Don’t Think Too Hard…

Some days it’s like I’m watching myself from a distance moving through life. I shake my head, thinking, she should be more careful, she should slow down, she’s not thinking about what she’s doing…as I watch myself walk here, move there, drive over here, go to the gym, buy groceries. Nothing of import. Nothing that has meaning…just the chores. Today was one of those days. I got up at 2:45 AM San Diego time, although it’s possible my brain was on Texas time…hard to say. Then rode two planes, ate some food in between, read a long book and started another, slept a little…and I was home.

Home didn’t feel good…well, it did and it didn’t. It’s my bed. My stuff is here. My fabric is here. I can make a cup of tea without having to hunt down ingredients. Those are all good things. I came home, though, to a pile of laundry, a bunch of dirty dishes, cat vomit (fun stuff), an empty fridge, an empty life.

Well, it’s not totally empty. I make art. I have my kids (I did not see them today…I only saw my exhusband…twice…weird). The cats were glad to see me (lovely to feel needed). But there is too much of the stuff that feels like drudgery and not enough of the stuff that makes my heart soar…mostly because I don’t know how to do that any more. The quilt show…it was OK. I wasn’t comfortable being there. I wasn’t interested in a lot of what WAS there. I had some good moments, but…I wasn’t in the right mindframe to enjoy myself. I don’t know how to shake the grief long enough to enjoy myself. I get to a point where it feels like I’m trying to climb out of my own skin. The closest I get to anything resembling enjoyment is at the gym or when I’m doing art stuff, but even that today was an issue. And that’s not enjoyment…it’s not a rush or a soaring feeling…it’s just like taking a deep breath at the top of the stairs, getting some air.

My emotions are very distant today…a combination of travel and tired and overwhelmed, I think. Mr. Meditation says to be less critical of my feelings…don’t identify with them. It’s not MY feeling or I FEEL LIKE, but just labeling it. That? That is sad. That over there? That’s angry. I recognize those. Even using the words ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’ is not meant to be judgmental of the feeling…just a label. I couldn’t get my brain to label anything during meditation tonight. And is SAD unpleasant? I guess so. I don’t like being sad, so I guess that’s unpleasant. Anger is definitely unpleasant. Sad just seems like it’s there. It has a purpose, it seems, as long as you don’t wallow in it forever. I’m sure some people think I am wallowing. I’m not. I’m just not capable of jumping up and yelling Happy! right now. And fuck you for thinking I should be able to do that right now.

I’m thinking way too hard about this. When I feel like that, bogged down in the thinking, I go to the gym, I draw, I read. I did two of those today.

Then I had a choice after the grocery shopping (because shopping on a Saturday night doesn’t make me feel like a total loser…OK, it does, and it’s even worse when you run into your exhusband there, who is buying stuff to feed at least one of your kids…). I could work on school stuff or I could work on art stuff.

I bet you know which one I chose…the one where there is some hope of mental rest, of peace…maybe…some days. I cleaned up a little in the office to make room, putting away fabrics etc…and then I started ironing…

I’m missing two toenails…they will probably show up eventually.

Most missing parts do. I had to cut one missing rug piece because it went above and over another piece…so of course, I found the missing piece AFTER I had done that…it was in the next box by accident (I sort them into boxes by 100s before ironing).

This really is a rather simple quilt after the last beast…

I have about an hour 40 minutes in, and there’s about 150 pieces ironed down. A couple more nights like that, and I’ll have it done. That would be nice. The colors are a bit more subdued than normal…at least so far. Interesting. I never really get to see how the colors work together until I get to this stage, since I don’t really have a color pattern…I just sort of color it in my head and hold fabrics next to one another to see if they’ll work.

I knew I would be grading at two soccer games tomorrow, so that helped me make the decision to blow off work for yet another day. I’ll be grading at games for about 5 hours tomorrow…that seems plenty. I should be allowed to do stuff besides work and clean and cook.

I do have pictures from Houston and will get to them eventually. I didn’t take a ton of pictures, though…not inspired, I guess.

