Loosening Knots…

I’m trying to move on to the next steps for both the in-progress quilts…I keep getting behind on my self-made schedule. Sometimes it’s just getting side-tracked…sometimes I just can’t find the right mood to get to work. Today was more of the latter, I think…a very moody day. I delivered two quilts for a show up in Orange County opening in January, then went to the quilt store to try to find binding for the Love (not love) quilt.

I think I bought a lot of red fabrics and I’m not even sure that the one I chose for the binding is all that good. It’s a little difficult to open up your naked-lady quilt on the floor of the quilt store when there are that many people wandering the store, and it’s easier for me to choose when I can see it from a distance. My red stash is getting low, though, and good reds are hard to find. I’m not sure I really did the right thing with buying more red, but…sometimes, the fabric calls. I was in a bad mood, so that was not probably the best time to go shopping. Sigh.

Money is such a mess at the moment. The car’s catalytic converter is dying or has died, the upper oven in the kitchen is going twonky again, but in the other direction…I can’t afford to fix either of those at the moment, and luckily neither is particularly crucial. The car will drive without the catalytic converter working until it needs a smog check (I try not to think about my contribution to climate change, thank you), and there is a second oven that works fine at the moment. I can try adjusting the oven again like the fixer guy showed me, or I might need another part, which is another hundred bucks or so that I don’t have at the moment.

So yeah. Maybe I should have pieced my binding from scraps off the floor. I do think that sometimes…what am I doing making art and entering shows when money is tight? I have two quilts that need to ship this month too, so that’s more money out. Sigh. I’m sure there’s a balance and I haven’t found it…probably never will.

I did make myself sort fabric pieces earlier today though…

I love the light table for this…it makes my life so much easier…I used to do this on the floor…

and my foot would fall asleep and it would tweak my back. Now it’s a piece of cake.

It took about an hour and a half to sort all 1250 or so pieces into the bins, one for each 100 pieces.

Lots of tiny little freakin’ pieces on this quilt. Seriously. It’s detail heavy. I hope it’s worth it. I hope it looks good. It does on paper.

I started ironing tonight…this is the first 100 pieces or so…

I was going to keep going but (1) realized I hadn’t exercised or meditated and it was getting late and (2) realized the next 100 pieces were pretty much teensy weensy skelly parts…

And it was going to take me forever to cut out all the finger and toe bones…some parts I don’t cut out until I’m ready to iron them down, because they’re so small, I will probably lose them. This quilt has lots of those. Anyway. I’ll do that tomorrow, when I feel a little less tired. Hopefully. I always forget how addictive the ironing is…it can be really exhausting, but it’s also very mind-consuming at times…it eats up all the available space and puts me in a great head place, very meditative and calming. Luckily, that’s what tonight was like…which is why it was hard to stop and do the stuff I knew I needed to do. That bodes well for getting this sucker ironed quickly. I want it done in the next two days. Seriously. Then stitched down and quilted. Yes. Seriously. I can do it. I think.

Yes, there are other things on my list for the next two days…but I think I can get it done.

I’m not sure the mood is better, now that I ironed some, but there is progress. Progress is good, even when it doesn’t fix everything. Sometimes moods are bad. Sometimes you wish you had done things differently, better, so that you wouldn’t be stressing over buying red fabric and fixing an old car so that it might last another 4 or 5 years. Too many regrets. Regrets sounds like egrets. Too many egrets. That is a better picture. I’m going to think about lots of egrets instead.

Sigh. Yes, I have to talk my brain out of the hole on a regular basis.

It didn’t help that I read this today, Joshilyn Jackson’s Someone Else’s Love Story…

I loved this book at the beginning…it was a great story that grabbed on and stuck. I had a hard time putting it down last night, but I managed to force myself so I could get something fabric-related done. I finished it today and…sigh…the ending. Oh well. I still love her writing…she has an easy, lyrical and descriptive style to her stories, and the depth of character is wonderful, but this one fell apart in like the last 30 pages. I was disappointed in the end…it was too pat, too pretty, too perfect. I’ll still read her stuff, though, and in fact, I started reading her books because I read her blog and she is hysterically funny, and that does pop up in her books. Her characters are quirky and the stories are too.

This story had sad running through it, though, and that made it harder to read…just because of where I’m at. I keep reading advice for the depressed, for those trying to be happy, for how to have a better life, and so many say that you should only read/see happy things when you are sad, and I’m not sure that’s good advice. I’ve been reading happy, sad, neutral all along, and the happy is kind of annoying at times, and then even more depressing at other times…like, why do THEY get to be happy when they are such lame-asses or assholes or fuck-ups? Wait, does that mean I am even MORE of a lame-ass? Yes, the brain ties itself up in that knot and I have to undo it…like the knot I took 20 minutes to undo at the soccer game on Friday night, cold hands and all…sometimes you just have to sit there and work the knot until it releases. I’m really good at that. I have lots of practice, both with thread and with my brain. This knot it’s in now? It’s gonna take a whole lot of time to undo. It’s a thoroughly fucked-up knot, all twisted together and hair strands are holding it together, like something that tied itself together in the dryer, tangled and tight and messy. I’m just picking at it with cold hands, cold heart, pulling at it, worrying it, fussing with it, making it loosen and come apart, a little at a time. It’s a stubborn knot, but it will eventually give.

See. I have hope. I always have hope. I don’t know where it comes from, and it often gets beaten down by the part of my brain that sees the world as all gray and oversalted and empty, but it’s always there, like a weed popping up in a crack in the asphalt.

With that, I’m going to take my cold self to bed, where Kitten awaits…

She sleeps on the pillow behind my head, and when she wants me to get up, she hurdles me, chirping the entire time…over and over again until I get up. Hopefully she’ll wait until a decent hour tomorrow morning. That would be a nice change. Maybe the knot will be a little looser too…

Passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Deep Shit*

It’s one of those introspective weeks. I want to get more art stuff done, but there is so much other crap that needs doing…plus honestly, spending time with the monsters kind of takes precedence. I say that, but I’m stressed about getting the art done that NEEDS to get done. I have deadlines. I’m not a flake. I can’t ignore them. And my brain keeps getting tied up in knots, tripping over itself. I wish it would just get ON with it.

It doesn’t help that I’m still dealing with grief and depression, or both, or some sort of frittata of the two. Even the counselor was trying to decide which…she thinks I’ve been suffering from a low-level depression for a long time (yup. agree. since about March of 2012) such that I don’t know how to NOT be depressed. But there is definitely a difference between how I was feeling then and how I feel now. Now it is just a dead, empty feeling…a constant sad, even when things are good. The things that made me happy, joyous before? Even when I was depressed? They don’t. I keep doing them. I know I have to keep doing them. The art is part of that. I get a sense of peace from certain artistic tasks, like drawing and tracing, but some of it is just like work, and finishing one part just means there will be more work. There is a sense of relief from finishing a task, but not the sense of celebration, hallelujah, that I used to get. I think that just takes time. Some people think it takes meds. I’m not in that camp yet. I don’t see how that will speed things up…it will just put the emotions off, over there; I will still need to deal at some point. I’d rather deal now…even if it’s fucking slow and hurts like a bitch. I can take it. Better now than reliving it later.

And that just fucking sucks.

