I’m Not Gonna Crack*

Unhhhnhhh. That’s what this morning feels like. Maybe a little Arrrggggghhh as well. But mostly Unnhhhnhhhh. The whole day feels like that when I do that morning review of what I need to do. Sure, the first cup of tea has not been ingested yet. That might help. Was it yesterday? Did I not get enough done last night? Did some hellish things happen? No. That’s not it. I did a ton of school stuff and went to the gym and then started ironing. Pretty damn effective. No sitting on the couch and staring at a TV or a phone.

I would have liked to get more ironing done, but I think that’s always the case. I laid out the 1000s, but I haven’t finished the 900s…I finished the last figure’s arms. Shit. I didn’t even do 100 pieces last night, I think. Sigh.

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Then I took the other two figures and ironed them into the center of that circle. That was a bit fussy. Sometimes I have to uniron things and move things around a bit. Even stretch fabric to make things fit. And it’s hard when the piece is bigger than the ironing board. I’ve been known to iron on the floor. Explains why the floor is damaged, I guess. So that’s three torsos right there.

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I thought about trying to fit that onto the lower torsos last night, but it was getting late and that sounded complicated. I didn’t have much brain power left at that point. It was late.

So I started on the fourth figure’s head. I didn’t get super far. Well, those trees had a goodly chunk of pieces in them. She looks uber-creepy without a face. Who knows…maybe she’ll look just as creepy with one. So that’s all that’s left…her face, the clouds (with 100 pieces of stuff going on in them), and then iron the big pieces together and onto a background. Piece o’ cake. Haha.

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I would have gotten further if I hadn’t done all the school work, but honestly, I can’t blow all of that off every night. My prep periods are getting eaten up by planning for the next unit, so I can’t get anything else done. It’s really time-consuming. Plus next week is crazy for school, so I’m trying to get ahead of it. And that’s amusing, because as a teacher, I’m never ahead of it. I can run as fast as I can, and it’s still right there, underfoot, tripping me up. September really is a survival month for teachers. Like June, but without vacation at the end of it.

Trying to keep my head above water. The plus is that hopefully I can get this thing ironed down soon…maybe trying to get it done tonight is a bit much, but certainly tomorrow? Then the stitch down. This is big, but not huge. Big quilts take about 10 hours to stitch down. So less than that. I think I might still be able to get it sandwiched this weekend. I should check my batting stash though. I know I have enough to piece a backing, but batting for something this long might be an issue. I feel like I just bought a chunk of batting though. So maybe that problem is already solved.

So I’m almost all the way through the first cup of tea and it’s still Unnhnnnh. Laughing to myself. Because today might be a bit of a challenge at school…lab day. You give them equipment and sometimes stupid stuff just happens. Like I told my co-teacher, at some point yesterday, I’m like “Drop everything and step away from the lab table…hands in the air,” because you put this stuff in front of them and their brains stop working. All they can do is play with the stuff. “Put ALL the rulers down. Now. Before someone gets hurt.” I remember about 10 years ago when I was in a teaching program where we had to videotape ourselves teaching and I went back and watched the lesson and EVERY kid had a ruler and was doing something with it besides measuring something or drawing a straight line with it. I don’t know what it is about them, but they twirl them and try to bend them and flail around with them, and if you watch the video, you wonder how anyone teaches anything to middle-school kids EVER. Because that. I’m sure they wonder why we get so crazy about their behavior. I need a room spray that helps them focus on something besides pencil leads and lab equipment. None of them will remember how to USE it today after yesterday’s lesson. But whatever.

So that’s what today will be like, and hopefully I can keep a sense of humor about it (it would help if I were less tired)…because honestly that’s how I survive most of what they do. I think to teach this age group you have to be just a little bit nuts.

*Nirvana, Lithium

And if I Was Stronger…*

There are people who probably exit a 3-day weekend with a sense of relaxation and repose. I am not one of them. I am pleased with what I got done, but wish (always) it was more. Wish I could move time a bit. Although if I could move it a bit, I’d probably move it a lot, and then it would always be Spring Break…not Winter Break, because Christmas and all the holiday stuff is hellish. Not Summer Break, because it’s too hot here. Yesterday was delightful. I had to put a sweater on at one point. It was the precursor to Fall, except here that’s a joke because our summers come in September and October, so the hot hell just hasn’t hit yet. But I enjoyed it while it was here. Not by going outside, unfortunately…I did work all weekend. I wish now that I had hiked a bit.

Mostly I ironed…I got the bottom part of the three larger torsos done and in the boat, with the cat and the smaller figure in front. It’s hard to tell them apart at this point…but the quilting and inking will help with that.

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In fact, the overlapping figures makes this a pain to iron as well. I originally numbered the front figure first, and then back…and it would have made more sense to do the back one first. What I’m doing is ironing from multiple numbered bins as I go, filling in from the back to the front. This makes it hard to know how much I have done.

