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…
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.
So I never do these. But Virginia is a good person and has done a ton of work for cancer and for SAQA and she asked nicely. I am excited to be an invited artist for “The 100,” to be held Wednesday, February 4, 2015. The goal for this fiber fundraiser for the American Cancer Society is to raise $10,000 in one day. My job is to make one piece of art and to persuade at least one of you to donate $100 on February 4. You will get an original piece of art (randomly assigned) from one of The 100 (100 artists who agreed to be a part of this).
I am sure you want to be one of the exclusive 100 patrons who will receive an artwork from one of the 100 extraordinary international fiber artists. Hell, I want to be a patron (hmmm…send kid to college? Or buy more art. It’s a tough one.).
Fiberart for a Cause has already raised $240,000 through the generosity of fiber artists and patrons.
I will be showing you what I’m making here on the website (as soon as I finish the one that has to be done by January 1). You’ve seen me do the birds in the last year; that’s about the size we’re looking at…at least 8×10 (and I can’t work that small). My internal debate, which is yet to be resolved, is whether to do a nude or not? Because I know that not all of the 100 patrons will be pro-nudity, but then again, it’s what I’m known for. I’m not sure how many of y’all want a uterus hanging on the wall, though. So yeah. My brain is leaning towards a nice, cute, furry or feathery animal.
But then the rebel-bitch in me wants to do a giant boob.
So there we are. Click on through, check out the artists, consider how cancer has affected you, and decide whether it’s worth the crazy risk to get a cool piece of art that you didn’t get to choose yourself. It’s kinda cool.
So yeah, I’m back. I’ve actually been here all along, but as I’m sure you realize, that whole holiday-with-family thing kind of eats up your free time. So I sleep even less. And at 1:30 AM, I’m not willing to START writing a blogpost. And mornings have been fraught. So here’s what happened.
On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time cutting out Wonder Under for the new quilt, which is for a theme of Women at War, with interpretation pretty open as to what that meant. I’ve felt like other people have been coming after my uterus and everything within and around for quite a while, despite some nice-guy misogynists telling me I was imagining it. I mean, what the fuck do you know as a privileged rich white man? Best thing you can do as a man? Admit that you mostly don’t have a fucking clue what it’s like to be a woman. You might have an inkling, but otherwise: Not inside, biologically, with periods and pregnancy and mood swings and menopause; not outside, trying to walk somewhere in public, dating, safety, being perceived as an object, wearing the wrong thing, whether you’re showing stuff off or not, it’s always wrong. Not breastfeeding, not being the mom, not with society’s expectations. I’m not saying being a man doesn’t have similar issues; I just think there are more “acceptable” options for men (in terms of what society believes). And I full-on admit I don’t understand what it’s like to be a man. Some men have some of a clue, but mostly it seems not. The better men are understanding even when they don’t understand.
So the drawing was full of all these stereotypes and yet she stands tall on a pile of men. Because every man came from a woman, y’all.
Anyway, my rampant feminism aside, I need to get the quilt done in the next…um…5 weeks. Yup. So speedy mode. Midnight? Not helping…
Licking my elbow does not help me. This might even have been the night before. It looks awfully dark. It is! It’s Tuesday night. I sit on the couch and watch all the stuff I have saved on Tivo…
If girlchild is still awake, I have to watch her stuff. Some of her stuff is also my stuff…top box is pieces, bottom box is trash…in case I drop pieces in it (which I often do).
In the late afternoon (because I had to run a thousand errands), I managed to finish cutting and sort them all into bins by 100s. This is a smaller quilt, so there’s only 8 bins! A miracle.
Of course, I also did the two birds that need to be done in December, so that was two more bins.
And then because this time of year isn’t crazy enough, girlchild and I hiked Iron Mountain in the dark with the group I often hike with.
She wanted to show she had conquered the mountain.
That night, I realized I would need to clean the office up a bit to be able to cut fabrics out. I hadn’t put everything away from last time (and honestly, it’s a disaster area in here anyway, because all my school stuff lives in here too). So I had drawers open that cats had slept in and fabric piled everywhere…
I like a fresh start. Plus I need that table cleared off because that’s where I put the Wonder Under pieces.
And one section of the floor, I think the cats had knocked a bunch of stuff down (they get a bit rambunctious sometimes), so I needed to clean that up. Finding floor space in here has been a priority this last month. Two feet at a time, people. Two square feet is all I ask.
I had a ton of fabric to put away, both from the last quilt and from Houston, so I started by stacking by color, because everything in here is stored by color, except for the ones where I can’t figure out what color it is.
That was about halfway through. There were some issues with storage. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I use…it is not enough.
And I found this from a million years ago, from an Ellen Anne Eddy class.
Hand-dyed silk velvet plus thread-painted fetus. You know, like you do. That may still be in here when I die.
So at that point, it was Thursday, and although girlchild does most of the cooking, that means I get stuck with the cleaning (and then she complains that she can’t find anything because I moved it…from the couch to her bedroom), and I also cook a few things and I constantly try to clean up in the kitchen, which drives her nuts, but I can’t stand having to do it all at once.
So this picture is about 10 minutes before dinner is served. She’s making gravy. The fire extinguisher is out because she spilled turkey juices on the stovetop and it got in the box where the controller things are (technical term) and short-circuited something, and for a few minutes, we had loud popping noises and big sparks and electrical fire smoke. So yeah. A typical Thanksgiving…
The wine? Well. Obvious. See fire extinguisher. Especially after loud pops and sparks. And no, it’s not fixed yet. It’s actually not top on my list at the moment. The rest of it works, I got everything cleared off of there because of the fire danger, and I have other things that are more pressing. No really, the sink is completely clogged and getting fixed this afternoon, so I can finally do all the dishes. THEN I will deal with the stove.
Thanksgiving was small this year…just my parents, me, the girlchild, and the ex…
Guess he has decided Brits can celebrate that holiday…food was good, of course…
She makes a mess in the kitchen, tries to set the house on fire, but it always tastes good.
And yes, we’re still eating it. Ex came over last night and took away two platefuls of food. Sent a bunch home with my parents as well. And then we realized girlchild wouldn’t be around next year to cook.
Shit. I think we’re going out. I do cook. I just don’t want to spend that much time cooking for so few people.
Or dogs. I don’t feed dogs people food. Dogs LIKE people food.
Oh yeah. Pie and pi. All good.
Once the food was all eaten and I had cleaned up as much as I could with a nonworking sink, I finished cleaning up the studio (ah, much better)…
Hung the new drawing where I could see it, assumed the background fabric I had would work, and started the next fabric-picking adventure…
I don’t know what YOU do when chock full of tryptophan. I told you I was a bit crazy.
I picked all the stuff on the bottom…
And then started thinking about the fleshy issues…a pile of 7 or 8 bodies that I need to be able to distinguish from each other? Need at least two sets of flesh runs…
Luckily, they’re pretty simple bodies, so I don’t need the usual run of 7 fabrics or so. Although on the right, that’s the run for the main female figure, I think. The stuff on the left was the first of the male bodies.
Friday morning dawned nice and clear, and soccer was first on the agenda…of course.
Girlchild decided to play for another team, because hers didn’t get into the tournament they wanted. Luckily, it’s local, because we have a game a day.
I graded papers (ah, back to reality) and watched her run around and score one goal…
They beat an Alaskan team 5-1. I’m sure that team was a little hampered by the over-80-degree weather. Then I came home and helped dad do some yard things and went and bought two trees with him to block off that big open space that has been there since April? March? Don’t even remember how long. I need to go out there today and dig holes and trim off dead stuff and be a responsible homeowner (my neighbors will be thrilled). And I went to the gym. See, this is where time goes. But at the gym, I wrote…yes, I’m still writing. The story’s still not done. And I finished my book (the one I was reading). And these were good things. And then I traced some more Wonder Under for another piece, a small one that’s been lying around for a good long while…
Of course, technically it has nudity in it, so it can’t go into any of the shows coming up that need smaller pieces. I’m tired of making things FOR something, though, even though I don’t mind the themes that I’ve been in…sometimes you just have to make the stuff you WANT to make. I’m getting a wave of that feeling coming on…strong. I traced this also because I was watching something on Netflix that I couldn’t watch in my studio and I wanted to finish the episode.
Anyway, then back to the studio…where I kept going on the pile of flesh…
Which is taking significantly more time than I usually take, mostly because it’s complicated to figure out what is overlapping where, and to make sure I have all the pieces for that body, and that the fabrics don’t overlap in the wrong way.
After 4 hours of ironing, I am barely in the 200s. The plus is I should finish the pile of bodies today, so it will go faster after that. I think. I hope. Because remember how I said I wanted to be done with the ironing by the time school starts again? And there are two more soccer games? Plus I have to plan for school, because hey, we do have to go back there, despite the scary adrenaline rush I get when I think about it? I calculated grades yesterday from the stuff I had graded so far after break. It’s possible I should just quit teaching right now. I’m an absolute failure.
Sigh. So. And on top of all this, I slammed my finger in the door and I keep reopening the wound (bandaids forever!), a Golden Retriever is currently trying to play ball with me, my kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it, and the fish at school has probably died because I keep forgetting to go over there and feed it. Girlchild has applied to her first college, boychild got food poisoning on Thanksgiving from something (he did not have turkey dinner), and I’ve been living on deviled eggs for three days (I’m not sure that’s a bad thing).
This time of year just kicks my ass. So I’m going to kick it back by making lots of art. Yup. You can’t stop me.
Here’s Aug(de)mented Reality 2…for some post-turkey amusement…
So. I’m officially on vacation. I traced Wonder Under Friday night for a little while, but I was exhausted and went to bed early, because I had a long hike early Saturday morning. I get up earlier for hikes than I do for school. It’s a little crazy. But it was a good hike (post later) and we went out to eat afterwards, which I almost never do, because you lose the whole day. But I could afford to lose the whole day because I have a whole week of them off. Anyway. It was good. And I came home and tried to function, but the body and brain were old and tired. Eventually, after the second or third cup of tea and some reading of the book club selection that I had to be done with by today (there’s nothing like leaving it until the last minute), I got up and started tracing Wonder Under again…
The fun part (wait, put “fun” in quotes) about tracing this section is that it’s a pile of bodies that are all overlapping, and although I might have tried to be logical about numbering them in the first place, that logic has now left the building, and I am often staring at the pile, trying to find the next piece in number order. Piece 225 took like 10 minutes to find. I don’t know what I was thinking. So the almost-200 pieces in the pile took forever to trace. But I wasn’t going to give up. I wanted it done, so that when I came back to tracing today, it would be straightforward and relatively easy.
The thing is, that pile is gonna kick my ass when I have to pick fabrics out, because overlapping and random behind spaces and I don’t even know what parts go with what body in half of it. Yeah. Way to fuck with yourself, Kathryn. I guess I like a good challenge.
So I’m 4 hours into the tracing and only at piece 287 or so. Like I said, it was a bitch. I have about 5 hours left, I’m guessing, and I’d like to be done today. No really. I would. That might not be realistic though because I still have to go grocery shopping and to book club and to dinner at my parents’ house. Hmn. Are there 5 hours LEFT after all that? So much for vacations, right? That’s why you’re supposed to GO somewhere, so you can relax and stop doing all that other stuff. Then again, I don’t really do anything else right…why start with doing vacations right? It’s a stay-at-home vacation because I can’t afford anything else. I would have loved to have taken the girlchild to NYC, met the boychild there, hung out, got an AirBnB apartment, checked out the city. It would have been cool. It would have been $1500 I don’t have right now. Especially with college apps coming up again.
So we’re here in lovely San Diego, soccer tournament, practices, a couple of hikes, dinner with the close family on Tday. And lots of artmaking. So my plan is to have all the Wonder Under ironed to fabric in a week. Because then school starts back up again and that 3-week stretch notoriously kicks my butt. And then I have vacation again, but only about a week and a half before this next quilt has to be done. So yeah. I need to work hard. Like usual. Like what the fuck is new about that? This is my life. It’s a continuous hard-work endeavor. I’m not always entirely sure what I get out of that. People tell me the art is cool, amazing, etc., but then I just make more of it. I don’t know if there’s a reason for it, except that I’m incredibly unhappy when I don’t make it. And there’s enough of that feeling in my life…I don’t need to make more of it. There must be a better balance though.
I did take time out to finish the book for book club. It must have been cold last night because (1) I was wearing polar fleece in the house (lots of windows behind the light table) and (2) the bitchy old-lady cat was in the living room, curled up tight next to me.
Which was fine. Notice the pile of dirty clothes on the floor? Girlchild has some cleaning to do. I’m tired of the slob factor. That’s one goal for this vacation…get the mess under control, at least enough to get me through December.
I wanted to show you where I normally write…
Yup. The computer. The computer desk is a mess. The chair has been scratched all to hell by bitchy cat, who often is sitting on the chair (you can see the top of her head in the picture). Right now, she’s not, but that’s because morning winter sun is over THERE on the table, so she’s curled up over there. Thank god. I can actually sit properly. I’m over 42,000 words on the novel, and I will easily hit 50,000 by Thanksgiving. I’m hoping to keep the momentum going and get to the end, whatever that is, by the end of the year or earlier. I’ve already decided no sequel. So I’m writing it that way. I guess I always knew I would. I do have another book started in my head though. Different story, different characters, different location. Still sci-fi though. Not sure what’s up with that.
Here’s Luana Rubin’s review of the two SAQA exhibits at Houston this year…she mentions my piece.
Someday I’ll meet her in person and tell her how to pronounce my name. Or maybe you could do that for me.
So the girlchild is sick. It’s two days until a week-long vacation, and I am surrounded by coughy, sneezy, leaves-her-used-tissues all over the house, which the dog then tries to eat, so I have to touch all of them to either throw them away or get them out of the dog’s mouth. And THEN. Then she drinks out of the milk jug, straight out of it, right in front of me, like she doesn’t even care that she’s bombarding ME with all those germs on levels that I don’t even need to consider. Her response? “Um. Sorry? We live together anyway.” She’s like the worst roommate ever. I come home and she’s already left for soccer, and all the clothes she’s worn are all over the floor, and when I come back from the gym, I find her smelly soccer socks, shoes, and shinguards sitting on the couch where I would like to sit and draw, and it reeks.
Bad roommate. Except she’s my blood. I did give her some grief yesterday when she finally came home, but she’s SIIICKKK. Sigh. I guess my plan for break is to be sick as well (pounding vitamins, washing hands as I speak). I don’t have time to be sick. I have two hikes to go on, 13,000 words to write, a quilt to get significantly started. I can’t be sick.
So there’s the drawing. I came home after delivering my quilt to the photographer and I was exhausted. So I tried to read, but fell asleep on the couch (probably I’m getting sick) and woke up to a cat lying on me. It’s a risk in this house. Happens all the time. I only had like 30 pages of my book left, so I finished it (It was good by the way…the last in Lev Grossman’s Magicians series). Then I started trying to draw, and here’s why I don’t keep track of time on the drawings. When it’s not going well, when I’m having a hard time getting it out of my head or solidifying it in there, I just stare at things…mostly at the paper, but also at the TV (Blacklist, James Spader is truly evil in this show, and yet not), or a cat. Or the white wall, annoyed by the fact that I haven’t finished doing things in here, like hanging art. So I did a lot of that. I have “four hours” into the drawing, but I’d bet that only half of that was actual pen or pencil moving on paper. And if you’re going to count the staring-at-the-paper minutes, you should also count the minutes when I’m thinking about the drawing when I don’t have a sketchbook in my lap, and that’s quite a few more hours. So yeah. Pointless measurement there. No real start and stop. Fluid.
But after I made dinner and girlchild finally showed up to eat (and sneeze and cough and moan and leave used Kleenex everywhere), I went and wrote some more story (she’s kidnapped! It happened early! I said 5 PM and then I kidnapped her early! Don’t ask. My brain does what it pleases.), and when I came back to the couch, the snotty thing had gone to bed (without even saying good night) and I was able to do a significant piece of the drawing. Because before that? I was just staring at the paper for a long time.
It is unfortunately not done. That said, I think it COULD be done with about 20 more minutes. I don’t HAVE 20 minutes before school though. And I was going to go copy it after school. SO. I could take it to school and instead of doing grades during prep, I could finish it. And then copy it after school. But I don’t like taking my sketchbook (the big one) to school. It’s just…it’s got stuff in it that the students would be shocked by, and it’s big and hard to hide, unlike the one in my bag. SO. I could just ditch out of school as soon as the bell rings, come home and finish it, and then go copy it. Probably means I’ll be putting it together at class, but I think I can do that. OR. I could stop writing this and go finish it, except mornings are not good drawing times for me. I don’t know why. My brain is primed for late night. Right now, I’m still trying to wake up. Apparently I can write half asleep but I can’t draw. Two different parts of the brain. The rambling wordy bit can vomit shit up all the time. The drawing part needs more caffeine. And wake time.
But this is where I’m at…
Like I said, not much left. Trying to keep it simple so I can actually finish it in time. Yes, the DNA hand showed up again. So did the tree. I really like the pile of people, of MEN. Yup. Standing on Da Boyz. And there’s pencil between her legs because I’m not sure about that part, but it’s there to remind me to think about it. So I guess I really need to wait until the end of the day. Yup. Plus I’m going to have to add to the top and sides a bit so I can put more leaves in. But not much.
Another thing I’m doing, which I had heard about back in September or October, is Coursera. If you haven’t heard of it, they are college classes you can take for free (no credit) or for credit (pay!) that are offered on a wide variety of subjects and from a huge number of participants. A friend (Linda!) emailed me about one she thought I would like about how plants use their “senses.” It sounded interesting, so I signed up for this class taught by a professor at Tel Aviv University, and I’m about three weeks behind starting, but since I’m not taking it for credit (unlike some of the kids in there), I don’t care. I also don’t care that I’m not acing the quizzes, because I’m listening to his lectures while I’m writing the book. And when he says something really interesting or confusing, I flip to the tab running the video and I rewatch that section, and sometimes I take notes (right now, my post-it says “auxin” and “Barbara McClintock”), but mostly I’m just listening for stuff that I could use in the book or that might make some things make more sense. I’m still boggled by this article about plants that can “hear” caterpillars eating them and respond chemically. They recorded the sounds and played them near another plant and it responded in kind. This is awesome science, and helped me write the section where the plant talks to the main character. Yeah, my science is a little out there, but I don’t think it’s as out there as I originally thought.
Anyway. It’s interesting enough and I’ve done two weeks of work in two nights (well, I didn’t do it WELL. I got a D on the quiz, but whatevs. I’m not taking it for reals.).
So. Progress on all levels. And two more days of school to survive. If you’ve never been in a middle school the week before an upcoming vacation, even if it’s only a week off that’s coming up, it’s like there’s a full moon. They wig out all over the place and do amazingly stupid things, because they think it’s not going to follow them after break. Which is only a week long. I’m with them, though. I want to be on vacation too. I just don’t want to be SICK on vacation. Grr. More vitamins. More handwashing.
Well, one thing I’ve got going for me right now is that there is no shortage of projects I’m supposed to be working on. In fact, there are four due within the next 2 1/2 months. Luckily, three of them are tiny, compared to what I normally do, and even the larger one can’t be TOO large. And it’s been in my head for a couple of months, so I actually think I can get it out fairly quickly. I did know that I would have to fit it all on one page. I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but it’s been hard for me to fit anything on a single page. Even those drawings that are mostly on one page seem to need something added once I enlarge it…which isn’t a problem. But when I know I need to make what is for me a smaller piece because the show has a lot of people and the gallery isn’t very big, it means I have to THINK about size. I don’t usually think about size.
So before I could even deal with the drawing last night, though, I had to get my hair cut, mostly because I couldn’t get a comb through the ends. I wanted to do it in October, but financially, October was a major issue. Timewise as well, so I finally got there yesterday. It’s silly, because I guess I could have chopped it all off myself, but Rebecca does a much better job (duh. She is trained.). I have learned over the years that there are I things I CAN do (like my own quilt photography), but it’s stupid when others can do it better and I can pay them a reasonable amount to do so. My photographer also…I gladly let him do what he’s good at, so I can do more of the stuff that I’m good at. And it’s remarkably silly how nice a good haircut feels. I don’t get a lot of the good feels.
By the time I finally got home (had to pick up ex-husband because his car is in the shop again), I was tired, but I forced myself to the gym. I wrote the novel on the bike; got about 450 words written in 25 minutes (so that’s 18 words a minute), which means I’ve spent over 55 hours writing this book so far. No wonder I don’t sleep. That’s not 55 hours this month…I started in June, but it is 30 hours so far this month, which is about an hour and 3/4 each day. Wow. Really? Someone check my math. I’m not meditating at the moment by the way. I often write, though, while I’m doing something else. But still, wow. I work full time as a teacher, I exercise, I cook real food, I apparently sleep, and I write almost 2 hours a day. Plus art.
So after all that and eating dinner, I wrote…see above…over 34,000 words and a step closer to the violence. It’s 1:15 PM in the afternoon of the day when all the shit hits the fan. Some shit just hit, but we don’t really know what it means yet, and when I say “we,” yes, I’m including me, because my brain hasn’t written that part yet. It will tonight. Seriously. I rarely know where I’m going with this story until I get there. I’m hoping it all holds together, but I realized last night that I had one character bifurcating in the story (no, she really can’t be in two places at once…it’s sci fi, but not THAT sci fi.), so I’m sure editing will need to tighten up some details.
Then I ironed the new quilt for the photographer and dehaired it and prepped it…
I have to cover it so it doesn’t get more cat hair, but also because my car has dog hair in it from Calli riding in there, so I usually make a plastic bag covering. Yes, some people buy bags especially for this, but I’m not like that. Plus I spent all my money on my haircut (not really…but teenagers are really expensive). This morning I decided to roll it with the front out, because I know it will sit in the car all day, and I don’t want it to get wrinkled. I’ll drive it to him after school, he’ll take great pictures and charge me not very much at all, and I’ll happily go back and get it when he’s done. It’s like magic!
And then I’ll spend the next two weeks trying to come up with a name for it, because it needs a fucking name and the one I came up with yesterday really does reference the Adam and Eve thing, and I don’t actually want to reference that…because that’s not what it’s about. It’s interesting that there is a reference to that story, but it’s not about that story.
And then at maybe 11:30 PM, I finally sat down in the living room (it took 10 minutes to find my sketchbook, which in itself is sad) and started drawing. I have to admit that I was tired at that point, and I kept trying to Google images that would help my brain, like “woman standing with gun belt” and “arms akimbo.” Seriously. That was a thing. I finally gave up (my internet was cranky) and just started drawing.
I have to admit that I did a rough pencil sketch first of where things needed to go because they needed to fit on the page, and that’s one of my issues: fitting things on the page. And I’m not sure about either hand. But I can always redo those parts. And no, I didn’t get very far. I was tired. I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour. No, not really. But reasonable for me.
Oh yeah, and the total for the Quilt That Has No Name Yet was 101 hours and 33 minutes (yikes!). Not a small or easy beast, but a nice beast nonetheless.
Tonight? Finish the drawing, rush over to Fed Ex before they close so I can enlarge it, and come back number it, so I can start tracing at class tomorrow. Yes. It DOES sound crazy. Why do you ask?
Hey. Shhh. Over here. C’mere. Hey. (It’s done. The quilt. I finished it. Really. I did.)
Sigh. Started numbered the drawing September 6. That’s the first official time I take usually; sometimes I keep track of the taping, if it seems bad, but this one got taped and then drawn on the full-size, and I don’t keep track of drawing time. Finished November 17. I guess you could argue finished November 18, because it was after midnight, but I don’t consider it the next day until I’ve gone to sleep and woken up again. Completely arbitrary? Well yeah. I got a late start on the binding yesterday, because I had to meet the girlchild at the sports store to buy her soccer gear after school. I got home (completely exhausted by then) and decided (because I was braindead with exhaustion) that I should paint right away. Something about the paint drying before I started sewing and having more brain power then than later, for some quantity of “MORE”.
The real problem with the painting is that I have a ton of fabric paints, but most of them have dried up, being old, and I really should open every jar and toss anything that’s unusable. But if I had done that, I wouldn’t have been able to paint last night…so I didn’t.
I managed to mix something very close to the lighter color of the briefcase. Took me a while to get it, but I did.
I never took a picture of the bleed through, which is too bad, because it was pretty bad there. Less so in other places. (Must train self to wash with Retayne) Just trust me…there was a swath of blue across the light brown…
And now there isn’t. What a relief.
I used colored pencils and a little bit of paint on a couple other bits that had issues…
But otherwise, I left it there to dry while I moved money and calculated college costs, then cooked dinner and texted the boychild back and forth for an hour. He has snow on and off and ice and cold and rain and cold. Frozen hair (he has a lot of hair). I send him videos of his cat being a brat and he sends pictures of puppies and kittens and long dense sentences out of his essays that I then have to try to make sense of out of context.
Then I wrote a few thousand words where my main character communes with her bad plant self.
And then I sewed binding, poking holes in my fingers again. I don’t do well with thimbles. Put them on and then avoid that finger. It’s like my brain thinks there’s something wrong with the thimbled finger and tries to protect it, so it uses another finger. I debated whether I could finish last night…I had one whole short side, most of a long side, and then two sleeves.
I had one of my trusty companions.
There was another one, but she kept licking the stitching hand, so she got pushed off. I sewed for almost two hours and it was done. Please don’t ask when I went to sleep. It was entirely too late. It probably shows in my face today. But I’m done. Deep breath. I’ll have to total the hours later, because I have a parent meeting this morning. But the trimming and binding was almost 8 hours total and there was about an hour of painting and coloring. Not a small number of hours…and basically I did it in a little over 2 months. During the school year. Yup. Crazy. My hand is sore this morning from the sewing.
The next one? I only have 6 weeks. Ha! But I also have 3 weeks of vacation in that time, so I’m hoping that helps. And it needs to be smaller. So I should probably draw fewer pieces. I’m already at war in my head with this one (ironic, since it’s for a show about women and war). Drawing tonight hopefully. Also need to dehair and pack quilt for photographer…see, if you set up the photo appointment, then you HAVE to finish it. Minor issue: it has no name. I had one pop into my head just now, but I don’t know if I like it. And the boychild would argue it only deals with the traditional genders, which is true. I wasn’t having trans v cis issues, just the standard man v woman in society issues. There are two blogposts on this that I’ve been writing on and off for months. Maybe they will surface in the next week, along with my report from Houston. Maybe.
There’s something about nearing the end of making a quilt that is sort of a letdown. You’ve spent all these hours, you’ve beat yourself up about not meeting this or that deadline that you arbitrarily set in your head, it’s been your life for months, and then…then it’s gone. It’s done. You’re done. It abandons you. It’s no longer the focus of your life. And if you don’t have another one, Right There, ready to take over the part of your mind that needs that level of distraction, of creativity, of something that gives you satisfaction in a world that is incredibly frustrating at the moment, then it can be depressing. And I think sometimes the brain needs to lie fallow a bit in between projects, not that I’ve let it do that in the last year, because for me, where I am, fallow means significant depression, falling into a nasty hole that I have to then drag myself back out of, and that happens even WHEN I’m creating. It’s worse when I’m not.
I have a project to start right now, though. It’s drawn in my head. It’s not on paper. I just emailed my photographer, so this current thing has to be done by Wednesday (I’m almost done with the binding, and then I will deal with the bleed). And I have quilt class on Thursday and I need something to take by then, so that means I have to draw the new one and copy it and tape it by Thursday after school. HA! Yeah. I know. But if you set crazy-ass deadlines like that, worst-case scenario you fail and you say, well, it was crazy anyway. But I’m behind where I wanted to be right now. I wanted the gender quilt done by Saturday. Now it’s Monday. That is obviously a giant fail (not). I’m doing OK. I’m a little worried about time, but I’ll figure it out.
After spending an entire weekend essentially working (second one in a row), I’m a little tense and cranky. I realize that. I don’t have a lot of outlets for that any more. I do stupid things to make myself feel better, like change the sheets on the bed to flannel (it’s getting cold), or throw out something someone gave me that I never liked but was useful, but hell, I really don’t like it and I don’t need it really, it’s just useful, and being raised to be somewhat of a hoarder is a difficult thing to break. But it’s gone now! Now if I could just get the rest of the crap under control. I read. I go to the gym. It’s not enough. It will have to do at the moment, though.
I went over 30,000 words on the novel (understand that I actually have over 56,000 words…but I started with a bunch written in the first place). I added an isolation tank last night. Who knew? I had to go Google them and how they worked, but the idea came to me from watching Fringe episodes. My brain is doing this, “What would you do if you needed to get this reaction?” thing, and it searches all the old databases in my head, and then I Google something like “What’s the name of that water tank that the doctor in Fringe used to use?” which is like the worst Google search ever in the world, but popped up exactly what I needed (previously known as sensory deprivation tanks). And then I was searching “epsom salts and plants,” which was another revelation. I love that the world we live in is so knowable on some levels, so searchable, even though it makes other parts of my life a pain in the ass (how easy it is for my students to contact me at all hours…the dating spreadsheets you now need to keep just to figure out if you want to date someone…the fact that you still have to pick up registered mail from the post office during their stupid hours because there’s no way to do that online).
Anyway. I’m managing things. There’s some magical thing that’s supposed to happen now where I have everything under reasonable control (ha!) and happiness just appears, like a leprechaun and his gold or a genie in a lamp. I think it’s some switch I’m supposed to pull inside my head, but I’m still looking for it. Still trying to get all the crap out from before…an analogy between my brain and my house. I don’t have the time or energy to get everything put back or dealt with from the remodeling over the summer; I can’t get my office clean all over, just 2-foot square at a time; the garage is a scary time warp that seems to breed bizarre half-broken items that I might need in the zombie apocalypse, and even if I don’t, I don’t have time to go through and figure it out right now. I’m not sure if the brain or the house comes first. Which can I get cleaned up for real? I do have time planned over break to deal with the house. If I knew how to do the brain part, I would…but I don’t. I don’t think I was built to just be content with my life. I think I was designed to ever be looking to change, adjust, make better, clean up, improve. I don’t know that I could do the art the way I do without that. Is the creative part of my brain, the part that’s always reflecting and searching and making and observing, is it why I can’t just sit back and say, OK, this is OK? This will do. Because it won’t. It’s not.
Can’t title things today. Brain offline. So my view last night of the world was this…
Yes, Glee…don’t judge. It’s light, it’s easy, and they sing. And their entire life experience is so far removed from mine that it doesn’t bother me. Everything else that was on Tivo felt really heavy and dark or light and fluffy and I decided I couldn’t handle it. And much as I’d been loving Star Trek lately, that means watching on the computer and fighting the tiny mean black cat for the chair, and my body was having an issue with being female yesterday (actually, it continues today…another symptom of the thyroid giving up the ghost), so I was in some pretty extreme pain and trying to sew. On the couch was better than in a chair that is only vaguely comfortable on a good day. It was fun. Really. And by fun, I mean, I got through it. Working on that needle-poke callus on my right middle finger now.
I spent all day yesterday (many hours) at an educational tech conference. It was long, but there was one very good workshop I went to and I think I saw the light! Or I have a bunch of new ideas about how to do something online that I have previously done on paper. But I only have three weeks to implement it, and that might not be enough. And I’m not really sure what I’m doing. See, that’s what you want in a teacher…someone who is willing to change it up by the seat of her pants. I want the kids to learn not only the content, but to stretch beyond it and be able to use it elsewhere (some of us have been teaching common core the entire time we’ve been teaching), AND I want them to be tech-proficient (beyond Facebook and video games) AND I’m willing to put my butt out there and hope it all works. So much of the admin and the petty bullshit we deal with as teachers is what chases creative teachers off. I’ve seen too many of them leave because of the shitty pay and the job uncertainty and the harassment by parents and admin (and kids sometimes, honestly). Those of us that tough it out, we are some level of crazy, yes. Luckily, I got the email address of the presenter, so if I have major issues, I know where he works (not far from here).
So that sucked up a huge part of my weekend, and today I’m at the Salk Institute (I always pronounce it SOCK…and then point to mine) to get trained on their DNA kits so I can check them out and do cool experiments with my kids. So it’s a weekend of school stuff that I didn’t get paid for, which again, underlines the crazy. This is what teachers do. If you are one of those people coming after my pay or my pension or my “vacation time” (I don’t get paid for the summer, people), then realize this is what we do. We lose an entire weekend to stuff that benefits OUR STUDENTS. And we do it for free. Because it benefits our students. I am doing what’s best for the kids. It would be nice if the politicians would do the same.
And this morning, I’m trying to persuade my body that it can go to the gym, despite its current tendency toward hemorrhaging (wow, a word I really can’t spell without help). Because I know I will feel better, but ouch. Ouch. And OUCH. Plus how do I staunch the flow long enough to actually be there? These are the fun questions perimenopause brings to you: How much black clothing do I own? How many menstrual devices can I use at once to avoid a wardrobe issue? How can I get better pain meds so I can actually stand up? Seriously, when the alarm went off this morning, I was curled up in a tiny pained ball yelling (probably a good thing the kids aren’t here) until that wave stopped. I think childbirth was easier…at least it seemed like there was a purpose to it.
If that’s all TMI, then you probably shouldn’t be reading my blog anyway.
So yeah, I’m almost done with this quilt, which feels a little weird. I really like the quilt though, so that’s good. And I’m ready, I think, to draw the next one this week, so I can spend all of Thanksgiving week cleaning house (whoo!) and starting that one plus a few smaller ones I promised to make (three. I promised three. Please slap me around a bit, because I am crazy).
I did write a little of the novel at the conference yesterday, and then I came home after dinner with friends (a slightly contentious dinner, interestingly), and I wrote some more. Today (in the story) is when the big bad shit starts to hit the fan. More people are going to die…not because it’s fun to kill people off (although it will be fun to kill ONE person off…yes, I have revenge fantasies at times), but because the deaths are going to highlight how dangerous it is for our heroine and why the Government Must Be Stopped. I’m really not a raging anti-government person, makes me sound like a cultist, but in this story, they aren’t nice or good. They’re bad people. They started out OK, but you know, lost humanity, lost perspective, blah blah blah.
I honestly don’t know if the story will be finished by the end of the month. I’m fairly certain I’ll hit 50,000 words, though. My stats from the NaNoWriMo website…
I was over 28,000 words yesterday. I’ve had a couple of lighter days, but then kicked ass on days afterwards, so the story never stops flowing from my brain. It’s more that I get too tired to write. As I’m writing, I wander off into random shit and then find myself sitting there with my eyes closed and my fingers on the keyboard. Friday night was a little like that. I should have written before I did the binding, and I kept MEANING to do that and then not doing it, and so when I wrote, it was midnight. And I woke up with a start at some point (and honestly, at that point, I gave up, short for that night, but I had a cushion from earlier in the week), and when I read it the next morning, it was a whole different kind of writing. It wasn’t Bad, but it was Different. I left it. At this point, I’m just trying to get the story out. I’ll go back and revise later. I know it needs a ton of work, if just for basic editing and continuity. Did I tell you that Book 2 (not a sequel to this one) is poking at my brain too?
Anyway. I’m a few steps closer to getting my butt out the door to the gym. Need to eat and finish the tea and then gird my loins in black and cotton absorbent things. I know exercise will help, so I am going to do it, even though I’m tired and have lots of stuff to do before I go to the science thing. Sometimes you have to do what’s right for your body or brain, even if it’s not easy. Motto of my life, I guess. I personally don’t think there’s a guarantee for easy, and I’m not even sure easy is the best thing. If we never stretch or challenge ourselves by dealing with the hard, then I think we are never as strong or amazing a human being as we could have been. That said, I could do with some easy for a while. Bring it.
