See Inside, Inside of Our Heads*

Well some of the to-do list is done. The ritual of crossing things off a list or checking that box, the visual of a long list of shit to be accomplished with lines drawn through…it helps. There’s still too many things on the list, but at least it’s not growing exponentially every day. Yet. Ha!

Just don’t ask about the grading. That’s going really slowly and inefficiently. Too much going on this last week at night. I’m behind. Significantly. This is unfortunate. I can feel all my normal stress responses ramping up, but the eyes aren’t twitching yet. That’s good. I even went to bed a little earlier last night to try and help. We’ll see. I swear, the thing I wish for most at the moment is more sleep…and it’s the thing that’s hardest to find.

I had my quilt meeting last night…it gets smaller and smaller, and I’m the only one who has quilt stuff any more. And last night, I didn’t! Well, I had those last 15 pieces to cut out…so I did that…and then I started sewing wool pieces down on the Sue Spargo Folk Tails blocks, because I think I’ll finish the 5th or 6th one tonight (I can’t remember which one I’m on) and then I’ll only have three for the trip next week. So some part of my brain believes that three is plenty…and some part doesn’t. In the back is one that’s ready…so there are two more in the front that I’m working on…and then I realized that those are all from the month of May and I haven’t even sewn the parts on for April.

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That probably doesn’t matter. I don’t think those need to be done in order. And honestly, I don’t think these are coming with me. My brain tries to organize projects sometimes and then the other more practical part of my brain kicks in and goes, Seriously? Three blocks? You’re not going to get those done in four days…even with all the travel you’ll be doing. You’ll draw and read too…plus grade in any down time.

I hate being bored. I hate sitting in airports and on planes and not having stuff to do. I need a variety of things from which to choose.

We’re all still coneheads. I’m hoping tomorrow’s vet takes care of that. Her really bad foot is better, so that’s good.

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The little guy is also better, but less likely to fall asleep on my studio floor.

So when I got home and dealt with dinner, I sorted the pieces…

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Lots of tiny. Then I came back into the studio and started ironing…

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Things that overlap can be a pain in the butt…

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But I got the first almost 100 pieces done. So that was good. I’m totally creeped out by that hand though.

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I guess that’s a good thing, since this piece is supposed to be creepy. I’m not sure when I’ll have time to finish it…maybe tonight? I really should be grading stuff. I’m trying. I just can’t get much time in class because of how we’re teaching at the moment. My voice is shot…having to talk for three days straight. This is like going back to the old days when we had to talk all the time. We’ve gotten used to less of the direct instruction and more creating understanding…I think that’s cool until I start losing my voice. Today is more talking…but next week should be better. Hallelujah. I think yesterday was the first day all year I was teaching something I had taught before…and it was a relief. It was so easy. That’s a good sign for next year…it will be easier. We still have to tweak stuff, but it will be easier.

*Trapt, Headstrong

Come Inside Where It’s Okay*

So. Thursday. What certain days feel like. Thursdays are. Thursdays often have a meeting at the end of them. Thursday mornings are tired, but not as tired as Friday mornings. Thursdays don’t really have a wish or a hope attached to them…just the potential for hanging out with people after work for once. Thursdays often have dinner issues because I’m tired of what I’ve been eating all week, but I don’t want to cook. Right now, Thursday also has deadlines, things that have to be done before tomorrow. Some of those things have been stacking up, getting pushed into the corner, but no longer small or quiet enough to stay there. Now I have to step around them, they’re so big and in my face. I should deal with them. I’m pretty sure at least three of them are on my calendar for before school today. With my headache. My stayed-up-too-late-again headache. Yup. I named it. Then I medicated it. Feels like I will have to medicate it again.

Sometimes I can’t handle all the people around me. Ironic, since I’m a teacher and I’m surrounded. It’s less the kids and more the adults. One of my former students found me yesterday after school. She was a tough little thing, lashing out, never quiet, not the best student in the world, a lot of Sorry Ms. Nidas. And then she would turn around and yell at some other kid at the top of her tiny lungs. I recognized her. Couldn’t remember her name until I got home and found my old pictures. She’s graduating this year, not like a lot of others, she says. Too many baby daddies and mommas. Sad. I know about some of those. Then she says something about taking Biology three times. I think about what I remember of her…ask her if she finally passed (they have to take it until they pass). I look at her shirt, some logo about not caring. I tease her about that. Then she says, no. I took three different Biology classes; I’m going to college. I love Biology.

