Fiber Reactions in Poway

My local SAQA exhibit Fiber Reactions opened at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts in Poway, California, yesterday and runs through early January.

I have two pieces in the show, hanging next to David Charity’s work, which makes total sense to me.

The official opening is Saturday, December 14, but I will not be there…

Nor will I be at either of the two docent tours, being as how I have to work and all.

At some point, I will get up there to see the show, but honestly, probably not until Winter Break. If you want to see Ball…

And BirdWatch (I’m wondering how the Poway crowd is going to take these two pieces), then check it out. Send me pictures.

I have a couple, but they’re blurry. I have pictures of my quilts, obviously, so you should grab a total stranger and have them stand in front of my quilt and wave while you take the picture. Or something.

The Expiration Date on the Milk Is All That Matters…

I only managed 9 1/2 minutes of ironing tonight…all I really have left is the owl…

I couldn’t get my head around his coloring tonight (I always think of owls as being male…strange, that), so I did the thorny bushes around the Crone’s head instead…

Red thorns…gray twigs. The box is almost full.

But I’m down to just a few pieces left to iron, maybe 25. Then it’s done and I move out of the studio into the living room to cut them all out. This quilt is progressing quickly. That’s because I have no life. Oh well. Actually, tonight, I pretended to have a life. I went to a book club meeting with total strangers. Yup. I did that. I should clarify that this group is for “geeky women” (their term) and so I wasn’t sure I belonged (I am always the alien, no matter the group). Girlchild said that because I spent over an hour worrying about whether I was a geek and googling definitions of geeks and nerds and dorks that I WAS in fact one and I should just shut up and join. Sigh. Anyway, the plus is that it’s a group of women who read A LOT and FAST, and I got about 400 book recommendations just tonight (plus TV and movies) and sat next to a woman who said something about listening to audiobooks while IRONING FABRIC and what are the odds? She does costumes, but where else do I go where that happens? (nowhere)

The book we read, Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, was pretty good…it had its flaws, definitely light fiction, but I’ll read the next book in the series…

I still have questions and the character wasn’t horrible…she had issues, sure, but hell, so do I. There are some interesting characters and it’s not often you get urban fantasy AND mystery in one book.

Anyway. I ordered the next book for the January book club from the library system. And yeah? We met in a bar. Books and wine. You cannot go wrong. There was food too, but I didn’t have a lot of money. And good music, which was free.

This week is full of social events…tomorrow night is my favorite stitching people and I don’t want to talk about Friday night. Sigh. It can’t all be good. Sometimes it just has to be.

My right eyelid started twitching yesterday. I googled it (see geek reference above). I don’t know WHY I googled it…I already know what’s causing it: fatigue or stress. You know what’s interesting is that even though I am getting even less sleep than last year at this time, I’m often not tired. Weird. Some brain chemistry thing? You Don’t Really Need All That Sleep. I know that’s not true, but I still think it’s strange.

So yeah, eyelid is stress. I spent 2 1/2 hours at Children’s Hospital this morning with the girlchild and we are now taking the next step towards surgery, a CT scan. We think we can schedule surgery between the high-school soccer season and the beginning of the club season. Yes. That’s crazy. We’re also scheduling between the ACT and SAT. Really crazy. The doctor did answer all our questions and we trust him, though, so I’m hoping this is relatively easy.

At school, we are getting closer to the kids being 1:1 on technology…which is more than a little scary. What does it look like? What is the purpose of the technology? It can’t just be a toy we trot out to make admin happy…it has to serve a purpose within the content. So the thought of flipping how we do stuff in the classroom is sort of mind-boggling at the moment. My head is trying to wrap itself around it. So it was not at all amusing today when the server went down and we were on computers doing research all day, and I had to log in 22 kids in one period on a server they shouldn’t be on (don’t ask) and there were a lot of deep breaths and meditative thinking and seriously deep brain stuff about Is This Really What I Want to Do? This is what using technology is to me in the classroom right now: a management nightmare. I can’t even deal with content issues because the technology issues are so vast and varied and fucking frustrating. You always have to have a backup plan, because inevitably, something won’t work. And the kids may be digital natives, but they give up SO easily when stuff doesn’t work right the first time and they suck at LOOKING for stuff…like a tabbed menu on a website is apparently invisible to them. WHERE does it say CAUSES? I wonder. Key words. If I put them on Facebook, they could find it immediately, but the Mayo Clinic website? Completely incomprehensible. I’m thinking of rewriting the medical websites to LOOK like Facebook with status posts on some beautiful woman who has had a heart attack or has atherosclerosis, just so they will READ them, and then turn a bunch of it into Vines so they’ll watch all SIX seconds, and then only then maybe will we be getting somewhere. Training them to be observant. It can be extremely frustrating. I’ve gotten very good at it, and I kept my cool today (even after spending most of the morning at the hospital, where they were running an hour late). I blame the meditation. I can deal. My eyelid can’t deal, but the rest of me can. I have not found eyelid-specific meditation.

