No Patches of Weird Sunburn…

What am I going to do today? I’m not going to lesson plan. I’m not going to update my school webpage. I’m not going to desperately run over to school to prep a lab for tomorrow or to check supplies, and then run around to a bunch of stores to find materials and pay for them with my own money. I’m not going to spend two hours grading papers or inputting grades online. I’m not going to check parent or admin emails and try to figure out who can play what sport or how to manage that many meetings in one day AND have time to call student parents (my goal for next year…more phone calls, fewer useless meetings). Sundays are never days of rest for teachers. We run errands for the week, prepare for the week, often don’t sleep Sunday night because we’re worried about the week.

I don’t have to do any of that today. I still need to grocery shop. Still need to manage some stuff, bill paying, schedule for the week (which includes at least one hike, maybe two, plus some trips to the gym). Yeah, the car has to go in (again), I have a couple of doctor’s appointments, and I have to prepare a powerpoint for an art group I’m in, plus organize some long-ignored posts to the Facebook page for at least one of those groups. I can do all of that.

I did manage to get off my butt yesterday and go to the quilt store for bindings. I found two that I’m debating, although this afternoon, I am leaning towards the green.

This camera…those are all much darker than they are here. The two pieces on the left are vying for the position of background of the next quilt, which I will be starting soon. Hopefully I’ll get the binding machine-sewn on tonight, and then I can do hand-sewing whenever, and start tracing the next one…because it needs to be done in…four weeks, max. I can do that. Maybe. I certainly don’t have school in the way.

Yesterday afternoon and into the night, I was at a music festival, the Dirty Parts Festival put on by a radio station I don’t usually listen to, but that plays a lot of music that’s similar. So I knew three of the bands and a song of one of the other bands. It was nice to listen to music all day, and to people watch, because I do a lot of that…it was hot out there, so a fan made sense, and she wasn’t the only one who had one…

Although the lace kinda confused me for a moment, because we were on rodeo grounds and it just seemed incongruous.

There were lots of tattoos, and I would have taken many more pictures of those if it didn’t seem difficult to do so without people noticing that I wasn’t taking pictures of the BANDS, but of them…

This is Panic Is Perfect, which I’d never heard of, but they had some suitably hyper guys jumping around and making music.

Then In the Valley Below, which had some nice duets, belting it out. I was impressed by the female’s apparent lack of sweat.

Plus she used a bunch of chains as a musical instrument. Can’t argue with that.

On the right is Steve West, who has been a local radio DJ for a million years (since 1983)…I think he’s beaten cancer and is about a million years old, but did Resurrection Sunday, a radio show, for years, music from my childhood. Apparently, he does the same sort of thing on his current radio station. But yes, I took a photo of him because it made me smile to see him still standing…

This is Waters, a fun and bouncy band of young musicians who say they’re from San Francisco, but largely hail from Norway, hence the Eurowear.

So I stared at this tattoo for a long time. Was Brittany born on 2-4-91? Was Brittany the woman sitting next to him, with her own set of newer tattoos that I never got a clear photo of? Was Brittany dead? I will never know.

These guys were a little strange to have on a rodeo arena…Saint Motel…very big-bandy sound and kinda goofy.

And this lace vest…I was annoyed that the skull had no lower jaw…that’s probably why it looks so pissed off. Plus…lace.

So the guy on the left didn’t look 21 at all, but had the ID check bracelet. The dear young thing to the right? Stretch marks already on her lower back, plus the mom in me really wanted to either pull up the purple shirt to cover the bra because it looked so damn stupid, or to tell her to leave off the bra (which was a common refrain in my old-lady head all night…why all you people wear bras when you’re wearing such flimsy clothing? Your nips are covered. Who cares?). So yeah. And then he gave her half his beer. And his little brother was on the other side of her.

Proof that we’re old…all the really drunken kids with the ID check bracelets on? None of them looked 21.

Here’s the whole crowd for the Saint Motel set…two stages…and in the distance, a fire starting and getting put out within 90 minutes, no structures damaged. It is fire season here…way too hot and dry. We’ve had at least three in the area in the last 5 days.

We missed seeing the entire Big Data set for food (there’s something wrong if it takes 45 minutes to get food and 30 seconds to get beer)…but they sounded underwhelming. Then again, I only know one song. Lots of electronic though.