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The front figure is the smallest, but has the most visible detail.

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And the arms aren’t making it easy either. I don’t really think about ease of MAKING while I’m drawing. I just count on my ability to figure it out. So in this section, I finished the 400s, did most of the 500s, but also have 600s, 700s, and 800s scattered around in there..

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I like to know how much I have done…it helps me figure out how much there is left. Not happening with this one.

I had to iron the face separately, because I couldn’t see all the parts well enough in the middle of all those other pieces. The teeth were the main issue.

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Then once the front figure was done, I started in on the one behind her.

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Yeah, she looks scared. But I don’t think it’s because of him. I think he’s trying to help. She’s just not getting any real comfort out of that. I’m gonna have a lot of fun trying to explain this one. Yup. Another dream.

Anyway, so I’m into the 600s now, but almost done with them…just his head, I think. Then I’ve already done some of the 700s. So I know I’m more than halfway through, which is good, because I’m over 10 hours in (in two days) and I want this thing ironed down to the background this week. And stitched down by the end of the weekend. In fact, it would be ideal if this were a quilt sandwich by next Monday. Is that possible? Well, of course it is. Although life always ALWAYS gets in the way. The question is, how badly? We shall see. I set goals, people, so I can break them or make them. If I don’t set them, the work doesn’t happen.

The girlchild posted this over the weekend. The boychild and I are pointing out the three peaks…Cuyamaca, Middle, and Stonewall. This is from the Sunset Trail hike in the Lagunas this summer, the one that apparently almost killed the girlchild. The one where I remembered I need to carry chocolate…really GOOD chocolate…on every hike with her.

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I did a lot of this over the last two days. He needs it. It’s blurry because he never stops moving except when he’s asleep.

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And I graded a bunch…although only one long torturous assignment. Midnight was absolutely no help.

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And the laundry had this lone sock. Not mine. Boychild says it doesn’t help, although it is his.

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This is kind of my life right now. The one left-behind sock. Yeah, the long weekends are hard. I don’t have time to go out and socialize, but my head doesn’t do well with all the alone time. I had a shitload of work to do, so I was busy, but not busy enough. It is what it is. And now it’s the “work” week. Because I don’t work all the time. Amusing.

*Ingrid Michaelson, Sort of

It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night*

So there’s this three-day weekend, and all us teachers sit around and joke about how we always lose this weekend to work. We don’t do anything exciting. We don’t even WANT to do anything exciting, because we’re two weeks into the school year, and we need a recovery day. Honestly, I need a full day just to catch up on schoolwork. Because you forget how sometimes you have to force yourself to grade some assignments. You forget how much TIME…your personal time…goes to this job.

And then I am still trying to adjust to cooking just for myself again. I get tired of it. If it’s a day I know I’m hiking with the dogs or going to the gym, I have to assume there will be very little cooking when I get home, or if I know I have a meeting, same deal…so I have to cook in advance. Sometimes I get lazy and think, “Oh, it’ll be OK if I eat the same thing every meal for the whole week.” Well. It’s not. Funnily, this week, one of the three meals I cooked (one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner) was causing some digestive issues by the end of the week. But I couldn’t tell which meal it was…so I really should have just tossed all of them. I mean, I am a science teacher, so I could conduct an experiment where I remove one meal from each daily rotation until I figure out which one it was, but I probably would have run out of food by then. So you know…I just bullied through…and reminded myself to cook more meals during the week next time. I really don’t like eating the same thing every day. And where some people might give up on a Friday and go out, I was too tired. So I ate leftovers. I think I officially have no edible leftovers as of today. That’s probably a good thing.

So a three-day weekend with nothing but stale bread and cheese. And whatever is in the freezer. Sounds good. (It’s really not that bad. I have an artichoke and two kiwis. And an old peach.)

The really really amazingly good and miraculous news is that I finally finished cutting out all those damn pieces! Whoo! Yes, I stayed up past midnight. It was 16 1/2 hours in the end…

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And it looks like nothing. Seriously. All 1200 pieces fit in a shoebox-sized plastic box. I’m hoping to get a significant chunk of it ironed this weekend, finish during the week, stitch down started by next weekend.

OK. That’s a little crazy, but I’m running out of time. I keep saying that like it’s gonna change something. I guess the good thing is that all my calendars just went to September, so I can see the span of time clearly. If I look back through past quilts, I don’t see any that are equivalent in time at the moment. But I would guess at least 13 hours to iron. Really? I can do that this weekend, right? I still need to sort the pieces though. So I should aim for about 3 hours today. Because I have this shit to deal with too…

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That’s three assignments. I have fewer students (knock on wood) this year, although I can tell the behaviors are a bit more challenging. And they got their Chromebooks this week, so then a bunch of this goes online, which just means I can’t see how big the pile is. I’m not sure that helps. Certain things take more fortitude to grade, though, like essays. So I made it through two classes yesterday (well, I had taken all week in class and prep trying to get through one. I really just needed to force myself to sit and read them. I would have been a lousy English teacher.). I plan to do one class a day, so as not to strain my brain. The good ones are easy…the ones that some of my language learners write? Oh. My. OK. Now I know why writing has been so hard to get them to do this week. But how do we get better? We practice. Which then I have to read. I love that the training we sat through talked about giving them complex texts…because I don’t think they can access those. But whatever.