Wow. OK. Cool. I tell her the shirt is a lie. She admits it. I tell her I’m really proud of her, because I am. Because you know when they seek you out 5 years later to tell you that shit that you were part of what mattered. And I needed that yesterday. Her name is fixed in my head now. I hope she rocks the next step.

That reminds me. I want to try some experimentation with at least one quilt this summer, to make it in a way I don’t usually make it. But I have to decide about deadlines. This is after I got two rejection notices yesterday from a show I didn’t enter this year. I was so confused. Freaking out really, because I knew I’d entered one of the pieces in another show, so I thought I was going a bit nuts and had forgotten completely about an exhibit. And that I’d double-entered something, which is a big no no. Well. I didn’t enter…didn’t have new work available. So I wasn’t crazy. It was a weird moment though.

I sewed on this…the purple looped feather stitch (that’s what they called it…I call it a stupid pain-in-the-ass stitch)…on the left.

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I graded some…because I need to get caught up. Aargh. Always the catching up.

Then I cut tiny pieces out for a long time. Too late…

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But I didn’t finish. I needed to go to bed at least a half hour earlier…so staying up another half hour or more to finish these would have been really fucking stupid.

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Tonight I finish those and hopefully start ironing.

That’s the plan anyway. Plans go awry. And I haven’t been good about anything getting done lately. Or being with people apparently either. Not just an introvert, but a mostly antisocial introvert. Woo hoo!

*Elliott Smith, Thirteen (yes, Big Star)

You’d Better Change It Back or We Will Both Be Sorry*

There’s too much shit in my head right now, swirling around. Massive to-do lists banging into me like two dogs wearing plastic cones on their heads. Wait. That’s real life. I’m tired of their doggy heads banging into the backs of my legs…or both of them trying to get through a door before I’ve opened it all the way. Thunk! One dog gets 7 1/4 pills in the morning; the other gets 1.6 ml? or µl? of some white stuff that he tolerates. Treats for all! Plus soaking of the feets! So time-consuming. And then there’s all the stuff I should be doing for school but keep blowing off…grading, most of it. But also calculating grades and awards. Then the boychild is home in less than a week…I think his room is pretty clean, but the bedding definitely needs washing. And I need to vacuum, but my vacuum is dying a not-so-pretty death, so I need to deal with that. And then I’m gone for two days next week to go to Quilt National…yay! But that’s a planning nightmare for school. You just don’t take off during the sex ed unit. Or. Well. You do. You just plan really well for it.

And this block I’m working on is supposed to be done by the 29th…which it probably will be. It’s not a hard thing to do. It really only needs to be a top, but since the drawn line is really important to my quilts, I’ll have to figure out how to do that without quilting it. I might use batting anyway. Or maybe not, since I think I’m one of the ones in charge of sewing this thing together. I can quilt it later. Maybe. I don’t know.

Anyway. I did manage to finish all the ironing last night…although I did this first, two night’s worth…I did some red straight stitches and then some weird whipped stitch just to the right of the eyeball. Then a barbed chain stitch (I don’t know if that’s a real stitch…it’s just what it looked like as I made it up) and French knots in green near the eyeball and that whipped stitch.

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The color is really dull because I took that photo basically in the dark without a flash. So the next time you see a photo of it, you’ll be amazed by how bright it is.

Then I ironed all those flesh fabrics from last night and cut out the rest of it (a heart…an ovary)…

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So that’s 32 fabrics, a pile of stuff to be cut out tonight, and about three hours of work.

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Like I said, it’s not a hard thing to do…in fact, maybe I should do a few smaller ones. So that reminds me, I need to put an official list together of what is going to be in the Visions show. I should do that this week, because next week is gonna be a cluster. Plus I want it done. I basically know what’s in there…I just have a few wishy washy issues. And being overwhelmed is not helping me deal with them.

I wish I were her sometimes. It looks so easy…

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Goofball dogs.

