Do It or Lose It

I’m getting there. I managed yesterday better, although I woke up to chaos this morning. About 6 emails that had to be dealt with right now. RIGHT NOW. Which is why I’m running late.

I meditated last night, although my brain was all over the place. And then I drew. I did financial aid stuff before that…almost done…woo hoo! Three more things to scan and submit on one kid, the other kid stuff finally came through this morning, so I’ll do it tonight. This stuff is so stressful, my brain wants to explode.

So meditation reined the brain in a little bit. Maybe. Because then I got up and I drew…I finished the earth on the bottom…

Hard to see, but I tried really hard to not make a bunch of tiny things on there. Really hard.

Then I went back up to the torso, staring at the other boob. I had been looking at leopards and jaguars and cheetahs, but the spots…holy moley, the spots. And I couldn’t find the picture I wanted. The pose. I don’t know. I just wasn’t sold. I’ve done lots of lions. Female lions are just gorgeous creatures, so strong and determined, although I hate when they watch a new male come in and kill their babies. Yes, I’ve watched every episode of Big Cat Diary…like 7 times. I miss that show.

Anyway. So I went to tigers…because the stripes can be kept simple, and in a piece like this, where there’s already a ton of detail, I don’t need to be making 100 spots on a leopard.

I added the other lung, decided to continue the grass just under the neckline instead of putting something different on the other side, and then put a prickly pear cactus above the tiger to fill in that space.

What you can’t see here is that I have one arm and then the rest of the torso, which will include a uterus this time around, because when I make things for myself instead of for shows, I don’t have to worry about the nudity. I even added a nipple on the tiger, to be done in fur colors.

I’m enjoying drawing this. It’s soothing. I can’t say falling asleep or staying asleep are getting better for me, but I think that’s hormones and stress more than anything else. So exercise, meditation, drawing or making art in some way. Deep breathing when necessary. Get done with stupid stuff that stresses me out and that will help. Ignore all the people who are stressing me out (whoops, that’s half of my students right now and about 17 other adults) and hang out with those who don’t. Or hang out with the dog and the cats, because they’re demanding in their own way, but it’s pretty basic needs…pet me, feed me.

At least I’ve figured out where art fits in all that…do it or lose it.

Make Art or Die

Hi. In about 4 days, all the financial aid stuff will be done and I will no longer feel like ripping my eyeballs out of my head and mailing them to Cornell and Brandeis…along with my ex’s entrails. Seriously. I went to the gym late last night (long day, couldn’t get up off the couch for a while) and then cooked a new dinner that tastes OK but cooks like a natural disaster. Then I came in here and tried to finish up all the financial aid for the boychild (still not done…because it’s a giant fucked up mess, that’s why).

So did I get any art done? Fuck no. I looked at the clock and it was almost midnight and I just went to bed. Frustrated. Irritated. Woke up to texts and emails and more financial aid crap and realized I was grinding my teeth. Really. I love this stuff. The smartest thing I did was buy a new printer that actually scans multi-page documents into a PDF file (I know y’all are going, Kathy…they’ve been doing that for a while…but you don’t know how old my last printer and scanner were). This was joy compared to last year. At least that part of it.

The place my brain goes on the stress-o-meter though. Tonight I NEED to draw. Or something. Yes, I have 7 other things on the to-do list tonight that have nothing to do with art. Dammit. Quickly evaluating what can be put off…at least two of them. Maybe. Sigh.

In four days it will be done. Maybe sooner. I love all these happy-go-lucky slide shows and videos you see about how you make your own happiness and stress can kill you and take control of your response. Oh. OK. Except I go straight into fight or flight and then have to meditate myself back down into semi-stressed. I’m trying to do that RIGHT NOW. Except I have to go to work and that’s not a stress-free place at all. It’ll be fine.

This was cool. This made my day…except I got it last week and didn’t even look at it. So it was a nice surprise on Sunday when I finally did.

Yeah. That’s my quilt cropped on the front of the postcard. It’s a cool crop too. I’m pleased.

See. Think about the card. Not the financial aid. Not the other crap. The card. THE CARD.