Puppy. Sigh. I took him for a 2 1/2 mile hike, then played Pull on the Toy and Throw It When I Can Get It Away from Him for about 45 minutes. But he still wanted to bring his toy and put it in my face.

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My new thing is to put the pillow between me and him…so I can get a break. Eventually he calms down, but still wants to be in my lap. So I cut pieces out with him perched on my leg. Poor puppy is missing the kids. I know he doesn’t understand I’m tired on Friday nights. We’ll figure it out.

Anyway, I’m working on the weekend post-it note, and it’s not too bad looking, if you forget that most of the things on there are multiple hours of work. Yeah. A day off. My ass. I’m glad to have the time to iron and just wish the schoolwork was less of the work time.

*The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night

My Brain and Tongue Just Met

Definitely a Friday tired feeling. I even went to bed early last night. I know! Before midnight even. It’s like the world is ending. But really it was just to make up for the huge lack of sleep the night before. If any raccoons were on my roof last night or if my neighbors were moving all their vehicles into my bedroom, I did not hear it last night. I was asleep quickly and mostly stayed that way. Well, until 5 AM? Don’t you hate that…you’ve got another hour or so, but then your brain starts to rehash all the shit you need to get done, and you’re like, NOOOO, you must sleep that hour, but the brain is seeing the hints of daylight and hearing the dogs fuss. Yeah. My brain is not helpful.

I did take my scissors and accoutrements to the stitching meeting, which is good, because when I came home, between being tired and Simba launching himself at me with toys (I did play with him for a good long time before I started), I only got an hour in. So much for my thinking I’d be done last night. Ha! Three hours in last night, and I still have a lot to do. It’s deceptive. You don’t think about how hard cutting around a bunch of rocks might be. But it’s time-consuming. Waves are much easier to cut. I have all the waves and hills and mountains to do…plus a bunch of little rocks. Probably there’s only a couple hundred pieces left to cut…but they are not the easiest pieces…you can see how empty the box is though.

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SO CLOSE. So tonight I’m going to sit here and watch TV and finish. Here’s what’s done so far.

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At least I have a 3-day weekend. It’s a post-it weekend though. A weekend when I have so many things to do that I need a paper reminder. My desk in front of my keyboard often has 4 or 5 post-its sitting there, trying to force me to do stuff, until I get annoyed with them being under my arms. One of my important post-its, the one with all the art deadlines on it, got partially eaten by the puppy. It’s OK. I wrote it on the door (on a whiteboard thing), but honestly, I barely look at the door, so I should stick to the stickies (ha ha). I have 3 attached to my monitor, but they all remind me of how to do or access things on the computer that I can’t remember how to do without help. As I get older, this will get worse, I’m sure. It has to be in front of my face for me to see it. Reminders on the phone have to be timed just right, or I’ll ignore them…or not even see them.

I’ve been getting a lot of peer pressure (which you might notice I’m ignoring) to do a penis quilt…at some point, I had this post-it started…

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The numbers are for something else. I think. Really, I don’t work like this. I sit down with my sketchbook and I draw. But now you kinda know how my brain works. I have 5 bathtub drawings, with two having been made into quilts already. I’m not sure I want to (or need to) go there. But I wrote it down. I also have a list on my phone, which is where these will get transferred eventually. But probably will never come to anything.

So things for this weekend include some cleaning, some errands, the basic laundry and groceries that happen every weekend, plus grading at least two assignments, lesson planning, updating the website, and maybe sleep. Possibly an art opening or two. But what I really want to do…starting to iron this quilt together. Maybe doing all of it in one day (I suspect it will take more than a day)…I just want to be in here with all those pieces and an iron and my brain…yeah.

Midnight agrees.

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I need to be able to walk away from the school stuff a little. We’re two weeks in and this first month is always too much, so I need to find the balance and stick with it.

I forgot. Yesterday a woman from this official state group who comes every year to make sure we have enough textbooks for our kids was in our room. I’m a little irritated (or as my daughter says, salty) about this, because I know they don’t go to the “richer” schools. And they’re only supposed to check 20% of the classrooms, and they always come to mine. Last year, I got busted for having hand sanitizer not locked up. It was the stuff the district gave me. It was in a cupboard, but it says it’s not safe for kids (because they might drink it), and I was like…um…sure, these are 12-year-olds and sometimes they make really dumb decisions, but drinking hand sanitizer IN CLASS WHILE I’M HERE has not been one of them. So this year, every god damned fucking thing they might fuss about was locked up, including the pinto beans, because they might put them in an orifice. And you know what she did? Besides checking every faucet (safety issue?)? Came up and asked me if all my lights were on, or was it always dim in here.