I just found all these Thanksgiving food pictures.

Girlchild cooked almost everything…

We had another family over, friends of ours that we’ve had Thanksgiving with for a million years…

The food was good; we played that silly word game we always play.

Everyone is getting older.

That was Wednesday (of course) and then Thursday, we went to their cabin for a spaghetti dinner (of course)…

Where there was more food (girlchild did desserts this time)…those are not just rice krispies treats…they are brown butter rice krispies treats. They make you want to curl up and die, they are so good. They are gourmet rice krispies treats. She has to really like you to make those. I rate.

And there was more talk and lots of Snapchat (not my generation…the younger).

That’s my mom and the girlchild. And it was relatively good. I still have issues with gatherings just because of my alien status…but these were people I had known for forever. They accept me. They are kind. So I’m working on it, not being a hermit. Coming out and not moping around. Some. It’s hard.

So I’m still distant, numb, probably not a bad place to be this week. I had a good book-related conversation with ten total strangers tonight and an even more focused book/fabric/life conversation with two of the women. I talked to both kids about future stuff and driving and cars and college and soccer and stupid people and whether or not I should let the girlchild take penne a la vodka to school (it does have alcohol in it, per se, although it is cooked off/down/something). I just thought about it and wondered…is this OK? Should I worry? Naw.

I would have liked more time for art, but such is life. Life and art…a balance. I can’t just have one. I need both. The art alone is very isolating, very lonely, very in my head. Sometimes I have to get out of that dark gloomy place and wander outside in the real world. I did cry, though. Still. That doesn’t seem to have wandered off. Strange. It’s still hard to exist in some moments. Lots of them still. I don’t know when that shifts…or perhaps it’s shifting so slowly that I can’t even see it.

To bed, eyelid twitching and all…tomorrow is another one of those days. From the book we read for book club tonight: “All I have to do is get to the point where I’m so panicked I can’t see straight, and suddenly the expiration date on the milk is all that matters. I guess that’s how my mind protects itself.” Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire.

Uncomfortably Numb…

My head was spinning itself into a panicked mess today…yesterday…whenever. When I get like that, all harried and freaking out, just drive me to the gym, shove me out the car door, hand me a book, and make me work out until I’ve finished the book. Or hand me my sketchbook and a pen and put me in a locked room and don’t let me come out for a few hours. There should be an emergency meditation program for days like this…you press a red button on the meditation app that says Emergency and it runs and runs until you come up for calm air and the panic is gone (21 Ways to Stop a Panic Attack). I did the first one, the gym and a book. And meditation. I only had time for 26 minutes of ironing tonight, but the exercise helped numb the crazy and push it down into some hole, shove it in a drawer, wrap it up in a box and hide it on a shelf. Whatever. I’m numb now…not comfortably…just pushed everything back over THERE. It’ll come out again, but maybe by then I’ll have some distance, some ability to deal. Some strength that I am lacking at the moment.

I ironed lungs and a cat (21 Objects You Can Find in Kathy’s Quilts). It’s all I had time to do.

I was so numb after everything that I just full on gave up on removing the cat from the ironing board (21 Ways to Remove a Cat from an Ironing Board).

She’s expecting me to pull her off, but I just don’t have the mental energy. I just dehaired the board when I was ready to iron (21 Uses for Tape).

Are you noticing a theme? I actually had a rant in my head the other day about all the posts with numbered lists and how they were driving me nuts…Ten Ways to Use up Turkey, Fourteen Ways to Wear a Scarf, Twelve Ways to Screw Up Your Life…but then I ran into one where I didn’t care that it was a numbered list, because it was actually a well-written and useful list.