Today? Today I should be celebrating my ass off. I finally FINALLY finished quilting the Love (not love) quilt…

Yup. I hunkered down a couple of days ago and thought I would be done, but the thread conspired against me and kept breaking and there was cat hair everywhere and I just didn’t have the stamina.

Yes, it takes fucking stamina sometimes. So it took a total of 7 hours and 36 minutes to quilt that sucker. I’m buying binding fabric tomorrow. I won’t finish it until 2014…there’s really no point in trying to finish it as a 2013 quilt…it’ll age out even sooner.

I started quilting it over the Thanksgiving week break, so it took a month. I was kinda lame during that month though. You have to get into the rhythm to quilt and I didn’t get there. It’s not a huge quilt either…so who knows what my problem was.

I also finally finished cutting out the damn pieces for the Celebrating Silver quilt. Here’s the trash…

I’m scared to throw the trash out, in case I messed up and threw a real piece in there (it happens). It took me a total of 15 hours and 35 minutes to cut all those pieces out…

I started on November 25 and have worked pretty consistently on it. The pieces were fussy…that’s why it took so long. Tomorrow I’ll sort them and start ironing. I realized I probably have 40 hours left in this quilt and only two weeks of break left. Insert panic here. I’m figuring another 15 hours to iron it alone…so that’s my New Year’s Eve plans right there, eh? Yes, I’m a loser. I do actually LIKE working on quilts as the year changes over. Maybe it will signal a better year for me.

Insert conversation with counselor here. We’re having some growing pains, the counselor and I, wherein she believes certain things and I believe others, and the two are not meeting in the middle. I don’t think it’s a death sentence to the relationship, but there is some understanding that needs to happen. Meditation usually helps me with that…it seems less judgmental…more supportive of the shit I am dealing with. There’s the semantics of “letting go” vs. “moving on.” I think I’ve done the first on some level, certainly in my head, but am completely unprepared for the second…and probably that will be for a good long while. It’s not just a matter of trusting others…you have to trust yourself, and that’s a harder deal for me at the moment. I get real caught up in words, in what they really mean. But there was the question of what is making me so sad? Is this grief? Depression? Does it really matter? What did I lose? Did it ever exist? My brain worries these things into the ground and comes up gasping for air and weeping disconsolately. Fuck. Just shut up. This is why I go to the gym and read books…so I don’t have to listen to my mind trouble things out. Meditation has been very relevant lately…when someone else does something wrong to you, you are the one carrying it around. You can’t control what others think and feel…you can only deal with your own response…so that is what I’m trying to modulate…my own response. I need peace and resolution within myself. Everyone else can go fuck themselves right now. I just need to give my own head the space to heal. I’m doing that on my schedule. If you think I should be further along? Well whatever. You can think what you like…it’s not my reality.

This all comes back to finishing…finishing things should feel exultant, joyous, successful…like achievement has occurred…and it doesn’t. I just try to fill the empty space that is now there with another project.

The cats have been helping in here…really…

by leaving fur everywhere…

I had to pack up two quilts for a show opening soon and the cat hair was the biggest issue. I dealt. I deliver tomorrow. Two more to be delivered in the next three weeks. These are not bad problems to have. I just wish they filled me up with some sense of achievement. Instead, they seem to magnify the emptiness. That just really sucks. I hate that feeling.

Jake…Jake was farting heinously tonight…

But we played with him and I think he even got popcorn and maybe some chicken. Big mooch. Girlchild was in a mood, alternately happy and psycho angry. It’s kind of typical for her…

I have to go to a thing next weekend and needed a nicer top for that, so she helped…but really, she wanted to shop (and she did, and hey! The 80s are still back and are still frightening). I managed to get her to stop watching sitcoms for a while so I could finish cutting pieces out (I have a very low tolerance for stupid happy)…

This is the embellishment I finished last night at the alumni game…

Not much of anything, but something. I’m grading stuff too, a little at a time. I’m trying to be efficient, to make lists, because otherwise I just completely forget what I’m supposed to be doing. My brain is on vacation in Tahiti and it’s not answering texts. Asshole.

I finished this book today…Hammered, by Kevin Hearne…

It’s the third book in the series of the Iron Druid Chronicles…there are three more books out in this series, which is considered urban fantasy. The main character is a druid, but there are witches and gods and vampires and werewolves and demons and all sorts of good things going on. This was a good book…the last one, there was some argument about Hearne’s treatment of female characters, but he riffs on that in this book, talking about the macho imperative. I will keep reading the series, but need to get through some of the other books on my docket first.

*the title is from Hammered, Kevin Hearne. It’s how many days feel…better than being in the valley, but still in the shadow.

To Settle My Soul

Christmas Day: The house smells of red velvet cake, then cauliflower soup, and now short ribs. The deviled eggs are made, spiced with fresh pepper and mustard (it’s one of the two things I was allowed to cook). I’m watching The Paradise, a British program set in the 1870s (supposedly an “intoxicating love story”…I’m not sure about either the intoxication or the love, but it’s so far from my reality with the young girls falling in insta-love that it doesn’t hurt to watch it), while trimming fabric for the Celebrating Silver quilt. I’ve cleaned up all the gifting trash and the girlchild is cooking dinner. She’s a freakin’ expert at this point, needing zero help most days, creative in her exploration of food while simultaneously destroying the kitchen. Seriously…it’s now 24 hours later and I still haven’t cleaned it all up.

The day is quiet…

We have parents and dogs and cats, but their dad is missing (yes, he’s usually here), and the girlchild misses him. The boychild may as well, but will not admit to it (yes, he’s covering his face).

Calli is quite happy with her new toy…

And with all attention thrown her way.

I stitch through most of the present-opening. Stitching occupies the part of my brain that likes to wander off into WishLand or Depressoid World. So it’s better to keep it working on something.

Girlchild put on an amazingly presented meal, which of course, I do not have a photo of…or maybe I do on the phone. I don’t know. She even gifted me placemats and napkins for the dinner table, plus borrowed matching plates and bowls from her dad’s house (she preferred his color scheme to mine apparently)…

Impressive. I don’t know where all her cooking/presentation brain power comes from…it must be related to the part of my brain that makes art…the creative bent. But I couldn’t care less about food presentation…it’s just fuel to me…although she makes very good fuel, that’s for sure. I feel exceedingly lucky to have her and her cooking expertise in my life. I am a better cook because of her, and I eat better too (tonight’s open-faced chicken sandwiches with pea pesto were to die for…seriously. I wouldn’t even have made them, because it sounded too weird, but they were damn good).

After dinner, we play a rousing game of SmartAss (you know, like you do). It goes on for a long while; we don’t set an ending time (besides, I won in about 10 minutes on the first round…apparently I was a super SmartAss on Christmas Day…probably to make up for being a Space Cadet the rest of the time). I stitched through most of the game as well. By the end of all the festivities, I’ve managed an hour and 37 minutes of cutting out pieces for the new quilt PLUS I’ve sewed almost everything on the wool birds…

Actually, last night I thought I was done, but I realized this morning that I still have two cotton pieces to sew on…

Whatever. It means I start embellishing at tomorrow’s soccer game. I don’t know if it’s healthy to always be distracting my brain from the bad sad stuff, but I’m getting pretty good at it. It won’t go away all day, though. It always surfaces somewhere: at the gym, in the car, during meditation, when I wake up, in my dreams. There’s no escaping it. It’s just there. I don’t know when it will go away…maybe never.