I took some significantly deep breaths. Because she just came in from outside and it does seem dim in here when you come in from outside. But uber brightness isn’t a great thing in a classroom either. I also did not say to her (although I thought it), “You’re dim.” Because this law…I understand why it exists. I know there are assholes in education who don’t give us books…in fact, at the moment, the entire fucking state of California does not have a relevant science curriculum, because the damn state hasn’t adopted one, even though we have to teach to the new standards. So I almost told her all that, but instead, I used my superpowers of momhood to (probably quite scarily) smile at her and say, “No, they’re all on.” Rolled my eyes though. I love bureaucracy. I wish we could trust people to just provide the stuff they’re supposed to in schools so this shit wasn’t necessary.

But yeah. You can see why I need to come home and just make art and not think about work.

*Regina Spektor, The Consequence of Sounds

I Look at the Floor and I See It Needs Sweeping*

Oh bless the world, after a long summer of no official teacher paycheck, of scrambling to make sure the mortgage payment was in the right place, of wondering if I should buy this or that because no pay…today, today is the glorious day when not only do I finally get paid, the first time since June, but also when I turn around and give a significantly larger chunk to the two colleges where I sent my kids off to be official and get jobs. Oh wait. College doesn’t do that any more (well hell, it didn’t do it for me either. Art degree. Comparative Literature degree. Not so marketable.). I’m always told to have high expectations, though, so I do expect them to get jobs and not move home to live for the next 10 years of unemployment. High expectations follow in my school, so even if a kid doesn’t read in any language at all, I should be giving them complex text so they can make meaning out of it (someone needs to explain that gigantic gap to me. I’m sure it’s magical. That was this week’s training.). My teacher cynicism is showing. Sorry. I spent too much time being a teacher brain yesterday. A year with no state curriculum but new standards makes teachers a little cranky. Like, I can DO this, but when can I do anything else? Like clean my floors (need to do that) or have some sort of life outside school (it’s questionable that I do that). But I got paid! Well, it’s still pending. So hold your breath that it posts.

Enough. I will have to spend all day persuading kids that writing is part of science. And they can DO IT. It’s OK. I do the impossible a lot.

And in free moments, I dream of working on quilts. I come home and do chores and deal with dogs and cats and sometimes have a meeting or go on a hike or go to the gym, and then I find time to make. Every day. Well. Almost every day. Last night was one of those nights when my brain wandered into depressoland. Whatever, brain. We’ve been there before. Ignore. Distract. Cut shit out. That’s what I need to do right now. Get this quilt done.

That’s hard to do when you only have 2 or 3 hours a night. But it’s happening…last night, my biggest issue was with the two animals that wanted to be close, on me, licking me, biting me, playing with me. I had already sat on the floor for a good long throwing-ball session, but it was not enough. Midnight eventually settled down next to me, but kept trying to lick the cutting hand. Not a good plan.

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And I kept flipping through new Netflix shows, trying to find something I cared about. Eh is all I’m getting at the moment. Oh well. I’ll keep trying.

I did finally get well into the flesh fabrics. So the left side is cut, the right is trash. I don’t throw any of the trash away until the quilt is ironed together. You never know what you’ll accidentally have tossed into the trash…plus if I lose some tiny piece, there’s a good chance I have a small piece of it in that box. I also don’t put the fabrics I used away until the quilt is ironed together, in case I need to recut a bigger piece. You never know.

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This is the side of the box of stuff that still needs cutting. Yeah. It’s still a lot, but once I get through all the flesh, there’s only about 300 pieces left (ONLY…laughing at that).

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I wish I could finish tonight, but I doubt it. So I’m hoping to finish cutting Thursday AND sort them all. So I can iron Friday night. Might be tough, but it’s a goal, and as long as I keep setting goals, I’m moving in the right direction. There’s a three-day weekend coming, and it’s full of shit I gotta do. Those damn floors, plus a feminist coloring book, and this quilt. Plus have a life. Just a little one. OK, straight up, these quilts, my art, are a huge part of my life. I remember the amount of art I used to make when I was first married, before I had kids, and when I had a job I didn’t have to take home with me every night…I think I make more art now. I even had a studio then, and I would go there after work…but now my house is the studio and so it’s everywhere. It makes it easy to just make…especially if my other choice is cleaning a floor or crappy TV.

When the kids were little, it was harder to make art, but I hit some barrier, slammed right through it a few years back. I used to wait for school breaks to work on quilts, but now I just do it all the time. It probably helps that the kids are away at college, but I was powering through before they left.