I shared this link on Facebook, but it got deleted and then reappeared (FB Gremlins beware)…21 Tips to Keep Your Shit Together When You’re Depressed…by Rosalind Robertson, in response to all those happy lists about how to be freakin’ happy, like it’s something I can buy in a spray bottle at the grocery store and just never got around to using. I liked what she said about creatives and depression: “we ARE the ‘creative’ types around you. We feel more, we see more, and for that we suffer.” I don’t think being depressed made me creative or being creative made me depressed, but being creative gives me a better path OUT of the depression…so maybe I’m the more obvious depressiod in your circles…the rest are hiding in bed and not telling you what they’re feeling or thinking, because they may not even know. I’m out there in your face about it. I’m actually paying attention to how I feel instead of running away or hiding from it. Dammit, I’m going to write my way out of this depression…

It is thoroughly annoying to have people tell you that you make a choice to be depressed when you are doing all the things on that list, like you’re an even bigger failure than you already thought you were…or putting a time limit on your depression. “Well, it’s been X months now, so you really should be moving on.” Rightio. Getting on with that right now. Now get the fuck away from me.

Robertson refers to an article about the upside of depression from the New York Times in 2010, which you can read here (yes, it’s a lot of words…they are interesting words, though, and there’s lots of science in them, and science is often good).

“He cites as evidence a recent study that found ‘expressive writing’ — asking depressed subjects to write essays about their feelings — led to significantly shorter depressive episodes. The reason, Thomson suggests, is that writing is a form of thinking, which enhances our natural problem-solving abilities. ‘This doesn’t mean there’s some miracle cure,’ he says. ‘In most cases, the recovery period is going to be long and difficult.'” Great. Well, that’s what my blog has been since mid-July…expressive writing about how I’m feeling and a little bit about what I’m getting done. I wish it were more “getting done” and less “having to feel shitty,” but there does seem to be a purpose to my madness.

What I find really interesting is that I am already doing most of the things on the list…that I have some inherent ability to know what will pull me out of depression, a toolbox, as it were, and I employ the tools in it as needed to get out of that damn hole. It’s not just up and out, though…it’s up a bit and fall back in. Sometimes you make it further up the muddy wall, just to fall further back into the hole, but up the wall you continue. Slowly. Bleeding fingers, nails pulled back and ripped from trying to hold on, covered in mud from the repeated falls…but up the wall you go. I would argue for me that my natural state is not in the hole. I know what “normal” for me feels like, and it’s not this constant melancholy, as Robertson calls her natural state. I know I don’t belong in the hole, that I’ve spent most of my life out of it. I’m hoping that with increased iron in my diet and an adjustment to my thyroid meds that I’ll see some improvement in moods…I’m not expecting miracles, but some more sleep would be good. I can’t do anything about the hormonal stuff except survive it…the wonder of perimenopause. Fuck those who don’t understand that transition. It’s so easy to be someone who doesn’t have to deal with the hormonal fuckitude.

In positive news, the girlchild finally passed her driving test today and has her license, thus freeing me from spending every night sitting in the high-school parking lot to pick her up. Just to clarify, she didn’t ever fail…her dad’s CAR failed to start and then the second time, his registration hadn’t been renewed, so this was the third try to actually GET to the DMV with paperwork in hand, and she was finally successful. Life will change as we know it. Tomorrow, we go to the orthopedic doctor to talk about back surgery…it will be a difficult conversation, since all three of us are on different pages…should be interesting.

Anyway. Definitely a numb night. From the book I’m reading, “A dreadful array of feelings yawned. Which should I elect to overcome me first? I could not decide. The dog came and put his head in my lap and we sat there until I realized that one of the reactions I could have was numbness.” Louise Erdrich, The Round House. I’m going to let Louise take me and my numbness to bed now…tomorrow is a long day and I really need more resources to survive it than I had today. Sleep might help with that…I read that in a list somewhere.

