double-numbered something or skipped a whole bunch or just didn’t number it…all of which I do on a regular basis, so I don’t know why I set such importance on that number. But 991 pieces it is. It sounds more doable than 1001. Just barely. It’s a place from which I can estimate time.

I’m also hoping that I numbered it more logically than usual. I did all of the background and then the body and then the swirls of water. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

I did try not to overembellish things…keep it simple. Well, for me. I didn’t need to put all the lines in the turtle. I didn’t need to put more lines in the hillside. A bush can be just one color. I can simplify flowers. Then I do the deer’s eyes and that all goes to hell in a handbasket.

She’s not huge…about 38″ wide by 60″ high? Something like that.

Anyway, I can start tracing Wonder Under tonight. Then there’s probably 10-12 hours of tracing to do. Maybe by the end of the weekend? Hard to say. Depends on the next few days…

Oh yeah, I got my staff ID yesterday. Mine is better than yours.

Really the best part is when I have to use it to get a teacher discount and I pull this out (or any of the last three) and the cashier tries not to show their hilarious dismay. Yup. That’s the best part.

OK, let’s do this day.

*Neon Trees, Animal

I Think I Need a Sunrise*

Rough lab day yesterday. Apparently reading instructions is not required. I guess I didn’t make that part clear enough. Don’t worry. I will today. Lab skills in the hands of 12-year-olds. Plus mud and water and knowing what NOT to put down the sink. Back to the mantra of “If Nida didn’t tell you to do it, then don’t do it!” It’ll be fine. Sometimes 7th graders are the most frustrating creatures on the planet…and sometimes they are awesome. Today maybe we’ll hit awesome. I can hope.

Staff meeting after that…I draw to occupy my brain.

Seriously, if I’m really tired, this keeps me awake. If the meeting is stressful, this keeps my brain at an even keel. Works for me. Mindfulness and a Sharpie.

Then science meeting after that. Racing home to find enough daylight for this walk with the furry beasts. They need it. I need it. I don’t know if the boychild needs it.

But he comes along anyway.

We pass a new vineyard in the neighborhood.

And he finds this skull.

Pretty sure it’s a raccoon…no lower jaw, missing some teeth, definitely an omnivore. Yes, I carried it home and washed it out, and now will take it to school. Even though I don’t really teach biology anymore. It’s still cool. Maybe someday I’ll unearth that skunk skelly I have down by the garage.

Dinner was already in the crockpot (that I had to buy yesterday), so that was easy. Oh yeah, I did that. After dinner and all that, I started drawing…and then this happened. Katie is needy. And bitey.

She misses her real parents. We mostly suck because we don’t give her cheese and we don’t walk her twice a day. Like they do. Maybe they will come back for her some day (don’t worry…she sounds pitiful, but my parents will return eventually and continue to feed her all the cheeses).

OK, so I added a faucet and some overfishing and a Humboldt squid, because apparently the squid are totally happy with warming oceans, plus some oil drums and spillage.

Leading into ocean acidification and bleached coral and the requisite dead fish.

Then I finished the waterway and the hill…trying to keep it simple…for some definition of simple.

But then debated and put sky behind the bird, because I was thinking about how to make things pop and knew dark background would be an issue for that bird and the water below, so now I have an option to work with that.

It’s done. I actually finished around 11:10 PM, and thought about starting the numbering, but I was tired of standing at that point, so numbering will be tonight. I’m a little scared of how bad it will be, but whatever. It’s done now. If I don’t finish it for the deadline, I’ll still finish it and it will still be awesome.

OK, gotta be at school early to let kids measure stuff on their test makeups. I’m hoping they behave well enough that I can get some other stuff done at the same time, instead of starting the day playing babysitter. We’ll see.

*Augustana, Boston

How We Will Run, We Will…*

You know, when you plan to cook a meal with your slow cooker and then you forget that you broke it back in June when you were carrying it back from school, where it had pancake batter or something else in it, and you never replaced it, because you didn’t want to pay for shipping, but you never actually wrote it on any to-do list anywhere to go somewhere and buy one, which pretty much guarantees it will never get done, well then you will have to drive BACK to the hellish mall where you just were to go grocery shopping so you can buy one. You will also have to stand in line behind someone who doesn’t realize you’re holding a huge box because you couldn’t be bothered with a cart and she’ll just be hanging out on the thingie (I’m sure it has a name CONVEYOR BELT…that only took 20 minutes to come to me; ~~I’m just not remembering it right now~~) where you put the stuff you want to buy until her husband tells her what a dick she’s being. I’m often confused by how unaware people are of those around them…physically and otherwise.