This is some kind of obsession, sure. I can’t even truly say it’s healthy, but I can say that I don’t mind it. I wonder what it’s like to come home from work and just watch television, to do nothing else. I love making art. I love how it makes me feel. I love sending work off to be shown (well, most of the time…I don’t love the crazy shit that sometimes happens when I send it off and people get upset that I drew parts. That part I could do without. Which reminds me, another interesting article on how AQS handled me…or the issue…badly. Apparently social media is not their super power.).

So it’s good. There should be more of it.

Simba in a rare quiet moment, after boisterously cleaning Midnight’s ears. I think she’s licking his chest here. It didn’t last long.

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Work. Then the real work.

*The Beatles, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (No really. This song came on while I was typing. The universe is in tune with me.)

I Slipped Away*

Every Sunday, I make a list of all the stuff that needs to be done to get me through the week: lunches, dinners, sometimes even breakfasts when I feel like I need control of that (this week? Yup.). Then there’s the stuff I have to prep for school: update the website, send out a parent email (those haven’t started yet), prep for the week, write warmups etc. I grade papers. Yesterday I even set up the gradebook, because that’s a thing. I grocery shop and run errands if I need to. Laundry. And then, sometime usually after dinner, I get to do what I want. It depends on how efficient I was during the rest of the day. Certainly I woke up yesterday with all of it weighing on me, and then I tried to book through as much of it as possible. I’m sure I forgot something, though.

But I did get to the cutting stage last night. I had to tire the puppy out first, so he wouldn’t try to help…

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I threw all the balls for him for a long time.

All the stuff I’d ironed last, all the tiny stuff in the brain cloud above her head, had to be cut out first. I don’t even cut out the tiniest of them, not until I’m ready to iron. But they were all small anyway.

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Doesn’t look like much, but it was about 150 pieces.

It got easier after that, bigger pieces that didn’t require tiny scissors…then medium-sized pieces that are the meat of the thing.

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I got through a good chunk of them, almost 3 hours of cutting, and surprisingly, my hand doesn’t hurt today. But there’s still a ton left. I didn’t even get to the flesh pieces. They’re all piled in the box in backwards order of when I ironed them. So all those inner body pieces, the hearts and lungs, that’s what I’m cutting out now. I’m always amazed that I can look at a little piece as I’m cutting it and know what it is…because they don’t really usually look like anything. But I drew that piece. And then I traced that piece. And then I cut it out of Wonder Under and ironed it to fabric, and now I’m cutting it out again. Somewhere my brain has an inventory of all those pieces, and it knows what each one is. Which explains why I can’t remember anything else some days.

I keep staring at the calendar and then the due dates, and getting a little hyperventilaty. No, that’s not a word. But it should be.

I think I can finish it, but I’m not sure. And there are two standing right on top of it when I finish.

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I didn’t mean to have so many due dates on top of each other. I’ve already ditched another one and revised one of the ones I can’t ditch. But that one got doubled up when I wasn’t looking. Long story. A collaboration I need to get started on…and then one I’m going to simplify…which is what this pre-drawing is for.

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I’m going to draw it bigger, but then I think I’m going to be taking some short cuts. Using a real sheet. Not quilting it maybe. I can quilt it later, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be quilted for this show. I need an old sheet first though. Thrift shop. No pattern, solid color, gray, blue, green, but muted. I think.

Anyway. The brain is working on it. The rest of the brain needs to get to school and figure out the teaching part. Which includes a 2-hour staff meeting after school. I wish they’d figure out that the second hour is a waste of time, because we are all completely checked out. I guess I can grade stuff. Then maybe I won’t have to do that tonight at home. Plan.

*Boston, More Than a Feeling (I never knew the words to this one…always thought it was “I see my derriere walking away.” Which makes no fucking sense, I know. But whatever.)

Tell Me Why It’s So*

Hey. First Friday of the school year. I’ve almost survived the first week. It’s gonna be a challenging year. Which is why I’ve come home every single day and launched myself into artmaking as soon as I could. I’ve walked dogs and gone to the gym and done some ball throwing and general lying on the floor so dogs could check in, but mostly, I’ve come home and made art. Luckily there’s been food in the fridge, so I haven’t had to do a lot of cooking.

And some time Wednesday night, my brain released most of the crap about AQS and their statement (I had already released the censorship part…it’s just irritating stupid crap that I will keep running into as long as I make the art that’s in my head). I’m in serious Fuck You mode on all of it now. I briefly considered making a quilt of a certain AQS high muckymuck with a penis coming out of her head, and then I grew up and continued on.

OK. I still have that image in my head, but I don’t have to make that quilt. Honestly, I don’t have time. And I don’t care enough about it to do that. I have a million other deadlines I’m dealing with right now, and I want those quilts NOT to be reactions to this, although the censorship angle…it works for a show I’m hoping to be in next Spring. So maybe that’s where I go. I was going that direction anyway. Honestly, so much of my work is feminist and/or based on women’s lives and experiences, that all this focus on a penis that was never there is kind of a slap in the feminist face. Or a highly amusing, ironic event that got my work some eyeballs they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten. So there we are. Come for the imaginary penis! Stay for the real art!