The opening is June 25 at the Oceanside Museum of Art. I don’t have a time yet I think.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been watching all these home renovation shows and it’s making me irritated about my own house, but I can’t afford the money right now, let alone the time. So I keep watching, instead of switching over to the cooking programs, which make me think I should’ve been able to flip those damn quesadillas last night without causing a mess. That’s why I end up on the sci fi channel so much! It doesn’t make me feel bad. Aliens? I can handle aliens. And zombies and the X team. No problem. Bring it.

OK, long day at school, at least one contentious meeting and then tutorial, which mostly drives me nuts, so there we are. A goal for later on, though. Make art or die! OK. Maybe just make art. Ignore the silly videos with their dire warnings. They actually stress me out more.

Look. There was a tshirt. But no longer.

I Need to Listen…

Really I should listen to myself. I flailed all Saturday morning, rightfully so, wrote the blogpost, and finally got a shower, but worked…on school stuff…for the rest of the day until about three, when I headed out for some openings…one art, one music…well…sound anyway. And then yesterday, I worked almost all day and then did financial aid documents for about 2 1/2 hours before I wanted to scream. I am missing three pieces of information that have to come from the boychild, I need two signatures from him and one from his dad, and then I need to upload a bunch of stuff. Then I’m done. DONE. I’m getting faster and more efficient at filling out this bullshit, but I still hate hate hate it.

So at 11:09 PM, I had been grinding my teeth for almost two days straight, and I was gonna explode. I didn’t sleep well Saturday, so I thought about going to bed, but I wasn’t anywhere near tired. I was wired instead. Close. One-letter difference. That letter is a biggie.

OK. Let’s draw.

I’d like to say the drawing slowed my brain down and calmed me, and maybe it did a bit, but I know I saw the other side of 1 AM and it was still wide-awake time. So I’m a bit rough this morning.

While I was showering Sunday, I had this great idea for how to do the bottom of the figure in the drawing…I even typed up a note to myself in the Notes app on my phone. A very useful beastie that phone app.

Speaking of non-useful beasties…

Kitten. You’re sitting on my drawing. Why do cats like to sit on your stuff? Is it a possessive thing? She’d spent all day lying on my clean bedsheets until I offended her by making the bed with them. All of a sudden, they are now not very interesting. But this drawing is…by god, mommy, I need to sit on your drawing…you can see the other cat in this picture as well.

Unfortunately, I needed to draw on the bottom, which meant slowly pulling the drawing along the light table until she realized she was unwanted, shot me a viciously nasty glare, and set off (apparently to find every hair scrunchy I own and strew them down the hallway, because that’s where they all were when I went to bed). People wonder why I have cats in all my quilts…I think I socialize with them more than other living things.

So I ended up adding another 8-10 inches of paper at the bottom, as I penciled in the torso to the part where I wanted to stop, then drew the Earth. Well, half the Earth. In this picture, I had a photo of the Earth from space on the Pacific Ocean side.

I find it really strange that the most-common view of Earth on the internet is the one with North and South America almost in the center. You rarely see the back end…maybe because it’s mostly water. Less common is Russia with Africa, Europe all tiny off to the side. I wanted Japan and Ecuador, reminders of the earthquakes there. I’m still drawing the stuff in the Earth. It took me about 45 minutes to pencil, tape more paper, and do the stuff on the sides…volcano and mountains on the left side…

Hills and waves on the right. I think that’s South America drawn underneath it. Needs some work.

And there’s the whole thing, so you can see what I drew last night and then way up at the top, the stuff I had already drawn. There’s a lot of space in between to get filled up with plants and animals.

I’ve spent about 6 hours on drawing this so far…4 documented on my task app and the 2 that it took me in the sketchbook. Some drawings are so easy, 30 minutes to an hour or two. And some are beasts…the one in Earth Stories took about 25 hours just to draw. A lot of that time is think time, stare time, but it’s still time I count. It’s part of the making.

There’s a little voice in the back of my head that keeps whispering that I need to look at the two shows coming up in fall, start thinking about them too, not just focus on this giant ass piece that might not get in anywhere. And then I tell it that it’s fine. It’s only April. That I will look at those and think about them, but not right now. Right now, I’m head-in on this piece and it’s talking to me and I need to listen.