I hope some day there is some feeling besides all this sad and blah. It’s wearing on me. I want to be able to just go out somewhere and laugh and enjoy myself, but I can’t get there. The sad is always looming over me, poking me in case I forget about it. Sounds like there will be more drawing this week…let this muggy emotional mess solidify into a drawing and vomit it out on the page. Then I’ll feel better maybe…as long as I don’t think too hard.

Tensity Tense Tense

The Dad taxi is picking me up in 5 hours and 20 minutes. I really should be in bed…but it’s so freakin’ early (for me) that I don’t think I can fall asleep. So I’m meditating first and then writing quickly, because it helps me leave the day and all its stupid-ass emotions behind, in here, on the screen (apparently out in the world, but I usually forget about that part). Mr. Meditation keeps talking about letting the emotions go, but I must absolutely suck at that. They’re all still here, dammit. He also says I will become more aware of others’ emotions…holy crap! I don’t need MORE of that. I’m already way too in tune with that, probably more than the person actually having the feeling, which is thoroughly annoying.

Anyway. I’m tense. Tensity tense tense. Hate traveling. I have books, food, sketchbook…I spent about an hour this afternoon trying to organize the last three months’ worth of Sue Spargo’s crazy birds, because it was all just a giant mess…I hadn’t been keeping up (shockingly) and I needed to get it under control because I find it really relaxing to stitch on the plane…plus the high-school soccer season is coming up, and I can’t grade at night in the stands (but apparently I can embroider…don’t question it). So I prepped the last three months and organized all the patterns and embellishing threads and found all the wool bits and pieces and cut out about 50 1/4″ circles of wool (with a hole punch…I’m not totally insane…just mostly so). I’m ready! OK, I’m so not ready. But I have stitching!

Once that was done and I’d ferried the girlchild here, there, and everywhere…ferrying her these days means I sit in the passenger seat and try not to squeal too loudly when she brakes later than I think she should…she doesn’t have her license YET…and pulled the dinner out of the crockpot (rejected by boychild for containing THIGHS, which reminds me of the THIGH GAP, which holy crap! I did not even know existed until today and am now thoroughly horrified, yet again, by the world I live in)…I had a choice…I could grade papers (thumbs down) or cut out the last bits of the Love quilt (thumbs up). So I did that and finally finished, after almost 6 hours. Started September 19, then blew it off until October 17…then finished up this week. Then I spent 20 minutes sorting them…

(there are only 505 of them…this one is kind of an easy quilt for me), so when I get back from Houston, I can start ironing them together. Three and a half weeks to Thanksgiving Break, and I would like this at least ready for stitching down, if not ready for quilting. I can hope. Let’s not think about grades being due or the end of the trimester or any of that other silly work stuff that just bogs me down. Or the boychild’s soccer tournament, which might mean driving to the OC at 5 AM later this month. Shoot me now.

Yesterday I was trying to clean out my photo files, sort at least the month of October into the appropriate files for various quilts, kid stuff, etc…but got completely bogged down and sideswiped by October pictures from LAST year that still weren’t handled. Fucking balls. I can’t even handle photos. So many things to avoid or to tread carefully around…because I’m so damn in tune with my freakin’ emotions, I guess. But I can’t let them go.

Anyway. I tried. I will try again later…looking only for the 2013 photos maybe. Perhaps in 2020 I will be able to handle previous years or months. Fragility sucks.

Finally, after a million years of dealing with an ancient beast, we got new teacher computers at school…

It’s so pretty. But we can’t use it yet, because it doesn’t work with our daily broadcast. Of course. Oh well. I’ve never trusted my school computer enough to store stuff on it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Stupid tenseness. Is tensity a word? TENSION. Duh. Brain is completely melting down at this point. Might have something to do with the purring clawbeast on my lap. Or the lateness of the hour. Or the TENSION.

Deep breaths (all day it’s been deep breaths). Girlchild was almost having a nervous breakdown. Someone thought it would be a good idea for her to be Treasurer of Key Club and organization is not her strong point, but I think we got it under control…and then Girl. Teen. Drama. Yikes. Major shit going down. I may have to call someone’s mother. I leave all that in the trusty hands of my exhusband (who looked terrified as I explained the situation). I’m sure he will handle things just fine…plus she might text me 700 times. Oh well. It’s nice to know I’m needed.