We have a new slow cooker. It’s fancy…has 4 levels of cooking instead of 2…and a nice lid that snaps on. The previous one lasted longer than my marriage, much longer, so that’s a good thing.

In incredibly sad news, Paul did die yesterday as a result of his injuries. His wife was my co-teacher in science a few years back. She has three small children and his income was all they had. I’m posting the GoFundMe again here, as she will need all the help she can get. She’s a quilter, although more traditional (a batik fiend, though), and I have used some of her scraps in my own quilts. I think she introduced me to my first real-live game of Cards Against Humanity, so there’s that.

Yesterday was full of work and busyness. I did catch up on a lot of school things, but I still feel buried. I guess I should become one with that feeling. After 16 years, you’d think it would be easy. But no, there’s a constant sense of panic and Oh Shit going through my head. I don’t know if that ever goes away.

As part of grading…

Yes I corrected his spelling. After snorting tea out my nose. Of course cock faults. Sigh.

Calli…tired…

Kitten has a slightly new hiding place. Not as far in the hole as she usually is.

I didn’t get to start drawing until after 9 PM, as always. I added a rosy boa in the bottom right.

And then went into the water’s edge on the left…Great blue heron, California least tern, crap I don’t remember the last one…

Western snowy plover. The plants are harder to do without a million pieces.

I sketched in the last water plume up above…it comes from her head and down into that empty space. That’s for tonight.

That and finish the hill/sand, and I’ll be done. My notebook has lists of plants and animals for each ecosystem area. This is more realistic than I usually do. Hopefully it will turn out well. I’m hoping to finish drawing tonight and maybe start numbering. I need to get it all traced this week. I think. All I can really think about right now is a nap though. Not a good sign.

*Rusted Root, Send Me on My Way

Unless This Music’s Thumping*

First of all, I have a friend whose husband was in an accident and is currently in a coma. She’s young, three kids, the youngest is still a nursing babe in arms. If you are so inclined, she’s going to need financial help no matter what happens…just to keep her head above water for a bit. The GoFundMe is linked here. She was my partner in teaching science a few years back…I know how amazingly strong and creative she is, but I also know how devastating this is for her. Please help if you can. If you’re one of my quilting friends…a chunk of fabric came from her before she moved to Morocco for a while a couple years ago…in fact, this piece, By All Means, is entirely made from her fabrics and some of her rejected blocks for a show about recycling materials.

Because I don’t piece stuff. And I get a lot of pieces of fabric from people who are getting rid of stuff. Anyway, it’s hard to know how to help in this situation, and I’m not a prayer person…I’m just sending telepathic bolts of Get Better Dammit toward Paul…but know that what she really needs is money right now. And a miracle, if you believe in those.

Anyway. Sigh. Bad things happening to good people.

Friday night, I went to my stitching meeting, but drove back through a lightning storm, arriving home to a bunch of frantic dogs…well, really only one who was truly frantic. This was around 11 PM, when most everyone was sleeping (one cat, three dogs), except for Calli, who was still trying to dig through the floor to get to a non-thunder place.

She kept going until around 1:30 AM…ugh. This one just barked at it, but was unperturbed. He barks at everything.

I didn’t get much done on this at the meeting…just butterfly bullion knots. First I did the sleeves on the quilt that needed to go to the photographer.

I tried one of her mom’s shirts on Calli…I don’t know if it helped…but this was a calmer moment than the ones before.

I had a ton to get done Friday night, but mostly I held the dog.

Oh yeah, I’m fascinated by these moons. I keep buying them. I don’t know what I want to do with them. You can find them here. I figure I will make a fabric home for them at some point…

Anyway, so I got nothing done Friday night. At some point, I remembered that I had planned on some hand embroidery on this one…the one that was due to the photographer at noon. Now could I have emailed him and asked for more time? Of course…but I didn’t. Because I need to get going on the other one. I got up and started stitching.

I had about an hour and a bit…and I used every minute of it…

Nothing fancy…just added texture and color.

I like doing this. I should do more.

That requires me to finish quilts earlier than deadlines though so I can spend time doing that.

Anyway, it’s at the photographer. I ran some errands, and was home for about 25 minutes, long enough to eat lunch…then off to the first opening of the day…

This is at the Boehm Gallery at Palomar College. You can see my two quilts hanging on the back wall.

