Feet They Hardly Touch the Ground*

More signs that I am not functioning correctly: I tried to condition my hair this morning before washing it. I did something else weird, but I’ve already forgotten it. Normally, I wouldn’t worry too much about lack of brain power at the end of the school year, but we are doing state testing today, so I don’t really want to fuck that up. The plus is that I don’t have to talk all day like I did yesterday, and I was probably super rude to the counselor who called and wanted to slow talk a very simple request while I was in the middle of explaining seminal vesicles and prostate glands, and I just needed to know in 3 words or less WTF you actually needed, not having a conversation right now. Sigh. I was zen last week. I’m too tired to be zen this week.

Because of that, I came home last night and didn’t bring any work with me. I hit 12,000 steps before I ever left my classroom, and then went to tutoring. We still had to do the grocery shopping, which meant having the mental capacity to consider what to cook. Too hard. Picked easy stuff. Sometimes you just have to get through it. I have a 3-day weekend coming up, so that bodes well for sleep. I don’t have a free Saturday until July though. Seems problematic. Oh wait, I think the 22nd of June is free. WTF. Oh well. More worryingly, I need to finish this quilt. It does have a deadline and I got nothing done on it over the weekend. So that’s a priority. Over grades even. They’re due later, I think.

So after dinner, I pulled out the 5th Earth Mother embroidery, the one I was working on during graduation ceremony 2 and 3, and then on the plane in the dark, because I knew I was almost done with it…and I finished it. It needs a wash…seriously…all that dog/cat hair.

It took about 5 1/2 hours, so a little longer than the last one. Not sure why. Just because. As far as selling these, it’s hard to do that without underselling my time. I have a formula. It makes this thing expensive. Do we pay artists appropriately for their time? Because the hours up there don’t count the drawing time and the time picking threads or buying the fabric, or the cost of the fabric…I didn’t have to buy the threads, so that helped, but normally you would. Plus time to wash and iron and trace it on there and all that. So it’s really probably more like 9 hours. A day’s work. What is that worth to you?

Just curious. I know the money part never works out.

I did start the last one. It shouldn’t take long…a little bit at dinner each night.

This guy…

Had a tick. That shit is scary. I missed these guys…

And my whacker cat, who slept with me last night and is seemingly more mellow this morning. Maybe. She didn’t whack me anyway. Yet.

And then I cut stuff out for an hour before I had to drive to the airport to pick up the last two of our party.

Yup. Still exhausted. Went to bed before midnight. Didn’t help. More cutting of these tonight…I have a long weekend and I want to get the quilt ironed together by the end of it. Plus I have some Patreon stuff to do this afternoon, so there’s that. And another drawing I haven’t finished. All that. Off to school.

*The Police, Walking on the Moon

I Don’t Know What Day It Is…

Please don’t expect coherence from me this week. Maybe by Saturday, but not today. Yesterday was exhausting, but we made it home and girlchild made it to Portugal. Well. Two of us are still in Boston…long story. Everyone is fine, as far as I know, although probably irritable. The dogs (and the man) are probably very excited to have us back…my dad showed up at 7:15 AM to get his dog (he texted first). My cat seemed happy to see me and then whacked me…probably for leaving…or because I still smelled like the cat at the house where we stayed. I was absolutely lame at taking photos of the house or the cat or a lot of things.

Yesterday, we got out of our rental house, helped the girlchild move furniture and dishes and the last of her stuff into storage and the house basement, destroyed a cheap wardrobe and dumped it illegally (but on campus, where they get big bins because they know this will happen, said goodbye to the girlchild, dropped the two stay-behinds at a hotel, drove through a storm, dumped the car, and then stood in an airport (most of the seats were taken) for a while, watching the storm out there…

Yes. Grading shit. Although I wanted to start watching videos and somehow persuaded myself that I needed a special hookup, which is how you know I was exhausted by then because there’s a sound port on the right side that I use at school Every Damn Day. Oh yeah.

Our flight was about 40 minutes late leaving, because they held flights at other airports because of the storm. Then we were an hour late landing, so I got home at around 12:25 AM and collapsed into bed, where my brain went on overdrive and then I tried to shut it up.

I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what time it is. And I’m driving BACK to the airport tonight to pick up the two stragglers.

It’s all good, though, because she graduated and that’s it (well, until she decides she does or doesn’t want to go to law school or environmental grad school or change gears altogether and become a endocrinologist…which would be useful in this family).

Good job kidlets. Now go out and conquer the world. Or just do good things for nature. I don’t care. Be content. Be passionate about something. Be awesome. Be yourself. Come see me occasionally…otherwise I will chase your ass down.

I did stitch a little on the plane…honestly, it was dark and the girl next to me kept putting her head in the light and although this transfer paper is better than the Saral, it’s still hard to see without good light. And this is an awful picture…but she’s almost done.

I couldn’t see the last bits of it in the dark.

And then I traced the last one at the house the night before…

She shouldn’t take long. Then I think I will draw another 6? I don’t know. I’ll check in with the guy selling them and see what he says. I did start a drawing on the plane, but didn’t finish it. I need to do a drawing for my Patreon folks by this weekend. I need to edit my video too. And I need to go to school and get ready to teach reproductive anatomy. Hopefully the headache will be gone by then. For now? I need to get more tea in me, find the Motrin, brush my teeth, tell this hot flash to go suck lemons, and hope my car starts…and I can find my keys. All that. I can do that.

Graduation Up the Yin Yang

Thunderstorm and lightning, plus hail…makes for an exciting night. There’s another one coming tonight, when we try to fly out. That sounds nice.

I am exhausted. It’s been a long weekend. Saturday, we helped the girlchild move a ton of stuff. Her dad broke her dresser, but it will work for storage. Sometimes I wonder about timing. She’s leaving today for Portugal and not coming back until she has to be out of her apartment. She has a sublet for the summer, but can’t move in until the 24th. Not so ideal. So storage it is.

Then we went and walked around Walden Pond…

It was beautiful. Too many people though. Dinner back here with the girlchild etc. Etc is vague on purpose. It was nice though. We’re in a nice house and everyone has a bedroom. It’s a little light on seating for a group this big, so I’ve been at the dining room table to grade etc. it has a nice leafy view and lots of light.

Sunday, we had three graduation ceremonies…the first at 8 AM. Getting 5 people through showers and breakfast was fine, except it was really early California time. My brain is a little fuzzy.

Girlchild is still job-hunting, like many of these graduates.

Graduation ceremonies are horrible things to survive.

I stitched a lot…only one person talked to me about it. Said she was fascinated watching me stitch (2 hours for the big graduation, an hour for each of the smaller ones)…

I finished this one in the second ceremony. It took about 4 1/2 hours…definitely smaller and easier to stitch than the other ones.

I started this one…and got more done on it in the third ceremony.

Lunch was “how can we eat all the leftovers.” We failed. There’s still stuff in the fridge.

Here she is with my lovely parents…who read my blog for the pictures.

There’s one of you guys! The goal we came up with is no wheelchairs for all of my niece and nephews’ graduations. So they need to keep moving. We figure the last graduation will be when my dad is 89 1/2, so we should be fine. (Laughs hysterically)

Sunday night was a great tapas dinner. I graded into the night.

Today, we’re doing the final move into storage and cleaning…then hopefully getting on a plane home. Right now, I’m being vacuumed around and harassed to finish eating And writing so we can get out of here. I expect more stitching in my future and maybe grading, and probably not enough sleep tonight. But she’s done with school…yay! And now we just need to finish paying for it. I hope she has fun on her post-grad trip and comes back to a job offer. That would be awesome. I hope we make it home tonight. That would also be awesome.

Watching Videos and Stitching

I am in the lovely leafy neighborhood of Lexington, Massachusetts, in an old, funky home (ok, it’s not old to your East Coasters, but I’m from California, so we don’t know shit about old). Girlchild is graduating from college, so we have descended upon this town to torture her.

Today, we will be sightseeing and helping her move shit. Tomorrow, we sit through 3 graduation ceremonies.

So I spent 5 hours or so on a plane yesterday, watching videos and stitching.

I finished one, but it needs washing and ironing.

So there’s that. Don’t expect coherence out of me. It’s really early for my brain.

I did bring quilt parts to trim too. So hopefully some of that will get done. Breakfast now…

Freak Out Morning

I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten something. But I have a packed bag and I’m leaving soonish. It’ll all be fine.

Hey! I finished ironing! Yay! I used 143 fabrics…here they are.

I have a car arriving here in 12 minutes.

Maybe earlier.

I started cutting stuff out last night…actually a good start…I bagged it all up to take with me…

Hopefully I’ll get some done. Katie…my parents’ dog…showed up last night.

Yeah. My sub cancelled yesterday and no one picked up the job, so my co-teachers will have to cover. Sorry guys. At least I’m not teaching sex ed today! Plans sometimes work. See you on the East Coast in a while. No stress! Meditation app on.

I’m Going Anyway

Let the pre-travel panic begin! My sub plans are written, I need to clean up my classroom (aka hide the sex-ed question box so the kids don’t harass the subs about that stuff), I need to make some copies, it would be good if I finished grading some stuff (but honestly, that’s probably not going to happen), I wanted to finish stitching the 3rd embroidery so I could leave its almost-finished ass behind (well, vulva anyway), and I really really really wanted to be done with the ironing on this piece last night. I Was So Close. Damn day job. Seriously. Especially when I have to be ON at all moments. There’s no down time. I’m only half-packed…but that’s better than not packed. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. At some point, I just get on a plane.

I’ve spent 13 hours plus ironing for this piece so far…why so long? Well, there are these sections (that I can’t show you), and each one is like its own little scene, so it requires special thought that’s separate from the last scene. Plus there’s a shitload of blues and grays and they all need to deal with each other. I am so close to done though! Seriously close…this is all that’s left…

Not much at all. 50 pieces? If that. So that’s my plan for tonight, after quilt class. Ironically. I will start cutting stuff out tonight too, and then I plan to take it with me. There’s a lot of my family sitting around and chatting on these trips. I might as well get something useful done. I’m seriously bad at just sitting somewhere.

This is the fabric chaos AFTER I straightened it up. It was kind of driving me nuts.

There is a lot of gray in there. It’s not organized by color yet. That’s the last thing I do. I like seeing all the colors together.

It would have taken another hour to finish…and that would have been past 1 AM. I have to teach Yes Means Yes today. I need to be awake for it.

Kitten agrees.

Plus her claw is stuck in the chair. That’s what you get for trying to scratch my chair.

I prepped this piece to take with me…well mostly. This transfer paper is supposed to be less likely to wear off. I’ll let you know if that’s true.

Certainly the other stitchers who are doing this might have been smart to do theirs on white fabric. I’m complicated.

I spent some time yesterday afternoon staring up into my trees while the old dog tried to negotiate voiding her bowels…it takes time…

I often have to dig deep to find patience on a good day, but by this time of year, it’s a significant issue. There it is. Up there. Actually, there were two crows up there squawking about something, so it wasn’t very peaceful soundwise…but peaceful in my head because there’s no 12-year-olds up there arguing about how self defense means you can punch whomever you want. Today we will have the god/baby discussion. Dudes, I teach science. I had a kid tell me her last baby sister was a gift from God because her mom says she and her dad weren’t doing it any more. Um. Oh dear. So. No. I’m rolling my eyes at her mom.

The plus is that no matter how stressed I am, the graduating girlchild is worse off…even though my sub teacher for tomorrow just canceled. We’re good. I’m going anyway.

Don’t Tread on Me…

My show is up in Pittsburgh! I’m still hoping to get there to see it, if that’s possible. There are 6 pieces and it’s called Elemental Fiber…

It’s in the Society for Contemporary Craft’s satellite space in the BNY Mellon Center at 500 Grant St, Pittsburgh.

It’s an interesting space…open to the public in the Lobby of the Steel Plaza T-Station at Oliver Street and Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh. The glass also makes it hard to photograph, but I really appreciate their sending me these.

It’s hard to send work off, especially multiple pieces.

It looks good. You should go see it.

I didn’t apply for this show…they contacted me after I didn’t get into another show. Hey, I’ll take this.

I have 6 quilts in the exhibit. I’m not making any comments about the Strip District there. Hmmm. Anyway, if you happen to be in town for Fiberart International…check it out.

I taught the first day of sex ed yesterday…it was pretty chill…mostly looking at what friendship looks like and how you can tell the difference between liking and loving…a difficult concept for many adults. Like that first rush of feeling you have when you are thinking you are falling in love with someone…that’s very different than the love you feel when you have to go through hard shit and you do it together. Or they’re going through hard shit and you are there for them. I think that love is way more important, but I’m not 12. Or an adult who acts 12…most of the time. Teaching middle school means you can access your 12-year-old self quite easily…you see it reflected back at you about 150 times. But in general, in relationships, I don’t do 12.

Tuesdays are long because I do tutoring after school, and then I went shopping for snacks for our state testing days. We asked the principal this year if he could fund the snacks (such a change from the principal who wouldn’t let us have any food or drink, not even gum, because he was afraid they’d get stains on the test booklets)…but there isn’t enough money to do that and pay for the stuff we have to pay for…so every teacher funds that out of their own pocket. There’s no way kids can work that hard for 3 1/2 hours without sustenance. So we feed them.

And then I practiced video editing while cooking dinner…I got my first real Patreon video done and posted. I show the stage I’m at in the quilt and explain a little bit about how I pick fabrics and why everything is organized the way it is. I am still not an awesome video editor, but I’m getting better. It was easier this time. I still watched the instructions video about 3 more times. I’m using Lightworks, which is cool and has a lot of things you can do without a Pro version, but I can’t say it’s very intuitive for a non-video-editing person.

I’ll be doing two videos a month…one kind of a how-to/background of what I do, and one Who Knows What video. I’m thinking art exhibits I go to, or maybe even part of a hike, or watching me draw, or I don’t know. Stuff that fuels the art. I also am writing over there, and people at the $5/month level will get a drawing emailed to them each month. They can stitch it up, make a small quilt (if they’re crazy), color it in, or just stare at it. It’s going to take a little effort to get me on a routine with this, but I’m pretty sure it will get easier with time. It’s nice to make things for people who are helping me make more art.

I did stitch a little after dinner…

I did the arm things…and started the knee things. I’m hoping I have enough green for the rug. I need another bobbin. I should ask about that. I need to prep a new embroidery design for the trip to Boston. I also need to think about packing. Yup.

But last night, I ironed instead…

I have everything almost to the high 600s ironed. I could finish tonight. I think. I’m going to try anyway. This quilt is a little fussy for ironing…there’s lots of little tiny things happening that take some color analysis. Like 12 different blues in one section. Some have to go together and some most definitely shouldn’t. So there’s a lot of staring into space at fabrics. I’m good at that.

Someone sent me this…

Totally feeling it.

Nature Calls…and Then Hits Me in the Ass…

I fell last night while hiking…going downhill, I slipped on some loose rocks. I do fall or almost fall pretty regularly, and that’s why we have padded asses. To land on. Which I did. Unfortunately, there was a large rock where I landed, so I am right now sitting on a softball-sized bruise just to the left of my coccyx. Which I think is intact, because although I feel a bit stiff (and ancient, dammit), there’s no excruciating pain. Good thing really. There’s no ass cast. And trying to keep an ice pack on that part of my body while teaching (or ironing) is not a thing.

So yeah, we hiked with the furry beasts…

We saw a snake right at the beginning, in the parking lot…

It was a little one. But yeah, a Diamondback…

The grasses are going brown…which makes everything look different…

The poppies are gone…but there are still new flowers every time we go out there…

I really should live somewhere that rains more.

Except that would probably drive me nuts…

I really do appreciate all the hikes and being out in nature. Even with the giant ass bruise. Ouch. Poor dead butterfly…

Beautiful though…

Here’s the full Patreon Amanda Palmer picture…we are in the top far right.

Thanks for an awesome weekend y’all.

Speaking of Patreon, I recorded three more short videos last night, so I’m editing tonight. Hopefully those will go up tonight. My second video for the month might well be at Walden Pond…you just never know.

When I got home, I did some things. After dinner, I worked on this sweet thing…who is close to done…

She’s got a rug and some knee and arm designs…and that’s it. I’m hoping I have enough of the green to finish the rug. We’ll see. I should prep the next one or two for the trip to Boston. The last three are smaller…they should take less time. This one has actually been pretty fast, compared to the last two. We’ll see what the final time is though. I’m currently at about 6 1/2 hours. Not bad.

Then I ironed…

That is a run of blue, for sure. I didn’t even finish that section…just the stuff under water. Wait, no. I didn’t finish ALL the stuff under water. The windows aren’t done. I know. It doesn’t make sense right now. It will. More of that tonight. I’m about halfway through the 500s. It’s taking forever, but I am past the halfway mark for sure now. It feels like I might finish. Someday. Hopefully before we leave, but no guarantees. Probably not.

Speaking of leaving, the job calls. Today I start teaching sex ed. I’m not ready. It will be fine. Too much talking though. This week is easy…all relationships and liking vs loving and all that gooby stuff…well, and statutory rape. Fun stuff.

Stupid Scissor Rules

Well. That was a weekend. I’m so glad I planned it though. I remember thinking, ah, no, you’re going to Boston the following weekend, it’s May, which is always a clusterfuck, LA is a pain in the ass, you’ll have to get somewhere to stay, blah blah blah, all the things you say when you’re trying to talk yourself out of something you really want to do. But I didn’t. Amanda Palmer was great. Amazing. A performance more than a concert, but riveting. Even though I knew some of the story, I hadn’t heard it from her, and that made a difference.

We drove up to LA, found our hotel, which was within walking distance of the venue, and hung out for a bit…

Hanging out looks like this after driving up to LA. Then headed out to get dinner early, because…well…so I joined Patreon originally to support Amanda Palmer. I had been reading her blog and she talked about it and I checked it out and went HEY. This is a thing. This is how we as a society support musicians and artists the way they want to be supported. This is how we back their projects and encourage them to do new things, better things, things that may not be very commercial, but are very much what we want to see. So I joined. And one of the things about her Patreon is she wants to hear from us and see us, so she sets up a photo shoot before every show. Ours was here…

And we needed to be there by 5:45. So we ate early…at Mikkeller…

Which has great art…

So we were at that park, waiting for AFP to show up and the security for the park? the buildings around the park? kicked us out. Because we were gathering on the walkways. They left the homeless guy on the lawn, but a bunch of liberal, semi-strange-looking people is definitely a danger to humanity.

Amanda showed up and talked to us…

Which was cool. There are many needy people who are fans. She is good to them, very patient. Much more patient than I would be.

I wish we’d had more time to walk around and photograph art around the area, but really, after the photo, we went back to the hotel for about half an hour and then headed to the venue…

The Ace Hotel is an old theater that’s been converted/adapted.

The inside is completely amazing…totally over the top…this was taken after we all left…

Our seats were in the lower balcony to the right. It was good.

She talked a lot, played a bunch of songs, there was definitely ukulele…it was emotional, sometimes painful, and funny on top of all of it. An amazing show. Four hours plus of amazing. It must be exhausting to do the show. I wanted the needy people to be quiet, but they never are. She handled them well. There are times to respond and times to ignore. I was worried the man would be bored, because he wasn’t really an AFP fan in the beginning, hadn’t heard anything since the Dresden Dolls, but she talked a lot about music and being an artist, and I think that dragged him in. He liked it. I loved it…it was a very personal experience, despite the hundreds of people and not being able to get through the bathroom line. It was worth the 5 hours of driving and getting not so much sleep and going to an iHop on Mother’s Day (oh hey, mistake) and not getting much work done and all that.

I did a drawing, but I don’t have the energy (or time for that matter) to get up and photograph it (find it first). I’ll do it later.

Yeah. Cool. Totally worth the trip.

I came home, rushed through all the errands, graded 96 emails worth of makeup work (ha!), came in here, and started ironing.

I was supposed to record the last bit for my Patreon video, but I forgot. So tired. So I’ll do that tonight. I wrote it in the calendar. After dog walking. It’s on the list.

I am nowhere near where I wanted to be with this quilt. I cut out nothing on the way to or from LA, because I did all the driving. I was too tired in the hotel. I’m about halfway through the 400s after last night, but that’s still about halfway…no, probably less than that. So I’ll have to decide if I want to bring it to Boston and cut stuff out. I can’t cut on the plane (stupid scissor rules). I could cut at three different graduation ceremonies though. Ah? Thinking about it. I have traveled with stuff to cut out before.

Anyway. It’s a busy week. I’m going to get done whatever I can. I’d like to be done with the ironing, but I can’t guarantee that. I can only try.

And oh hey…next weekend, we’ll be here…

to see the girlchild graduate. She matches the trees and the flowers.

No One Can Do Anything by Themselves…

So the reality right now is that I am totally booked with stuff and making art is difficult and even getting stuff graded is, because last night, before I had my kid drive me to the SO’s show, I was sitting there, gulping tea because I was freakin’ exhausted and didn’t know if I could stand for hours, watching music, but I was grading late work. Because I had 96 emails and I hadn’t graded late work since the first week of April (there was a two-week Spring Break in there, so I only feel sorta bad about that), and I need to catch the fuck up. Holy crap, it’s never gonna happen. It always feels that way in May, though, and then we have testing and when we teach sex ed, the grading is literally just Did they do it? Cool. Give them points, so that makes life easier.

YES. I go back every year and read my own blog to remember that the feeling of burbling panic in my belly and chest is NOT a heart attack or even a panic attack…it is just the last month of the school year. Every Year. So I should just get zen with it. I was not zen yesterday. We did a lab with corn syrup and salt water and isopropyl alcohol, and even though we put stuff in trays (best purchases we ever made), I still had a kid (accidentally) knock an entire tray off the table and onto the ground and no I did not kill him but it totally threw me for the rest of the day holy shit that’s when you know you’re tired…not just tired from no sleep, but also tired of being a teacher. It happens. To all of us. We should buy a mop for the classroom. Totally.

Meanwhile, I’m really really incredibly disturbed by the attack on women’s reproductive rights. I just don’t understand this need to control our uteri and not also hold men accountable. Georgia, you fucking suck. OK. Clarify. Georgia politicians: you fucking suck. Anyone who supports someone else making decisions about what I can and can’t do with my uterus sucks. The politicians trying to overturn Roe V Wade fucking suck. Sometimes this stuff just makes me so sick to my stomach…people have rights. Women have rights. If you’re arguing that a fetus has rights to survive No Matter What, then you need to fund all the support systems that will help someone take care of them, and NOT make an 11-year-old give birth after a RAPE. This shit is beyond me. It makes me want to scream. I don’t even know how to process it into a drawing, because I’m so angry about it. Deep breaths. VOTE. I might move to Georgia and vote. OK, no. But I do support NOT supporting Georgia financially. And the other states who are on this crazy bandwagon. What is this world we live in? We are supposed to be better than this. We aren’t better right now. We’re not great. We’re intensely fucked up. You can rail against Democrats and liberals all you like…they’re not trying to make an 11-year-old who was raped give birth. Not a single one.

Woo! So yeah. Letting that sit with the art brain for a while. It’ll come out. Somehow.

So what I did last night…is make the boychild drive me downtown (cheaper than Lyft)…the sky was much more interesting than this photo. It usually is.

And then I watched the man’s band play…because of where I was standing, I couldn’t get a picture of all 6 of them, but I like their logo for this show. I might steal it.

The man and his keyboards are behind the guitarist on the left.

It was a good show. The band after them was OK…really good when they were doing Weezer cover band stuff…less good when they weren’t. And then the band after them…

I’d never seen them before, but they were good (had a lot of backing tracks though, so what is good in that case?)…the audience was strangely young, even though the majority of the music was 80s. Like I felt sorta ancient. Which is funny, because I was actually in high school and college in the 80s, and a huge number of the people there were totally not even born then. So there was that. We didn’t make it to the end…too tired. Hauled our asses home, decompressed a little, and then collapsed in bed. Around 1 AM again though…that’s three nights this week. Sigh. I just can’t get it all done.

So I made no art last night, although no, wait…I drew this while waiting up at the front for Radio Thieves to go on…

I don’t know if it’s done. It’s small though, I would probably add to it. Or redo it. I like the idea. Maybe it wants to be big.

We leave in a few hours for Los Angeles to see Amanda Palmer. I’m really looking forward to seeing her for the first time. We have a hotel, so we don’t have to drive back for once. Hopefully it will all be very cool. It does mean I won’t get any quilt stuff done, unless I take pieces with me to cut out. I’m debating that. I’m not sure how much time there will be. Right now, it is raining, which I also wasn’t expecting this morning.

Anyway, I need to shower, pack, eat, grade some stuff, and iron some stuff. I need to decide what to take with me: sketchbook? embroidery? stuff to cut out? I also need another cup of tea, because I’m not officially awake yet.

This guy. Is such a dork. And when I started typing this, Kitten wouldn’t move.

She was convinced I didn’t need to see the menus on the left. Ugh.

OK, shower first. That will help with the awake part. I hope. The title is from a show I was watching. I believe that. I’m an incredibly independent woman. I don’t like help. But that’s the truth.