Until the Stars Lost the War*

I did well. It was good. I did all the things. I think. Well, if I didn’t do them all, it’s because I forgot they existed. Or it was grading, and I just didn’t get to that. (and that’s OK)

Mostly, I wanted to be sure I ironed. I want to get this thing all put together so I can SEE it. Plus I have deadlines that are barking at my ankles like a little dog.

So school, tutoring, chiropractor, gym. I started ironing after 10 PM…I’m on Figure 5…and she’s one of the most complicated figures…

She has a torso and both arms, and they’re really LOOOONG…because I made them stretch all the way across the bottom of the quilt.

I didn’t even get to both arms…just the one and then most of the torso…

Also she has wings and they have lots of pieces…I didn’t even get to those.

Geez. This is not a small quilt. But I’m pretty sure I only have about 150 pieces left to iron down. So that’s cool.

Her head, other arm, and all the crap that surrounds her. Then put the whole thing together. Looking forward to seeing it.

Yes, she’s really pink. I tried to do each figure in a different range of flesh tones. Me? I run kinda pink. Maybe not this pink, unless I’ve been in the sun. But since all of these are me, because all this is inside my head…she can be my sunburnt self I guess.

Meanwhile. I stayed up too late again. I was trying to finish that section! Kitten is currently spazzing out under the drawing and trying to figure out how to destroy it.

I need to go to work and manage the last day of a project on the same day as a massive math test. I have book club tonight, which is cool. I might get to iron as well…maybe. I hope so. Her other arm? Her head? Seriously, 150 pieces won’t take long. Maybe ironed onto the background on Thursday? Starting stitch down on Friday? I totally will miss the deadline I had for this one, but I just have to assume there was a good reason for that. Mine, not some superpower’s…and I need to start drawing the next one. It will need to be done early so I can do the NEXT next one on time. It should be fine…they finally did the specs for the next show, and although they said no size restrictions when I asked back in December, now it’s max 30″ wide, which is nothing. Tiny. So I’m glad I hadn’t already started drawing. Need to rethink that one a bit. But that’s a future thing. Not a LOT in the future, but probably not tonight. I have to say I really look forward to MAKING every night. This weekend is a bunch of stuff I have to do and making will not be able to be a priority. Last weekend was the same. Ugh. Wish it were different. I would seriously hermit at home all the time if I could get away with it.

Anyway…finishing my delicious fresh-baked scone (OMG, these are good)…then going to work and trying NOT to be irritated by the kid who called me an Old Ass yesterday (I might be, but he doesn’t get to tell me that…he’s gotta LIVE with me to tell me that). Meditative breathing before dealing with him again. It’s not the name-calling that bugs me…I know he has stuff he’s dealing with that causes that…it’s the constant disruption of other kids. So we’ll be dealing with that today. Fun stuff…

Revivalists, Wish I Knew You

Justifying Crazy

Hello not Monday morning but feels like Monday morning because I was one of those lucky people who did not have to go to work yesterday because of MLK. Appreciate it. Appreciate him more, but in the moment, I’ll take the day off as well. One of the people I follow on Instagram said, Hey! White people! Instead of dropping an MLK quote on the day, send some money to a group that supports people of color. Awesome idea…I don’t have lots of money, but every $20 counts. I’ll be doing that tonight.

Yesterday was kind of a rush. Doctor (no solutions yet), scheduling more doctor, blood-letting (love that), shopping, dog walking…gotta love dog walking in the middle of a beautiful winter day with bright blue skies and sun, but not too warm (sorry Northeast…I apologize for January’s wintry weather in San Diego).

All the greenery here is dead…but further out, the typical grassy hills that turn green after the rain…I’m pretty sure I took this picture by accident.

I love that I do this walk all the time and see new stuff on a regular basis. This is a very interesting mushroom growing out of the hillside next to the trail.

We have another interesting one in the backyard, fed mostly by dog poop I think. Probably not edible.

There’s the green hill! Of a landfill.

We spend most of the year staring at dead brown grass, so this is nice.

After that and making scones (like you do, because you have apples that need to be used up and you can then cook them for breakfast)…I went to my guild, Canyon Quilters, and did a talk.