Processing…

Some mornings…some days. I figure if I wake up in the morning and have zero motivation to do anything at all, I should listen to myself, because it’s rare that it happens. There must be a reason. I mean, obviously I don’t feel like working. I graded last night. I need to do more this weekend, but maybe not right this second. Now two hours-plus later, I got the laundry going, lots of bedding. It’s a start. And I cooked some food. Second cup of tea. Resized the photos from last night. But first I spent some time reading blogposts (yes, mine) from last April and May, so I could remind myself that it’s always like this and that’s OK. I mean, yes, it sucks, but there are only 43 days of school left and they never kill me and I always survive them, just as I will survive them this time around.

And not being able to really focus on one quilt-related thing at the moment? Oh well. No deadlines breathing down my neck. That’s OK. I can afford to wander around the artistic pile a bit. I’ll get that orange quilt done, do the body one as well. No rush. And I’ll start picking fabrics this week hopefully for the other one. Meanwhile, it’s the drawing that’s calling the loudest…the furthest thing from finishing…the one I probably won’t finish until the end of summer. It’s all good.

If you don’t draw or hike or do some other thing that puts your brain in that meditative place, that space in your head where all the crap is pushed aside, I don’t know how to explain the peace you get from it…whether it’s puzzling out how to finish the arm between a cat-boob and a snake-arm…or it’s setting out on a 17-mile hike (um, that’s the boychild…I stick to 3- to 10-mile hikes personally). It clears your head like a spring breeze. Like a wave.

So yeah, a bat. It made sense last night…still does today (but drawing too small!).

Then I did the hand. I was debating bird and butterfly, and one of those will probably still fill the space above it, but the egg made the most sense last night.

That snake head is pretty.

Then I finally drew the octopus. Had to think about the suckers…not too complicated at this size. I once did one with like 150 pieces in it. Crazy.

That’s how far I am right now…head and half an upper torso. It’s slow-going.

But ultimately peaceful and calming. So I don’t mind.

And maybe today should just BE a slow day. I’ll get stuff done…just not all of it or what I thought I would do. Maybe. I realize I’m pretty hard on myself, probably too demanding. Then again, I’ve seen so many friends just stop making art completely when they started families, and I’m not that person. And it’s hard to keep on top of the job and make art regularly and still venture out of the house occasionally.

The struggle! Yeah I know. I talk about it. I fight it. I get up off the couch. And some mornings, I veg out and read a bunch of stuff and refuse to take a shower or go to the gym. The world still turns on its axis. It’s not like I get nothing done. Cut me a break. (That’s me talking to myself)

So for the drawing, there’s another arm that comes down over the belly area, there’s obviously another breast. One of the reasons I wanted to do another one was because I wanted a uterus in this one, so that’s on…then maybe lower torso dissolves into landmasses and clouds like the other one. Definitely need a volcano. I swear, I can’t remember the other one, which is good, because although I want this one to talk to that one on the phone, maybe even be sisters, I don’t want them to be clones of each other. This is the less-restricted version…the one that still has animals and plants covering her, but not because they have to…because they want to. And the important stuff is still there. Nipples dammit. And a bird or butterfly or both. Still drawing itself in my brain. Holy crap…maybe she needs a vulva. But that puts her sitting. Hmmm. Processing…

My Brain Is Like a Rampant Bunny

I have two mornings this week when I have to be at school early for meetings, which just throws me off. It makes it harder for me to fall asleep, and then my overactive workaholic brain wakes me up a full hour early to make sure I don’t sleep through the alarm (silly brain, I never sleep through alarms), and then I can’t go back to sleep. I’ve tried telling my brain how counterproductive that is, but then it blames the early wakeup call on the local birds outside my window. Also under your control, I argue…with my brain…which doesn’t ever freakin’ listen to me.

I will pay for this lack of sleep later, for sure, on the busiest day of the week. Unfortunate really, but whatever. We bully through it. We soldier on. Both good words for how I get my brain to keep going when it doesn’t want to. Years of practice with middle-schoolers? Maybe. I spent two days fighting to get them to do what I needed them to do, and then I gave them a similar assignment yesterday, and I must have broken through some wall, because they were dead silent and working. Still had to repeat instructions about 70 times for the kids that didn’t pay attention AND can’t read them (proof that I could write poetry about boogers and ear wax in my instructions, and only 5 kids would ever see it).