Then finally some of the music I came for…this is the Kongos…they are 4 brothers from South Africa and they had a lot of energy on stage, plus an accordion. I don’t know why there are 5 people on stage, but I’m gonna bet the really tall guy on the right is the Not-Kongos brother. Plus they brought a tiny rapping midget out for one song, which was fun…OK, he was probably my height…not really a midget.

The tattoo…wish I had a better picture, but the bra? Again…there are better ways to get that look (says fashion maven Nida…Not).

Kettle corn was very popular. Everyone had some but us. We had Wachos. No really. Nachos made with waffle fries. You can’t say no to that.

And New Politics, who were disappointing. Lots of tracks playing behind that no one was actually playing. Euro band…but they had lots of energy and noise and the crowd loved them. I could have done without the lights…they were just distracting.

Yes, I’m old, but lights shouldn’t annoy. They should add to the show.

Anyway, I had a good time. It was nice to go out and feel the weather change from really hot and sweaty to even coldish and people watch and listen to lots of music and move around to that. I didn’t even have a weird patch of sunburn where I forgot to put sunscreen, so such a success! No really.

It’s such a joy to feel all of work just slough off and plop onto the floor, a blob of gelatinous stress and overwork, just quivering there on the floor. This summer? Art, music, food, hikes, sleep, writing. Yes, I need to make money too. I’m not forgetting that. But I’m putting it mostly out of my head for a week. Really need a break people. I can breathe in deep right now and not feel work pressing up against my chest. That’s good. Need to hold on to that.

The First Official Blogpost of Summer 2015

This is the first official day of summer vacation. The first day when I don’t have to go to school or think about school (although people are still texting me about school) until August 1. At least, that’s what I always try to do…get it out of my head and don’t worry about it until August. And then in August, I’m usually desperately trying to finish some major quilt and I don’t want to go back but I have to (my first professional development is on August 11). It takes a while to get all that residual stress and have-to feeling out of your system (and it is quickly replaced with other have-to’s, let me tell you), but after a week or so, I’m usually doing much better.

I’m still seeing crazy in one art group though. I hesitate to call it an art group some days, since its focus is more on quilt than art, although there have been some positive changes in the last few years…maybe. We’ll see. I am concerned though that they are choosing to censor members or seemingly move out of the leadership positions those who don’t agree with the majority. I don’t think that’s healthy behavior for any group, although I’m seeing that happening at my day job as well. The message then is that if you disagree, there will be consequences. Any minor study of history will show that doesn’t work. I’m not in leadership in this art group…I don’t have any more volunteer hours in me. They got used up in the other two groups, which are much smaller and need all members participating in some way. But it makes me mistrust the current leadership, which is not a good thing. A good Executive Board will do its job and the membership will hear from them occasionally as they make the group better, as they check in with membership, as positive changes occur. There won’t be censorship and oustings. I didn’t pay much attention to what names were on the board until all this, and now I’m watching particularly closely and comparing it to the other large fiber group I’m in, where none of this happens. So a big sigh for all that.

I finally made it out of work yesterday at 11 AM (took longer than usual). Then I came home and cleaned the kitchen, because it was disgusting, and started throwing stuff away and recycling it. The last few months of school kick my butt (and everyone else’s) and what suffers is the house. There are piles everywhere and nothing is washed or put away. So I made a healthy start on all that and then took a nap! A NAP! I know. Exciting for us old people.

Then I started quilting…

It was 100 degrees here yesterday, so my motivation to get up and move was compromised. I also read a lot. Because I could. And then I quilted for a long time until I realized I would have to cook dinner, so I did that for a while. Talked to the boychild, because girlchild was at Grad Nite, and then forced him to apply for jobs by starting the applications myself. Last thing you want is your mom filling out your application, right? Well. Whatever. I understand his hesitance and some of it is laziness but a lot is social stuff that is an inherent part of his personality. So this shit is hard. And mom is hard too. I’ve spent the last 13 years doing behavioral training on him, and apparently I’m not done.

After all that torture, just as much for me as him…who decided personality assessments with 72 questions were the best way to hire people? I’d fail if I had to fill these out too. They’re just lame. If both statements are wrong, you have to pick the one that is LESS wrong. But they’re WRONG. Sigh. Anyway, if he didn’t set off all of their serial killer alarms, maybe he will be employed soon.