We usually do a family photo with the kids in front of the tree with whatever animals we have that year. This year, we decided to toss me in there as well, because we have three cats who don’t like each other enough to be held by the same person. Kitten is my cat; she barely tolerates Midnight, the girlchild’s cat, and Babygirl, though she likes me as well, is definitely the boychild’s ward…as much as she is beholden to anyone (she really does channel her previous dead owner’s personality). Calli belongs to the girlchild, and Jake is their dad’s dog, but he was better at sitting still and in place than Calli, so we gave him an honorary spot…

There it is…the official 2013 family portrait. I do have copies of the real-live official family portraits my mom had done a few weeks ago…maybe I’ll post them later. It’s sad that I’m the shortest…by far. Oh well. I never claimed to be tall.

This is my Christmas fabric haul…

Mom says I needed more dirt because I seem to be making quilts with lots of dirt in them. OK. And flesh. I’m always using flesh…although I think some of that flesh fabric might be better as hair. And that black spotty fabric…now I feel a challenge to use it as flesh. Or dirt. Or both. Or not. I did enlarge a bunch of smaller drawings at the copy place on Christmas Eve…I had to go pick up my Sightlines quilt, which has now returned home after almost 4 years of traveling, so I decided to use the copy machines as well, since I was already there and it was on my To-Do list for break. I’ll hopefully be doing some of those in January. I copied WAY TOO MANY drawings, but they’re small. I’m worried about not having anything to do. Crazy, that, really, considering the number of big drawings I have sitting around too…and my To-Do list is staggering for the rest of life too, at the moment. But if it’s 10 PM on a school night and I need some art-related activity to chase away the depression, then I should be prepared. I’m a Girl Scout through and through.

I cut more pieces out today…almost three hours’ worth…

I’m over 14 hours in now…you can see the pile of trash is big. I was hoping to get everything done today, but the bin on the left still has a couple of hours’ worth of pieces to do. So I quit. I’ll hopefully finish tomorrow. Then I can start ironing on Saturday. I got all freaked out about getting done…with everything. I’m going in to school tomorrow to grade stuff too. I can’t let stuff slip, however much my brain is trying to force my hand, make me wallow in shit and not get work done. It needs to grow up and deal. The eye-twitch is gone. That’s good. I’ve been sleeping more…although not well. That’s good. Exercise has obviously been a priority, and that is helping. Spending time with the kids is also good…we’ve watched movies and played games and hiked and shopped (seriously, the boychild stayed shopping with me rather than go home with the girlchild…stranger things have happened!). I appreciate this time with them, because they will be gone soon…off to college and then to their own lives…and I hope they do it better than I did. I haven’t been the best role model for relationships, although I have definitely taught them how to get back up off the ground and survive, despite all the shit. I guess that’s something. I hope they have less shit in their lives…there are people I know who never go through anything really bad…may my kids be in that group.

The title to today’s post come from the PBS show I was watching…”I long for peace…to settle my soul.” Mr. Moray in The Paradise. I actually think Moray is a total ass in this show, but whatever…I’m with him on the sentiment.

Keep Driving…

First of all, welcome to the 300 spammers who are visiting my website. It’s nice to have you here. Please make yourselves at home, but stop sending all those stupid misspelled messages that make no sense. Wow. First I typed massages. I wish they were sending massages. That would be helpful. But no…they’re sending messages. Stupid ones. It’s OK. I know how to delete.

Secondly, hello crazy time of year. I’m done with you. Now move on. I’m ready to skip to the 26th. Actually, I can handle the 25th. Everything has to be done BY then, so the day itself isn’t so bad. It’s just the cooking, and girlchild doesn’t let me do much of that. I think I’m in charge of breakfast and deviled eggs…and even that’s questionable. And I’m OK with that. I am so secure in my femininity (cough cough) that I can skip the cooking portion of my life and just be in charge of something like trash detail and kitchen cleanup. I have no issues with letting my 16-year-old daughter rule the kitchen…like forever.

With that in mind, there is this video on holiday meal etiquette:

But I like Brussels sprouts…and you watch too much porn. Yes, you.

And this has made me cry every single fucking time I’ve seen it…

which may just be about me.

Today was the finals for the soccer tournament the girlchild’s team has been in for the last few days. It was tied 0-0 at the end, went to two 5-minute overtimes, still 0-0, then penalty kicks, where her team lost…it always sucks to get that far and then lose, but it is what it is. The coach made some really shitty decisions throughout the game, and I think the girls paid for that. My girl didn’t play much…

which didn’t make sense, considering the laziness of those he did play. The day I understand this coach will probably be the day I die. We’ve dealt with a lot of coaches over the years, and his decisions confuzzle me every time. And I’m not just saying that because I think my kid is better than everyone…she has good games and bad games…but if your forwards aren’t scoring and aren’t even running, then kick their asses to the bench and toss some new blood in there and see what they can do. Or not. And lose. Unfortunately, unless you change high schools, you’re pretty much stuck with the coach you get. So the plus is that in the past, when he pulls this shit, she gets sad and cries a lot…today, she was angry, angry because his decisions hurt the team in the final, and that was just stupid. Anyway. We move on. I’m sure it’s a teachable moment for all of us.

Speaking of teachable moments, Jake doesn’t appear to be learning…

He’s been bopped by every cat in the house now, and yet he still tries to eat them. He would also like to go out and run free for a while, but we’ve told him he has to stay in the backyard, where he barks a lot. Boychild took him over to their dad’s house on Saturday so he could run around there…although he CAN escape, strangely he doesn’t if someone is home.

We’ve played games with him, he gets fed and petted…he gets to sleep on the couch…

When there’s room…he seems happy enough. He’d like it if we’d feed him more people food and take him on long walks, but there hasn’t been time for that…time has been eaten up by doctor’s appointments and soccer games and Christmas-related errands and all that stuff. It’s better than the kennel though, and that’s where he was supposed to be. He’s quite well-behaved with me in my own house…he’s only jumped up on me once, and that was when we were playing this goofy game where I lunge at him and he barrels around a bit and then throws himself on the ground again for me to lunge at him again. At his dad’s house, he uses the couches as his sanctuary in this game, but he doesn’t seem to be able to figure that out here, so it’s mostly just goofy running around. He’s a large beast…which reminds me…one of the errands for tomorrow is dog-present-shopping. I’m also going computer-accessory-shopping, since the boychild thinks he might have some solutions to everything but the graphics driver/card issue, which may be a bigger problem than I can deal with at the moment. He was floored by how many photos I have (49,000+) and how much music I have. Music rules. I take lots of photos. What can I say?