Damn, I Wish That Were True…

I managed to go to bed at an almost reasonable hour last night, after a few nights of 1:30-2 AM bedtimes (which really doesn’t work when you have to be up at 6:30)…but then spent the next hour NOT sleeping, but crying instead. I tried meditative breathing…it must have eventually worked (or pure exhaustion did…who knows), but I don’t even really know what set me off…some sense of futility. All’s not right with the world. No real sense of purpose to the days. That plodding feeling. Get through this day? Then there’s another. And another. And another. And they are all largely the same. Getting through. Getting by. Making stuff, but none of it feels that good to make…I can’t iron fabrics for 18 hours a day. And the ironing never made me feel GOOD…it was at the end of the ironing, when you would see what you achieved and THAT would feel good. That only happens once a quilt. It’s not enough.

I don’t know how to BE…be happy with what I have and not want more. I want more but I don’t see it ever happening. I don’t even know what I want more of. I don’t hold out much hope for more. This might be it. It seems a very empty life. There are too many Have-To’s and not enough Want-To’s…mostly because I don’t have many wants any more. And then my brain kicks in and tells me I really should be cleaning house. Fuck you, Brain. If I wanted to clean house, I would. When I am already unhappy, why make me do something that makes me more unhappy?

I say that, but there were two floors today that needed cleaning, so I cleaned them. That’s how my cleaning works. It’s not obsessive. It happens in small spurts…out of necessity.

Today. Back to school. I’m thinking I need to make a voodoo doll. I got to a point with this one school issue where if I didn’t meditate, I would have to kill small furry things (not really, but that’s how it feels). The anger, the work stress, the unhappy…I just needed to focus and get it out of my system, so I used the meditation for that, and again, it asked the one question that upset me so much yesterday, and today I tried to change the answer…my brain tossed in another answer, a perfectly reasonable answer…honestly a BETTER answer, because yesterday’s answer was just plain stupid. And yeah. Crying again, because my brain and I don’t agree.

Who am I if I am not my brain?

Healing is such a fucking slow process. I can’t hurry it. I just have to go with it, move what I can, change what I can, do the things that make the day more bearable.

So I ironed…

I did not make the voodoo doll (or five)…yet. Give me time. Those are heart pieces and arteries. I managed to do those and some fire and a spider and web and a uterus and two tattoos and three thunderbolts…I stopped right before the lungs because I realized that even though I was not in the least bit tired (strange that), it was getting late. That was the problem last night…I went to bed and I wasn’t tired yet. I mean, I was sort of tired, but not tired enough to just fall asleep and not have to work at it. So my brain got itself tied in knots and took me underwater into the murk of melancholia. Fucking stupid brain.

I need more exercise I think. Traveling messed with my exercise plan.

So the stuff in color is what I got done…it’s not much, actually…

An eyeball.

It’s kind of pitiful. Oh well. I’m at 12 hours now…at least one more to go, maybe more.

Part of the evening got tied up with work prep and cooking and picking the girlchild up from soccer…

Pretty skies, every year. I stopped to appreciate the sky. Tomorrow, hopefully I will appreciate the sky from home, because girlchild is supposed to finally get her license (I will believe it when I see it). She’s been in a mood lately…stress from soccer and life and everything…so she snaps at me for just about anything, and I try not to react…because when I react now, it’s usually with tears, and that upsets her. Then again, she needs to learn not to always snap. She needs to see that her mood causes other people pain. Or maybe I am just super sensitive. I am.

One part of the meditation question that makes me cry is the reminder that her brother will be gone in less than a year to college, and she follows the year after. And then there is just me. And this little psycho…

Yup. There she is, on the ironing board. Pulled her off another 4 times tonight.

Then she landed on my lap (three times tonight, once during meditation, claws kneading my thighs the entire time, try concentrating with that going on…I have a mind of steel, really).

And finally she tried the back end approach to the ironing board while I was working…she eventually ended up on the back of the chair with front legs on the purple fabric until I jiggled the board a few too many times and she gave up.

Mr. Meditation wants me to appreciate things, be grateful. I’m grateful to my ex for putting up my Xmas lights, even though we have been divorced for a million years now. He knows it scares the crap out of me, so he just does it. Thanks to my coworker who sent me a tiny, live Christmas tree for my classroom…it even has sparkles. Thanks to the kids who remembered their homework from before break and brought it today…and to those who didn’t and still showed up to detention to serve their time. I appreciated the sky this evening. Thanks to climate change and pollution for that. Oops. I didn’t mean that to be negative…but sometimes the ugly is indeed beautiful. Thanks to the kids for continuing to watch stupid TV series with their mom every night they’re here, connecting with me on some lame level that centers me at night and makes it easier to get through the rest of the day. Thanks to meditation for helping me be calmer about the stupid shit that swirls around me both externally and internally. Thanks to the two girls I had as students a million years ago who still remember my name, even though I’ve forgotten theirs (sigh).