But really. I think it’s 21 days left of school…and I’m gone for 2 of those. But then I have jury duty. And I need to pick up some copyediting jobs for the summer. Plus I need a big project (or three) for the summer. Right? It’s true, I love that about the summer…a big meaty project or two to focus on with all that “free” time.

OK. Well I still have a headache, so the tea isn’t cutting it. Yesterday we eased into sex ed with Liking vs Loving…much easier than slamming right into anatomy, which is how we’ve always done it. We ramp it up a bit today with relationship abuse, and then tomorrow, we bring out the penises and vaginas. Whoa Nelly. Then slam them upside the head with puberty. It’s on!

*The Human League, Don’t You Want Me

Lost Myself and I Am Nowhere to Be Found*

There are times when my night-owl tendencies can be detrimental (and yeah, I already know I’m going to die early because I can’t sleep enough)…for instance, when I decide to start ironing after 11 PM and it’s a small quilt and I can pick almost all the flesh fabrics in an hour or so, but then they all need to be ironed to the fabric, and it’s almost 1 AM, and I have to get up and go to work the next day…even better, I have to get up and go to work and have duty before and after school in the rain, plus tutorial, AND it’s the first day of teaching sex ed, so I have to impart the seriousness of school rules and how much trouble you will get in if you Skeet Skeet to the girl across the room (if you don’t know what that means, please, it’s OK, don’t feel bad) or yell out about your peepee (seriously happened) in the middle of class. I really need a full night’s sleep for that shit.

Oh well.

It’s all in the name of art.

I went to the gym. I cooked a dinner that said it should take 20 minutes and it took an hour (I think recipes should have to answer for their inaccurate timing shit). I persuaded the girlchild not to fail a class and finish her essay instead of going to a party (OK, I think she actually persuaded herself…I have no highfalutin ideas of my ability to persuade that child to do anything). I dealt with some paperwork here and there. Oh yeah, I had to bathe a dog’s butt (no, you don’t wanna know). And then I ironed.

So this quilt has one human figure and then five hands. So they each needed a stretch of flesh colors. I often try to pick all the flesh in one go…it’s just easier…

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And this is a small quilt, so first of all, it won’t take long to do that, but also, the whole quilt is flesh. Almost. There’s only like 15 pieces that aren’t flesh. OK. Maybe 25. But not a lot.

I started actually ironing at 12:20, because it’s really dangerous to leave all those little bits of Wonder Under lying out on the fabrics with cats in the house. I like never do that.

But I had no choice…there is no way I could have stayed up another hour, and that’s what it would have taken. So I stacked plastic bins on top of all of it and I’ll have to be really careful tonight when I take them off so they don’t fly all over.

The drawing is hanging up so I can see it. With an unfinished unplanned random head top hanging next to it.

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And the last episode of Supernatural on Netflix…with Kitten watching. Not.

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Most complicated thing to consider: what to watch next? Until the next season pops up.

Anyway, I’ll finish ironing tonight. After surviving all the stuff on the list. Yes, I’m tired. I should remember that tonight. Plus don’t plan to cook new stuff for the first time on the night you go to the gym. And start ironing earlier. And and and. Sometimes dealing with art brain is like dealing with a 2-year-old.

*Sia, Breathe Me

Let’s Put Our Heads Together and Start a New Country Up*

Well whatever crazy internet thing that was going on has dissipated. My blog hits are back down to normal. Hello normal! Nice to see you too! I often forget there are people out there reading this (hello boychild! I know where you got that photo you sent to the girlchild!). Mothers’ Day. Sheesh…some holiday taken over by the media folks that messes with my head. It’s hard to have them so far away…and looking at pictures of them, trying to decide what to post, well that doesn’t help. Oh well. Moving on…I did get a long FaceTime call with the girlchild at my parents’ house…

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Wherein she tried to explain the chaos of her living and working situation for the next two-three weeks. She still has one final to finish. Then at least two jobs. And living out of a suitcase for a while.

Here’s the photo I found, from 2004…both their hairs are completely different now. OK, well, hers is similar, minus the dorky barrettes. Ages 7 and 8 about…

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And the girlchild posted this…I am just not going to explain it.

Just to say, well, the kitchen is still a mess and I have a cow costume in case you ever need to borrow one. (And that’s not my wine.)