I’m holding emotions at bay at the moment, most of the time. It’s all there, lurking, let out when I see things on TV that make me sad or read things that remind me of why I’m sad or drive past something that makes me sad. OK, lots of the time I’m sad. Mostly I’m too busy to think about anything but wrapping 20 presents and paying bills and making lists and going to the store for the third time in three days. I read this book, though…The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison…

It’s about a 40-some-year-old guy working as a caregiver to a teenager who has muscular dystrophy. They both have issues to work out, and there is a road trip involved, and there is a sad sad story that is woven into the current tale, and there is some sarcasm and jokiness and some supreme horrible sadness, but it was a beautifully written book. If you read it, be sure to read the Author’s Note at the end…it will bring you to your knees and make the whole book mean something entirely different than you thought it meant. “This novel is about the imperative of getting in that van, because you have no choice but to push yourself and drive on, and keep driving in the face of life’s terrible surprises. It’s about the people and the things you gather along that rough road back to humanity.” It was a good thing to read as I’ve been trying to avoid the holiday platitudes on Facebook and on people’s blogs, making the season all the harder for those of us who feel like we’re missing something or that some things in life are just plain difficult for us and easier for others…knowing that nothing is fair and there is no fate and even karma doesn’t really play out, at least I haven’t seen that yet, though maybe I did such a heinous thing in a previous life that this is my payback. I don’t really believe in all that. So I just take deep breaths and keep driving and try to stop asking WHY…because there is no why that makes any sense…except maybe for girlchild’s explanation that the world is full of assholes.

Artmaking at this time of year is difficult until Christmas is behind me…but I managed lots of wool stitching at soccer today…these guys just need their cotton bits sewn on…

And these guys just have two cotton pieces to go on and they’re done…

minus all the embellishment of course. I have about 30 soccer games ahead of me where I can be doing that. Girlchild’s back is OK at the moment; her CT scan is scheduled for early January. Then we’ll decide about surgery. Scary stuff.

Meditation said yesterday that when feelings are uncomfortable, we have a tendency to run away from them. I’ve never (or at least as long as I can remember) been one to run from scary uncomfortable feelings. If anything, I hang out with them too much, let them have too much play with me. Meditation has given me some distance from them, but I still had issues yesterday at the gym, in the weightlifting portion of my workout, when there is no book to distract me. Audiobooks might help…I don’t know. I usually listen to music AND read…I need an audiobook with a soundtrack to occupy all parts of my brain. Or maybe not…maybe that’s me sitting with the uncomfortable, listening to it and watching it and responding to it. Maybe that’s why I’m better at the emotional bits than some, because I listen to them. I hear them talk and whine and fuss…I talk them out of some of their bitchiness. I live with some of it. I don’t know. I draw some of it. Need to do that. Draw. All these pictures in my head…they need to come out.

So I am still cutting things out…

FOREVER. OK, not really. I’m almost 10 hours into the cutting and I’m in the 600s (going backwards). That’s a little scary. I think it’s going to take more than 12 hours to cut them out…which isn’t surprising, because a lot of the pieces are really fussy and complicated.

Big pieces often take less time to cut out than small pieces. More tomorrow, hopefully. I have lots of errands and cleaning to do tomorrow. Doesn’t look like much, does it? It never does until they’re all ironed together.

Anyway. Hope your holiday preparations are going smoothly and that your family is gathering around and the weather is what you want it to be (I was barefoot in the sun at the soccer game today) and all the food is ready or will be ready and someone has wrapped all the presents and everyone is healthy and happy. Or at least as much of that as you can handle. I’ll personally be OK with my kids around me and the shopping done and wrapped and the floors clean. Anything else is gravy.

I Could Totally Do That

Brain is all over the map. My students’ gave me gifts today, those of the hugging variety. Cheap but appreciated. It is the thought that counts. I was reading someone else’s post about their depression and how it affects their ability to do things they know they should be doing, and then I was thinking about the gifts other teachers at school had given me and how I couldn’t even wrap my head around that task (I’ve never been able to deal with more this time of year), and I’m having issues even dealing with gifts for my own children, and for some reason, the whole mess made me really sad…which would have been fine, but it was lunch at school and crying at school is never a good thing. I felt completely inadequate and lame and nonfunctional and sad and useless, and even writing about it, taking simple notes to remind me of how I felt for when I wrote this post later…those little notes made it a bigger issue. Brought to tears by kindness? Or the reminder that I am broken? Or do I just accept my inability and move on?

Depression is such a fucked-up mess. Thinking about it makes you more depressed, because there is no magic pill or word that makes it all go away. When you’re totally sick of being depressed, you are still depressed. In fact, it may make it worse. It’s worse when you know you’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing and it still doesn’t feel better. It’s still a slog through cold mud. Someone today told me I looked great (ironic, that), and I said thank you. Because that’s what you say. And that is one positive from all this shit. I’m healthy. I’m the only non-sick person on my team at school at the moment. I haven’t been sick in the last 6 months, at least with the normal viruses etc. I’m just sick in the head. I just don’t sleep. I just don’t eat well. I just don’t give a shit. Except I do. I get up. I shower. I work. I try. I make art. I read. I work out. I try to do all the things that normal people do…the non-depressed people. The kind of person I used to be. I guess I did that for enough years that I can fake it now. Look! This is what a normal person does during Christmas! She shops! She wraps! She cooks!

Fuck that. I have three weeks off of school. I can make sure I exercise regularly. I can try to drag the monsters out on some hikes or go on some on my own. I can clean the damn house, because it’s driving me nuts. I can try to be OK…whatever that means.

I can’t be happy. I can’t be non-depressed. Those aren’t really antonyms. Happy is not the opposite of depressed. I am sad. I can’t be happy and sad, can I? Maybe…I read that you can be happy your child is going to college, but sad as well. I get that. I understand that. I don’t think there’s something that will make me happy at the moment at the same depth as my sadness, though, so sad it is. Depressed, though…depressed is a whole ‘nother island, further out to sea. There’s no getting off that island until the non-depressed boat shows up to pick you up, and he’s notoriously bad about finding the island. So here I sit.

Girlchild had a soccer game today. She did not play. I don’t like her coach. He’s kind of an idiot. Hopefully he doesn’t read my blog (it seems unlikely, unless he is a closet quilt artist). She’s having some mood-related issues because of his lameness. I’m doing a lot of huggy mommy stuff to try to make up for his shit. I graded during the game and stitched as well…

That’s a whole lot of little blue dots.

Plus she misses her dad. So I didn’t exercise tonight (ran out of time…cuddled teenaged kid instead of exercising…not as many calories burned, but good karma is better anyway I think) and I ate like shit today (not her fault). I did meditate…there was discussion of cause and effect. How does it feel to give someone something? Ironic that, considering the season and my issues above with gifts…I’m having this issue with gifts I gave that were handmade, some of which meant (mean?) quite a lot to me, and now I wish I hadn’t given them away…because I don’t believe they will be treated with respect. It’s interesting the kinds of gifts we give to loved ones…some give mostly handmade, some give all material things, devices, objects that don’t have personal meaning. I wonder if that is a gender thing or if there is some type of person that would be better for the handmade type…one who was more thoughtful. Don’t get me wrong…gadgets can be very useful…but there is a level of intimacy with a gift made specially for someone, about thinking about the person as you made the gift, that I think makes it worth more. And if that is never reciprocated, that level of feeling inserted in the gift creation, maybe that is always a mismatch? I don’t know.

I don’t have much time for things like that…for making those types of gifts any more. I used to.