And thanks to the part of my brain that pushes past all the sad and yuck and depression and makes up drawings and colors them in and finds the fabrics. I know it was some sort of genetic mutation that caused that part of my brain to exist…most don’t have that talent…and it was sheer stubbornness and willpower that made it as strong as it is today…and that, people, was all me. That’s mine. May tonight be full of sleep and empty of tears…for enough tears have fallen for today…hell, for this year. I don’t have any left to give.

Damn, I wish that were true.

Ironing the Crone

I originally named this post “I Just Want to Sit on Your Ironing Board, Bitch: Stories of a Petulant Cat,” but it seemed like a really long title and I didn’t have a photo that went with it. Just know that a certain cranky old-lady kitty had to be forcefully (claws in the cover) removed from the ironing board about 7 times today. She’s a stubborn bitch. I don’t like cat hair on my ironing board…plus she tends to knock fabrics down onto the floor…

She doesn’t like my telling her what to do.

When I’m not actually ironing, I move the board out of the center of the room…but she still jumps from the back of the office chair to the board (which often ends in the board hitting the floor, because it’s not very stable). You can see all the fabrics I’ve used so far piled up on the right side, some more in the middle. I leave the drawing up where I can see it, so I know what I’m ironing. I’ve had to draw about 10 pieces that I apparently missed before. Whoops…some were double numbers, but some I just plain old missed completely. They weren’t even numbered.

So I have 11 hours into the ironing at this point. I managed three hours today…mostly I got the flesh part of the Crone done…

I used almost all of the lightest flesh color…there is very little left of it…

just little tiny bits in between the other pieces. I still have about 40 or 50 pieces in the Crone that I haven’t done…the heart, lungs, bits and pieces that aren’t flesh or hair, because I finished all of those. So I’m through piece 1122, but I haven’t done all of them. You can see some of them below…

And now I have a bunch more to cut out…which is what I’ll probably be doing a lot of this month.

I managed to finally get my head out of the emotional mud today, at least once I picked the kids up. The morning was a mess, but when I started ironing, I was able to distract the mopey part of my brain with X-Files and a complicated part of the drawing…it really does require a bunch of concentration to try to figure out what color each piece is supposed to be. Sometimes I write notes on the pattern, like what number in the color range a piece is (1-6 on this one), in case I forget. I like to iron an entire body in one go, so I don’t forget where I was…so I have to figure good places to stop and start. So it took three hours today JUST to pick out and iron all the Crone flesh pieces…she’s about 400 pieces, so that’s reasonable. I’ll get the lungs, heart, etc. done tomorrow hopefully…it’s almost done. I have to do an owl and a cat (like you do) and some thorny bits…maybe another 2 hours? Hard to say.

Unfortunately, I also have to go back to school tomorrow. I’m mostly caught up on grading, but the next three weeks will be challenging. I’m going to try to be really efficient so I don’t have a ton of stuff to deal with over break…knock on wood. We’ll see how that goes. I always make plans and get screwed up by real life.

Meditation has moved into a new series, focusing on the mind (like they don’t ALL focus on the mind?)…

Mr. Meditation changed his clothes for this series…there isn’t a video every day…it’s usually every 5th day before the actual meditation. But he wore the same gray sweater for the last 40 days, which was the Discovery Series, and now we have a blue shirt for the Mind Series (another 40 days). I thought maybe you’d like to have a picture to go with my descriptions of what he tells me. No, his name isn’t really Mr. Meditation…I don’t remember what it is. It doesn’t really matter. Mostly I just listen to myself breathe and sometimes he tries to talk me through some process of reflection or being in the moment with my feelings or letting my brain go do what it wants (usually a mistake at this stage of my life).