This is how I keep my head straight. Well, as straight as it ever is.

Yeah, I saw SAQA’s statement. I saw it ahead of time. I honestly think they are trying to make all this work. I really really don’t want them to pull the whole exhibit because of this. And I am still concerned, because I think my work will still be an issue…and I know that because it’s pretty recognizable, there are probably jurors who will see it and think, um, do I want a Nida quilt in this show? And they’ll decide no. But they probably would have said no anyway. So thanks to the jurors who say yes. And I’m OK with the jurors who say no because it doesn’t fit. Because that happens. But yeah, the gut is still concerned. The brain has a tiny bit that worries all the time. Well. A not-so-tiny bit. I’ve told it to shut up and have a margarita and get back to me when it wants to worry about real shit, like paying for college.

I do exhibit in art shows too…but that’s a challenge as well. So. I guess I’m up for some more challenges. Bring it.

If it seems like I’m ironing all the time at the moment, it’s because I am. I have not organized this for two days. Wait. That’s not true. I organized it right before I started ironing because I couldn’t find anything.

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And it’s messy again. That’s my real issue with cleaning.

Kitten sat in the box and squished all the pieces down. I kicked her out, turned around, and she was back in it. Sigh. So it looks like less than yesterday, but I did all that detail stuff…hearts and veins and tattoos and lungs and hair and I don’t even know what else. A knife.

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I still have a rocket to do (they keep showing up in the last few quilts)…and the top part of the main figure’s face, because it’s not flesh colored. And then the clouds and everything (fucking tiny pieces) in them. So I realized this morning I really only have about 150 pieces left. I can do that. Not right now. Even though I’m already exhausted. And it’s morning and I have to get through a Friday with 140 7th graders on their first real lab day. Yeah. I’ll be FRESH when I get home. And after I go hang out with gamer buddies and maybe play games. Uh huh. No really. I usually do work on Friday nights too.

It’s a big quilt. Not as big as the last one. Taller than I am. Not that that means much.

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My students make cover pages for each science unit, and I always do one too. The girlchild says this is weirder than usual. The snake happened because I had this empty space and the kids said, “you’ve been talking about snakes getting loose all week…where’s your snake?” So I drew one. But he was up in the air, so he needed wings. And then he was too fat in the middle, so he must have just eaten. Probably shouldn’t fly so soon after eating.

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I kept calling the mad scientist female, and they were convinced it was a man. Oh my. Well we will have to change some of that shit this year. Yes children. Girls SCIENCE. That’s why she has pink pants. Because I would never wear pink pants, but in their minds, a male never would either, so they HAVE TO SEE HER as a woman. And I didn’t even give her boobs and a uterus. Ha! Yes. I think that hard about what I teach and how I teach it.

So today, we will science. And hopefully I will have more patience than yesterday.

The dogs aren’t helping. This is a brief moment of quiet truce. Otherwise it’s been chaos.

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I love making art. I love drawing. I love picking fabrics. I love ironing it all together and seeing the image appear. I love adding the stitching line and waiting for the official photographs. I love coming home almost every night and coming in here to iron or sew, or sitting on the couch with a pile of pieces that need to be cut out or with a binding that needs sewing. That’s the shit I need to remember. I love all that more than I love mailing it off for a show. Really. I do.

Thanks again for all the comments. I’m buried and overwhelmed with trying to answer all of them, but know that I’ve seen them. And they mean something to me.

*Tom Waits, Tell Me

Out of the Doubt That Fills My Mind*

Rough night. Dropped boychild at the airport after the first day of teaching. Too much standing and talking after a summer of…well I did stand a lot when ironing, but it didn’t feel as bad as yesterday. And the talking. And the interactions with people. I know, it’s funny that I’m a teacher and an introvert, but once you get to know the kids, it’s more like dealing with friends or family than just being bombarded with a million new folks. I can see some of the kids feel the same way after a nice quiet summer of doing whatever they wanted. Plus not getting to pee when you need to…that’s always an adjustment.

So I’m sad to send my own kids back to college, but it is what it is. This is what they’re supposed to do. I do miss them pretty horribly today though.

I’m rushed this morning, so this will have to be fast. I’m still amazed by all the commentary roiling around the internet about the quilt with no penis. I have never heard from AQS…I suspect I never will.

Meanwhile, back here in my studio, I keep making stuff. A friend liked an owl buried in the middle of the most recent Earth Mother (I’ll post her pics tomorrow) and wanted it pulled out on its own for a commission. I’ve spent all summer kinda flaking on it, mostly because I wanted to make it a certain way for the Earth Mother and I wasn’t sure it was gonna work for a piece on its own. So I waited until I knew she’d seen it in those fabrics etc. and she was OK with it (she was).