My brain is still like a rampant bunny, bounding through tall grass, sometimes moving uber-fast to get away from predators, and sometimes stopping to smell the daisies. I can’t get it to focus at all, but at least I have plenty of projects lying around to distract it. Although then it just gets over-interested and I can’t get it to mellow out and go to sleep.

I started with cleaning…I put all that stuff in the boychild’s room because it would force me to clean it all up before he came home. So I filled that trashbag hanging off the door and piled up some other stuff in logical piles.

Not that you can see logical piles from here. You’ll just have to trust me. That yellow bin is empty though and can now go away. It’s circa 1985 I think…and not in great shape. It certainly held a variety of crap, most of which was just that…crap. Like samples from a flower-pounding session I did with the kids. Man those were ugly. Tossed them. And a ton of quilt patterns pulled from magazines that I will never do. That goes way back. Recycled those puppies.

This the bookshelf that has been blocked for years. I have bags of tie remnants to sell too. Back to eBay. I hang a lot of stuff off of there that probably doesn’t need to be there…quilt tops I may never finish. Blocks for quilts I’m not even working on.

Kitten had a rousing game of find the lizard on the window. Really. You can’t see it? Because the only reason I knew it was there was because she was batting at its foot…it’s hiding behind the center bit. You can just see its fingers/toes on the left side where she’s looking.

Or not. Then I quilted. I found it rather frustrating. I really just wanted to be done, but thread breakages abounded. No fun.

I got about halfway around. I still need to do the hill as well.

Then it was 11:30 and normal people would have gone to bed, but I knew my brain wasn’t ready, so I drew instead.

Cried all the way through the episode of Call the Midwife where Jenny…oh geez, don’t wanna ruin it for you. It was sad. Well and hormones. Because it probably wasn’t THAT sad. Notice that damn lizard is in my drawing. Can you see where? I don’t know what to say about that. Except that’s how I draw. Brain wanders, plops on paper.

Damn, I even graded last night and wrote an extra blogpost on here and another blogpost for someone else. Maybe that’s why my brain was in overdrive. Too much stimulation, getting stuff done. Plus I need to get some exercise in this week, but it won’t be today…dual meetings and then book club. Hopefully I’ll be able to come home and just go to bed. With my book. For next month’s book club.

By the way, I saw Deadpool over the weekend, and yeah, it was violent, but hysterically funny, except when it was being sad, but more importantly…Wade is a stitcher! He made his own costume…over and over again…and the character Blind Al, played by Uhuru from Star Trek, is my favorite.

I get a little irritated with the goody-goody attitudes of some of the superheroes, like Thor and Captain America, and it drives me nuts how much the movies blow off good female characters who aren’t wearing slinky bras to kill bad guys with, but this guy is kinda fun. And he sews. Can’t be all bad.

Attempting Wake-Up Maneuvers

So the not-sleeping catches up and whacks you in the face. OK. It whacks me anyway. I napped after work yesterday. That’s it…I’m officially an old person. What I love is the cats climb up on the couch with me, flanking me. I set an alarm, because I didn’t want it to be like last time, when I lost 2 hours to nappiness and then couldn’t fall asleep at night. I’m already having issues with that. So 40 minutes later, I was all groggy (hey, I set it for 25 minutes and then it went off, scaring all the creatures on the couch, so I went for another 15…then the girlchild was texting me and I attempted wake-up maneuvers). And I didn’t really feel like doing anything, which is too bad, because I always have stuff to do. And I didn’t feel like figuring dinner out either. I probably had enough leftovers for lunches and dinner last night, but the potatoes were MEH and I had eaten that for lunch and hell, what I really wanted was to be physically transported, no WAIT, I wanted the waiter at Himalayan to be able to walk through some sort of transport thing that put him in my living room to take my order and then to bring it to me. But not to wait around and stare at me, wondering why I can’t get my butt off the couch.