I was feeling actually fairly settled when I started meditation tonight. I had spent those three hours ironing, although I made dinner and hung out with the kids in the middle of it…I even drew a little. So I’d done everything I could to help my brain settle a bit, but then he starts talking about training the mind to appreciate and reflect (I do OK with that…the reflection at least. I’m working on the appreciation)…and he asked one simple question and I started crying. Not just a little trickle of tiny tears, but a full-on waterfall. Damn brain. I know why. And it’s interesting, because we’re back to the thinking vs the feeling, and I am very good at allowing my brain to have the feelings and work through them. Sometimes my thinking brain gets angry about WHY I’m feeling, why I haven’t been able to get OVER it, and why I can’t just ignore stupid anniversaries that aren’t anniversaries any more, but I think I just have to accept that part right now. And it sounds like Mr. Meditation will be making me work on that for the next 40 days.

Two of my pieces will be at the SOKA University Art Gallery in Aliso Viejo (Southern Orange County, California) from January 13-May 8, 2014, as part of a California Fibers exhibit. I will unfortunately miss the opening; it’s on Thursday, January 23, I think (that’s a school night…not driving that far), but I will probably go up at some point to see the exhibit. It will be a good variety of fiber work from this group. It was juried by Kevin Wallace, director of the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, California. That’s good news, getting work into shows. I will keep working on that.

Art Keeps Me from Flying Apart

So I had art goals for this week off from school…and as always, I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to…but that’s OK. I got a lot done, including grading for school (that’s what I do during all those Avengers’ movies…by the way, someone needs to explain how Captain America’s actor changed his body so much in that movie, and Thor? Love Thor.), which puts me ahead for the next few weeks…that will help. I don’t have a life, so I have more time to get art done, I guess. I have even less of a life over the next few weeks…the holidays suck for that, plus the high-school soccer season is starting, plus tournaments, plus crazy school crap, plus family stuff, plus ex is going to the UK. And that Xmas holiday. Sucks. Whatever. I’ll figure it out. Anyone wanna help me with the shopping? I’m flailing.

I did all the outline quilting on the Love (not love) quilt.

It only took about 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Look. It’s Kitten. I’m not sure why I didn’t get more quilting done. It was hard to just quilt, even with music playing, because it’s too much free time for my muddled little brain.

It gets upset. Angry. So then I had to go for a walk. A long walk. With a dog.

So I did that. And found a British phone booth. Strange.

It was a beautiful day. After about 30 minutes of walking hard and fast with the dog, I was feeling a little better. Less angry. Less sad. Not a good combination, those two emotions, especially while driving a fast-moving needle past your fingers.

Nice gate…

This was my quilting setup…big table with machine (under the quilt), boychild often on the couch or the chair. Headphones on. Both of us.

It really was too dark to quilt at night…on navy blue fabric with navy blue thread. A little crazy. I do this every year. Really. I do. Go back and look at November for the last I don’t know how many years. Routine.

I meant to cut pieces out for the Celebrating Silver quilt too, but that didn’t happen at all. It could have, but I was too tired. Funny, because tonight? I’m wide awake. And it’s bloody late. Stupid brain.

Last night, I managed to clean up the fabric a bit…the mess I’d left before we went to the mountains…

It was fabric chaos…because I had wanted to get halfway through, so through the 600s…but I didn’t. Too much bullshit on Tuesday morning. Couldn’t deal. Need mental space to be able to pick fabrics. My brain has to be able to access that mellow art space where it can color the picture in my head. I wasn’t there on Tuesday morning. Too freaked out. So it waited until last night.

Babygirl has apparently decided ironing boards full of fabric are nice to sit on. Nope. Give it up.

These were all the fabrics for the Maiden, which I got done last night…

She got to be blonde. Her sister, the Mother, was a redhead. The Crone? She’ll be silver. I already know what her hair will look like.

Then I looked at the clock. Super late. I’m not doing much better tonight. I managed to finish off a bunch of stuff, bird and skull and big stick…

Don’t remember what else…I’m only at piece 747, though…so 500 to go. Not ideal.