None of those are me. There are probably pictures of me out there, but I don’t have any of them. Those are my quilts though. I talked for an hour or so about how I make quilts and why I apparently get so much done (I don’t feel like I get a lot done, especially currently…feels like molasses these days). I remember nothing I said. Apparently I amused some, but there was one woman asleep in the front, so it was a little like teaching 12-year-olds (well, not much, because no one was tapping on their desk with a pencil or trying to mouth a conversation across the room). I appreciate the opportunity to try to explain what I do. Justifying the crazy! Oh hell, you know I’d make the stuff anyway.

I was tired afterwards, but I didn’t get any art done all day, which is frustrating. I also didn’t get any grading done, but I’m less frustrated by that. THAT job would take over my life if I let it.

So I got my butt off the chair and wandered into the studio at 11:24 PM. I ironed the eyeballs and nose slits on those three snakes…

Pulled the Figure 4 head off the teflon sheet, and put it in the box with Figures 1-3. There to wait until I’m ready to iron it all down.

And then I ironed the sun.

That was all I had time and energy for last night. I spent half the night trying to persuade the puppy that coyotes were not invading us and he could stop barking. I feel a little drugged at the moment, up too early with not enough concentrated dream time, but a freshly baked apple cheddar scone is making the world a better place, one hot steamy bite at a time. Can’t beat that. Now I just need to persuade the boychild that he can’t eat all of the rest of the scones today. It’s amazing what a delicious baked good can do for a morning.

My plan for the day? I think I’m in survival mode for a while. I’ll let you know. Certainly I would hope ironing Figure 5 would make it into the final plan, but I’m really tired right now and I know the gym is in my future…AFTER school and tutoring and the chiropractor. Wish me luck…

Catch Up…

Such efficiency yesterday. School stuff done (not all of it, but the stuff that had to be done…although that’s a never-ending task), groceries done (except for what I need to go to a different store for today, which is luckily a holiday for me so I can do that), cooked dinner, tried to use things up, mostly successful (way too many potatoes), finished the slides for tonight (just need to roll up all the quilts and then NOT forget to take anything), did the assigned daily art item, graded some stuff, AND ironed a head together. I feel pretty good about yesterday. Let’s hope today continues that feeling. Because I know going to school tomorrow will once again make me feel like I’m way behind (laughs until cries). I do keep track of my grading to-do list. It used to be piles of papers, but now it’s mostly online, so it is harder to see. I still FEEL it though. Never caught up. Never caught up.

So today I go to the doctor to talk about the weird pain that waxes and wanes. Maybe to talk about my blood sugar numbers. Maybe I will get a little irritated about how that shit was handled. We’ll see. Irritated doesn’t really help things. Straightforward criticism of patient instructions (or lack thereof) is probably more useful. We’ll see. I like my doctor. I don’t really want to find a new one. I just don’t think diabetes care is her specialty.

Anyway. So. Kitten keeps me company as I work on the computer.

Or she might be about to eat that magazine. Hard to say. I spend a lot of time on computers. For art. For work. For everything. Oh yeah, you can go here if you want to see a local article about me. They basically have the artists write their own articles and then refer them to friends. It’s nice to see all my friends’ articles though. We talk about art, but not usually in these terms.

I traced the moon appliques onto freezer paper and got most of them cut out last night. Now to choose some appropriate flesh fabrics.

That was actually Sunday’s assigned project I was working on. A miracle. We watched a movie (and the moon!), so I had some extra time. Or maybe I did this while dinner was finishing up. Can’t remember.

After dinner and dishes, though, into the office/studio for ironing. I started by unsticking everything I’d done…carefully folding it up so hopefully I don’t lose any pieces.

It will come back out later. I need to deal with the last two heads by themselves. They’re just too damn big.

The bottom half of Figure 4’s jaw…

This thing is bigger than it looks here.

You can get a better idea of size here…

That head could swallow that cat.

Head done, except for the eyes and nose slits for the snakes.

I needed to go to bed, because even though I have today off, I had to get up for the doctor. Need to leave soon actually. Anyway, I feel pretty good about that extra hour I did…I’ll finish the eyeballs and nose slits today and then move on. Although today is busy, so we’ll see what I can get done. Dogs walked, doc, groceries, talk plus dinner…hopefully some schoolwork in there. There’s a few assignments I just want done and out of my hair. Let’s hope I’m motivated today.