That’s when I got up and ordered more tea, because I’m running out. It took me a good two hours and some fakeout of a dinner menu (it’s always OK to have salad and Brussels sprouts), plus staring at my phone and the telly for a good long time before I could function. Part of that is what I taught yesterday, which was kind of a performance art, relay race of neurons and action potentials. I spent a lot of time running around the room yelling “DO IT! DO IT!” and “SEND IT BACK!”. So if you’re thinking teachers just sit at a desk (I don’t really have a desk for such activities), imagine the yelling and the running instead. Today will be a nice quiet video viewing of brain structure and function to counteract the running and screaming of yesterday. The one day you could have the superintendent walk in and you’d be totally OK with him seeing the real live crazy of Nida teaching science? Yeah. He didn’t show.

So when I remember that and the not-falling-asleep of the night before, I guess a nap is warranted.

After that, I finally got my brain to function and finished cutting out all the Wonder Under for the new quilt, which is temporarily called Fishface, just because I had three drawings out at the same time, and I needed something that would tell them all apart. The other two are Totemwoman and Spiralwoman. I already have a quilt called FishWife, so it could get confusing. She’ll have a different name at the end.

There’s all the pieces…about 2 1/2 hours of trimming Wonder Under.

Then I sorted them. This quilt is gonna go fast, I think.

Compared to the last one anyway. And I still wasn’t tired. Because I’d had a nap. So I sat down with the drawing from the weekend and tried to finish up the torso a bit so I can copy it. And I think I’ll toss it in the car today and go enlarge it and start drawing stuff for real.

Like real size. This is already big. And I’m not sure that heart is gonna stay. There’ll be a heart, but the chest/upper torso is off. So maybe I’ll cut it off a couple of inches up into the drawing and then redo the chest and heart full size. Usually I enlarge 200-300%, though, and this head is already considerably bigger than the last Earth Mother, so maybe I won’t? Or I’ll rethink the rest of the body? I’m not sure.

I got good news last night that two of my quilts will be in the Feminism Now show at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. The opening is May 14 from 6-10 PM. If you haven’t been, it’s part of the Barrio Art Crawl, so there are a few studios in the area of Gallery D, plus other studios, like La Bodega Gallery and the Bread and Salt Gallery, in the area. I’ll post a link closer to the time.

This is the smaller piece that will be in the show (currently out for professional photography)…

And the larger piece it connects to will be there too. The smaller one will travel to Sweden (date/location TBA) with the exhibit, and then hopefully there’ll be another exhibit in Los Angeles or down here in San Diego, once the Swedish exhibit closes.

Yeah. I really need to go to school. I had to meditate to fall asleep again last night, so caffeine will be a necessary part of the day today (it’s what’s for breakfast! and lunch! and dinner!). At least I’m making progress, even if I have to nap in between the job and my real life.

Gird My Loins

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I finally went and found the iPad at about a quarter to 1 and had to re-upload my meditation program, because apparently I deleted it somehow. And then meditated, confusing the dog massively. Even then, I couldn’t sleep. I even considered taking today off from work (wow. two days in, people. well done.). I remember in my old job taking a personal day every once in a while, just a day to clear my head and do what I want and not think about whatever it was that was the issue. But I just had Spring Break, I hear you say. OK. Well, that tells you a little bit about my job then, doesn’t it? It’s not even the kids right now…it’s the other adults and some of the situations. We live in an inherently violent and sexist society, and I wish it didn’t have to be that way. I can wish that all I like, but when it comes down to reality…it doesn’t look like it’s changing any time soon. And apparently I’m a shitty teacher for not just accepting the way things are. Wow. I’m so done with this school year. 51 days.

I also worked last night, which didn’t help things. A last-minute project showed up and ate up the evening, which is fine. I need the money. I always need the money. Dear college: Knock it off. Give me a break. The girlchild was shocked that tuition went up. I was not. I’m not happy about it, but it’s always going up. Everything is always going up.

I did a little art stuff…started cutting out Wonder Under for the new quilt…

That’s about an hours’ worth. Halfway done. Ish. I’m not engaged with this project yet. Too stressed out. Too tired. Maybe when I start picking fabrics for it?

Maybe it’s just a matter of not having that deadline to work toward. Knowing that you only have X number of weeks to finish something gives you a drive you might not otherwise have. Then again, I come home from work and the last thing I want to look at is more grading, lesson design, or whatever. I don’t want to think about kids or what will be taught in homeroom or whether or not I will be able to work with my team next year. I just want to relax. Monday was better because I went out and climbed a big sweaty hill. I guess that’s a lesson in itself. I had a trauma training at school yesterday as well (because I don’t recognize trauma?) and they talked about self care. Gave us a list of self-care tasks. Oh yeah. That. I do that. And that. And that. And I still want to run screaming from my entire life some days. I guess we all do. And no, donuts aren’t the solution.