Emotional life is pushed out of the way by stress, tense belly, gut. I hear it…yelling in the distance…but it will stay away. It knows I’m on the edge and need a break. I’m hoping to maybe even enjoy the quilt show. What a concept. Enjoyment. Walking around and looking at quilts and fabric and not having to be at school on Halloween or the day after, when the average blood sugar level of a middle-school student hits dangerous levels. I’m OK with not being there. Although I’m a little antsy about starting the ironing on this quilt. I think it’s going to look good…but it will make me sad too. Sigh. What’s new.

OK. Wish me luck. Short sleep. Planes. People. Not my strong points.

Paying Attention…

I’m supposed to pay attention to, label my feelings, pay attention to my movements…going from stopped to moving, from seated to standing. I think too hard about the latter…wait, am I moving now? Am I stopped? When does movement start? Trying. Not breathing right this morning. Irritated. Stressed. Too much to do before I leave for Houston. Work raises its ugly head and demands more attention. Fuck you…you have too much of my life already, you bastard. I’m ignoring you. Hard to do with the sound of hundreds of middle-schoolers outside my door.

I started typing this in the morning, before school. I was trying to get everything set up and my brain was vibrating, it was working so hard to push emotion down and out and away. So I stopped. I typed. I cried. I cried with kids right outside the door. Better than inside, right? It’s OK. It’s under control most of the time. Or is that OK? Would less control be better? I don’t know. I have to function. I have to do my job, pay the bills, take care of my kids.

Tension. Nausea. Tweaked one part of my back. Bloated, tired. Wanted to stay home and read my book. Still want to do that. (got to read at the gym and during dinner…having dinner by yourself? Or having dinner with the characters of your book? Sad either way, but at least I semi-enjoy one version.)

Here’s the core problem to paying attention to your feelings: mine get overwhelming pretty quickly, and that’s not OK at work. I try to draw from positive interactions at work, especially with kids, but they seem more heavily weighted in the morning hours, and then I try to check in with my team at lunch for their collective strength and with my science coteacher between classes, in the space between our doors, but some days I just can’t get enough mental and emotional space from all that crap that swirls around in my head, making soup out of my control and logic and planning. Mr. Meditation doesn’t probably deal with what I deal with…he looks too damn calm. Give him my life for a week or so and see if he changes his tune. I spent all day breathing and paying attention to how I felt (you are about to duct tape a student to a chair…how does that make you FEEL?). Not really. But maybe it worked, I don’t know.

He says, “Experience overtakes the intellectual understanding of your feelings,” like that’s a good thing. OK. I guess it is. It’s just not good in the context of work or the gym or the grocery store or wherever I’m standing that isn’t in my room, a closet, in my car, in a big field in the middle of nowhere (can I be transported there now?). I am very good at experiencing my feelings. I am also good at understanding them. That unfortunately does not help them leave me alone for a while. Or even control them enough to feel like I’m in control.

Speaking of control, tomorrow’s dinner is already prepped and in the fridge for the slow-cooker tomorrow (I’m getting the hang of this. Praise my efficiency, dammit). My sub plans for the two days I’m gone were done this morning. I did extra laundry today for the trip. I’m not packed, but that’s OK…I’m doing that tomorrow night. I have food for the trip. I’ll be running on very little sleep (hey, what’s new?). Expect me to fall into a closet and cry at some point. I have books on the iPad and in real life (just in case), I have a couple of sketchbooks (have to make a decision about those), and I spent time tonight prepping the last two months’ of Sue Spargo’s birds to take with me…

I needed to iron and cut things out…

and sew a few things down with the machine. Tomorrow night I will put the bags together for stitching on the plane. I’m hoping we aren’t in terminals for long…if we are, it’s because we missed a flight. I’m prepared if we do. I have food, books, and stitching…materials for drawing. I hate being bored. Headphones for music. I will need music.