It’s nice to have an extra day off. Helps me “catch up”, whatever that means.

Everything Will Work Out

I did a lot yesterday. I marched. I stitched. I read. I ironed. A good day. I didn’t write, because I had to be out of here early, and I was not a responsible adult who went to bed early the night before, because…well…I can’t really explain that. I have stuff to do and it’s taking more time than I thought it would. As it always does.

I ended Friday with a kamikaze trip home after school to grab the dogs and run to the hills before we lost daylight…

With a little rain in the last few weeks, California gets green…so pretty. see the dog head down there.

It was still damp from a week’s worth of rain, but the skies were mostly clear.

We saw a million rabbits and hares, but only one coyote. Oh yeah, and this guy. Just sitting there as we walked past.

Yo. You’re supposed to be scared of people and dogs.

We were pushing it with the daylight thing, but it was a good walk for all involved.

The days are getting longer. This will get easier.

Saturday morning, I got up early and met a marching friend for brunch. I liked this cactus.

We went down and listened to music and speeches…sort of…while I stitched. I needed the mental down time. I didn’t want to stand. I’ve been standing all week. Two hours of standing is too much right now.

It felt good. Relaxing. Positive. And then we marched…because it’s important that we still represent…that the politicians can see that we’re still here and we’re still not happy with what’s happening, whether it’s immigration or women’s rights or issues of racism in our country.

I didn’t bring a sign this year. But I liked this one.

So true.

These were beautiful and heartbreaking. The immigrants who died in custody as they were trying to come here for safety. Children…

That’s not OK.

We need to be better than that. I hope we can be.

So I did some stitching Friday night during the movie watch…finishing up the August blocks…

So that whole section is done until I sew it to the next section, so I can finish the road and flowers on the other side of it.

I think I have to do the September blocks before that happens. Which I started at the march.

Didn’t get much done, but it’s a start. After dinner and some couple time, I came in here to iron…got another cat done…

And a snake…

And then the arm of Figure 4…

Along with a hurricane. I’m in the 900s. I’m getting closer to done. I’m hoping to work on it today as well, but I have school stuff, the slides for the talk tomorrow, and groceries. So I need to be efficient as hell to get to ironing as well. OK. Plan made. I also suspect I will need to iron Figure 4 by itself, instead of trying to fit it into what I’ve already ironed. It’s getting too large, too heavy, too unwieldy. But that’s OK. I’ll do Figure 4 and then see if I can add it to this. Or I might have to wait until I iron it to the background. It’ll be fine. Everything will work out. In time.

I’m an Apostrophe*

So my gym got remodeled and got a bunch of new machines, so because I am old, I had to read all the instructions yesterday. I could have watched the videos if I had one of those scanners on my phone, but I thought that was even more geeky and old than I was already being, because they were all SIMILAR to the old machines, but the settings are in totally different places and they did different things. Sometimes very strangely scary things. I think that was my problem last night with getting stuff done. Not only did I teach all day and breathe in toxic fumes (oh fun stuff…I should just wear a respirator all day), but then did tutoring, then came home and went to the gym, which is a good thing, but I used up all my extra brain power on reading weight machines.

Sad but true. Well it will be easier next time. Hopefully. If I remember the instructions. Muscle memory. My right hip is complaining about the weirdo version of an elliptical I was on though. There aren’t enough of the ones I like. Or they’ve hid them. I found my bikes eventually. They moved them. I do like the gym. I get to read. I like that.

So after two hours of that and making dinner, it was super late already. While dinner was cooking, I tried to continue the Year of Finishing Stuff or whatever I’m calling it. The Tuesday piece is a wool block of the month from 2008. It’s about time I finished it. It’s called A Primitive Garden (I know, it sounds like nothing I would do, but I am) and all the center blocks are done. I just have all the borders to do. They are all ironed down and just need the embroidery. But like any stitcher does, I’ve ~~stolen~~ borrowed from the box of threads I bought for this project and didn’t necessarily return them all. So last night, I sit down with the first border, and the first thread I need, I can’t find it. Of course. Well there we are. I found all these eventually…

That took a while though…going through every project bag and other random bag I had…stuff like this…

Yeah. It’s a lot of illogical. I never did find that first thread ball. But I found some of them. And then I went online and ordered the others, because for $20 I can solve this problem without spending another hour looking for stuff that could be anywhere in this house. I try to be very logical about where I put things (OK, stop laughing…if you’re a relative of mine or you live in this house, some of you are Differently Logical than I am. My logic isn’t WRONG…it’s just DIFFERENT. One of the colors isn’t even made any more, but I think I found a replacement OR one of the balls I have that’s missing a label is the right one. Either way, it’s not the end of the world. I can solve this problem. It might be the only problem I solved yesterday. And that’s OK.