Making art for me is the solution. Drawing the pictures, trying to make sense of the world with a simple line, getting the morass in my head out onto the paper. Some people call it a gift, but it’s not. I worked my butt off to be able to channel that stuff out. And I can’t even draw fast enough. I can’t draw enough to clear it all out.

So each morning, I write this and I check how I feel. And I label what’s in my head: Thinking or Feeling? Lots of feels this morning. Too many thinks last night. And the feels are particularly hard right now, whether that’s due to lack of sleep, hormonal surges, an empty house, or whatever. They feel (ha!) overwhelming. So part of my mindful practice every day is to spill it here, then contemplate what the day might bring in terms of opportunities to help the feels, to spill them out in an appropriate way, to offer them to the Earth Mother, to Nature (those hikes save my brain!), to dribble them out on the elliptical, to shelve them between the pages of a good book, to cut them into tiny little pieces while I trim the Wonder Under, to block their effect with music or pictures or drawing or tracing or whatever the hell it takes.

With that in mind, I gird my loins, mount my trusty steed, Subaru, and venture into combat, looking past the inevitable strife and conflict towards an attainable goal of peace…tho temporary it might be. An evening with scissors.

Oh yeah, in case you don’t know how to gird your loins (again, where’s the female version…)

Being Mindful

The last two plus years have taught me one thing across the board…being mindful of one’s state of mind, understanding what you need to get through the difficult and enjoy what you can, being able to step back from bad stuff and scary stuff and stare it down…this is absolutely necessary to finding peace and joy in your life. Yesterday’s peace and joy came in a walk at the end of the day, new yellow flowers dotting the landscape, the dog snuffling through some dead thing (not so joyful for me), conquering that bad-ass hill I walk up on a regular basis, powering up it, even though I’d had a long day. I said I wasn’t going to work when I got home, but I had dual emails from child and parent, so I dealt with those at 9 PM because I knew today wouldn’t leave me the time to do so. I packed up care packages for my own kids and entered an art thing that I’d forgotten about and was due this week. Paid the property taxes.

And then I flailed a bit. How to continue to let the mind repair any damage done during the day? I’m honestly amused at some of the crazy that goes on among adults at my school. It’s like being in middle school again…well, maybe high school, because in middle school I hadn’t found myself yet. I was still pretty meek and quiet. By high school, it was ON. (Ask my parents. And my Physics teacher. Who was also my Calculus teacher…and kind of an ass.) I even stood in the living room with my teacup for about 5 minutes, staring around, debating the options. Kitten was following me around, waiting to see where I’d land so she could be in the same space. Calli too, damp dog from her post-walk swim. Where is Mommy gonna be? We wanna be with Mommy! Who needs roommates for adult conversation…I have furry babies.

I could cut out Wonder Under for the next quilt. I could trace another quilt. I could work on that drawing, get it to the next stage. I could work on one of the wool quilts I have going, which is pretty brainless. I could come into the office and clear stuff out, move the excess into the boychild’s room (shhh. don’t tell him.) for sorting and start that process. I could work on the two quilt tops that are in the office and have been in process for way too long. Which suited me best last night? Usually it’s no question…the project that is yelling the loudest (usually a deadline-based thing) wins. But last night, I couldn’t tell who was yelling loudest…because there are no deadlines at the moment. And I’m OK with that.

I ended up in the office with the two quilt tops. It seemed most efficient to try and finish those, at least the quilting part, because they will both need hand embroidery: one a lot and one a little. The orange one was already pinbasted, so I did the other one…

I don’t even know how long this one has been around. A long time. It’s freehand cut. I haven’t done that for ages. This is the one I want to do a lot of embroidery on. We’ll see though. First I’ll quilt it. I don’t usually do a light background either. That’s a challenge.

Then I started on this one…

This is from 2013 I think…the drawing is older than that. It’s strange.

But simple enough. It needs a little embroidery. I’m still debating the quilting in the background.