Speaking of tech, here are the two tablets I’m using now…

The iPad Mini (left) has been around for almost a year and gets lots of use, mostly for reading, but all types of reading. The one on the right is the new Nexus tablet from our school district (it’s not mine to keep), which I’m supposed to use for school-related stuff. Apparently I will be able to track everything my students are doing in class on this thing and send feedback right away. I’m imagining a classroom where everyone is staring down at a device, silently tapping away, including the teacher. That has got to be so far away from reality. Here’s reality…kids doing Snapchat and Instagram in class with their phones and talking instead of getting work done, while another kid shows his table a YouTube music video that is incredibly inappropriate. Some mom complains and the teacher gets reprimanded. One thing we definitely need (besides a case for the damn Nexus so we don’t drop it and break it and have to pay for it, part of what we had to sign off on to get the damn thing) is a better agreement for parents to sign, one that actually protects teachers from stupid kid behaviors. It’s a whole different world to navigate. So I am supposed to spend part of break getting used to the beast on the right. It is not like the beast on the left. Wish me luck.

I told you I was wrapping…just very slowly and inefficiently, that’s for sure. My brain is not fully engaged (hello, can you say depression?).

Still haven’t opened the curtains from summer sun. Didn’t even notice until I saw this picture.

And meditation took place with cat on lap.

Also not particularly efficient.

We had a discussion of saggy boobs today, especially what happens to the body post-pregnancy…singing the boobs-hanging-low song (like you do), remembering a conversation with a friend about the pregnancy stretchmarks (wherever they inhabit your body) being a mark of what you had survived, a mark of the relationship that created the child that caused the marks themselves. Stretchmarks existed as a sign of the good in the relationship, medals for wounds inflicted in war. It brings to mind how we appreciate the aging and used body…the work those parts did. I found all those thoughts depressing as well. I need to go for a walk or something (probably not right now…it’s a bit late).

White Lies by Max Frost…

Heard this song this morning on the way to work. Not sure why it stuck, but it did. Up early. More soccer. More grading. More tiny blue circles (I’m fairly sure I left some on the bleachers at the high school). Hopefully she will play tomorrow. Hopefully I will get a bit up and out of this funk. Funk makes it sound like a good thing, like the music. It makes it sound like all I have to do is get out of the chair and come in and dance. I wish it were that easy, because I could totally do that.

Compare and Contrast

A common school topic: compare and contrast. What things are similar; what things are different? Is there a Venn diagram in play? Christmas 2012: I was stressed, but relatively happy. I was very happy to start vacation and I got lots of art stuff done in the weeks leading up to Winter Break, as well as during Winter Break. I was happy. I even wrote that. Christmas 2013: I haven’t gotten through all of it yet, but I’m not really looking forward to anything…even sleep is kind of pointless, because when I have a chance to, I still don’t manage it. I will be making art, but I do that all the time now. It will be nice to have a break from school, and yes, I’m still stressed, but it’s all coated with sad and feeling bad, so none of it really feels like it matters. Even finishing quilts doesn’t feel like it matters. That’s lame. Definitely not happy.

So in the intersection, in the Venn as it were: stress, making art, finishing quilts. Does that mean those three things don’t contribute to my happiness? Then what does? How do I make the jump from YES, the last six months have sucked big time and you’re really sad, to a new life where I’m not sad all the time? I don’t know. I really don’t.

I know I managed technology issues this year for the big December school project way better than last year. I am a million times more organized. I only almost lost it twice, and in the end, I didn’t lose it. I breathed. Three kids survived my wrath. Seriously…sometimes teenaged behavior is beyond my understanding. There is no concept of consequences in their minds. Then again, some adults are the same way. I guess they piss me off the same way. No. That’s not true. I write off adults like that. They’re just fucking stupid. The kids still have a chance…their prefrontal cortexes are still developing and may still turn out less assholular. Empathy is part of that…there are adults with no empathy for others, no understanding of others’ lives, even when they are very different from your own. Empathy…a pretty important quality in a person, especially in a relationship. If there is no understanding of how the other exists, of how they navigate their presence on the planet, then there is no real relationship, is there? I get empathy from across the planet. Aliens are empathizing with me and I with them…I swear.

The kids and I ventured out together as a family unit to do some secret Santa and other Christmas shopping. I texted to the girlchild (on the other side of the store) about studded leggings for the niece (apparently not acceptable), while the boychild tried to pick out a stuffed animal for a girl he barely knows. Fun stuff! I did find plenty of Zombie bullets (see previous posts), so I am feeling OK about that. OK, girlchild found them. I paid for them. Nerf has gotten a lot of my money over the years…

Two more days of school…my brain has not even engaged with the concept of Winter Break. I’m so far behind on everything…it will just have to be that way this year. I suck this year. I may suck for years to come. I don’t know how not to suck at the moment. My kids are approaching adulthood and are weathering their mom’s suckitude in a great way. They are propping me up on either side. They will be there when I am old and crazy. They will make sure I’m OK in the end…they will make sure I get to make art until I’m ready to stop…if ever. I can’t imagine navigating this world without them.

And yet, despite the suck…I exercised, I meditated, I cooked dinner. I did artistic stuff…

Still cutting these fuckers out.

The pile gets bigger…almost need to just toss it out because it will make a mess soon. I’m at almost 8 hours. Four to go? Maybe? I don’t know how efficient I’m being…not very.

So the reason I was comparing the two Christmases was because I went back and read December 2012 to see how much art quilting I got done, because I am concerned about getting this complicated quilt done on time. In reality, I am much further ahead on my grading than I was last year at this time, and like I said, way more efficient about the technological parts of the projects that were due today. I will still have grading to deal with over break…that’s unavoidable…but last year was really really bad and I’m trying to avoid that this year. I did have two quilts in progress last year during December, although I was further behind in one, but the one I was cutting out had a lot fewer pieces than the Celebrating Silver quilt does. Plus I got out a week earlier than the kids last year, so I had all this time during the day and I got all the Christmas shopping done. I am having a really hard time with that this year, because I have no one around but me to do any of it…and even wrapping is impossible because they are always here. So I will need to deal with some of that at some point. I don’t know when.

As far as the quilting goes, I think I will be OK, because I do actually have a good chunk of January in which to finish, but I need to leave time for photography as well, so I’d really like them both done by the end of my Winter Break. So that’s my goal. Plus start a new large one and some smaller ones. Plus find some happiness somewhere and try it on for size.

I don’t actually believe that I can do that right now. I don’t think it’s an option. I don’t know how to get there.

Someone asked about Calli…

She is still in pain of some sort, although it is much better. We were told when she was very young to expect hip surgery (one hip at a time) when she was around 5 years old, which will be in about 6 months. I think the cold makes it worse for her. She’s definitely better than she was on Friday, but she is not necessarily good. I need to take her to the vet for that and for her belly (itchy rashy yuck), plus take Midnight and her stuffed-up grody nose, but I really don’t have any free time until…um…maybe Christmas Eve? Seriously. Sunday, but the vet’s not open. Soccer tournament, piano recital. Shoot me now. I made rice krispies treats tonight for the recital tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I have to make dinner for tomorrow AND Friday, because the soccer game goes until like 7:30 or something and I won’t have time beforehand and suspect exhaustion by the time I get home. I think I will just quit cooking over break and let the girlchild take over.

But then it will get a little easier as far as the schedule is concerned.