I thought about starting the Crone tonight, but I’d still be ironing now, and I have to try to get my body back on school sleep time. That means not staying up until 2 AM. So I stopped. I’m 8 hours into the fabric-choosing stage…probably got 4-5 hours left. So it’s unlikely that I’ll finish before I go back to school. That’s OK. I also wanted to finish the quilting, and I’ve got probably 2-3 hours left there as well. Because of the setup in my office/studio, it will be easier to finish the ironing before the quilting, so I’ll do that. If I can finish the quilting in the next week or so and get the binding on, that quilt will get done this month…which is good, because it needs to be photographed before the end of January. Then the other quilt, I’ll need to get it ironed down before Christmas so I can get it stitched down and quilted over Winter Break and photographed before February 1. I’d like to start another one in that time period too, so that’s on my mind. Not sure if I’ll do a smaller one (or two) first, or if I’ll do the next one on my list. We’ll see. I don’t have to decide right now. I just need a loose plan…goals to get through for December. I’ve got those. Make lots of art to distract my stupid brain. Check.

Remember how we needed white shirts for the family photo? I found this one for the boychild…

You can buy it here. He is also planning to dye his hair and do a mohawk (he has a lot of hair, so this could be really impressive). Grandma will love it. Really. (I’m not really planning on doing this. I just dream about this type of rebellion.)

I really want to be a street artist when I grow up. Street artists have this ability to paint and realize it will be gone…sometimes in days…

Amazing how they even paint over the stuff they just painted. I wanna be that free with my art. Maybe that’s my goal in the next year. Plus I want to use spray paint and do stuff that’s really big and looks awesome in timelapse photography. Plus I want to be on a couch and spray paint the ground. I have really simple needs.

And I need this pregnancy app for when I teach human reproduction…

Unfortunately, it’s not free. The useful stuff rarely is…because education has so much spare cash lying around? Seriously…my students would really benefit from this.

My mood today? I got through. I did stuff. I ran errands. I went to the gym. I finished a book, the second in a series…Crossed by Allie Condie.

It was pretty good. More YA dystopia where we try to eradicate anomalies (and disease) from society and realize that would fail because humans have free will and all. Plus love. You know. The ending was a little iffy, but there’s a third book in the series, so they had to set up for that. I would have done it differently, but I haven’t managed to write my breakout novel yet, so I can’t really complain.

Life. I get through it. Art keeps me from flying apart.

Distractions

Have you noticed that I haven’t been posting about emotions and grief and all that crap? I preloaded two benign posts (I put all the pictures in before we left Tuesday) so I could write two posts up in the mountains without having to think too hard. I figured I would have issues up there, and I did. The emotional stuff…it’s heavier now with the holidays. I was so relieved, even happy last year at this time about an issue that I thought was finally solved, that I could finally feel comfortable about the holidays and how we dealt with them, and I guess this year is proof that I knew nothing. That nothing is permanent or works out…and yes, I know that’s negative thinking, but the holidays sort of bring that out, you know? You have expectations, and this year, I had none…and I got that. Nothing. I got nothing that I really wanted, because who the hell knows what I want? I’m just moving through the days, doing the stuff people expect me to do, but not happy about any of it. Living in the moment? Really just trying not to think at all. That’s one issue I have with this concept of living in the moment…if you don’t look forward at all, you can’t change what’s happening. If you don’t look back, you can’t change where you are. In the actual moment, I don’t do anything but live THAT moment. And that doesn’t change anything for me. I need change. I need reflection.

We go to Lake Arrowhead every year for Thanksgiving. This year was no different.

We left Tuesday. The plus is that the girlchild wanted to drive and she’s fairly competent, so I sewed birds until we hit the mountain…

Calli slept in the back seat with the boychild…

She’s a very good car dog…

As long as you don’t mind her sleeping on you. She did have an extended back seat…we put the ice chest behind the seat and covered it with towels so she COULD sleep that way, but it’s more fun to be ON someone.

Traffic wasn’t bad. The weather was nice.

And I cried on and off. Music set me off. Plus the holiday itself. And stupid memories. Hard to shut those off. Just stitching, my brain has too much time to wander off into sentimental crap that won’t help it. It does it anyway.

I don’t feel good enough. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t the right thing. I know that’s not about me, but it doesn’t make it hurt less or feel better. It really just feels like shit. I wasn’t worth working for…and that’s happened twice now. Please don’t say “you’re better off…” because that just ignores the pain I’m in right now. It may be true…I certainly got there in my head post-divorce and still believe it, but it doesn’t make any of it feel any better while you’re living it. All those things we say and write…they are so meaningless, and sometimes downright cruel. Just say “I’m sorry.” That’s all you have to say. You can’t fix it, so don’t even try. There really isn’t anything you can say that will make it better. You can show me some lame comic off of Reddit or a stupid Vine video of BatDad…that might help…once.