This piece has alternatively been called Fire Mountain and Fire Forest in my head for years. And that background…yes, I was experimenting with different-colored backgrounds for a while. I get into that dark-blue rut because it’s easy. For me at least. Followed by dark purple and turquoise. So quilting on these for a few days will be good. I’ll probably cut some Wonder Under too. And ease myself back into regulating schoolwork with school stress. As much as I can. It’s good that I have a few projects I can work on right now. They ease the tension, give my mind a place to restfully wander late at night, when I can’t sleep (because that’s been common the last week or so). Stay up late so you’re tired enough to fall directly to sleep. Unfortunately, my brain is still wandering after 1 AM these days. Must dial it back an hour or so, or I will start to look like my students. Or get cranky. Or both. Here’s hoping the mindfulness and the art will help with all of that.

A Sketchbook on the Deck

Oh my lord. Morning. Not my superpower. I’m pretty sure I have to go to school today, but it’s so quiet here, I have to check the calendar and the clock to make sure that’s true. Is it really Sunday? (it’s not) I keep expecting the trash trucks, but in truth, they don’ t show up until it’s time for me to leave for school. My phone still has the golden hue of nighttime…which is funny, because it’s not THAT early. It just feels early. I really should have a job that allows me to be a night owl and an introvert, instead of what I have. Oh well.

So I managed to get some stuff done yesterday: quilt made it to the photographer, bookshelf that had broken and been fixed made it back into my office, all the crap that belonged in it made it out of the bathroom (yes, that’s where I put it), a pile of school stuff made it to school (after I took a turn too fast and threw it all over the back of my car). Yeah. I rocked it. Funny. It didn’t feel like I rocked it. I remember getting to a certain point in the to-do list and looking at a clock and thinking SHIT. The day is almost gone.

I worked on the drawing some more on Saturday…I like the feeling of sitting out on the deck in the semi-shade, even though the dog keeps chewing up the pinecones she brings me, and then I have to step on all the pieces, which is kinda like walking through a field of Legos. I swept the deck yesterday too. I had some eye starts on the drawings…it’s interesting that all I have to draw are the two eyes to know something is wrong…

Nope. Way too far apart.

These were better. Good distance. Similar size. I’m onto something here.

I think this was another fail. The face. The eyes. Aargh.

Insert picture of cute baby. I made the quilt under her. I love that her feet are blurry.

Maybe I should just stick to baby quilts…

No. I can do this! There we go…

That’s what I needed. This is working. Except the fish in the net are smiling and they shouldn’t be. That’s as far as I got. I’ll finish up the head mostly and then go enlarge it and do the rest to size. I think. Like I’m going to have any brainpower for drawing this week. I’m already exhausted. I honestly don’t feel like I slept at all last night. That’s really common for teachers, by the way…to not sleep well on a Sunday before school starts, especially after a break. You’re convinced you’ve forgotten something major and you won’t remember it until the kids are sitting in front of you.

So yeah. Sleep.

Meanwhile, I’ve been tracing the Wonder Under for this other quilt…

And it has so few pieces (399…except I realized at the end when I was tracing the cactus spines that I totally misnumbered all of them and there’s really probably 415 pieces in this)…that I finished it last night. It took 3 hours and 40 minutes and one yard (approximately) of Wonder Under. At 11:43 PM, I was going to quit, and then I realized I had hardly anything left, so I just finished it.

That’s it. And no teensy weensy pieces like on the last one. It’s almost sane to make this quilt. There must be something wrong with me. It’s like I’m attempting to do something that won’t completely challenge me while I try to finish out the school year (which will challenge me). Actually, I would hope this would be done well before the school year is out and I’m working on another one. But I’m not that bothered at the moment. I will be later. Just not now. Now I’m trying to figure out how to survive the next 11 weeks. What do I fill my weekends and my evenings with to make the Kathy World a better place? People and art and hiking and books. Obviously not a clean house, because I didn’t achieve that or an amazing yard over break.

Although last night, girlchild and I made a plan to spend ALL the money we both had in savings to just hop onto planes and meet in Jamaica. We figured we could afford a round-trip flight and maybe a cheap hotel. Food would be a stretch, but we didn’t care. Probably doesn’t help that it snowed in Boston over the weekend. I have less of an excuse with 80-degree temperatures here, but it was a nice fantasy.