I guess the Venn diagram includes goals for break, goals for art stuff and school. Goals for exercise and healthy eating and meditation. Strangely, I am still losing weight, although it seems I shouldn’t be. My body is significantly confused. I have at least two major quilts in the planning stages for when I finish these two.

But when I compare and contrast Kathy of 12/12 to Kathy of 12/13, it’s really just depressing. There’s very little overlap. I sort of half recognize her, I realize she was me at one point, but I also know I won’t be her again. It’s like floating in space without a tether (no, I haven’t see Gravity yet…that is one of the depressing things: not going to the movies any more…everything is so expensive). I don’t know who to be. How to be. I know I want to do some things in my future, when I can…travel to the places that have always been on my list, but not necessarily other people’s lists. I want to write. I want to change jobs at some point. I want to do smaller things, like clean out my garage and finish my bathroom and the kids’ bathroom (major money issues there). I just want my bedroom decluttered. I wish I felt like I had the mental energy to do stuff like that, but it’s just way beyond my ability at the moment. It makes me want to crawl into bed and never come out.

Be kind to yourself, eh? It’s that time of year. Draw more. Comfort food. Plenty of exercise. Plan a hike with the monsters. Read a book (or 10). Clean a room. Donate some stuff. Toss some stuff out. Take some dogs for a walk. Pie for breakfast is OK sometimes. Sing a song. Dance to something. Comb a cat.

Stop looking at last year and expecting anything. There is nothing to expect.

Resting in Uncertainty…

From last night at an awful hour: “My god, I feel like I’m drowning in tears. I went to bed early because I was so exhausted, and now I am wide awake and crying. WTF? The brain and the body are so disconnected they can’t work together for a common goal: mending me.” So tonight, I’m up late, because my brain won’t wind down. It really isn’t a healthy mix of behaviors. I did go to the gym tonight…left school as early as I could (tutorial) and left a recipe and ingredients for dinner, but said I would deal when I got home. Girlchild has lots of schoolwork this week…but she was starting to cook when I got home. She really is amazingly good at it, and she’s forced me to be a better cook too…using ingredients and trying recipes I wouldn’t have tried before. It’s so strange how creativity that runs in families actually manifests itself. Maybe the next generation will include a clothing designer or a creative architect…you never know.

I forced myself to enter a show this morning; then cried all the way to school and barely got it under control crossing the parking lot. I wanted to make sure I did something art-related after last night. It was a good thing to enter. I don’t remember what made me cry…I often don’t think it’s anything logical. A piece of music, some lyrics, a reminder of something somewhere. Whatever. Logic is not in play at the moment. It’s all about emotion.

Jake keeps going to the door, expecting to be taken back to his house…looking for his daddy. Poor guy. He’s restless. He has been behaving though…no jumping up or biting. Good boy.

My school day was ruled by technology management…iPods with dying batteries, bad cords, learning iMovie on the iPod and phone and how to move files from there to here, setting up my new school computer, trying to set up my new tablet for school…you end up having multiple Google accounts, multiple YouTube accounts, just to manage school and home lives separately. It gets confusing and overwhelming. The new Mac plugs suck, by the way…the part that attaches to the laptop itself is a pain in the ass to use. When is everything going wireless? My life would be so much easier if we could charge everything wirelessly…I spend so much time plugging things in and managing plugs and charging stuff. In other Apple news, one of their commercials made me cry tonight. Then again, I cry at the drop of a hat. No, it didn’t have any jewelry in it. Those ads just annoy me…same with the car ads and the shaver ads. Christmas this year is a little rough. I need to shop for stuff, but have no free time away from kids, due to the ex being gone and multiple events that a parent should attend. No one to help at all. I think it will be a different kind of Christmas this year…I think I will just enlist the kids’ help…I know they realize I am struggling. As the girlchild told me tonight, I’m a downer. I try. They know. They are trying to keep me up. It makes me cry just to type that. Whoops. I read this morning about why some people have repeating depressive episodes and some don’t…something to do with the brain and how it works. Does it take into account the same damn shit happening to a person? Wisdom comes from experience. I will be a very wise old woman…or a just plain old crazy one.

I spent all day at school repeating “seriousness will occur.” Sometimes I wonder what the people in charge are thinking when they say things like that…seriously. We aren’t allowed to show any movies or do any celebrating of anything this week, let alone finishing the damn performance tasks, or in my case, their Project Fred is due tomorrow. No food, no parties, nothing but serious work. We’re all a little loopy, especially the teachers. There is apparently video of me dancing on one of the iPods. Hey. Whatever gets me through at the moment. But dammit, seriousness will occur. (I don’t know when, and if it does, you can’t blame it on me…I will be the goofy one with the Santa hat)

The kids found a new timesuck: Quiz Up. This app will suck up all available time if you let it. That’s the UP in the app name. I’m beating college students, though. I feel really really good about that (no I don’t). I’m really good at walking away from these types of time sucks. The boychild is reasonably good, unless it’s role-playing games (although if he has actual schoolwork, he does prioritize well…just don’t ask about college apps, because I might scream). The girlchild? She sucks at it. Seriously. These things take her down. Brain chemistry. I guess mine is ruled by the artistic bent…hers by procrastination and distraction. I wonder how much of that she will grow out of and how much she will fight for the rest of her life.

So, after yesterday…well, I always learn stuff about me after really bad days (weeks, months)…I learned that I need to make art. Every. Fucking. Day. So I did lots of it tonight to make up for the lame crap of yesterday…I cut stuff out…

mostly flesh and thorns tonight…lots of big fleshy leg pieces…

There’s all the scraps. The pile grows.

Girlchild left this lying around…

Apparently if they send all these postcards to Macy’s, they’ll donate money to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She did one card about her AP Bio grade and another about snow in San Diego for Christmas. Good luck with that, child.

I also quilted tonight…because the girlchild was in one room doing homework and I didn’t want to disturb her by watching TV and cutting stuff out, so I did the other art quilt task that is hanging over my head…

Although I did have a thought about whether it was better to have this piece be finished in January 2014 rather than December 2013…for one thing, I could show it longer…but then I would have fewer quilts finished in 2013…which wouldn’t really matter in the big picture. Who’s looking at that as a matter of my success? Well, except for me, and I can just get over it. I’ve finished 8 quilts in 2013, although two were small and none have been finished since September. It’s OK. I rarely finish anything between September and December.

The cats are all adjusting to Jake’s presence, which means Babygirl is perched up higher than normal…it’s hard to move the mouse when she sits there.

I asked her to deal with the computer backup issue, and she just stared at me.

Girlchild came to school yesterday so we could get to her soccer game. I left her alone in my classroom for 15 minutes and she started writing song lyrics on the board.

I left it up to entertain my students this morning.

I finished this book today…Blackout by Connie Willis…

It’s one of two books that I’m reading for a book club…the second one is on its way via the library system. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, like for the first two thirds of the book. It was mostly WWII historical stuff, although it’s about time travel, but then it got more interesting when the system stopped working right. I’m not a history fan usually, and even less so of wars, but this is less about the war and more about people’s reactions to what was going on in England during WWII seen through the eyes of people from the future. The second book, All Clear, is really a continuation of the story, so we decided in the book club to read both for the months of December and January.