So after all that, then I finished quilting…but first I sewed the bottom to the top somehow…

Whoops. Late-night quilting in the heat. Not a good plan.

She’s got 12 hours of quilting in her. But she’s done. She just needs a binding…which really means I should get my ass off this chair and go buy some fabric for that, because no, I don’t have a piece big enough. I think. I might look first. But I don’t think I do.

Katie (my parents’ dog) showed up about 20 minutes ago and is now asleep on my floor…

She’s only here for a short visit. Then in a week, she comes for a longer one…we think. All the humans but me are still lolling about in bed (well, one came out when Ms. Barkypants arrived). It is Saturday morning, yes, but apparently if you nap on Friday, you can’t sleep in on Saturday morning. I think. I know I’m still tired and probably will be for another week, but at least vacation has started, and maybe if I stay away from the art group list, my blood pressure will come down and stay down.

On to the next quilt! Deadlines abound…

Nonfunctional…

I’m trying really hard to be functional today. I do have to go to work and check out, whatever that means this year. It might take a while, unfortunately. In the past, I’ve shown up and 20 minutes later been on my way home, war-whooping it all the way out the gate (I know, really mature, right?). Sometimes I do that and then drive back later to go to lunch. Today we have to check out specifically with our boss, and I’m not sure how that will go. Short pithy conversations are not his strong point, and I’m tired, hormonal (AGAIN), and cranky, so it’s not a good time to reflect on the year. I do a much better job with that in about 2 weeks. In fact, at counseling last night, besides trying to determine if I’m a hoarder (kitchen is becoming an issue, but that was a time factor this week, plus two lame-ass teens who don’t know how to wash or empty dishwashers apparently)…I’m not a hoarder by the way, just not particularly neat, but also decided I should do nothing next week. Like really nothing. Now that’s not happening, of course. I have art to make. Lots of it. And I might clean some too, because living in this mess much longer might hurt me. But otherwise, I don’t have to do much. I didn’t sign up for professional development until August. There’s some doctor stuff in there, but whatever. I want to go on at least one, maybe two hikes. It’s all good. So not quite NOTHING, but I’m not going to work on school stuff.

But I do have to go to work today. In like 45 minutes. I’m too tired to eat breakfast. I don’t know why (because the accumulated stress and exhaustion and overwork of the last 10 months is now hitting you upside the head). Oh yeah. I know why.

I have amazingly crappy photos of the girlchild’s graduation (I was tired)…but here’s Odin…

Yes, she’s a Norseman (was a Norseman) and Odin shows up to graduation to bless them. Kinda funny if you ask me.

Not her touching Odin’s hammer, but behind (like I said…sucky photos)…

Hats and streamers flying…

The lovely girlchild with her lovely lei by Madalyn (Leis by Leinani)…

This was after 45 minutes of looking for her purse…but before we actually found it locked in a drawer by a well-meaning teacher who then disappeared.

And part of the family (dad, kid, boychild actually smiling)…

And mom, relieved it’s over (suspect girlchild is as well)…

I’m done trying to get kids into college! Now they’re on their own! Well, yeah. Probably not so much.

OK, so I have to go to work, drag my poor hemorrhaging body in to wait around for someone to let me leave. One year, I couldn’t find an admin to sign off, so I just left. Hmn…cuz I need to make up for the not-art I made yesterday and the day before.

Crazy-Ass Rambling Nonsense

Officially on this morning, the girlchild has graduated from high school, so I have only college students (and me and two cats and a dog) in my house. We think her grades might even have been acceptable. Hard to say. That’s after surviving her having her purse stolen, but not, and thinking that perhaps someone was breaking into my house (god knows they’d never find anything at the moment…it’s a disaster area) because they had my house key and my address off her license. But no. The purse was locked up somewhere safe. And after her dad blamed my genetics (I know he was joking) for her spacey behavior, he then came here and lost his keys (seriously). Required a flashlight for retrieval. So yeah. Not my genetics dude.

Needless to say, we didn’t have dinner until late, and then we came back and all lolled around in the boychild’s room while he played music for us (on his computer…not with a real instrument) until mom was too tired and had to go to bed, and the two of them followed soon after.

I have pictures somewhere on my camera. I just don’t have the energy to find them. You’ll have to be happy with this graduation picture from last year.

I swear I’ll find the others and put them up eventually. But it looked kind of similar.