It’s a very cool show with lots of interesting work. Below is Kathleen Mitchell’s glass piece Rough Childhood. Mammogram is the quilt on the left; Part-Time Oasis is on the right.

These two bird women by Maria de Castro are beautiful. Hoopooe on the right, Hawaiian Neme Goose on the left.

Then Cheryl Tall’s piece O Happy Days in front of my quilts…

There were many more pieces in the show…it’s up until November 8, I believe.

Meanwhile, the girlchild is still playing soccer, in case you were wondering…but I only see bits and pieces of it online.

I was grading stuff at that point, finishing that heinous assignment that’s been plaguing me for weeks. It’s done! Then I got an email about parking that reminded me that I had signed up to see an exhibit at Sparks Gallery Saturday night, since I knew the man was playing in yet another show that I couldn’t crash (guest list only)…so I drove downtown to this beautiful sunset.

The show was a fundraiser for Space4Art, which has a new property and is trying to get money to build an affordable space for artists to show and live where gentrification won’t kick us out. What a concept, San Diego…instead of closing them all down or turning them into million-dollar condos.

I really liked this piece, Untitled (Anti-Analogy) by Tml Dunn.

And of course, my friend Linda Litteral’s huge long work from her Meditations series displayed in the window…

Now if I’d had more energy or drive, I would have driven down to Bread and Salt for the Latin American festival of art…it looked awesome. But I knew I needed to draw. So I came back and inked the stuff I’d penciled in on Thursday night…

Still working on this section…added some more stuff in here…

Took some brain breaks to hang out with Kitten, who ventured out because the dogs are at me ex’s house with the boychild…

She helped me draw (not)…

Still more work up here…although I headed down to the legs first.

Not done with those…and so I have more nature stuff to go in the bottom and to the left, and then to decide what to do with the upper right. We’ll see. I put in about 2 hours of drawing with a lot of sitting around being tired. Two nights running I’ve gone to sleep horrendously late…not by choice, but that’s just the way it was. This week will be interesting. I’m taking one day off to help with something…so maybe I’ll get caught up on some work in between that. But I also need to finish the drawing and get going on this quilt.

But first, groceries and parent email for school and shower and probably not in that order. And I’m hungry.

*Cake, Love You Madly

Seen It in the Wild

Well when you email the photographer about taking pictures of the quilt, that makes you finish sewing the sleeves on, right? Except I haven’t. It’s OK…I’ll get them done tonight. My stitching meeting is tonight, plus I don’t have to grade. Well, I always have to grade, but it’s not entirely required. I should have nights off, right? I graded last night…I’m trying to get through these essays, short ones, that I thought we had set up with such an obvious formula…but as always, listening to and reading instructions are skills that even adults don’t necessarily value. There are times to think outside the box, but that doesn’t mean you can make up what happened in a science lab. Aliens! It’s always the aliens. Um. Not always.

I’m up early for a parent meeting. Fun stuff those…but if it results in that kid behaving more like he’s capable of and less like a small child, I am OK with that. Parents forget that middle-school and high-school kids sometimes still need guidance and redirection. Or they just don’t know what to do with them. I guess I was lucky…mine kinda figured it out. Don’t be a dumbass. Mom will be pissed.

So after grading and dinner and some spacing out last night, I stood and stared at the big blank spaces of the drawing. I thought about what I was trying to say…about what was important and why. And I started sketching some stuff. And because it’s sketching, it’s super light and really hard to see. OK, yeah, like in this picture, you can’t really see anything. But know that I’m filling in this space with a mountain and plants and animals…

And as I was going to bed, I was thinking over and over, a ribbon runs through it. I’m not sure how that will play out in real life, but somehow I need to connect her to the landscape or maybe put her more solidly In the landscape. The arm is there, the legs…I’ll have to decide how that will look.

A coyote…some burned-out trees. My Cuyamaca Mountains…

A bobcat…I’ve only seen one in the wild…and it was while I was driving at 75 mph. It was alive. Manzanita and poison oak. I’ve seen them a lot in the wild….

California mule deer…more trees…

And right before bed, when I started to ink some of it. Gotta remember not to go tiny (um. might be too late for that).

So more of that tomorrow. Maybe tonight. Figure my drawing out in my head all day and then spill it out? Maybe. It depends on how awake I am.

Satchemo won’t be doing any of that, man. Not finishing the last class period of those essays for me. Not going to the post office. Not working on the drawing. Totally not doing the dishes.

Damn lazy cat. OK. Parent meeting. A million presentations on landforms. Stitching meeting. Somewhere in there I’ll get some food and maybe some sleep.

Words Like Violence*

I wasn’t the only one who thought yesterday was Thursday. Now I will have to live through a brain Thursday again. It’s OK. There’s tea. I’ll make it. I keep looking at the calendar for today and high-fiving myself that there’s nothing after school…to make up for yesterday I guess. Long-ass union meeting. Lots of complaints. OK. Heard. Not sure what the solution is. I had to work my prep period yesterday, and it was semi-hellish, and I probably didn’t actually have to work it (there was another teacher in that class)…so it threw my brain and blood sugar off. The thing about blood sugar is that when it’s off, you’re cranky and irritable. That’s always nice. Sigh.

I was home for a whopping 10 minutes, maybe 15…and then all the way across town to book club. They’re currently meeting in Liberty Station in the middle of a courtyard in the dark…which is fine. The Public Market is there for food, although they had all brought food (how nice…I can’t deal with that)…so I went and watched a nice woman make me a crepe, all the while watching a video of someone making a crepe.

‘Twas a good crepe. And we (book club, not the crepe lady) talked about the book and being white and not always understanding cultural references because of it and being female and how we would have all been burned as witches if it were 150 years ago or so and how awesome birth control is and mindfulness and biofeedback and every once in a while a plane would go over us and we’d look up and watch it, because you couldn’t talk when that was happening and it was a place where my head went OK, you can drive 30+ minutes across town for this once a month. Except at some point, it will get too cold.

Last night it was not too cold.

I came home and had zero energy to do anything. Except sit on the couch and wonder who did get into Quilt National. I didn’t. It’s OK. It happens more often than getting in. Those two pieces were not particularly friendly to showing with other work. They’ll find their exhibition home. So that’s 6 shows notified and I got into 4. Good odds.

Tonight I should have more energy…both to finish the sleeves on the poetry quilt, and to start drawing the next one full size. That will be my weekend, I think. If I finish drawing Saturday, I’ll be surprised. I have an opening in the middle of the afternoon, up at Palomar College, from 2-4 PM. Both Mammogram…

And Part-Time Oasis will be there…

As will I. There is also an opening up there this afternoon, but it’s mostly for students. I’m obviously not going to be at that one. Because I’m going to be in my classroom listening to presentations about landforms. You wish you were me. Admit it.

*Depeche Mode, Enjoy the Silence

Control Is Not Convinced*

Trying to shut off teacher brain long enough to write…it’s trying to figure out a problem for today. It’s like listening to my students argue. Geez, just shut up a moment. We’ll be fine if you be a little bit quiet. Or not.

I have a meeting after school today and I’m trying to decide what assignment I can grade at the meeting. It has to be low maintenance or I can’t hear the meeting at the same time. I take notes to send to my people, so I have to be able to hear. Which means my teacher brain can’t be distracted by other shit. So not complicated, but needs to get done. Hmmm. I have until the end of the school day to figure that out. That’s not even the problem that was distracting me. That one woke me up at 2 AM and niggled. I hate niggling.

You know how you say yes to something and then you wonder why you said yes, why you decided this made sense, and you know why, but all of a sudden it’s a pain in the ass and you don’t want yes to be the right answer any more. It still is the right answer, but yes now means something the size of a football stadium and before it was much smaller. Like hold-in-your-hand smaller.

Anyway. That’s my brain at the moment. Highly distracted. I try to bring it back into the art world each night. Some nights I am more successful than others.

I did not finish the binding last night. I graded until almost 10:30 PM and then I wanted to tape the full-size drawing together, so that’s what I did. It took me 30 minutes to stand up to do that, but it’s OK…I eventually got there.

Here’s my weird-ass collection of pictures from yesterday…from the redacted poem we did in class yesterday…

About layers of the Earth, not pizza.

To the parking lot on the way out of school…two crows and their very dead friend, the gopher. They were picking at him when I drove up.

Weird.

To cutting and pasting the enlarged drawing together…I did 200%. And then added paper on all 4 sides so I could see the whole space.

Much easier to visualize now. Although I won’t probably get to it tonight…got a union meeting AND book club, and book club is many many miles away and somewhat complicated tonight. Ugh. I’m not really up for complicated and far away, unfortunately. We’ll see how I feel after the meeting. Actually, I shouldn’t give myself that out…because I won’t go if I base it on how tired I am after the meeting. It’s a new location and it’s different so I’m weirded out by that. I guess. Ugh. More caffeine. Go to work. Think later.

*Peter Schilling, Major Tom (Coming Home)