I’d like to say I’m excited, but mostly I’m nervous and apprehensive. I don’t travel well. I have to talk about two quilts, and I don’t really have anything logical to say about one of them, although girlchild approved my rambling explanation from last night. I’m worried about being around people. I know, that’s lame. I’m hoping to hold it together without my routines of exercise, meditation, reading, and drawing in a safe place. There are no safe places in a hotel or on a plane. I have my gym clothes. I have my meditation app. I have headphones.

I had to grade tests tonight, so I didn’t get any time for real art, but I did interact with fabric. During school, I needed to do a cover page for the new unit…

So I even got to draw at school. And color! You wonder why I draw what I draw…or maybe you don’t. I wonder if I were an English or Math teacher, what would I draw instead of body parts? Or was I fated to be a science teacher? Who knows.

I had 17 ideas today for drawing uterine-related stuff, women and their periods, women and menopause, women and their uteri, the pain, the blood, the mess, the annoyance, as you age, having to deal with the vagaries of the female body deciding to ignore routine and just mess with you on a regular basis. Cramps so bad it hurts to stand, it hurts to sit…and yet, there you are, doing both, in front of 35 kids who have no idea what you’re feeling or experiencing. This is your teacher…she is basically hemorrhaging AND suffering from depression. And you think YOU have it bad? Really? Deep breaths. It’s like my inner emotional world is being wrought upon the physical body. I can draw that.

I need to draw more of that…you know, because it will be so accepted in the art or art-quilt worlds. Yeah. Whatever. I obviously don’t pay much attention to acceptance in either. I just do what’s in my head and rail at the world when it causes issues.

I’m going to Houston for the opening of the Art Quilt Portfolio: People and Portraits exhibit that SAQA is sponsoring to go along with Martha Sielman’s book published this year. I was one of 21 featured artists in the book (if I’m smart, I will find my copy and take it with me for signatures). They are exhibiting two quilts from each artist. I got to choose which two out of the book (oh my…what were they thinking, letting me choose?). I chose Fully Medicated and I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket. I’ll post them later this week (although they are on my Current Shows page). My mom will be there too…be nice to her. It must have been hard to raise me to be the crazy-ass artist that I am today. I’m sure it was hard.

When I get back from Houston, it’s race race race to the end of the school trimester and getting two quilts done and the stupid fucking holiday season (hate the holidays) and the high-school soccer season and family stuff and maybe some free time. And maybe some mental space, who knows. Probably some pain and hurt as well. That seems to come with the holidays, whether I like it or not. Lots of have-to’s and shoulds and not a lot of enjoying the moment. I will have to work on that. More exhibits to enter, some to get into, some to reject me (I can handle that…it’s disappointing, but it’s a rejection that I’m used to and can deal with). If I had my choice right this second, I’d be working on a quilt right now, instead of trying to persuade my brain it’s bedtime.

I don’t often have a choice, though. Paying attention. Sigh. I really wish someone had been paying attention. That’s part of my test, now. You need to pay attention. If you can’t? Fuck off. You’re not worth it.

Something the Darkness Couldn’t Take

Hi. Do you see me? I’m that person crawling into a hole. Do you see me? I’m crawling into the hole and pulling all the dirt in after me? Can you see me? I’m crawling and pulling it after me.

I’ve been hearing this in my head all evening. I don’t know why. It’s just repeating. Like a whisper. Do you see me?

Sometimes the stupidest things hurt me right now, things I would have found funny or even cute before the tidal wave hit, they hurt…and not a little…the hurt I feel in my gut when I meditate, the hurt that feels like aliens climbing out, or is it zombies climbing in? Doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s pain, pain caused by others…but it’s also my reaction. I can’t disconnect…I can’t harness enough anger to disconnect. The anger is there, but so often I direct it at myself, even though I know I shouldn’t, that the fault is not there. Girlchild rails at me, speaks of vengeance, tries to understand how 9-plus years of connections are harder to break, to escape, to destroy…well, for me they are. She is so angry too…and I didn’t do that. I understand her anger. I would be angry too if I were her. She is my Mama Bear at the moment, because I can’t be. She’s protective, standing out in front of me, fists half-cocked, ready to go at someone on my behalf.