For today, though, I’m gonna be doing pretty good if I make it through school and a walk with the dog. Then I’ll reevaluate. But really, right now, I’d rather be sitting on the deck with my sketchbook…see, I don’t even need to go to Jamaica.

Drawing in the Sun…

OK. Work poking its head in. It’s been doing it all week. How do I know? Work dream (nightmare) last night). Stress teeth grinding. Better today, because I only have one period left of the project to grade, although I have two assignments I haven’t even touched. It’s OK. One is extra credit and only about 15 kids did it. The other one…sheesh…I’ll get to it eventually. Just not today. Today I will finish the one period and hopefully it will be easy. Less than 3 hours. And then planning for next week. The other science teacher and I did plan the week…it’s just that some of it was kinda vague. And I don’t remember what we did. Plus I have to write warmups and send the parent email and update my website. Teachers of the computer age. Except when we lose teams next year, I won’t be able to send a team email to parents any more. Sigh. That’s gonna suck. Because I’ll still do it, but if I can persuade the other teachers to do it too, parents will then get four emails instead of one. And they barely read the one. Oh well. This is not a problem I made and it’s also not one I can solve. I’ve spent the last month telling myself not to worry about next year until it happens. Maybe fairies will descend upon us and make everything sparkly and nice and I won’t need to deal with the shit I think will happen.

It’s not really denial. It’s just hope…I think. It’s certainly protective.

So yesterday I was having a crisis of mental attitude. I made lunch and I went and sat on my deck in the sun and I threw the ball and pinecones (because she lost two balls) for the dog. I used to have a view of the mountains, but I think I would have to climb into my neighbor’s yard and prune his trees to get that back. Might do that someday.

Calli knows that if she wants me to throw it, she has to put it in my lap. This is her pretending she doesn’t know that. Eventually she follows the rules.

So I wanted to try drawing a revision of last year’s Earth Mother, but without the no-nudity clause. So I started with the face, and this one was too angry. Or petulant. Or irritated. Hard to say. Too much chin.

A plane flew by. Apparently yesterday was the Assyrian New Year. Kind of interesting. I wouldn’t have known that without the plane.

I made another false start with a shitty pair of eyes before I got to this one…which WAS going somewhere, but…

I didn’t want both arms down and that damn jellyfish is way too huge. So I stopped on that one and made two more lame starts, before I gave up and went and graded things. I’m not done trying…I will try again. Maybe today. But it wasn’t working for me yesterday. That happens…especially if I’m aiming for something in my head that’s still a little unfocused and vague.

But drawing in the sun is probably something I should try to do more regularly. Because that was nice…birdsong and blue skies. Except for the tree shredding that was happening in the neighborhood somewhere (woke me up this morning too).

After grading, I did some straightening up on the light table, which has a plywood cover on it when I’m not using it, so I pile stuff up there that needs to be put away to trace stuff. And then I started tracing the next quilt, which isn’t huge…

She’s about 17 x 21″, so a little different than the one I just finished…plus only half the pieces. That should be a plus. I drew this while flying back from Boston after dropping my daughter off for college. Rough flight. But another version of the Earth Mother. I guess it’s on my mind. Constantly apparently.

OK, so I am going to finish grading this morning. Well…probably early afternoon, based on previous attempts. And then maybe draw. We’ll see. I do have to move a bookshelf back in here that dad fixed so I can refill it with all the books etc., which are currently living in the kids’ bathroom. And rumor has it at least one kid is coming home, although not for 7 weeks. Not sure about the other kid. I’m sure he’ll let me know if he needs a flight, right? Sigh.

My positive attitude for the rest of the school year depends entirely on what I can fill the afterhours with to make up for the crazy. And my ability to just write off certain kids, because they haven’t changed their behavior and contacting parents has no effect. So yeah. Whatever. Let the politicians go wild with that shit. I am not a magician. And then try not to react to whatever crazy admin throws at me. I’m done, people. I’m still teaching, I’m still helping the kids who are there and present and asking, but I can’t parent 155 kids. Someone else has to help. Such a frustrating year. For all of us.

Remember. Drawing in the sun. Panacea.