Meditation…it was about change…about being thrown off course and maintaining one’s position, resting in uncertainty…I think that’s what I’ve been doing for 6 months now. It doesn’t feel good, but that’s not because of the change itself…it’s because of how the change happened, which sort of created a reaction in me…this sadness, grief, depression now I think…I think it has moved into that, because I can’t shake it. I mean, I do shake, like a dog, and bits and pieces fly off, and then I get angry and pull pieces off and throw them far away from me, but there are so many clumps that are clinging to me and just hanging on and I can’t shed them. I was so much better at this post-divorce. My anger at the situation was so much stronger and I was so much stronger, and I just jumped back up and into living and forcing myself to be something. Now I just don’t have the energy or the drive for that. I don’t want to do some things over again. This is why the girlchild labeled me a downer. And my counselor says I purposely do some things to push people away, and I say, but those people that are pushed? I don’t want to deal with them anyway. I’m not going to stop being an artist to please the majority of people out there. I’m not going to start wearing makeup or high heels and cute little dresses just because people expect women to do that. I’m not going to start being like the majority of women out there just because that’s what women do. I just don’t care enough to do that. If that’s what your expectation of me is? Then fuck you. I want to make more art. I want to get into more shows. I think I might want to write a book or seven. I want to be at peace. I want to be happy. None of these will be under the Christmas tree this year. This year is all about survival…of the fittest? I’m not sure I am the fittest. I don’t seem to be. I seem to be pretty messed up. That said, I am pretty damn strong. Strong enough to keep getting up, to keep creating, to keep trying to make it better.

Resting in uncertainty…it’s an uncomfortable place.

Wash Down the Drain…

Wow. Boom. Hear that? That’s any sense of ease I had in the last few days. Exploding. It wasn’t really ease…more like resignation? Not even that, because my brain is always trying to find ways around the giant rift valley in the prefrontal cortex. I’m not resigned to anything. I keep getting up and moving, trying to figure out how to get across. Knowing there is something over there that is better than over here, and if I just keep working at it, I will get over there. Hope it’s not a grass-is-greener thing. I’d hate to get across and have it all still suck.

It is what it is.

We kamikazed to a soccer game in San Ysidro today after school, 5 miles from the Mexican border. The sky was beautiful for about 45 minutes before the game…

In all sorts of ways. I feel this incredible sense of peace when looking at the sky lately. It has so many variations, some so bright and clear, others murky and gray, and even more highly colored and vivid these days. The cynic in me blames pollution somewhere…in fact, the red is caused by scattering of light, with more water droplets and dust in the air causing the red wavelengths to scatter more, making that amazing magenta/watermelon in the sky that I’ve seen so often in the last few weeks. Was it always there in December? Did I never notice it? Is it that there is so little good going on in my brain that the skies are making such an impression? There are no good answers. It’s best to just watch the sky and enjoy it when it’s enjoyable. Notice it when it’s noticeable. Wonder why I’m so fascinated by nature and landscapes.

So yeah, there was a soccer game. One down, four to go. These days are such logistical nightmares, they require advance planning and multiple texts for completion. It’s no wonder I’m exhausted when we get home and finally get dinner made and the dishes done. I did exercise and meditate, but I didn’t manage much more than that. I wanted to, but I was too damn tired.

I didn’t grade at soccer. My school-related frustrations were high, and I refuse to let them take over my life, so I have a rule that if I leave school irritated with my job, then I don’t work that night. Yes, this could get ugly, but mostly it’s working. Honestly, will the world end if something is not graded right away? Nope. It hasn’t yet. I always seem to figure it out. I take more help than I used to. I grade less than I used to. I try to be more efficient but also more kind to myself…honestly, the frustration and upset caused by grading when I am already not happy about work is just not worth it. So I don’t make it worse.

Those are usually art nights (OK, mostly every night is art night at the moment, but I think that’s a good thing)…but tonight. Sheesh. Not an option. I did stitch at the soccer game…

I’m almost done stitching everything down on these…I think these are the August blocks, the ones that originally burned up on the stove. I was worried that all those tiny blue dots (and there are lots more of them coming) would be too difficult to stitch while sitting on bleachers, but I was wrong. They were a piece of cake. I almost lost one of the larger blue dots on the bleachers though…found it later.

I got these to this stage over Thanksgiving, I think…or some soccer game after that. Can’t remember now. Big blur…

Of wool and stuff. I actually had two men ask about these…one wanted to know what I was knitting (bang head…); the other asked if I was doing the school logo (which strangely does look kinda like the orange bird body above). People so rarely ask what I’m doing…so that was interesting. I usually sit far away from people, which is how I started out, but then I got surrounded by the male contingent of soccer parents. I don’t understand sunflower-seed-eating people who just leave all their droppings on the bleachers. What do they think will happen to them? Bizarre thought process.

When we finally got home, Jake was here…

Jake is my ex’s dog. He’s here for two weeks. He keeps going to the door, wondering where his dad is. Poor guy. And he’s really not sure about cats…

Cats seem to confuzzle him. They are just a tad bit scary and sharp and loud and hissy. I wonder if he knows the cats kinda feel the same sort of uneasy about him?

Anyway. The sad is back. Was it ever gone? I guess not. I will need to fit art into tomorrow night…it’s much harder when the kids are here full time. I wonder how much art I would be doing now if I had been married all these years? It’s hard to say what life would have been like…it doesn’t really matter, I guess, because it didn’t work out that way. This is why you stop having expectations, I guess, because then the not-happening is so difficult. There is a fine line though between no expectations and no hope. That’s the line I’m walking at the moment.

Back to the art. Set goals. Aim for getting them done. The rest will come. Maybe some of the sad will wash down the drain while I’m doing that.

I Made That…

This whole sleeping thing seems to be confusing my brain again. I don’t get tired until super late and then I can’t sleep at night and I can’t sleep in on mornings when I actually could (sleeping in meaning 8 AM) and then I yawn most of the day. That’s not how it should work. Eyelid still twitching. I don’t know if it will ever stop. Last year at the end of the school year, in June 2012, it twitched for over a month…took until about 3 days after I got out of school to stop. Maybe it will be done by Christmas.

I managed exercise (not enough), meditation (brain was barely present), and cutting out fabric (57 minutes)…

This one was fun. Yes, a spider web…in pieces. None of these pieces are easy to cut…they are all so complicated and fussy. Occupies my brain. Good thing. It was getting irritated by grading tests. Bad scores. My daughter and SIL were grading warmups for me…interesting experience for the SIL, a former teacher in a very different type of school. Maybe she has a better idea of my student population now. She made an interesting comment about holiday bonuses and teachers not getting them…she said, well don’t you get gifts from your students? Um. No. Occasionally. A candy cane sometimes. I’ve gotten mugs, a few picture frames, and a shot glass (yes, seriously), and a scorpion in a keychain. That was way cool. It’s OK. I don’t expect them…it was just funny to me that she thought we all got tons of stuff…she was in a private school in Seattle. Much different group of students.