I made it through the gym. I don’t even remember working out. I was only half there. My muscles were there. Enough of my brain was there to go through the workout, and not in a half-ass manner…full throttle. And that part of my brain got me home and dealt with prepping for school and prepping dinner for the slow cooker and dealing with kids and getting in the car and going to pick up my passenger and driving all the way to Oceanside and holding my own in conversations and then driving back. It fractured in between, at the meeting, but I kept cutting out little bits of fabric and kept it under control.

But by the time I finished meditation, which was all about labeling feelings, and I realized that my brain was screaming at me, “FEELING! UNPLEASANT! FEELING! UNPLEASANT!” (the choices for labeling your feelings were ‘pleasant,’ ‘unpleasant,’ and ‘neutral’), I was already grabbing the sketchbook, even before meditation officially ended. He told me to open my eyes and have a stretch, and I stretched right over and picked up the book and opened to the first blank page (I say that so many times a day at school, I can’t tell you, in answer to “what page?”) and took the pen and it was moving across that blank expanse of white toothy beautiful page before I could even wipe all the tears from my face and neck and down onto my chest, where they fall when they reach the end.

When I reach the end.

I thought I was going to finish tracing Wonder Under tonight, but no. My brain had a different plan. I did try grading earlier, but I could tell my brain was fighting it…fighting the mundane, the work, the drag-you-down-further-into-the-fucking-muck feeling I was getting, the one I’ve been fighting all week, since last Monday. It gets worse and then better but never very good.

B. B for be? B for broken. B for bamboozled. B for bad. B for breaking. B for bastard. B for bearing…bearing it. I was thinking The Scarlett Letter…or a branding.

I’ve always put symbols in my work…the symbols are changing. Some of them.

So I am a bit more at peace, now that I’ve drawn. It’s not a happy peace. Just a distancing peace. That’s what labeling the feelings is supposed to do…to help me distance myself from the emotion and not wallow in it or make it worse, but maybe, at some point, to just let it wash over me while I be, and then maybe I won’t have to be that emotion any more. I’m not very good at the distance. Or maybe I am…because if I really wasn’t very good at it, I would be crying all the time, no matter where I was, and I do seem to hold it together for hours at a time when necessary.

At the meeting, I saw this out the window…

I think everyone else was socializing and eating and being friendly and I was staring out a window at a foggy grey sky and watching this beautiful bird and trying to just Be in the moment even though I wasn’t connecting to the moment at all.

Birds are often in my work. I need to draw more types of birds. I usually just make them up.

I’ve told you that both kids worry about me because of my braindeadness…my uncharacteristic mindlessness at times, my loss of memory, my inattention to detail.

Girlchild pointed out that I didn’t need to buy more ground mustard, that I must have just bought some in the last few weeks. I didn’t remember. She thinks we will never use it up…so now I have to come up with all-mustard recipes from now until we use it up. Just to prove her wrong. I really only have two recipes that use ground mustard, and neither in large quantities. We’re fucked. I’m going to die and have ground mustard left over.

Speaking of dying, I finished World War Z today…

It was OK…a little on the dry side. A little truncated. Not really a story, per se, but an interesting take on a story. I guess I could watch the movie now, if I wanted to. Do I want to? I don’t know. I’m currently immersed in all the PBS Mystery shows I have archived on Tivo. I’ve been watching Wallander and Endeavour…I like Endeavour better. He is more caring, less of an asshole. Wallander cares, but he’s an asshole. I don’t need more assholes right now.

I wrote this down from Endeavour tonight: “You go home and put your music on, and with every note, you remember that’s something that the darkness couldn’t take from you.” DI Fred Thursday

Yeah. That. That’s why I draw. That’s why I make art. That’s why I get out of bed in the morning. That’s why I don’t just give up. That’s why I’m writing every day. Almost every day. Because of that.

At the meeting (yes, I realize my brain is jumping all over the place, hence the multiple mustards), I cut out pieces for the Love quilt. I need a plan. I can get it cut out this week, and when I get back from Houston, I can start ironing it. If I can get it ironed and maybe even stitched down (that might take more mental energy than I have at the moment), then maybe I can quilt it over Thanksgiving. Maybe. Then at the same time, I can be cutting out the Wonder Under for the Celebrating Silver quilt, aiming to pick fabrics for it either over Thanksgiving or the first few weeks of December. Either way, it’s a plan. I need plans at the moment, even if I keep fucking them up.

So I cut out lots…

because it kept my brain from wandering off into the mists…

Someone please do something about the cat that is trying to be a scarf around my neck. Please. It’s literally perched up there between the back of my head and the back of the chair and trying to hold on. The stuff in the bag is all the scraps. I save them until the quilt is ironed down, because occasionally I toss a piece in there instead of into the bin. The way my brain’s working, though, I’ll probably forget I have them and I’ll just recut another piece. Or I’ll toss all the good pieces in the trash by accident.

Whatever. It’s progress. Movement anyway. No one knows in what direction. Taking my headache to bed right now. Hopefully it will let me sleep. Unless it’s an asshole. Don’t need more assholes.

I Get Tired

When people start to worry about me because of what I say or what I write here, I always tell them that they shouldn’t worry unless I’m NOT talking or writing. That’s when you know it’s bad. That’s when you know I’ve gotten out of control. I couldn’t write last night. There was too much in me, bubbling up to the top. I couldn’t process any of it, and that’s what this blog is at the moment…it’s the place I process all the thinking and feeling into something I can handle. I was also too tired, but there was just too much emotion rolling around. I couldn’t talk when all of this first happened, back in July. It took me a few days to be able to write. I couldn’t communicate. Even now, it’s hard to talk to people sometimes. I can’t talk without getting emotional, and there’s only so many places that’s appropriate. The counselor even brought that up yesterday when I was talking about it…she said, but you cry here all the time! But that’s your JOB…I can handle doing that here, in this enclosed space, because you’re not judging me (well, maybe you are, but I don’t care) or deciding if I’m fit to work here or if I’m someone you can’t talk to any more because I’m such a mess. I can cry here safely. (It’s OK. She knew that. She was giving me shit…she likes to challenge my assumptions.)

Thursday. Thursday was bad because I gave a test. Normally at school, my brain is so full of trying to deal with teaching and lesson plans and kid behavior that it doesn’t have time to wander off and get into trouble…and this week, it’s had lots to think about that is getting it into trouble. When I’m giving a test, it’s actually a quiet day. I’m not doing much. I was logging assignments into the gradebook and paroling the classroom for cheaters (yup, got some of them, but minor offenses), but my brain by the end of the day had dug itself a giant hole and was wallowing in it, because it had free time and that’s how it wastes free time. My gut was tied up in knots. I went to the gym to try to work some of it out, but some of the stuff that happened in the evening honestly made it even worse. I was too tired to even meditate. Even though the storytelling was good, it reminded me of what was not good and how far I have to go to get to good again.

Friday was even worse, not because I didn’t have to manage a lesson…I did. And the first class was awesome…I was excited that they were progressing so well. And then the second class hit. The wall. Of nonwork. Of just not working because? Oh hey, welcome to middle school. Welcome to the brain not realizing consequences for actions (or nonaction in this case). I went upstairs at lunch to check with my team and it was everyone. Every class. A giant pile of not-work. So I made it through the rest of the day fighting this nonwork, but it was incredibly frustrating, and my real problem at this stage of my slow recovery is that I have no buffer…I have no mental resources for dealing with anger, sadness, frustration. I just get more depressed. So as the last kid is walking out of 8th period, I’m thinking, “close the damn door…I appreciate your putting all the chairs up, sweetie, but I’m about to lose it.” And I did. I stood there and cried (unacceptable).

I can’t ignore the damn hormones in all this. PMS is getting worse and more often and longer (thank you, perimenopause), and it doesn’t help on days like that. But I don’t cry at school. I make it to the parking lot (semi-acceptable). I got most of it under control, because I had to go lock the computer cart up. I did that. I managed a brief verbal interaction. I went back to my room and made it to the car, where I lost it (acceptable). I wiped my face enough so that I could drive out of the lot, because my students are walking past the driveway, waving at me. Waving back. Trying to smile. Trying not to leak salt water (unacceptable). Made it to the counselor and cried in the waiting room (semi-acceptable, more so in a therapists’ waiting room or even like oncology or radiology). Cried through counseling (acceptable). Cried out the door, into the car, in the driveway (all acceptable; no one was in the waiting room when I went through).

I wish I could say the day was a done deal at that point, that I could have gone home and put on my pajamas and eaten dinner with the kids and watched some TV show with them, but the girlchild and I finally had an appointment to deal with hair (I couldn’t get the brush through the last 3 inches of mine at the time). The problem for me is that the person who cuts our hair has a connection to the cause of all my grief, and I was hoping she would be a mature person and handle it all appropriately, but it could go badly. I had an exit plan, but I’m such an emotional mess at the moment that it might not matter.

We get there. My brain’s a mess. I had decided against taking grading with me (I have waiting time while girlchild is getting her hair cut…I like to use waiting time for grading so I don’t have to use other personal time for that). School-related stuff has been part of the problem…it makes me think, “So this is your life?” and get upset about it. So I leave all the grading and take my sketchbook. I draw.

Really. I drew. I know. Of course I drew. My art brain is much better at taking care of me than any other part of me. And I realized that as I was listening to her talk to the girlchild that she was being kind. She was being respectful. She was avoiding the bad bad, but still saying good and nice things about depression and stuff related to being a woman going through shit, and she spoke carefully. And at some point, when she got to my hair, she realized I wasn’t in a place to decide anything about it, and she just did what she thought would be good, using her years of experience (which is why we like her), and she kept saying how this would be better. And she gifted me some product (not a full container, but sweet nonetheless) and we left…and as we walked out, I told the girlchild, “She was nice to me. She was kind.” and started to cry. Because I didn’t know if she would be. Some people are just good people. Some people are nasty selfish bitches, but she made me feel OK for a bit. And my hair does look much better. She’s always going to be right about that.

The rest of the issues are still plaguing me. I didn’t write last night because I was still mired in sad (still am today as well, but I’ve had a decent amount of sleep at this point). I exercised, I watched TV with the kids, I meditated. I read. I didn’t make art…I was too damn tired, more than tired, it was emotional exhaustion. I have so much to get done this weekend that I have to start focusing on it soon, or things will fall apart (they won’t really…but it will feel worse if I don’t get some of these things done). I’m feeling all those “should’s” in my gut right this moment. I’ll be better if I can get some of them done and move on to the stuff that makes me feel almost human: drawing. Wonder Under. fabric. I don’t know what else today brings. I haven’t planned beyond about 2 PM. That could be a problem, but it’s certainly an indicator that I’m having issues this week. I do the stuff I have to do, but my brain then shorts out and freaks out and I start crying again.

I’m crying right now. I get tired of it. I get tired of feeling this bad. I get tired of thinking about it. I get tired of being sad and angry and feeling like I’ve done everything wrong. Or trying to persuade myself that I haven’t, that it wasn’t me, that I couldn’t have predicted this or fixed this. This is the maelstrom my brain wanders in at the moment. Think of it as a blinding sandstorm. Hopefully I will find a way out of it this weekend…somehow.

I appreciate her kindness. It doesn’t fix anything, but it made a small difference for a short period of time. And at least I know I can get my hair cut without trauma.

Pushing Back the Swamp

I seem to have pushed back at least a little of the swamp from yesterday. It’s still there, pokes its ugly head up, makes my guts clench, makes me feel nauseous, gives me this headache, and then leaves me alone for a while. I’m exhausted…didn’t sleep well last night. Waking up with chills and then night sweats. I’m not sick. My body did this early on…for the first three weeks on and off. I just figured it was psychological. I’ve had a few since then…problem is, I’m used to the night sweats. Had them for years. They actually seemed better in the last two months, but these chills, they’re awful. I’m so cold I can’t get warm. I pile all the blankets on me, including the down comforter, and then I wake up an hour later sweating to death, and then I get the chills again. Don’t Google it…it’s just freaky. Quite honestly, it could be anything from stress to low blood sugar to something to do with my current meds, which are probably all out of whack with the massive weight loss. So I’ll wait until I go to the doctor next month and bug her about it…try to document when and if there are any triggers…nothing much else to be done.