Yesterday, I finished cutting out all the pieces (and promptly lost one…like a boss)…

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And then started ironing it together…

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Here’s all the wing pieces lined up in order for easy ironing…

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Two wings…

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See the internal debate was that striped fabric for the wings…and I decided it worked.

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Now she just needs to pick a background color. I photographed it on a bunch of backgrounds last night, but I don’t have time to resize them all this morning, so I’ll hopefully do that for her tonight and let her choose.

And then I can start picking fabrics for the new quilt tonight, after I walk the dogs, figure dinner out, scan all the coloring book drawings that are coming in for something you’ll see in a bit,…oh…and I forgot. Probably collapse on the couch at some point. Timed naps are useful.

By the way, this owl has no penis. In case you’re looking for that.

*Howie Day, Collide

Back Off…I’ll Take You On*

Sits down. Throws toy for dog. Takes a sip of hot tea, even though it’s been over 100 degrees here for days. Back to the school routine. Alarm at 6:30 AM. Brain already awake, worried that I’ve forgotten something. Trying to remember to eat, because my body has to get retrained on no bathroom for 4 hours, no food until noon, standing for hours, talking nonstop (at least for today). Saying the same thing 5 times to 5 different sets of faces. I know how tired I’ll be at the end of it. Voice scratchy, feet aching. And mourning the loss of more freedom. BUT. A paycheck this month. It’s been a while. That will be nice.

Girlchild Face-timed last night…not to see me and the boychild, but to see the dogs.

The quilt saga continues, in a crazy wonky way. I got an email yesterday morning that AQS had shipped both quilts to SAQA. Their reasoning? Not overtly that they were worried there would be complaints, but because everyone else in the exhibit had 2 quilts and now I only had 1. Um. That’s because of You Guyz. Surely I can send another one? Oh no. A friend said maybe they were worried my quilt would be lonely. Does she look lonely?

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Fuck no. She doesn’t. She’s got this. Strong woman. Can hang alone.

I posted about it, after I sat alone in my classroom (I had to be at school yesterday, even though I was mostly done setting up) and cried a little. Cried because my kid is gone, the other leaves today, I’m frustrated that I keep banging my head against all these solid rock establishments…the quilt world, the Quilt Police, the art world, the anti-art people, the anti-craft people. This is crazy. And it hurts.

I make most of my work completely alone, mostly in my head. I’m fairly isolated from a community of makers. I belong to one quilt guild, but they’re awfully traditional. I don’t need to take classes. I live out in the boonies. And honestly, I’m an introvert, not much of a joiner, not a socializer. I’d really rather be in my head with my drawings and the fabric.

So I appreciate all the people checking in. Last night, at some point, I stopped trying to answer all the emails. I’ll try again after school today, because some of you have written some truly nice and funny stuff. I did get one email from a woman who interviewed me for a podcast last night, and as soon as she gets it ready to go, I’ll post all that info here, so you can listen to me and figure out how to pronounce my name right. I just know y’all are going around saying it wrong. (like it matters) But it was really nice to talk to someone who had seen the quilt in Grand Rapids before it came down and wanted me to talk about what happened. Total stranger before that, but sort of cathartic to get it out.

In other awesome yesterday news, Maddie Kertay of BadAss Quilter’s Society fame and owner of SPOOL in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was willing to exhibit the two quilts during September, so I got SAQA to set up shipping directly to her. So if you are going to Chattanooga to see the AQS show (and I really don’t want people NOT to go because of this…go see and celebrate the other artists there. They deserve it.), then stop by SPOOL as well. Maddie wrote about the issue here. And my quilting friend Judy Kurpich wrote about it here. Sometimes other people’s words are better than mine.

So yeah, the world is coming out and supporting me, and that’s cool.

And I keep going. Making. Because it’s what I do to stay sane.

I said I was going to clean up the office/studio, and I did…

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I forgot to photograph the piles when I started. There were many more of them. All the fabrics from the last quilt, plus the stuff my SIL sent. They all needed to be put back in the drawers. It took about an hour to get everything straightened out, and at that point, after being on the phone for quite a while, I was tired. Honestly, too tired to start picking fabrics for the big quilt, although I did set up for that.

See, she’s ready to go.

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And then I remembered I had this easy little guy, the owl from the most recent Earth Mother…a commission. So I had just picked up that quilt from the photographer on Monday. I pulled it out and realized I had just put all those fabrics away. Dammit. Sigh. So I found them again…

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And I laid out all the pieces (there’s only 103)…

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Ironed them all down…and started cutting them out.

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So I’m almost done with that. Hoping to maybe iron it together tonight and then give the future owner some background choices. Then maybe I can get my head around the big one.

So this sugar packet has been lying in the driveway for weeks. It’s the girlchild’s. I’m leaving it there until she gets back.

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Empty nests. Suck.

At school, I was kinda done with everything, and pacing around because of the email about the quilts, and not very focused, but I was supposed to try to draw this spiral of life thing that I do in the classroom…so I started…

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This is what I usually do with the kids…to show what we learn in 7th grade versus all the other grades, and how they’re all connected.

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I brought it home to work on it, but that didn’t happen.

This did. Kitten and Simba are wary of each other.

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In the end, Kitten comes up and sleeps on the keyboard, thus altering Google Docs forever. I come in and my school calendar has 7800 equal signs in it, because she was lying on that key.

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She doesn’t care about all that.

To school. My job. Art when I get home, after I take the boychild to the airport. Then it’s just me and the menagerie and my art.

*Trapt, Headstrong

I Like Having a Detachable Penis*

Really I don’t know how I didn’t think of this song earlier. So yesterday was the first day for teachers to be back at school, which basically means a 6-hour-long staff meeting. About halfway through the first long stretch, I get the email from SAQA telling me that AQS has pulled I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket (or for that matter, not showing a penis) from the last of the two shows it was supposed to be in, Chattanooga and Des Moines. Understand that I’m already tired and stressed from starting school, and I vacillate between angry as hell, really frustrated with reactions to my art, and incredibly depressed about the possibility of even more restrictions on my work. There are venues where I can’t show my work even now, and there’s even issues with the art world accepting quilts as art. “It’s fabric? Then it’s a CRAFT.” Huh. Last I looked, canvas is fabric. But whatever. These are not new issues. This has all happened before, multiple times. There are magazines that won’t show my work as well, which is annoying. And no, I’m not the only one. By far.

But dammit, I want that all to change.

So I was upset. Still am. But not so upset to stop working on the next quilt. In fact, I’m powering through it because of upcoming deadlines. I honestly appreciate all the positive and uplifting comments I get from y’all. One comment yesterday I had to read aloud to the other teachers at lunch because it almost made me cry. Granted, I’m a hormonal menopausal mess, so stupid shit makes me cry. It helps…because then I feel less alone, less like I’m standing at the end of a hallway with all my work piled up around me as the door gets slammed in my face. No! You will NOT show your work!

Life Jacket was drawn around the time of the Gulf oil spill…

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That guy. Yelling at her.

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“You’re doing it wrong!”

Not a penis.

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Sigh. The second part of the email is where SAQA let me know that they asked AQS to commit to not pulling my other piece, Fully Medicated (which has had no complaints lodged against it), for the rest of the circuit. AQS is thinking about that. They Have to THINK About It. I’m really unhappy about that. They accepted the special SAQA exhibit as part of their show. They should stand behind it. Or not accept it in the first place.

Either you show art, or you admit you can’t handle it.

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I’m still waiting to hear back on that level of crazy.

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It’s funny, because years ago, when I was first starting out, I preferred the AQS magazine over Quilters Newsletter Magazine, because they had more arty articles about quilt techniques. QNM seemed to be mostly traditional stuff. But QNM has backed me for years; they have posted pictures of my work, and then backed it up in the Letters section when people freaked out about those pictures. I stopped being a member of AQS years ago, when I grew out of it, but I kept my QNM subscription all this time.

I just want AQS to feel some pressure from the quilt world. I don’t want people to not go to the shows, because that hurts the other artists as well. I want them to go and then complain to the organizers. Or email AQS and let them know they don’t support censorship. I still want them to go and see the shows and buy from the vendors, and maybe, just maybe, go check out the SAQA exhibits and see what tickles their fancy.

They pulled the quilt because one person complained about something that wasn’t there. I want to be more than one person complaining about their actions.

No, AQS has not contacted me. I doubt they will. And I may be blacklisted from their shows from here on out. Someone brought up the fact that the quilt that was at the Mancuso show where a woman not only complained, but called Fox News, who showed up and called me a pornographer…the Mancusos left the work hanging. And left it in the traveling exhibit for the remainder of the shows. I’m sure I caused them some stress, but I probably also got them some tickets sold. And there were no issues at any of the other shows

So yesterday, after being at school all day, tired and stressed, affected by all this shit, I sat down and cut out the rest of the Wonder Under for the new quilt…

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About 9 1/2 hours total. Tonight, I’ll sort them and maybe get my office cleaned up enough to start picking fabrics. I have a really tight schedule on this one…

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I also prepped a science lab for later this month…black boxes. Each box has a piece of cardboard and a marble, and they get taped shut. There are four versions, with different shapes of cardboard and/or locations. The cats did not help.

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What science teachers do at home to get ready for the school year.

Simba is being a sweetheart, sitting on the boychild…who is leaving in two days.

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I miss the girlchild already. OK. Gotta go to work and get my classroom ready for the 150 or so 7th graders who will show up Thursday. Then come home and make art that makes people freak out. Or love it. Or even just go “Huh.” And walk on by.

*King Missile, Detachable Penis