Marie Kondo would not be happy with me, but dammit woman, the thread ALL GIVES ME JOY. Except when I can’t find the one I need.

Did I iron anything? Fuck no. I wanted to, but I also knew I wasn’t even halfway through the school week and I have a 2-hour meeting today after school and I needed to gird my loins with sleep. So I went to bed at midnight. I also hung out for a while with the guy who lives here (and would laugh at my organization), because that’s important too. This month is a clusterfuck of practices and meetings for both of us…kind of have to work at relationships. I know that.

Anyway. Tonight. Tonight I iron! No really. I do. The rule is I don’t have to do schoolwork at home if I worked for an hour or more after school. Except last night, I did schoolwork too…modified a couple of PDF files. It needed to be done and I don’t have my prep today, so that’s going to make it hard to get everything done.

Meanwhile, there’s this.

The week after the girlchild leaves, we basically walk around and find all the stuff she left behind. There’s also sunglasses and a charger she says she doesn’t really need (but I know that she will need it someday when the other one dies, like my school charger…and sound cord…because everything with my computer is dying at the moment). So we’re collecting them for one package.

OK, off to school. Hopefully no rain today. Feeling dampish. And cold. I don’t do well in an all-precipitation climate. I also don’t do well with no art. Remembering that. Again. Over and over again. Plus trying to be organized.

*Imagine Dragons, Whatever It Takes

But I Was Late for This, Late for That*

Adult brain won last night and got me in bed earlier. Not much earlier. Really not even a win, if you talk to anyone about how much sleep I SHOULD get, but better than the night before. So there’s that. Plus I finished grades before we even went to the airport to drop off the girlchild…here’s what the end of doing grades looks like…

Pretty dang happy. Girlchild will hate this photo, but Simba is kissing her. Last time he’ll be able to do that for a while. Next up? Graduation, a trip to Portugal (for her, not me…I won’t make it out of the country this year), and then work like an adult. Who knows when we’ll see her again on that couch. I try not to think too hard about that shit.

So finally, on January 14, I managed to implement my Finishing All the Shit plan for the new year. I assigned one project per day, and I’m supposed to put in about 30 minutes on it a night, after I eat dinner, while I’m still watching whatever show we’re watching, assuming I don’t have an art quilt that’s in a couch stage (cutting things out or sewing bindings) or grading I can do. Or want to do, because I had more grading last night…I just chose not to do it. It will get done. Eventually. But I haven’t been doing a good job of following any of it, mostly because the projects themselves are very disorganized at the moment. So I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to find all the bits that would allow me to just pick one up and work on it.

So I worked on this, Monday’s project…

Which included a puppy face…a puppy who is confused about where his benefactor went.

I don’t know how many years ago I started this, but it was a lot. It’s from a book called Home Sweet Home except I blew off their calm quiet colors. I have I think 6 blocks done? Or this is the 6th one? And there are only 9. Most of the pieces are pretty damn big, so it won’t take long. Here it is so far…

The windows are all done…they just need to go on. This is about 1/2 way done. So there we are. Moving on.

After all that and the dishes and trying to figure shit out and get my brain on task (a difficult thing sometimes), I moved into the room with the iron…

And I did things with it. So this is the bottom section of Figure 2…and I put the hand in that overlapped it. I’m pretty sure that pink hand is from Figure 5, because I pulled it from the box with the 1300s…but it’s missing the finger creases. I don’t know where they are…hopefully in the box with the other fingers (not the 1300s box. Trust me. I looked there more than once.). I just didn’t go looking for them.

Then I pulled that off the teflon sheet and started on the section of Figure 2 above the arm that crosses over it…

Skinny piece…with another arm above it. For now, I just kept going above that arm…

I don’t think I’ll try to iron that arm over the body now. Too complicated. No logical break like with the other hand.

I didn’t finish the face, because however much I WANTED to, that’s when adult brain looked at the clock and said no, go to bed.

Which is good, because it takes me a while to get everything cleaned up and settled and brush my teeth, find the dogs, settle them, take insulin, etc. But there’s Figure 1 getting swallowed by Figure 2, which is almost finished. Although she has a tree, a nest, a bird, and an ivy vine that go with her, so not quite THAT close to done. I’m in the 400s, so I only got about 150 pieces in last night. Not bad. I started around 10 PM. Only 1100 pieces to go! Yeah. Uh huh.

I got rejected from another show last night. OK. Well. There we are. Now I need to figure out what’s available to enter in the next one. Which reminds me that I still have one out there that should be returned this week…haven’t seen it yet. Sigh. Six made it home…no, seven made it home. Sheesh. That’s a lot. Need to deal with putting those away. I emailed about the eighth one. Usually they send tracking info. Well. Sometimes they send tracking info. No guarantees.

OK, more ironing tonight, but also tutoring and the gym…which bites into that time. All good and useful things…but time is a limited resource.

*The Lumineers, Cleopatra

Come Back Sunday Morning*

So once I start ironing a quilt together, I’m finally seeing the images in color that were in my head, seeing them for real…and it’s very hard to stop ironing. Like to eat or sleep. This weekend was such a clusterfuck of work work work and running around getting stuff done that I was going a little bonkers with no art. So I SHOULD have finished grades last night, but I didn’t…and I may regret that later, but I will deal. And the girlchild goes back to school today, so that’s sad. But I needed some art before my brain exploded, so that’s what I did last night. Put the school computer away, cleaned all the dishes, and walked into the studio. Where the fabric is.

And I started ironing this monster together…five overlapping heads (only one has a whole body…most just have arms and maybe part of a torso).

Tiny little hands that will show up when I do the outlining. I picked a different run of flesh for each figure.

She’s one of my favorites…

Her body is in two parts, bisected by the arm of one of the other figures.

Putting the face together…

I did try to keep them simple…well. You know. I’m not good at that.

There she is!

One figure done…except I forgot she had stuff on her shoulder…

Like you do…so that’s Figure 1 done.

Here’s the whole setup…you can see how big the drawing is…

It’s draped over the ironing board and I put the teflon sheet (or sheets, depending on how big what I’m ironing is) on top.

It was late, but the thing is, when I’m on a roll, it’s hard to stop. If I didn’t listen to the adult brain in my head arguing with art brain, I’d iron ’til the cows come home. And I don’t have cows, so that would be a really long time. As it was, I went to bed way too late and I will pay for it today. Ugh. But I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, and art helps with that. So here is the start of Figure 2…also bisected, perhaps trisected…so this is the bottom part of the torso.

I ironed the first 300 pieces and a bit. Not bad for the first night. I’ll see what I can get done with grades today during prep…maybe I won’t have to work on school all night. I will have to go to the airport. The thing about the girlchild leaving is that she probably won’t ever get to come home for that long again (it was only 3 weeks, despite her claim it was 4, and she was gone for 6 days of it on a road trip)…and right now, it’s unlikely that she’ll move back here. So there’s that. Trust me, I understand needing to live away from your parents…but I still miss her when she’s gone. Normal mom stuff.

Other random things. This bee rode the windshield of my car almost all the way to the grocery store…

I don’t know if that was its plan, but it’s what happened.

This is perhaps the only documentation I have EVER of my dad attempting an artistic endeavor.

My parents were in Portugal on a tour and painted tiles. My mom did one too, but she does art stuff all the time. Dad does not. So there it is…a Bob original.

I was on this couch by myself. And then this happened…

So I went back to ironing.

This morning’s sunset…the rain starts this afternoon and doesn’t stop until Thursday night sometime.

So I was thankful for this. Sheesh. I lied. My weather app says the rain is starting in 15 minutes. Sigh. I guess I should be glad I saw that this morning at all. Got up early! For this. That’s OK then. Now I need to go find my rain gear.

*Portugal, the Man, Live in the Moment

I’m Still in My Bathrobe*

Hey. Weekend. Weekend of work. Sigh. I did some fun stuff though. You should always do the fun stuff when you can. Well. There’s a balance, isn’t there? I never achieve it.

Friday night, I sorted the pieces for the new quilt…

That was a little over an hour…not a hard thing to do, unless you’d already been standing all day…

But I got it done. Now I’m ready to iron everything together. I was hoping to get to that yesterday, Saturday, and that was a no go. I graded almost all day, with a brief interlude of Kitten at the vet for her annual physical, but she refused to give blood, so she has to go back in a better mood. I wish her luck with that. She does not like the vet. Neither do I, but they never ask me to pee in a cup. I guess they didn’t ask her either.

During grading, there are always other living creatures in my space…

Anyway, I came home and graded some more (they’re due Tuesday!). I’m really almost done, but there’s one assignment that I just find painful to grade. So yeah.

That cat really wanted to lie ON the keyboard.

Oh yeah, I forgot…the man was playing a private party Friday night way out in Bay Park or near there, so I dragged the girlchild out…from outside, there’s the man…

Not sure why he’s so blue. It was a good show, but we were tired and came home early (“early”…around 11:30 PM).

Then last night, I’d given him tickets to Mesmerica by James Hood, at the Fleet center. It was pretty cool. But we wanted dinner ahead of time, and parking downtown is such a pain, so we parked at Balboa Park and walked a mile to dinner…

It was good food, although I think my leftover fries are still in the car. It’s cold out there, so it’s like being in the fridge. In trying to get the blood sugar to behave, I’m not eating all the potatoes in the world. I had a great vegetarian dinner on Friday night that the girlchild made, but my blood sugar was sky high after. Sigh. What is “healthy”? It’s gotten significantly harder to deal with the diabetes in the last two years. I’m trying, but I don’t have it yet. I definitely won’t be going vegetarian any time soon. Too damn hard to deal with the carbs.

Then we walked a mile back to Balboa Park (impressive 2-mile dinner walk, eh?)…lots of weird and wonderful bits of the park at night…

From the Cannibal exhibit at the Museum of Man. It was a little chilly out, but it doesn’t snow here, so we were OK. Mesmerica was like an hour of trippy meditation, so we were both tired after…

And this guy again. So no art yesterday. Can I do better today? Sigh. Well I have a bunch of school stuff to do still. And groceries. Plus laundry for the week, and dinner at the parents, and sheesh. So I don’t know. I hope so. I would like to clean up a little in here, just so I can actually iron. And set up the drawing and the bins…and maybe start the first 100 pieces. I think that’s my goal for the day.

I’ve looked at how much time is left on this quilt versus the deadline I was hoping to make, and I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off…which is OK. I have other things for the other deadline that will work, and I’ll still finish this…I’ll just do it with a realization that this month is hard, going back to school is hard, the next two weeks are hard. Yeah. That. That’s why I say you should do the fun stuff.

*Weezer, Feels Like Summer

I’m the Master of My Sea*

Still adjusting. I think I manage school fairly well, until I get to four days before grades are due and now the cat has to go to the vet even though she’s fine because they won’t give her the meds unless she goes once a year and the doc office is calling three times in 30 minutes while I’m teaching and one assignment has to be ingested and slurped (seriously) by three different apps before I can grade it and I’m so incredibly not ready for next week, but this week isn’t even over yet and somehow I just ordered 5 limes in my produce box and I don’t use limes for anything and I have to remember to pay for the girlchild’s college which changed due dates and Whythehell did I end up being the point person on all the college/kid stuff in the world heaven only knows and I think there’s something else I’m forgetting because there aren’t enough post-it notes in the world.

I can deal with all of that. What I really want is more time to work on this quilt, because there was plenty of time when I started it and there is not now.

That said, I’m closer. I finished cutting everything out last night…

It only took me 22 1/2 hours. It doesn’t usually take that long. I’m not even halfway through, I think. Probably not. I might not get this done in time. Oh well. It will get done. And the next one is a giant blank space in my head, so there’s that. Aack.

Although now that I think about it, last night’s drawing is a step in the right direction. Seriously. I just figured that out.