I’m tense today. Body is tight and about to jump out of its skin. And tired. Not a good mix. But better than yesterday. Yesterday sucked. Really really bad. There will be more days of suckitude. I know my triggers and I try to deal, but there’s only so much talking the logical brain can do until the emotional brain just shuts it outside and turns the music up loud.

I went to a school meeting today about teachers and technology and the law. It was helpful in some ways, but remarkably vague in others, because quite honestly, the law hasn’t caught up with reality. It’s amazing though what teachers are held to that the rest of the world doesn’t need to care about…we live in a culture where a high-ranking government official can be sending pictures of his penis to random women, and teachers are supposed to still be living in the Dark Ages of morality. My art has always been an issue…if someone complains, there will be an investigation. The question I had was is the password I use necessary? I instituted the password about 4 years ago because a parent complained about my website anonymously (hence, no investigation) to the superintendent. I freaked out (like you do) and put the password on there. That said, if you Google me nowadays, my images are all over the web. They’re published in books that you can buy at the local bookstore. If someone is going to come after me for my art, the password on the website isn’t going to protect me. Nothing will.

That said, the lawyer I talked to suggested that art is not the same as my posting nude pictures of myself (wow, wouldn’t that be scary), that art had certain protections…and when it came down to it, if there was discipline against me, I was probably talking to the guy who would handle it. He did advise caution, but I get so many complaints that people can’t get into the site because of the password that I’d rather just get rid of it…and he basically said I could. That I was in so deep with the art at this point that it wouldn’t matter.

So did I come home and remove the passwords from every post? Heck no. First of all, I’m still thinking about it…paranoid daughter of a lawyer here. Second, it would take hours to remove all the password protection, from what I remember from the last time I did it. I could just not use a password from here on out.

I’m still thinking. I already know which of you will urge caution and which will squeal hallelujah.

So it was a long day, nonetheless, but I eventually made it to the tracing table…

I’m about 1015 pieces in (although there are 10 missing? Maybe? I certainly can’t find pieces 986-995), 9 1/2 hours in…about 200 pieces left…nearing the finish line…at least on this step. I think I’m up to 7 yards of Wonder Under…not sure. Too tired to check. Need to take my headache to bed.

We’re getting new teacher computers at school next week, after 4 years of using that ancient beast…it won’t really matter to me, because I usually leave it at school anyway. I have three computers in the house…it seems like enough, although now I’m totally paranoid that something is going to go wrong that I can’t fix (or that the boychild can’t figure out). I hate being vulnerable. Did I tell you that? I need an Ironman suit that also is capable of dealing with everything breaking and going bad and falling down and shooting water into the sky and trees falling down and cars breaking down and all that shit. I’m so tired of being the only one dealing with it all and not having anyone else you can depend on for help with getting it done or packing it up or cleaning it up or any of that. It just gets old.

The wonder of being a single mom. If I weren’t such a mental mess, I’m sure I would be able to get them to tidy up a bit more, but I just don’t have the energy.

Tomorrow…tomorrow is going to be interesting. I don’t know if it will be good or not, but that’s the thing…you never do know. Taking the sad person to sleep. I’ll tell you, if one more person says you just have to CHOOSE to be happy and it magically fucking happens, I may have to launch myself at them. I’m sure that’s possible if you aren’t carrying around biochemical markers for depression, but right now, happiness is not something I can just magically choose, and if I did, I would be faking it. You have to get through the grief and make sure that what was cracked is at least mending, that whatever caused all the issues in the first place is actually gone or going or at least well understood. Otherwise you’re just going to be doing it again at some point in the future, and if you’re lucky like me, you’ll do all the healing and mending and then you’ll get to do it all again because someone ELSE didn’t do it and you get to pay for their dumbass maneuvers.

Yeah. So hopefully none of THAT angst will wake me up in the middle of the night. I need my rest.

Protected: All Hail, DNA…

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Protected: The World of Un