Today is the last day of school for me as well, and I am so not ready. I mean, I am, but I’m exhausted and there’s still 3 hours of managing kids and apparently my uterus, which has decided it’s not getting enough attention…much like a couple of my students. There’s crazy everywhere; it abounds at school and at home and on my email and my texts. I don’t have the energy for all of it.

I got no art made yesterday. I finished a book at graduation and then stitched a little bit. I’m not sure what I did the rest of the time. Tried to get crappy pictures of the girlchild? I got one good one of Odin. Sometimes my camera really irritates me.

Anyway, all you’re gonna get out of me today is crazy-ass rambling nonsense. Or maybe that’s all you ever get. I’m hoping for more rational sanity tomorrow…at least until I realize how much stuff I gotta get done over the summer. Then it will be a full-fledged panic…

Disappointed…

I spend a lot of my life dealing with organizations that are sometimes heavy-handed with their behavior. I don’t ever quit a group because I think the leadership is making bad choices. In the past, I’ve found the best way to deal with that is to become part of the leadership or to find a way into the change process, whether it’s becoming a union rep, being a reliable person ready to help the leadership, or just speaking out when necessary. It means I’m not always popular, but that’s never been a worry to me. Incompetence in leadership disturbs me. Ignoring the membership, the peons, the lower echelons of the group…that annoys me. Don’t ask for my opinion and then ignore it. Excuses are the worst: I can’t expect professional behavior from a group because they are all volunteers? I don’t get paid for the vast majority of volunteer work I do for two art groups, and I am glad to do it. It helps both groups run better and I am involved in some of the decisionmaking processes because I do that. As a teacher union rep, I don’t get paid for the hours I spend at meetings, but we are supposed to have an adjunct duty and that is mine (some people’s adjunct duties are much less time-consuming…in fact, I’m not even sure what a few people are doing except not showing up to the meetings they’re assigned). I’m a union rep because in my first year in the district, I had an issue that was a direct result of another rep not doing their job and then claiming that I never did what I was supposed to do (not true). Faced with incompetence, I ran in that year’s election, hoping to oust the incompetent (oh no…still there…because no one wants this job). I’m still there, and I hope the people I serve appreciate my work. I think they do. I do it anyway.

Another art group I’m in recently behaved badly…the people in charge. I don’t agree with what happened, not to say getting rid of someone at the top might be necessary, but it seemed that there was no attempt to remedy the problem beforehand. As a teacher, if there’s a problem with a kid in class, I have a list of interventions I have to go through in order to deal with that kid, and it’s extremely difficult to actually get a kid out of our school permanently (as it should be; we are a public school), so we learn how to work with kids and parents and admin and the district as needed to get where we need to go, ideally what’s best for the kid and all other kids in the class. In the other groups I work in, if there are personality conflicts or problems, we do try to work through them, and sometimes that means ignoring the behavior of one participant (or even anticipating it and heading it off at the pass to make sure it doesn’t happen) because there really is no change that can happen. But we would always try to mediate before kicking someone out (and I have to be honest, no one has been kicked out).

As a woman, I have noticed that we are particularly bad about this sometimes, this facing the problem head on and speaking it to the person in question. We complain and gossip to each other, behind their backs, and then we tolerate the issue until it’s almost at an explosion (we’re there at school right now, both as a whole and as a team, unfortunately). Sometimes that inertia is just a lack of energy or time, like now, at the end of the year, and sometimes it’s just easier NOT to have that conversation. But if you’re an international organization that depends on volunteer hours and you aren’t listening to your membership, and worse…volunteers can be kicked out without any attempt to mediate the situation, then those of us who tend to speak up, to dissent even, hey…we’re not likely to volunteer. Why would we? You aren’t encouraging diversity in that case, despite what’s said. You certainly aren’t working to mend the divide or figure out why there was a divide in the first place. You reward competence with firing. Granted, I don’t have all the facts…but I’m not happy with how it was handled no matter what.

Am I going to quit the group? No. That would be stupid. They have provided me with support and exhibits and opportunities. I think a large number of the people at the top have mostly my best interests at heart (and the others…well, whatever.). I don’t believe in voting with my checkbook and leaving. I believe in change from within. I wish I had the time to volunteer, because they’d probably kick me out pretty quickly too. Unfortunately. And I’m significantly disappointed.

I’m looking forward to the end of school because two of the school issues will go away for at least a little while. The art group issue? It colors my view of the leadership. But I have art to make and that has to be my focus right now. But I’m not looking at them in the same way.

Speaking of which…I quilted last night (in utter exhaustion, post-bowling)…

I only had energy for about an hour and a half; got about halfway around the outside edge. So at least another 2 hours I think (isn’t that what I said last night? Dammit). Nine hours total so far.

Ugh. Two days of school left. A heavy heart about the art group. Tired. Girlchild graduates from high school tonight (after I finish school)…It’s going to be a very long day. Hoping I have the energy at the end to keep quilting. If not? It will get done eventually.

The Last Week

The end of the school year brings lots of extra tasks, like making awards certificates and finishing grades and cleaning out the classroom. The last week is usually kind of a survival situation, much like riding a luge on a track you’ve been on a long time ago. You sort of remember how you did it last year, but you’re not sure it was successful, and maybe they’ve changed the turns a bit, or your team is slightly different, so the luge itself might be off balance. Sometimes the last week sort of sneaks up on you…I don’t really know what happened to last week. It blew by me. So many tasks juggling at one time.

Friday and Saturday left me no time (or energy) for artmaking, and I only JUST made it up off the couch last night, much later than I thought. I knew this week was equally busy, and I really wanted to be done with this quilt this week, if that’s possible (and reality says that it may not be). So I quilted…

The thing is, most of this quilt is the image, so once the outlining is done, there’s very little else to do. I knew I wanted to put some white thread in the bathtub area, but more to anchor it and give it some texture. I don’t quilt the heck out of my pieces. The background might take a small amount of time, but it’s really a small amount of space, compared to some of my quilts.

So I looked at the clock and thought about whether I was tired enough to sleep yet, because that’s always the issue. I don’t go to bed until I am.

And at some point, I was…but by then, I was almost done with the outlining (yes, I outlined all the different blues in the water). So I finished.

Now all I have left to do is the background and the bathtub.

Meanwhile, I have 100 certificates to print out at school, in color; a crazy meeting at school; a hike planned with my kids (I made tonight’s dinner last night, just to make sure I could pull this off); grades that are pretty much done, until the 15 kids who were not in my class Friday hand me their last week’s work; a class to clean; and who knows what else will show up in my inbox before it’s time to quilt again tonight. I hope I’m super-efficient and get it done, but then there’s the issue of binding fabric, and who knows when I will be able to get that, since it’s doubtful I’ll have any here that’s big enough. Worst-case, I’ll start tracing the next quilt, the one I don’t even know if I’ll be allowed to show because of the nudity (I just didn’t ask). It needs to be made no matter what. I’m not asking because they might say no, but the rules as they stand don’t say that.

Yes, I do think these things through. Anyway. I’m in overdrive. I’m really tired too, despite trying to go to sleep earlier last night than normal. See, it will all get done no matter what. There is no other option. And whatever doesn’t get done probably doesn’t matter as much as people would like to think. Because it’s the last week of school…and not the last week for everything else. And in about 9 weeks, there will be a first week of school and this starts all over again.

Less Yelling

Already there are angry voices, upraised tempers, red flags flying. I’ve had a single sip of caffeinated savings (saving my brain from?) and I’m trying to deal with it’s my fault and why don’t I and anger anger anger. Why the anger? I don’t know. Because I had an eye doctor appointment instead of time to shop for heels and a dress. Sunday it will be anger because I have to finish grades (my job) and can’t go shopping. I’ve said this to myself so many times in the last 5 years…am I just doing it all wrong? Like there’s an easier path and I didn’t take it because I just didn’t know what were the right actions and the right words? Like I got the wrong life manual when they were handing that shit out, and I took the Tread on the Hot Coals manual for ninja warriors (do they do that?) instead of the suburban mom manual? OK, I’m not a suburban mom, it’s true, but I have a lot of the right ingredients for that. Soccer mom. Conventional job (that kicks my ass at the moment). I have a house and a Subaru and a dog and some cats (OK, I have half a dog…it goes back and forth between two houses). But somewhere in all of that, I couldn’t follow instructions. I couldn’t just do that, and some people do, but I couldn’t.

Is it the artist that screws everything up? Is it the divorce that makes it harder to manage the kids and the financial crap (well, yeah, duh)? Is it my fabric hoarder tendencies? My workaholic bent? What the fuck?

I slept in. There are four days left of school. I’m still tired. I stayed up late grading things (ALL the things actually) and packing up two quilts going up to an LA show opening in two weeks. Girlchild came in and vented. I let her. I listened. That’s all anyone needs when venting is happening…listening. Acknowledging that they’ve been heard. Then it’s out and dispersing and the mind is clear. I get that. So I vent here, quite a lot. You might have noticed.

I love my daughter, but she is hell on wheels sometimes. I’m sure my mom would say I deserved that, as I wasn’t easy either, but as an adult, I realized some of the things about my relationship with my mom that I wanted to try to avoid with the girlchild, so there were things I said I would not do, and for the most part, I have succeeded in that…and yet, I still have this opinionated spitfire (shocking, I know) who wants to kick authority in the nuts. And I GET that. I still have that in me. But I’m not the enemy.

So I’m sitting here crying because I am completely overwhelmed and scared about the future, especially financially, and I’m getting yelled at for not being psychic about food needs in the house and why no one will put dishes in the dishwasher but me. I’m about to go nuclear, I guess.

Deep breaths. Grades are close to done. I have to input everything, so I canceled my book club on Sunday (not done reading it anyway…hard read). I will go to the eye doctor (probably should have scheduled it later in the month), deliver the quilts, go out to lunch with the kids’ uncle from the UK, and then deal with some scary stuff that will hopefully stop being as scary. Then plan for the last four days of school, which are survival incarnate. And hopefully get some peace of mind in all of it.

The quilt sat last night, ignored, wrapped up and over the machine so no cat could besmirch it with their hairy bottom.

I would have liked to have quilted, but the other things were louder and more…not important…but desperate in terms of timing.

Two quilts ready for delivery.

I think I can hang in there this week. I don’t really have a choice, so the thinking part is moot. And that moody beast…hell, she’s going to college in just 10 weeks. I’m sure her stress levels are through the roof, so we will have to come to some uneasy truce about how to survive the summer in the same house. And then there will be less yelling here.

Quilting Peace

I got lost in the quilting place last night for about 2 1/2 hours, making up for the lameness of the night before. It’s not a bad place to hang out, as long as you keep an eye on the clock and remember you have to go to work the next day. At some point, I looked up and thought, “Holy crap, it’s after 11 PM. When did that happen?” That’s not entirely a bad thing. Thursday nights the kids aren’t here, so I don’t have their constant noise and verbal reminders to stop and look around or even get up. The cats hang out in here with me, and my bladder makes me stand up occasionally, but mostly I’m attached to the machine and only changing position when I need to replace an empty bobbin. It’s very meditative and calming. I should probably always plan to be quilting around the last two weeks of the school year to get that benefit.

It probably helps that I had counseling last night too…where we admitted that I might be in counseling for the rest of my life. Nice. Oh well. I also read a couple articles linking artistic creativity to mental illness, though the link is still a skinny thread and not a damning rope. What came first, the illness or the art? Or are they so intricately linked as to be unseparable? (Why does WordPress not like the spelling of unseparable? It’s a word, you asshole. I mean, there’s plenty of times when I use nonexistent words on here, but this isn’t one of those times. Don’t you love that WordPress annoys me? Yeah, it’s the end of the year.)

So this is where I am, making a shitload of art, trying to balance work with that, hoping to figure out the rest of my life at some point DURING the rest of my life. I did miss a bunch of counseling appointments recently, her fault and mine, so maybe that was part of the balance issue. We admitted that my life currently feels CALAMITOUS. Great word by the way. Actually, by yesterday, I had accepted calamitous and moved on to some internal acceptance that I was living day-to-day until after June 18. That’s not that far away. Don’t notice all the calendar items piling up on June 19. I’m cleaning up my entire life on that day. Ha! Like that’s possible.

So I quilted. I mentioned that. I had made it about 2/3 of the way around the bathtub on Tuesday night, so I kept going around, stitching around things when I ran into them, like this wire soapdish…

I keep drawing some version of these, which is funny, because we don’t own one. Our bathtub sucks, honestly. I dream of a nice big deep bathtub with a wire soapdish. Strange, I know.

Once I got all the way around, I started on the smaller figure…

I got her completely outlined…

And started doing other body parts and the water down the one side of the tub, picking up some of the hair and face until I realized it was well after midnight.

Whoops. Do need to work today. And this weekend is not clean and easy. And grades are due Tuesday. I think. Maybe Monday? I should probably figure that shit out.

I have 5 1/2 hours into the quilting. I’m still outlining. I’ve been sewing pretty slowly, I guess. I am more than halfway done with the outlining, and because of the image taking up most of the background, there’s not much quilting outside of the outlining. I am going to use white thread in the bathtub area to deal with the shadowed areas, but otherwise I’m leaving the big areas alone. I am outlining the shapes in the water, but it’s pretty subtle I think.

A friend’s mom died yesterday, finally done with feeding tubes and all the other detritus of two strokes. She was my second mom in middle and high school, good friends with my family, so when my mom and I weren’t seeing eye to eye (which was often), I could hide there and Sandi would just let me be, because she had four daughters and knew what that dynamic looks like, which is why I don’t get jealous over my daughter hanging with her friend’s mom. It’s a safe place and away from DNA-related drama. I got a bunch of Sandi’s fabrics a few weeks back when they cleaned out her sewing area in the mountains, where we had Thanksgiving dinners, comingling our families for years. Some of those fabrics are in this quilt, and it seems right that I am working on it this week, as I keep losing control of the tears for a woman who accepted my crazy without question, while remaining friends with my mom. She was a good person. Hope she’s OK with my appropriating her stash.

Yeah. She is. Peace out, Sandi.

I See Progress…

Even when nothing seems to get done…

I didn’t do anything quilt-related last night. I was too braindead to quilt. I’m likely to sew right through my hand if I try in that mindset. I had a union meeting, the last one of the school year (that’s when you start realizing you’re almost done…when everything is the LAST one of the year). I drew during the meeting, mostly to stay awake…

I’m not good with late afternoon meetings. Ever. And I’m still working on versions of this drawing for making small quilts this summer.

This one…I don’t know what this one was…

Nice eyeball though. I’m fairly sure the teacher sitting next to me was confused. I don’t really care, because like I said, I was listening to all that was said…I was just tired and drawing keeps me from falling asleep in long meetings.

I didn’t get home until almost 6 and then had to cook a meal I’d never cooked before, which actually turned out OK, and then I cleaned up and holy crap, I know I did a bunch of school stuff, like 17×4 certificates and analyzed a bunch of data for our fun awards and who knows what else.

I meant to post this earlier this week as one of my small successes, but Tuesday kinda kicked me in the balls, as it were…one of the art groups I’m in, California Fibers, is doing a recycled art show in Los Angeles at The Loft at Liz’s. It’s called Diverted Destruction 8, and it opens June 27 from 7-10. I will be at the opening, barring any crazy life happenings that I can’t control. Anyway, we had a bunch of upholstery samples and some of us used other stuff as well (I used Mariah’s leftovers for the second one) and made work, and Fiber Art Now published an article about us. I was concerned at first because both of mine are nudes, and Quilting Arts won’t do nudes, although Quilters Newsletter Magazine does show my work regularly enough, but the editor was aware of who I was (that in itself is a bit frightening), so one of my entries to DD8 made it in the magazine. The article is well-designed, and each of us sent in a paragraph about the process…

The show looks like it will be very interesting…although we made two pieces and she’s going to jury from those, so I don’t know whether this one or the other one will be in the actual exhibit…

There’s mine in the middle at the bottom. Anyway, if you’re in LA that night, stop by. So I got published…and that’s a good thing.

Another good thing is that boychild has been cleaning out his room. He dusted and vacuumed and is getting rid of old stuff and then started cleaning a pile that’s been in the hallway outside his sister’s room for probably a year, maybe longer, and he’s really fucking efficient (unlike me), but he forces me to deal with stuff…mostly by handing it to me as I walk in the door or leaving it in my office. He was looking around the garage again, and I think maybe the week after school gets out, I’m going to spend some time kicking the garage’s ass with his help. I think it’s hysterical that I got an organized neatnik for a son (OK, I’m organized, but not the other thing). Of course, he has more free time than I do.

That’s it. I’d be neater if I had more time (see comic from yesterday).

I forgot this drawing…

This is definitely going to be one of the Cats of Summer, like last year we had the Birds of Summer? Except I think I want to do a different owl and that heart/hand thing as well, so it won’t just be cats, and I have one dog I want to do. I’m going to aim for 10 different ones, like last year, but I also have another quilt I have to finish before mid-July, so I really need to get started on that one too, because that’s just over a month away. I guess I’ve only been working on the Bathtub quilt since early May, so…except that’s still more time than I have for this one and I’m not done with the Bathtub yet…it’s probably got at least 10-15 hours left in it. SO. Yeah. Luckily there’s only 6 more days of school left, and then I will have (notionally) more free time. I didn’t sign up for workshops at all, because I just couldn’t deal with it, and honestly, there weren’t a lot that I would have found helpful. I hate sitting through useless professional development.

Anyway. I see progress, even though I got very little art stuff done yesterday. Tonight might be better. It might not. I can’t predict it at this point. I know I’d like to get some things done, but I have a lot on my plate up until about 6 PM (or later…might need to hit Home Depot as well, ugh). I really do need to go to work though. That damn job really gets in the way of my getting shit done.

I Just Can’t Seem to Manage It

I don’t know where my head is this morning. Turbulence. Headache already, and it’s not even 8 AM. I haven’t even left for school. Haven’t finished the first cup of tea either, so maybe that’s part of it. My to-do list is too long. My stress levels are too high. I need more help than I’m getting, but my stress levels increase when I have to start arguing for that. I’m close to crawling into bed and pulling that pillow over my head that drowns out the damn early morning birds and maybe staying there until July.

I think I wrote the same thing last year. Which is sad. Or…normal. Hard to say. Maybe my normal isn’t that healthy.

I posted this comic on FB…

I love Purje’s work…she seems to really get what it’s like to be an artist. And I’m not sure I do the center row well. I try to, but I feel like a mutant sometimes. I do shower regularly. I sleep less than a third of the day (I sleep a quarter of the day). Right now, last night, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and not be me for a while, maybe experience someone else’s life and see what that was like for a week or two. Give me some perspective, because I’m not sure I have any, and I’m living day by day at the moment, terrified that someone’s going to come ask me for more money than I have. Oh wait. They already have.

Any time I think I don’t need my counselor any more, life bitchslaps me back into realizing maybe I will never NOT have a counselor.

Suffice it to say that I did not curl up into that ball last night. I cried a lot; there are tears in almost every quilt I’ve made in the last two years. They open the floodgates, tap into emotion. They are my brain in fabric.

I pinbasted instead.

Because when you’re in a horrendously sad and depressive mood, crawling around on a tile floor closing a million safety pins seems like a good idea. I should probably apologize to my neighbors now for the music. Whoops. But hey, that makes up for that crazy pirate party you throw every year.

And then I started quilting, because that’s the next step, and even when I’m flailing and cursing and flopping around in a depressive place, my brain knows how to do this process…and it just does it. Because not doing it is worse. I see people who don’t do it at all, who succumb to inertia and express their unhappiness with that and don’t change it, and yes, depression kicks your ass on that, and maybe I was lucky because the process memory was in my brain before the depression, so it is just dragging me through, whether I like it or not (strange metaphor for parenting there).

And in quilting, there is that meditative space where your brain can inhabit the needle and the hands moving the fabric, prethinking only enough to realize where to push the needle next, to guide the fabric through. The rest of the brain settles down into a curled-up ball and tries not to think about life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, because honestly, it can’t handle all those questions and not-answers at the moment. It just feels broken and damaged and irreparable.

And maybe that’s what I am. Broken. Damaged. Irreparable. If that is the case, then I will have to live with that.

So I quilt.

And I find tiny bits of joy in outlining a cat’s face.

Or in these tennis shoes. They pop with the lines done. That’s what I wanted to see.

It’s not exactly how I want to live my life, but it’s where I’m at right this moment…looking at this one day and deciding what has to be done (which will only stick for a short period of time until someone else adds to my list). The sad part of the brain obviously cried most of the night, because my eyes feel it, my head feels it, and I just don’t want to feel any of it. And that’s not an option. You can’t turn the feeling part off. You can slough some of it off onto paper or the screen, send it out into the world where a bunch of people read it. But you can’t make it stop.

So yeah. Today I’m not funny. I don’t have pithy remarks about parenting teens. I don’t have answers. I don’t even have the energy to get out of this chair and go to work, which is lame, because I don’t have a physical excuse. My body functions. I don’t have a disease that physically inhibits me. I have no excuse.

I just can’t seem to manage it.