Yesterday, I found time to weed for a while…the rains this year have kicked my landscaping butt. I was watched by this bunny for all the time it took me to fill one of those big recycling bins. Yes. One.

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That was about a third of the front yard. I didn’t even try to pick the grasslike stuff. I’m gonna weed whack that part. Sorry bunny (he lives under that deck).

In the house isn’t much better. Kitten jumped up to dust this with her paws. Right? That’s what she’s doing up there? Sigh.

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I had three days to catch up on this. I did finish the hand with one of the days, filling in with stem stitch and doing some cross stitches over the seed stitches below. Then I finished the bush to the right of the hand…only half the leaves were done. Then I did some blue fly and lazy daisy stitches in the pink below the bush.

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Back to filling in empty spaces. Still haven’t hit the halfway mark. Embroidery is relaxing though.

Then I retraced some of the pieces (old Wonder Under sucks…which is why Saturday found me at JoAnns with my 50% off coupon buying a new bolt of the stuff), cut them out, and sorted them. Only three bins.

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So easy peasy. Ironing tonight? One would hope. There’s some cleaning that needs to go on in here, the studio. In fact, that’s often the only thing that gets cleaned…the areas where I make art…the entryway floor so I can lay out quilts…etc. Oh well. I do my best.

Also, one of the shows I entered (notifications haven’t gone out yet), Threads of Resistance, posted all the entered work, because it’s an important exhibit even if all the pieces can’t be in the show. You can see the work here. There’s a ton of work, so there will be a ton of rejections…but the work is all out there for viewing. I’m interested to see how what they pick might differ from what I would pick…how to show all the possibilities of resistance with a clear, consistent show that doesn’t violate copyright. That’s a hard one.

OK…working my butt off today and then coming home to be an artist. Oh wait. I’m always an artist. Obviously not a gardener or a housecleaner. I suck at both.

*REM, Cuyahoga

Sweetness I Was Only Joking*

Well. For some reason, lots of people are coming to read the blog. Waving! Hi! As the girlchild says, “What did you do now?” Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t Google myself because there are other things I’ve done that rank much higher on Google, so I can’t find the little stuff any more. Did I have a show open this week? Nope. Nothing new there. I think. One next weekend and the following weekend, and then a couple weeks later. I have pieces traveling…but I don’t think any of them moved this week. So yeah. If you’re here, just let me know why. I wanna know.

Because really, all I’m doing at the moment is mostly survival mode. A lot of people tell me I make tons of work. I am constantly working, it’s true. I think that’s important. I also know it’s easier to do now that the kids are in college and gone most of the time. Not that I totally enjoy that existence…I do miss them, all the time, and would take them back…in fact, one comes home in 10 days. Woo hoo! He’s cringing now. And the other one, I just booked her flight home for a 2-week vacay with the parentals. OK, I’m sure she’ll see friends too. But when you come home after a difficult, emotion-grabbing, exhausting job and you think about what you want to do in the evening, it’s not like I’m gonna sit on the couch with my other and talk. I’m going to work. Even when I have social stuff…because this week I had book club and someone over for dinner and three hours at the vet and gaming, and I still made art every night.

I understand if that’s not for you. If you go to bed way earlier than I do (I suck at sleep). If you hang with humans and be in the moment (I do that…just less than you do). I don’t ever just WATCH TV. I don’t know how. My brain needs multiple stimuli to focus, even to calm. So I give it that. I don’t think that’s gotten better with age. In fact, I know it hasn’t. I’m ramping up more in overdrive as I age. Maybe it’s to make up for their being gone…or maybe this is just where I should have been the whole time and life got in the way. Who knows. And it’s funny, where other people think I’m working nonstop, I’m fully aware of every wasted moment, of the time I spend just sitting there spacing out or reading stupid political articles or answering email or just fucking DELETING emails. Or grading stuff, which is not a waste, but feels like a painfully disproportionate part of my free time.

Anyway. Yeah. I gamed last night. I wasn’t in the mood, but I did it. And I ended up going and getting the Master Pistol of whatever Dwarvenist cool stuff. Because I’m the ballistics expert in the group. Seriously not reality. I stitch during gaming, though, because my brain will otherwise shut off and take a nap, because it’s Friday and I’m exhausted.

I’m working on the bottom part of this twofer block…

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Turns out I totally misread the directions for around the outside of the tree. I don’t think I’m going to fix it. But I might.

Then I came home and started cutting out pieces of Wonder Under…with a conehead dog almost on my lap…first one and then the other.

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I got most of it cut out before I decided I was tired. It was late. The small pile on the far right were separating from the fusible web. That’s the wonder of using the last crap bits of Wonder Under that you can find in the house. They often do that. I need to go buy more.

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I don’t know if I’ll have time to finish that today…hopefully…but I have about 17 other things to either do or get ready to do first. Really. Should. Wake. Up. Earlier. Ugh.

One morning a week I attempt to sleep in. Sometimes it works. Last night, though, I forgot to change the alarm on my phone, so it woke me up for school…and that meant it took a long time to fall back asleep because this little guy heard it.

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He’s learned to use the cone to help him hold the ball. Yes, they both have cones on still. His paw isn’t too bad…hers is a mess. So meds and soakings and cones for all! Woo hoo!

Yeah. I could do without that. Anyway, possibly will be ironing to fabric tomorrow? I’m thinking? Maybe? If I’m efficient. OK, I’m always pretty damn efficient. I should own that. With that, I should go be efficient.

*The Smiths, Bigmouth Strikes Again

Sleep Don’t Visit, So I Choke on Sun*

Hello Friday. I appreciate your showing up this morning, albeit a little early. Perhaps you could make sure that you are more quiet in the morning next time, so you don’t wake the puppy up. He barks and wakes me out of a deep and sound sleep, which at my age, is a rare enough thing that you should be much more careful. That said, you’re here, and I am glad. I’m hoping you go quickly, though, at least the daytime part, so I can, well and let’s be honest here, go back to sleep and wake up to Saturday. It must be hard to be Friday, to be so celebrated but basically asked to go away as quickly as possible…or at least get to the dark part of Friday, because it’s much easier to handle.

I spent about 3 hours at the vet yesterday, arriving after the dogs and my ex, to find out that the dogs were significant victims of foxtails. (Not my yard.) Oh yay and the future is fun. Pills for some and liquids for the other (in retrospect, pills might have been easier…), soaking of feetsies (oh my, they love that), and general mayhem with cones and trying to lick and manipulation of the cone zone. I guess I need to learn to shave those paws. Or find a groomer. Yes the right paw is the worst. Poor babies.

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And those claws. Yeesh.

It was significantly late when I got them home. I had these threads in my mailbox, trying to pick an iris color…long story. It will make sense later. The one on the left is out…debating between the other two.

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I have until tomorrow to decide. I think.

More progress on the hand. I did do seed stitch in the lower part of the wrist area and then filled in with some stem stitches. It’s almost all filled in.

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Yeah. It’s strange. What can I say?I’m sure some people would be happier with all flowers, but I was getting sick of them.

Then I traced. Finished it, in fact. It’s small. It has only 290 pieces. It only took a little over 2 hours…

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I was going to start cutting them out last night, but I was way too tired. I actually went to bed before midnight. Twenty-four days of school left. I’ll be gone for two of them. One of them is testing. One is a field trip. One is the last day of school, which is always a bit hellish. We start teaching sex ed early this year…more content…so next week. I don’t feel ready. Oh well.

And then there’s this. Some of you may have seen this.

I don’t doubt that…it’s just the definition of nice that’s the problem. Some parts of this world we see every day are really pissing me off at the moment. It makes it hard to be NICE. Really. Anyway, I’m hoping to have some energy to cut stuff out tonight, but will also have all the stuff I was supposed to do yesterday and didn’t do. Crap. Oh well. It is Friday.

*Radical Face, Welcome Home

Far from This Opera for Evermore*

Somewhere about two months ago or so, I must have run out of Wonder Under, the fusible stuff I use when I make quilts. I’m sure somewhere in my head was a reminder to buy more, a reminder that fell into a back corner of my brain, pushed out by more highly prioritized items, like buy cat food, sleep more than 4 hours a night, and don’t forget to do the laundry. That’s unfortunate, because when I finally made it home yesterday after testing (Day 1 of state-induced hell), a team meeting, a union meeting, AND book club, I was looking for Wonder Under to trace the new piece…and not finding it. Ugh. Argh. Crap.