Yeah, last night, after doing some of this…

(can you see the girlchild?) at a gym I never go to, because mine is being remodeled…

I came home, cooked my own dinner, graded a bit, and then sat down to cut stuff out, but reached for the sketchbook instead. Because. I should. And I like it. And why not (here’s why that quilt is not getting done, eh?). And I drew this…

And I just now realized this is the start of the next piece…I just need it bigger. And more of it. OK. This is good. I love it when I have these incredible insights in the morning, when I don’t even have tea in my brain yet, but it’s wandering off and figuring all the shit out without my conscious help. Yes!

OK, and then I cut stuff out, but it was 11:30 PM when I got to this…

And that’s one to two hours right there. So I didn’t start. Because (a) I had to be up early today for a parent meeting and (b) I knew if I started, I’d come home to a cat butt in one of those boxes with a bunch of tiny pieces all over that furry butt, and I didn’t want that. So tonight. This is on the bill. There might be other things too. But this for sure.

I finally finished my cover page for the new unit…took me long enough.

I think I did a pretty good job on Iron Man.

All the rest of the stuff in my head is some existential crisis of people and interactions and who’s here and who’s leaving and how long the ones are here will be here and whether there will be others to take their place and some of them will be far away for a long time and some need to at least get out of the house and some said they’d be around and then argue about what that means and and and. I’m in a mood. I’m tired. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and that’s my own fault plus a job that just does that to you no matter what, so you have to get control of it and make the world your own. Working on it. It’s like when I’m trying to get 24 7th graders to meditation breathe, and they’re wiggly as hell and you’re like, just CLOSE YOUR EYES for the 17th time and then they all do (except one, because there’s always one) and you’re even sitting right in front of one, knee to knee, because he can’t do this without that, and you breathe in the nose for one two three four and out through the mouth one two three four and you only get three breaths in, but that’s enough, because all of a sudden it’s quiet except for that one girl who wouldn’t close her eyes and now she’s flipping her hair all over the place in that way that only a teenaged girl can and the rush of her hair through the cloistered air in the room makes a sound that disturbs the peace.

That’s my brain for today.

*Imagine Dragons, Believer

Time Is Squished

The electricity is supposed to go off in 46 minutes. Or so. The local electric company warned us, so we could save our delicate electronics, which apparently includes this computer. It’s OK. Really, I’m supposed to be leaving for work around then anyway. Someone asked why I write every day before work anyway. I didn’t used to write every day…I wrote every three days, mostly on a schedule. Before that, I wrote whenever I remembered, which wasn’t often. That’s before I kept a weekly art journal too, so things change. I wrote every night before I went to bed for about a year, getting very little sleep, because it actually helped me fall asleep to get it all out of my head and typed out onto a screen. Now I find it helps me set the scene for the day. Clears the crazy from whatever was in my head overnight (last night? sleep. That was what was in my head). It also lets me make a plan for the day for how to get art done. What to do, when and how to do it, what else I need to get out of the way to do it. There’s purpose then. I don’t always get done what I say I will get done, but the intent helps me to do.

I still need to get my cover page colored for work, by the way. I got through this part of it yesterday…

The rest won’t take long, but today and tomorrow are still high-energy teacher days. I came home last night and graded some more, because grades. Always grades. Looking back, although I finished an assignment, I guess I thought the girlchild would still be up when I was done, but she had gone to bed. Sigh. Really I should hang with her instead of grading.

So I cut things out for a few hours…with the dog…

Everybody else had gone to bed or disappeared into their rooms, doors closed.

I was so close. I don’t have very much left. I really wanted to just stay up and finish it, but it was already almost 12:30 and I teach middle school. And they require mental energy. I need to be awake to handle their crazy and even their not crazy. So I went to bed. I was sort of a responsible adult (a real responsible adult gets 8 hours of sleep a night, and I almost never get that…certainly not on a school night.). And I will finish tonight and hopefully get it all sorted. Then start ironing it together sometime this weekend. In between grading stuff. And hanging out with people. And planning for next week’s lessons. Yeah. Time is squished.

But first, I’m going to go around and unplug all my sensitive electronics, so the power surge when everything goes back on (hopefully before I get back home) does not kill everything I own.

I miss drawing every night by the way. But grading took its place. Sad but true…will try to get it back…at least partway.