So tonight I needed to do art stuff. The pile of pieces that are cut out is getting bigger…

Although it doesn’t feel anywhere close to done…and it’s not, at 5 1/2 hours. I suspect there’s another 6 or so hours to go. I wanted to be further along. I always want to be further along. I’m a little driven. I don’t know why. I mean, yes, there is a deadline and I have to get it and the other quilt done and photographed by a certain date, but it’s more than that. It has been for a long time. It’s worse now, like this is the only thing I have…and it has to mean something after all the shit I’ve been through. There has to be something that I can look at and say, yes, that was worth the time, the effort…because other things I have put that time and effort into? They either have failed or they don’t make me happy. At one time, the art made me happy. I hope it will again. Sooner rather than later.

And the pile of leftover bits is also getting bigger…

Usually I throw it away every night, but it’s showing me something. Progress. I need to see that at the moment. Everything else is such a crazy mess: the house, Christmas plans, school, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. At least one thing should be easy to look at and see progress.

Today was easier…spent time with the close family, my brother and his crew, parentals, and my own two monsters.

They don’t make me answer hard questions (much). Girlchild is going to be a mess tomorrow…no cousins, no dad…he flies to the UK tomorrow for two weeks. That will be hard on her more so than the rest of us. Jake will be here, for those who remember his exploits in escaping. We’ll have to see how that goes…hopefully he will curtail his awesome love for me and only jump up on me two or three times a day.

Some family member at the party yesterday gave the two male cousins each one of these…

Which of course they loved…but we decided that the TSA would NOT love them and so they were handed to me to ship to them with their (obviously going to be late) Christmas presents…which meant that my kids bogarted them as soon as we got home and proceeded to shoot each other all over the house and lost one of the bullets, but we think we can get a 30-pack, plus now I know what Santa is putting in their stockings. It was seriously dangerous around her for a while (they are nerf bullets…no real damage). I think Santa is sending extra bullets to the boys too…at least that’s what he told me.

Although he couldn’t explain this warning sticker on the guns…

These are Zombie Blasters, by the way. Apparently you shouldn’t shoot them near books. Or books are dangerous. Or you shouldn’t shoot them in libraries. Or if you shoot them, you will be attacked by books. Not sure.

Anyway. It’s a busy week. I will try to hold to exercise, meditation, and art on a daily basis. The thought of having to cook for real every night and schedule around multiple soccer games and juggle everything under the sun with no help is a little daunting, but hell…I’ve been doing it for years. Hence my stress levels. Working on that. It reminds me that I never had the help I really wanted. It wasn’t available. It’s on my list for next time, if there is one. Of course, knowing what you want and actually getting it are two separate things that rarely meet. Everything is so complicated. I think I’d rather just deal with my quilts for now. They’re complicated, but they’re MY complicated. I can handle that. I made that.

Reasonable Excuses for Weeping

There are reasons why people cry, good ones and bad. I find myself crying when people give birth on TV…the real thing, not the made-up stuff. Never happened before I gave birth to my own. People tend to give you an out if you’re crying at a wedding or a funeral. It’s OK to cry during a sad movie…a little less OK to cry while reading a sad book, at least in public (although I have done it at the gym…then again, at my gym, no one reads…they all watch TV). It’s OK to cry during a sad song (REM, Everybody Hurts), but probably not while out walking the dog. People look at you strange. PMS makes many women cry, sometimes for good reason, sometimes not one that we understand. Pain makes us cry…understandably…but less so for men, unfortunately, in today’s world. Frustration often makes us cry, although more so as a child…not being able to get what you want forces tears out of those ducts. Sorrow makes us cry…true…for whatever reasons that cause the sad in the heart…death is certainly the big one.

After all that, I mourn the death of my parents’ dog, Missy, who had a brain tumor and had been suffering seizures.

She’s been on this blog on and off for years, and she had a good long life, but it’s still difficult to have loved ones die, even the furry ones who eat poop and pee on the carpet and nip at you when they’re annoyed. She was a good dog, even when she wasn’t being good. She had been so anxious in the last few months…the tumor was probably pressing on something that caused that, or maybe she just knew something wasn’t right. Whatever…she’s OK now.

When I was trying to find a decent picture of her (she always looks a bit psychotic with the two different-colored eyes), I ran past pictures of three other animals of ours who are now dead. It’s been a rough run for animals…most lived good long lives like Missy, but it’s still sad to look back and remember them all. She will be missed.

So today has been a little more weepy than normal…I mean, normal for me now, which isn’t normal. Whatever normal means any more. Meditation has been having me ask myself questions…this week, the question is “How would you feel if you knew today was your last day?’ I always have issues with the semantics of their questions…last week’s really threw me grammatically for a while, but the idea is to watch your emotional reaction each day for a week and see where it goes. Obviously, they are aiming at getting you to see the big picture and stop worrying about the little stuff that’s annoying you, but my brain at first feels for my kids, who would probably be most affected. Today I focused more on the feeling that I’m not very happy at the moment, so it’s not that it feels like I’d be missing out on big happy moments. Kind of a depressing thought…funny that…a depressing thought from a depressoid. It didn’t help to look back at some of those animal photos from the past while looking for Missy pictures…there were many happy moments in there, reminders of happier times, and that hurts. I can hope to have more moments like that in my future, I guess, but it’s hard to see that at the moment. Everything right now is just very flat. Empty.

Every day. Even the ones where I spend some time with friends or go to the gym or make art. Flat. Empty. I’m really starting to dislike that feeling. It is in many ways worse than the sad…the sad is hidden underneath it, like the flat emptiness is a big down comforter, but not in the comfort sense of the word…in the suffocating heavy deadening sense of the word, and sad is squished down small and uncomfortable underneath all that.

It’s this feeling that forces me to do art every freakin’ night. And to draw in meetings. And to write every night. And meditate. And cry. Fucking dammit.

I cut out more pieces…

Doesn’t look like much because it’s not…I’ve done 4 1/2 hours total. Sigh. Wanted to be much further along. It looks a bit better if you look at the trash pile…

but not by much.

This is how fucking morbid I feel at the moment…was at a Christmas dinner with friends who are all older than me, and all I could think is that I would have very few friends left in my old age, because they all will have died before me. Awful thought. Stupid brain. But the whole night was screwed up…girlchild and I are fighting about grades and schoolwork and pies. Yes pies. Don’t ask. And white shirts and family photos and Christmas and stupid shit.

I also, though, spent a lot of time trying to analyze why the iPhone 5s is so much more droppable than the 4 was. I have dropped my phone (which thank god has a case) way more times in the last few months than I dropped my 4 in the entire 2+ years I owned it. I’m analyzing the shape, the slippery nature of the case, the size, the heft. It is none of those things. It is me. I am even a bigger klutz than I used to be. Depression fucks up your brain AND your motor control. Great stuff that. New biological weapon. Unleash depression on the country we are warring against. No need for bloodshed…just make them really sad and they will just burn down their houses by accident and run into other cars and drop their phones, and we will just win the war like that.

I managed another batch of ornaments on the tree…

not done. Or maybe it is. Depends on how I feel about it.

And if we’re depending on my feelings, odds are they are predictably sad. I try to associate happiness with Christmas lights and trees and ornaments. I will have to cultivate that feeling.

Meanwhile, I’m going to take my other reasonable excuse for weeping, depression, to bed. Yes, depression is a perfectly valid reason to weep. It would be better NOT to have that weighing on you each night, and as soon as I can make that choice and get out from under it, I will. But for now, I will just carry it around…I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter.