An Ode to Jake

Some of you may remember the big German Shepherd who occasionally graces these pages, especially his escapades of a few years ago. Jake was my ex-husband’s dog, never mine, but he loved me in a very special way. I was either his mistress or his best girl on the side, because every time I’d show up at my ex’s house, this giant-ass, 115-pound beast would jump up and try to put his paws on my shoulders (and often succeed). He almost broke my wrist once with his enthusiasm for seeing me, as I was holding his collar at the time (not sure why; never did that again), and it’s only recently been that he didn’t greet me with crazy behavior.

For a while, Jake was climbing or digging under fences and escaping my ex’s yard after 6 years of not caring, and he would come over here. I’d get calls from my neighbor that Jake was back, or he’d be sitting on my front doorstep. So for a while, he stayed here during the day, but we quickly learned that the destination was not the game; it seemed to be the escape he was after. He would climb a 6-foot fence like a monkey and take off towards places unknown, and then someone would call and say they had him because he was running around on a busy street. He never got hit, but after that, he had to stay inside during the day. The kids would go let him out after school, but it wasn’t ideal for a big dog like that.

In the last month, Jake’s been sick. They thought it was a doggie cold. He went off his food. I got no enthusiastic greetings. I would walk in and he would lean his big body up against me and whine, and I would pet him, and that would be it. Some tests had been done, mostly inconclusive, and he was signed up for an expensive procedure today to hopefully help with diagnosis and treatment, because there was obviously something seriously wrong.

When my daughter got home to her dad’s house last night, Jake was dead. We don’t know why. His dad (ever Scottish at heart) jokes that he heard how much the ultrasound was going to cost and he died to save him the money, but whatever the cause, it was kind of a shock.

He wasn’t very old, maybe 8 or 9, and physically OK until recently? And he was a good dog. It seems somehow different, easier, when they age in front of you and you spend time dealing with the elderly aspects of pet ownership, even though that’s a pain in the ass. It’s a relief when they die from old age. You know they had a good long life. On the other hand, I don’t think he suffered for long. He wasn’t sick for months on end like some of our pets have been.

Doesn’t really matter. Just know I will miss the big dummy. He was a freak in many ways, but a sweet freak.

So yeah.

Did I iron last night? I did. I wasn’t going to, but I guess I needed to clear my mind. I only worked for an hour or so…I did all the things hanging in the tree…

Maybe 100 pieces down. I also laid out all the 500s, so the next step is the body in the middle…and then I’m done. I’m not sure I can do it all tonight, but I’m going to try. (OK. That was crazy talk, just so you know.) There’s about 260 pieces left, so maybe 3 hours, but I know I won’t start until late because I’m going to the gym and I’m in charge of dinner. And I really need to get my butt out of here this morning too for a parent meeting. It’s OK. My lunch is made. My tea is boiling. The progress report is printed. I can go.

Sigh. Miss the big dog.

Halfway Through

So I’m about halfway through. And that’s OK. I’ve got Wednesday…maybe some time on Thursday. That’s enough. Four soccer games this week, though…and the boychild comes home in four days. That’s freaky. We’ve survived the first four months of college. Me without his calming influence; him in a brand-new, demanding environment. I wonder if it will feel relaxing being here, or just more stress? At least there is good Mexican food here.

Halfway through the ironing, by the way. I don’t think I’m halfway through anything else, except maybe my life, if I’m lucky. I have 5 hours and a bit of ironing done and I’m in the low 400s on the pieces. Now that said, I think that pile of bodies was the worst of it. Everything else is pretty straightforward, so you’d think I could get it done in less than 5 hours. About 350 pieces to go…a little less than half.

We’ll see.

So first of all, when I got the pile ironed together, I realized there were a couple of spaces that needed the dark fabric behind them…

There’s two right there. No biggie. This is easypants. So two pieces traced…

And then ironed underneath.

I like that my iron is Anti-Calc. I also did not enjoy Calculus, but mostly because of my teacher. He was kind of a jerk. Assumed math was more important than language. And yeah, I teach science, but writing? Words? Communicating? Pretty damn fucking important. But here’s an interesting question, from last week’s warmup for my kids: words or pictures? If there were someone you liked and you could ONLY communicate via words OR pictures, which would you choose? Yeah. I prefer drawing to express myself really, but words would make more sense to me in communication with others. I love that someone I was texting this week corrected himself, his SYNTAX. Wow. In a text. Can’t beat that.

And then I had these two random pieces left over. Here’s one.

No freakin’ clue where it belongs. Or the other. Just set them aside. Obviously not crucial.

Moving on. Ironed the damn cat.

I don’t usually draw the cats as the two black cats in the house. Not sure why. I usually draw calicoes. I think personality-wise, I am a calico. Raise your hand if you know what I’m talking about! Yeah. OK. They’re feisty. And troubled. Black cats…they can go either way…we obviously have the Queen here…

And she’s a total bitch. I am going to get in so much trouble with the boychild for not combing her belly for the last four months, but she claws the fuck out of me as it is when I comb the rest of her, so he can handle that shit.

The other black one is just mellow. Mostly. So I don’t fuck with her. Much. I can’t really tell you why the calicos end up being in the quilts most of the time: Juniper, Limbo, Kitten. Even Cinnamon, if you go back enough years.

So there’s DNA hand again. Like we can control any of it…

The background on this quilt is a deep dark blue, so this hand is gonna pop right off of it.

And then there are the flying hearts.

These have popped up in the last few months. I think of them as hope for my future. Like I have a heart and love and all that gooby stuff, but they’re just loose, flying around, waiting to land/be captured, I’m not sure which. So this is like the third or fourth drawing where they’ve appeared. Never been in a drawing before this Fall, I think. Weird, huh? I used to always have Christmas lights in my drawings. None of those today.

I did pull that drawing from yesterday out again, but it didn’t speak to me tonight. Weird how that works. Sometimes it’s so adamant that I hear it, that I draw it; it just fucking takes over and commandeers the pen, grabbing my brain and making it listen. And then…then it’s silent, like I pissed it off too many times. It won’t listen. It lies in bed with a pillow over its head.

So fuck the drawing.

I was going to stop and go to bed, but it (the ironing) kept dragging at me, so I started the tree…

The stuff on the tree is next, and then the human figure in the middle of all that.

It’s exciting. I like when the image starts to appear…when it starts to BE a quilt for real. When the shit in my head gets out there and kicks some real-life ass.

Speaking of kicking ass…blurry pictures due to late night, fading light…

Girlchild made an absolutely awesome twisty header goal…

And then her coach, being a rancid idiot, barely played her for the rest of the game. But when he did put her ass back on the field in the last 7 minutes, she continued to kick ass. Thus proving that assholes are out there and we all have to deal with them.

Sigh.

So here’s what you need to know about me this week. It is survival this week for teachers. We are about to explode on a daily basis, because we are in a classroom with kids who cannot stop thinking about Christmas. I’d like to say they were thinking about other things, but in my school, it’s all about the presents…not the present. So even though I’m trying to get them through a major project, by the end of third period, I’m about to throw things. And I significantly appreciate those who bring me back down to Earth, who ground me with their sanity, their competence, their caring, their profanity, their beauty, their hugs, their Google Docs. I will be saying Thank You about a million times this week. Maybe even out loud. Maybe I will just hug it out. I think I actually told my co-teacher that I loved her for managing the tail end of a meeting so I could go to my kid’s soccer game.

Working on a creative endeavor, a quilt that means a great deal to me, to my existence, to my core, this week makes it all that much more…well…HUGE. So that’s good. And the rest? Well, fuck it. Hug someone. Then move on.

What Is It Good for?

So this was my theme song today:

Although it took me all day to get there. To the ironing of War, that is…which may now have a title related to that song, but I’m not positive, so I’m not committing yet. You know, cuz I’m the not-committing type. Ha! Yeah. I know. Those who know me know that’s bullshit.

So I had a hard week getting to work on this quilt, and there were two soccer games yesterday that ate up many hours, but I got a ton of grading done (yay!) and I managed to pull the birds out and be working on them as well, because there’s nothing like freezing to death on narrow cold metal bleacher benches and doing bullion knots with ice-cold hands.

Because that’s how I roll. Seriously, you should try it. And yes, it absolutely is taking me more than two years to finish these fucking birds, but I’m OK with that, because it’s nice to sew on them at soccer games. I do enjoy it. It’s so easy sewing through wool. I have a bunch done already…

OK, they all need eyeballs, but otherwise they’re done…

But there’s probably another 15 that aren’t done. Maybe this season they’ll get there? Who knows. I’m not that bothered. Wait. So I’m only halfway done? Shit. Whatever. There are four soccer games this week. Surely I can get something done in four games, right?

But more importantly, I finally tackled the pile of men again. HOLY CRAP. What was I thinking when I numbered these? I totally should have numbered from the bottom-most piece to the top, but I did the exact opposite…

Which meant I ironed from the top, then pulled up, and tried to fit shit underneath.

The whole fucking time. Which is just fucking crazy. Nuts. At some point, I had the whole pile done, although I need a couple of dark pieces in this one…

I can do that tomorrow…

Seriously though. Wow. That’s a pile of naked men lying on flames. No socio-political commentary there, eh? Anger issues? Naw. It will look much better with outlining…once I get to the quilting.

I am so far off schedule right now though. I was going to be done with the ironing tonight, wasn’t I? And I’m only 3 1/2 hours in, and only 280 pieces are ironed of 700+. Granted, I think I just did the hardest bit, but hell. I’ve got soccer games and holiday parties and sheesh. Monday night and Wednesday night I think are my only freebies this week. Maybe Friday? Hard to say? Oh shit, the boychild comes home Friday night. Wow. He’s been gone for almost four months. I miss his cranky ass. I wonder what he will think of this one.

Anyway. So this is very much a survival week, a Fuck Me week. A week where teachers pray for videos and certain kids to be absent (you know who you are) and lots of holiday parties and eating and not enough hours at the gym. But I think I can survive it. And I think I can get this sucker ironed down and then stitched down relatively quickly. Hopefully. Because I’m running out of time. Sleep? Fuck sleep. I suck at it anyway. Why spend more time at something at which you suck, right?

Sigh.

I drew tonight. I was at the gym this morning and texting a friend and the main image just popped into my head and would not fucking leave. So I sat down tonight and spent about two hours working with it…

It is nowhere near done. But it’s growing…

Girlchild had a bunch of friends show up here tonight and one came early and accidentally one of my drawings was on the light table and caught her eye (and probably slammed it to the ground and kicked it to bits), and you could see her stammer in her head for a minute and then recover, because yeah, I guess I’m the weird mom. Whatever. Can you imagine being 17 and trying to parse me? I would have been fascinated, but I think most of them just wonder. Plus I use swear words around them. I figure they have enough good influences. I should be the one that throws them out of the norm and makes them think there might be something else, that there might be creativity and art and crazy shit. There’s a lot of things I’m not good at, but creativity is something I embrace wholeheartedly, even at 2 in the morning when I should be asleep.

I’m excited about the drawing and the quilt. They’re good. I love when what comes out of my head is good. It makes the teeth-grinding better. It makes the late nights better. It makes the inability to sleep better. This is the being of an artist. It’s just all there in my head and I pluck it out and make it and it is good.

What is it good for? You wouldn’t ask if you had it. It’s so fucking obvious.

Ironing the Pile

Finally Fucking Ironing! Sorry. It felt so good. Why do I forget EVERY TIME that it feels good to start putting the damn thing TOGETHER. Seeing the image in color finally going together. It always seems like such a torturous thing…ugh…after working all day long, standing, I’m tired, especially on a Friday night, to consider STANDING and ironing for hours.

And then I start.

And then I cannot stop. First we sort…and I should have sorted the next 100 last night, but when I finally decided I was tired, I was REALLY tired. And sorting is boring. So I don’t like to do it. Which is why I try to do it at the end of a session, so it makes it easier for me to start the next session. Because I didn’t do it LAST night, now that’s the first thing I have to do today. Ugh.

Anyway, I ironed a bunch of dirt and rocks…

Pretty easy stuff…then moved on to flames.

Yes, I am still watching Next Generation…plus Orphan Black on the Tivo. Good show that. Not sure why my quilts are so often on fire. I think of the depths of the earth as being at the base…which in reality, I think the flames should be on the bottom, then rocks, then dirt. I’ve done that before, I think. I don’t know why I didn’t do that here. Except the PILE is on fire. And I’m OK with that. This is a quilt about the war against the female, isn’t it? Then let’s set that pile of men on fucking fire.

Um. If the boychild is reading this (and he probably isn’t), I still love you. I just have some issues. Big smile. Mom wave. HI!

Just so you know, I’m writing all of this with an intermittent cat claw in my butt. She wants her chair back and is quite demonstrative about it.

Then I started on the pile.

This damn pile. Fun to draw. A pain to trace. A bigger pain to pick fabrics. Ironing? Holy crap. I’m just going slowly and trying to make sense of it all. That’s two different bodies…but I’m missing some of the pieces on both of them (one of them is headless anyway). I misnumbered one of the fingers, so it’s in the 200s instead of the 0s pile. I think the leg is in another box, and there’s a continued leg for the first body, plus two of the parts on the first body were in the wrong box, the 600s, because they were 60-something, but with letters, because I forgot about them, and they looked like 600s when I was sorting. Yeah. Crazy stuff. So it’s really hard to get motivated to iron more pile together because it’s a rancid pain in the ass. EXCEPT. It will look fucking awesome when it’s done.

So my plan for the weekend (you mean besides soccer etc and grading and putting ornaments on the tree before the cat eats all the needles?)…is to get this thing mostly ironed. I’m behind. I think I’m OK, but only because I have Winter Break coming (WINTER IS COMING), but I also know I’ve got some stuff that’s distracting me from working straight through like I have been, like the boychild coming home and other stuff, so I have to just manage my time better than I did this week. Although this week had some good stuff that distracted me, so I can’t complain.

Anyway. I’m ironing the penis pile. You can think about that.

I Wanna

I wish I had pictures of girlchild scoring two winning goals earlier this week, but I wasn’t there. Her aunt and uncle from the UK got to see it though, so I guess that’s OK. The high-school soccer season is difficult, because all the games are during the week, and some of us work! Although, as a teacher, I do have SOME leeway after my contract hours end (although some weeks it doesn’t seem that way). My students were complaining that I wasn’t staying after school for help on the project they’re working on, and I just straight up told them I needed to go to my daughter’s game, and I told them how I missed her goals and they understood that. Put it in their terms. Mom missing kid’s game. Then they ask me if I’ll come to THEIR games. Sigh.

I’m going to start ironing tonight if it kills me (and it might). And I’m going to get a ton of grading done this weekend (also might kill me). Sometimes I get home and I just can’t start anything. I just want to sit and read a book and drink a cup of tea and pretend to be a normal person. I know normal people don’t have drawings churning in their heads all the time, they’re not constantly trying to juggle what is essentially two fulltime jobs. But when I write it that way, I’m OK with not being normal. Yes, it would be lovely to be a fulltime artist, to get up in the morning and stroll into my studio with my steaming hot cup of tea and survey my domain, to make art for 6 hours and not worry about the growing pile of grading or rewriting curriculum to kids who can’t read or write in any language.

But I know from experience that I don’t actually MAKE more during the summer and winter breaks. I do more concentrated hours for short bursts, but I don’t have artmaking stamina…and it’s possible that if I did it for longer, I would develop that…but realistically, it’s not in the cards for me to be able to quit work and make art fulltime. I’m so incredibly jealous of those who CAN. Although I’m sure many of them are bogged down by the business end, having to write books or teach to pay the bills. And many can’t stay focused on the work, even with the extra time. I might be incredibly more efficient because I know I HAVE to be focused; time is so limited, I don’t have a choice. I wonder if having a less-demanding job, one I didn’t have to carry home in that big black bag, if that would help. If it would be better to go back to being a secretary/report writer, who left the office at 5 and took nothing with her, and then came back at 9 this next morning and continued what she’d left on her desk. I did that for quite a few years. I can’t pull it off until the kids are out of college, but then? Maybe I can have a normal job and be an artist for more hours with less crap coming home.

But I was bored as a secretary. And teaching’s not boring (most of the time). It’s frustrating and mind-blowing and tear-inducing and joyous and goofy and soul-crushing and love-full (not a word, I know), all at the same time. The kid who comes and sees me every day for his hug. The girl who annoyed the crap out of me ALL LAST YEAR has to continue to annoy me this year. The kid from 2 years ago who stopped by after high school got out. None of that happens when you’re a secretary (well, unless you’re a secretary in a school). I wonder sometimes if the kids know that some days it is just as hard for ME to be at school (when a drawing is kicking around in my brain, when I want to be ironing something together) as it is for THEM. I’m not admitting that to them. But it’s true.

Fuck. Damn life. It just fucks with your brain.

I am seriously looking forward to three weeks of down time coming up. I wanna make art every single fucking day. I wanna get enough sleep. I wanna go on a bunch of hikes. I wanna hang out and laugh and goof off and be normal…just a little bit.

A Personal Sarcasm Tornado

Some days, you just bully through the part you don’t feel like finishing. Finally. Finally. Finally. Not cutting things out any more. Turns out I spent almost 11 1/2 hours cutting pieces out. I seriously think I spent a goodly portion of it just staring off into space, lost in my head. Not very efficient. At all.

But I finished last night while watching Orphan Black (it grows on you; I wasn’t sure after the first episode, but now I’m hooked)…

And so I was adamant about finishing the piece-sorting last night, so I might be able to iron tonight. Some tasks just seem to be harder to start, and I knew if I pushed the sorting off until today, that somehow I’d get myself psyched out of starting the ironing today as well. So I just did it. Honestly, that’s how I get all this shit done. I push myself off the couch and just do it. At midnight.

Yes, this is why I don’t get any sleep. Too late. Feeling it today. But it’s pajama day at school today, and that’s one of my favorite days at school. How could you NOT like wearing pajamas to work.

I’ve got about 50 hours into this quilt so far, but I have to admit there’s been a lot of staring-off-into-space time. It’s also just a long week because of other stuff and half my brain has wandered off into another country. And the technology piece of what I’m doing in my classroom is causing a personal sarcasm tornado, I think. If one more kid raises a hand to ask me to give them an answer that’s on the website in front of them, I might scream.

Anyway. I’m getting through days, trying to stay focused. I’d like more cookies. And a clean house. And a Christmas tree.

December Regularly Kicks My Butt

December is this weird month full of holiday parties and caloric-rich foods and inappropriate drunken behavior at work parties and white elephants and secret Santas and too many things you have to get done and Christmas tree lights twinkling in the dark and weather that can’t decide what to be (that might just be Southern California). Strangely, for me, it’s also full of cold feet and grinding teeth. Not a relaxing time of year for the first few weeks. School kicks my butt, and so does the rest of it. In fact, December regularly kicks my butt. I don’t enjoy this month, except I really like Christmas lights and the smell of the tree, but that’s about it. Oh, and spiced cider is good. And the three weeks of Winter Break. You can keep the rest: the crazy drivers, the overly full malls, the crappy long lines, the constant emails of cookie recipes I don’t have time to make, the number of holiday gatherings that require me to make and bring food, the lack of time to get to the gym. Kicks my Butt.

But I managed this…

After an 8-mile hike and only a 20-minute nap, I cut stuff out for four hours yesterday. I really couldn’t do anything else. My brain had completely shut down. I thought I might grade papers, but no…my brain explained that it was an impossible task, that it simply didn’t have the necessary neurons to complete that.

I wanted to be done, though, with the cutting out…and today, Sunday, also kicked my butt. Sigh. I’m looking at the time right now and realizing I need to go to sleep, and I did nothing art-related today at all. I cleaned and went to the store and shopped for Christmas stuff and returned things that were broken that I had had shipped to me precisely so I wouldn’t have to go to the store at all (shipping was free), but NO. Sigh. I used up giftcards and took the girlchild out to dinner at the mall, because we were already there and yeah. But a lot of the shopping is now done. So that’s good. That’s the one thing? I guess?

And tomorrow night, I canceled book club (second one in two weeks I’ve canceled), and I will grade papers and cut the rest of those out and sort them into bins and maybe start ironing Tuesday. Although my life is…um…morphing I guess? Yes, I’m giving birth to alien pods. That’s it. Naw, it’s not, but shit is changing and hopefully for the better and who knows what all that means, but since I’ve spent most of my adult life adapting to new crap, this is nothing really truly new. I will adjust. In time. Or not. Whatever. I roll with the changes…well, once the Humvee stops bouncing over my broken bones. THEN I roll.

Kicking my butt.

Awkward family videos (you’ll notice they’re all animals)…

Why all my writing utensils are always on the floor…

And now you know.

Yup. She’s crazy.

Make Art

I got one picture for last night. Because I didn’t do much but cut little pieces out and write sci fi. This is how far I got by the end of the night…

Top left is trash (kept until I figure out if I threw any tiny pieces in there by accident. I do it all the time, unfortunately.). Top right is what I’ve actually achieved (which yes, doesn’t look like shit at the moment; thank you for reminding me.). Bottom is what I still have left to do. Two pairs of scissors, the phone, wine, TV remote, and pajamas. Really, it was not a bad night, except it started with a soccer parent meeting (aargh. asshole coach. stupid people. grrr.) and I didn’t get to go to the gym and I was really really tired. I’m hiking tomorrow morning, so I’d really better put myself to bed early. If I’m smart. And we’ve already proved I’m not, at least when it comes to sleep.

I did cut more tonight at my stitching meeting. Nice conversation. Those things keep me sane. School? Not so much. I was supposed to enter some art shows this week, and only managed one. So little free time. So little time for anything. People wonder how I get anything done. I wonder too. I do crazy stuff like listen to lectures while I’m writing, write while I’m exercising, grade while I’m watching. I rarely do Just One Thing at a Time. Except for the art. The art is big enough and strong enough to fill up the whole mind, to make sure the bits that wander off into depressoid land don’t have a chance. They can’t get out. All the exits are blocked by artmaking activities. It’s all art.

Sometimes I wonder why I got bit so hard by the art bug. I have two kids who are creatively minded, one who draws/paints really well, but doesn’t get obsessed by it. I don’t remember being her age and making art. I know I did, but I don’t remember what it felt like. I know what it feels like now. I remember what it felt like when the kids were little and I didn’t have time. It felt like grinding your teeth. It felt like that migraine caused by the Santa Ana winds blowing dry and hot in the fall. It felt like fingernails on a chalkboard. It was just wrong. But I don’t remember when it got like that. I had this conversation with the boychild, who is leaning towards a major (I didn’t even ask…because it doesn’t matter), and I explained how I wasn’t allowed to just major in art when I went to college, that I had to have another major. That it was assumed that art would not sustain. And I guess it’s true that financially it does not sustain, but it is the One Thing that I have done most of my life consistently and purely and truly. It is the core of who I am. How I am. I could not stop, as I have seen some friends and acquaintances do, and just go to work and come home and watch TV and sleep in on Sundays and go to the park. I would rather be in a fluorescently lit room with bad wallpaper and containers of fabric: tracing, drawing, cutting, sewing. That is where I need to be. I’m scared of getting old and not having that. I’ve seen that. The old artists who aren’t well enough to draw or paint any more. Maybe they don’t even remember how. I don’t want to be like that. I can’t imagine being that empty.

So art. Yes. Fills.

I had this quote sitting around for a while: “Don’t go into art for fame or fortune. Do it because you cannot not do it. Being an artist is a combination of talent and obsession.” John Baldessari

And Neil Gaiman’s speech…

about Make Good Art. Love Gaiman. Do not love this book though…

Really. You should look at it…until it gives you a headache. Because it will. It’s the speech…but the design is torturous.

Anyway. Make art. Hopefully it will get good. (Make Art was the title of my original blog, started 10 years ago.)

Before Someone Gets Hurt…

First of all, I am behind on everything. EVERYTHING. It’s December? When the fuck did THAT happen? Second of all, failing at sleep. Complete utter failure. EPIC fail. I went to bed so late on Tuesday night, it was well into Wednesday morning. And then I got up and taught. I don’t even know how. And this post should have been written like Wednesday morning, but that got destroyed by, well, life, and then last night was soccer in the rain outside on the bleachers (at least it wasn’t cold) and it started late, so I didn’t get home until after 9:30, so that’s when we ate dinner, and I almost fell asleep right then and there, but managed to rally. So then I was going to write this morning, and I don’t even KNOW what happened this morning, Godzilla stopped by and sucked my brains out my left ear, and by the time I made it through a whole day of kids going “What? What did you say? What page is that? I don’t have that. Can I have another copy?” and my impersonation of a fire-breathing dragon, eyes popping veins, well…there just isn’t much left. I don’t know what day it is. I’m tired. I’m not on top of anything (except this chair, and that’s questionable). Well, except grades are done. I’m totally caught up (until tomorrow). And the cat just skidded down the back of the chair and slammed into my back. So now all I have is the edge of the damn chair.

I need a Christmas tree. I need a list. I need a new computer. I need a new stove. (I need a new life. Swear.)

So I stayed up late Tuesday night because I was doing this…

I finished ironing all the War pieces down. There are 80 different fabrics in this quilt. Notice how many browns and flesh colors there are. I’m not sure why there’s so much red. Not a lot of color otherwise…

Here’s the pile of pieces to be cut out.

My brain was in overdrive Tuesday night after finishing the ironing, so I tried to calm it down by finishing the episode of Star Trek I was watching, while starting to cut stuff out.

I don’t usually cut stuff out in the computer chair (see note about cat and chair and edges), because it’s not particularly comfortable, but the episode had already started here, and I don’t have the same Netflix account on the TV as the computer (don’t even ask. It’s not worth the time it would take to explain it). It was probably a mistake, because my brain got into it and wouldn’t shut down…this is what I got done last night.

I got a little more done last night. Got smart and went to bed before 1 AM, dontcha know.

I did sew at the soccer game…in the rain…under an umbrella.

Lots of green variegated bullion knots. It’s gonna take me a million years to finish these birds.

So when did I say I’d be done cutting pieces out? Sunday? Oh yeah. That’s funny. I’m going to try, I guess, but sheesh. First I have to go sit through a stupid parent meeting and pay a shitload of money (more than it would cost to replace my stove), and then I don’t have time to go to the gym because they scheduled the meeting at such a stupid time, and I’m cranky as hell from school and hormones, and I really just want to curl up in bed and sleep for three days, but the sleep of the dead…the sleep that is not interrupted by rain storms and raccoons on the roof and monstrous hot flashes and nightmares involving Big Foot and that thing that is in that Christmas TV show from a million years ago…

HIM. The Abominable Snowman (NOT the Abdominal Snowman). Dreamed about him last night. He was scary. Except he looked more like this…

Christmas happy dreams, eh?

Make art, Kathryn. Before someone gets hurt.

Some Peace and Forgetfulness

So my original plan of getting all the fabric picked for the Women at War quilt did not happen. That whole watching-soccer and planning-for-school thing just kicked my butt. Plus digging holes and trimming dead branches off trees. And maybe sleeping. But only a little. Sleep is still not my friend.

But I’m not giving up. I set these goals to keep me on track. Like writing…I am still trying to do some every day; I’m just not worried about hitting a word limit every day any more.

This is what my NaNoWriMo graph looked like…

I was pretty consistent. I’m happy with what I did.

Then Saturday night, after late-afternoon soccer, I started ironing again…here’s the 4 different flesh piles I had…

Because this quilt has more bodies in it than I think I’ve ever done. Well, maybe not. I have some with tiny bodies…but these are big…and there are about 9 of them. I think. Hard to tell, honestly, down in the pile. By the end of Saturday, this is what I had in the bin to cut out…

And these are the other fabrics I’d used besides the flesh tones.

And here’s the pie I had in the middle of all that…

So the last two nights, I kept ironing, trying to stay on top of it…

This is Sunday night…and honestly, I wanted to be done Sunday, and I wasn’t…

Here’s all the fabrics I’d used by then…not very colorful.

Lots of browns and a ton of flesh colors (which aren’t even in that pile). Here’s the box of pieces to be cut out (guess what I’ll be doing next?)…

Monday night, I laid them all out so I could see them…again, this is still without the flesh colors…when you realize the red, yellow, blue, and green pieces are little tiny pieces in the big picture, it really is a mostly brown and flesh-colored quilt.

I finally got to the main figure last night. Usually, I number so that the main figure gets cut out first. I don’t know why I did it differently this time. I only had this much of the lightest fabric…

I had to fussy iron the pieces on there…but I really wanted to use it. So I made it work.

As of last night, this is what’s left to iron.

Here’s the pile of fabrics I used for the main figure. That tiny pile on top is what’s left of that light fabric. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it…

Make a really tiny flesh thing. So it was after midnight when I finished cutting out all the flesh of the main figure. This is what was left…

The bones, hair, nipples, lungs, heart, bandolier, and bullets. Oh. And a gun. Fun stuff. I was too tired to deal with that many choices, so I left it for tonight. And it’s only Tuesday, so I’m two days late. Not so bad. I should set another goal now. I plan to have all the pieces cut out by (Kathryn, think this through…you have gym and a soccer game in the rain and a meeting and a hike)…let’s say Sunday night. Then I can iron it together next week and (holy crap, I was looking at my calendar and freaking out about how much time was left, and then I realized it was still on November. Damn.) start stitching down the following week, and get it quilted Christmas week. Right? Sure. No problem. We’ll see what that looks like in real life.

Saturday’s soccer…

was playing against the team whose coach is the same for my daughter’s high-school team. We’ve never liked him, so it was awesome when girlchild made the first goal against them…

And I think we went on to make 4 more…

I was grading papers. I also wrote some of the novel. It was not particularly warm.

Yes, we had soccer yet another day…

Girlchild is playing well, no back problems at all. She starts the high-school season this week.

So I’m going to be spending a lot of time freezing and/or wet on metal bleachers.

But it’s the last year of that, which is kind of weird. Guess that’s part of why I’m an emotional mess all the time. Oh yeah, well, and there’s other stuff. But whatever. I’m getting lots of art made. And entering more shows. And reading a lot. It could be worse. I could be holed up in bed and never taking a shower. You’re thankful I’m not like that. Hell, I’m thankful I’m not like that. I wish I could say that making all this art makes me feel better, but all I can say is in the moment, while I’m picking fabrics or drawing or stitching, in the moment, there is peace and some level of forgetfulness of all the shit, and that is a good thing.