So I found what I could…

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Which was little bits and pieces and one larger piece. And that larger piece is pretty beat up. But it’s better than nothing, right? It’s not like I have time to go to the hell that is JoAnns for more. I have quilts to pick up from the photographer today, plus apparently I’m going to have to try to fit a vet visit in…I’m pretty sure that’s not gonna work, but both dogs are still sucking on toes even with cones on. I had to involve my ex, the dog whisperer last night, to deal with Mr. BiteyFace because of the cone.

So I will make do with what I have. Despite exhaustion again last night (sure, it’s an every night thing at this point), I traced for almost an hour, until my SIL called to discuss…well…never mind what she wanted to discuss, but it was one of the more amusing phone calls I’ve had lately. Lots of discussion of the shitty jobs we had in college and right out of school, as well, though…which is something to keep in mind as my own kids job hunt. Nobody had a great job out of college. I worked as a temp for at least a year. Shockingly, degrees in art and comparative literature don’t have great job prospects. Things they don’t tell you in college.

Anyway, you can see what I did get traced…I think I’m in the 100s. So another night, probably tonight, I should be done.

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I do have to put on at least one quilt label tonight and figure out hanging hardware for a drop off on Saturday.

I did more hand…almost filled in now. Well, if you ignore that huge space at the bottom. Maybe I’ll fill that with Xs or seed stitch.

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Saturday’s drop off is for this show, opening May 27, 6-9 PM.

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Here’s the other side of the card, featured All Stacked Up in My Head, the piece that needs a label and hanging hardware.

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It’s one of two pieces I’ll have in the show. I won’t be at the opening, but my work will. It has a better social life than I do.

One thing I’m looking forward to today? Kids are done with testing at 12:30 and then we can go OUT to lunch. I know that seems like no big deal, but as a teacher, we never go out to lunch because, well, lunch is 30 minutes long and that includes shooing kids out of the classroom, heating up your food, and peeing for the first time in three hours, so it’s a fast thing, not a leave-work-and-travel thing. First, though, we do need to survive Day 2 of testing, a challenge in itself. Lunch will be well-deserved.

*The White Stripes, Seven-Nation Army

Watching in a Trance*

I had been distinctly NOT thinking about the next piece that needed doing. It was too broad a topic, like all the crap going on in my head and in the news anyway, so it’s not like I could consciously process it properly. Once I got confirmation that the block could be horizontal or vertical (I wanted vertical), even then, I didn’t think about what to put on the block. I let myself get through the work day, then dinner, and then finally stood up and looked at the blank paper I’d mapped out yesterday…just a rectangle that was the right size.

I figured it would take me a while, and I was pretty tired, so I wasn’t expecting much.

I was wrong. I think it took a whopping 30 seconds before I saw the hand in front of her mouth…and then another on her breast, well and then there’s the pussy, of course.

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I did start with a rough pencil sketch on this one. I usually don’t, but I wanted the proportions to work out OK…plus it’s easier to know where the stuff is going before you draw the stuff behind.

Once I had the body in generally with the hands, I filled in the rest.

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The whole time, I kept saying “Keep it Simple” because I know my deadline is only 19 days away. Yeah. I know. But it’s small and I kept it simple. Ish. Only 290 pieces. I had to keep telling myself to stop drawing detail. It’s not in my nature.

It took me about two hours to draw it…maybe.

And then I numbered it. The face is a little crazy, but it really is more simplified than what I normally do. Two pieces for the hair? Never happens.

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Tonight will be busy, but I’m hoping to have the energy to start tracing it. I basically have two weekends, because I’m going to Quilt National the following weekend. Just a little crazy shit going on here. Nothing new.

It’s teacher appreciation week…one of my students was a sweetheart and brought me lunch…

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It was good.

I did do this before I did all that drawing…the hand that will never be finished.

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Midnight watched. Then apparently at some point, she went and puked on my bed. Nice cat.

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The calico did whack me, by the way…while I was doing this. My Tivo is old and occasionally has massive brain farts and only records 1 minute of all my shows with now notification. So sometimes I have to find them on the computer instead. So I worked on this for a bit…outlining the tree bits.

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Wool stitching is so relaxing. Really. It is.

So both dogs are coned at the moment due to foot-licking activity. Probably both had foxtails involved, but I am assured that Calli’s is out (I don’t know that I agree, but whatever)…and I couldn’t find anything on Simba. But with cones, they are very sad dogs.

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Very sad. I am a horrible dog mom.

State testing starts today, so it’s a minimum day from hell with the kids and then meetings until like 6 PM. Woo hoo! And then book club…I’ve read the book, so that’s a plus. I don’t always make it to book club because of all the crap that comes before, but I’m going to try…I need the socialization. But hopefully after that, I’ll be able to stand and trace stuff. We’ll see.

*Peter Schilling, Major Tom

She Expected the World*

I think I’m about to get whacked by a calico cat. I’m never really sure when either cat is gonna either whack me or bite me. Sometimes I wish they could just use their words. “Pet me.” “Stop petting me.” “Pet me differently.” I guess that’s a huge part of their potential vocabulary…minus the swear words probably. I imagine cats swearing all the time…just based on their looks. As a teacher, I have those looks where kids don’t need to hear the words. Cats do too, if you’re paying attention. This one, though, back to the calico…she’s whacking me with her tail already. Obviously I’m doing everything wrong.

So last night, I was trying to make a simple fix, to sync my contacts on multiple devices, after a year plus of not having that. Boychild walked me through part of it and we found one bit that might be part of it, so then I tried to fix that one bit. Over an hour later, on chat with Microsoft, we get a partial fix. Not fixing the original problem, of course…just the first step toward being able to do that. So yeah, the first fix was entirely Microsoft’s fault…and it took a level 2 fix. OK. So now on to the original fix, which goes back to iOS. Sheesh. But after an hour, I couldn’t deal any more. So I’ve been on a cleaning fit (it’s OK…it’s been brief)…I was going to go deal with the pile of papers that’s been in the little living room (weird side room) since December. Obviously they are very important papers. But instead, I cleaned up my photo files from May 2015 and 2016, so I could stop looking at them while making May 2017’s files.

Giant sigh. Too behind on everything. But at least I have time to do that, I guess. We’ve mostly planned everything for the school year. We have a few things left to do…some ends to gather up. And at some point, we’ll have to start on next year. Revising and all. But not yet. It means I’m refusing to grade at night at the moment. That might change, but right now, I’m fighting the good fight.

So I didn’t start making dinner until 9 PM or so. I know. But I wasn’t in the mood. So after that, I did my one thread of stitching…still beating that hand about…

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And then I had cut a piece of paper the right size for the piece due at the end of the month, read the instructions for the theme etc, and realized I wasn’t sure if the orientation could be vertical or horizontal. So I emailed the organizer. Who didn’t answer immediately. Sigh. I wasn’t really expecting that…it’s OK.

So I decided to draw the Desert Daughter that I tried to do the other night. Because that one sucked. The original Earth Daughter was drawn on a plane returning from Boston after dropping my daughter off at college…I always wonder what people who sit next to me on the plane think…

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Here it is when I finally made it as a quilt, almost a year later…hey, they’re in line sometimes.

Art Quilts and Fiber Arts

The plus to that piece is that it’s technically no nudity, which means I can enter it in some shows I otherwise couldn’t enter. It’s also not huge…only 28″ wide (OK, that’s small for me). The original drawing was done in my travel sketchbook, which is about 9×12″. So I went back to that book for this one, pulling from desert imagery.

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The heart even has cactus spikes. I think this one turned out really well. Although the top right is bugging me. She’s not centered, which is OK by me, but…maybe that’s what my issue is with the right side. I’ll figure that out.

But I still don’t have a drawing for the one due May 29. Huh. Well. Waiting for an answer. I did spend a lot of time staring at a face and blank torso before I got to this…and then it just spilled out. Lost the fennec fox…the incredibly simplified ocotillo parts ended up in the lungs, the rattlesnake covered one breast and some very bulbous cactus the other. OK. So I made a list of daughters I could draw…or I could work on the climate woman…or or or. Isn’t it nice to have the mind space to have choices? Yes. Yes it is.

*Coldplay, Paradise