On Tuesday night, the kids and I went to see Catching Fire…

It was good, although I almost ended up in the boychild’s lap during the baboon scene. He is very tolerant. I wrote this down during the movie, a quote from President Snow’s daughter: “Some day I want to love someone that much.” Snow answers, “And so you shall.” Even the movies conspire against me. I had a conversation with the boychild…something along the lines of, “you’ve watched your mom cry for 5+ months now…keep that in mind as you are dealing with women or anyone else in the future…don’t run away…make sure you communicate and be responsible for your actions…don’t you dare do something like this to someone else. It’s not OK.” He says he knows. In the moment? Who knows what he will do or think or feel. He is very kind to me, though. Then again, I’m mom.

This was Tuesday night’s sky. It helped, briefly. Nature helps. Beauty helps. Briefly.

I felt bad about writing about depression and grief on Thanksgiving, so I just didn’t write. I mean, I wrote here, but I didn’t post any of it. I was there with my family and friends and I should have been thankful for food and time off and people who love me, but I’m not. I’m in that mind space where I’m just surviving…I’m trying to tell that whiny voice in my head to shut up. I’m not reading blogs, because I can’t handle other peoples’ happy or thankful at the moment. I’m staying off Facebook…same deal. I have nothing good to say…all I can say is wow…this still sucks. Thus is depression, and it has its claws in me. I will get away, but not today. Today I will do what I need to do to get through, and I will try not to think about last year, because how can you now be thankful when you have less and what you have hurts all the time? And that is depression. It’s not something where I can just get up and make a decision to be OK. I have to work through it.

My dad gave me an article about the difference between being lonely and alone: I still feel lonely in a room surrounded by others. I’m not ready to go out and party. I’m still hurting and sad. It’s a sign of how deeply I was committed to what I had, how deeply I was hurt. Respect it. Let me find my own way, in my own time. I’m alone because that’s all I can handle. I’m lonely because I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet.

We came home today; I drove down the mountain. We had Pandora playing most of the trip off the girlchild’s phone, and tried a variety of ways to rig the speakers…this was NOT the best choice…

Boychild finally typed up his essays for the University of California college app (due tomorrow)…in the back seat of the car…

Calli had her head on the keyboard for part of it. He has now officially applied to two colleges…only eight to go (seriously). I’m feeling a little less stressed, or a little more stressed, depending on what part of his going to college I think about…paying for it or sending him off or having finally started the process or I don’t know. His actually getting in? Scary stuff. Paying for all of it while trying to budget for Christmas is a whole ‘nother issue.

We switched drivers at the bottom of the mountain (I get carsick easily, plus didn’t want to white-knuckle the trip down in the rain)…

Calli was awake for that (briefly).

Then I went back to sewing, in the rain this time…this is where the speakers ended up…

More crying on the way home. Girlchild notices…doesn’t say a word. I cried on the way up because she had been yelling at me, typical teenaged stuff, but I just couldn’t handle it. On the way back, I don’t even know what set me off…songs…the trip…my brain. She said sorry on the way up. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

I didn’t manage meditation up there at all…too tired by the end of the day. I think we saw three Avengers movies in the last 5 days, plus lots of people and food (more about that later). I really should have meditated, but would have just fallen asleep in the middle of it. I kept having dreams and nightmares…mostly dreams that turned into nightmares…makes sleep a bad place to be. The house was on fire, I kept going back for stuff, someone was helping me. Kids were little; I grabbed electronics and chargers. I couldn’t get to my sketchbooks, clothing, or meds. Calli was the last thing I grabbed. The house gets sprayed by something, but it’s not helicopters, it’s people flying through the air with their arms outstretched, spitting water from their mouths. It’s not enough. I woke up terrified. That was the nightmare. I couldn’t remember the dream by the time I had typed that out.

I meditated tonight, a relief really (remember that), but with a cat on my lap, squawking at me and kneading my thighs with her claws, while the dog cried at me with her ball, wanting me to throw it, headbutting me until I petted her. While breathing. While counting my breaths. While noting my emotions. While crying. Meditation with interruptions is still better than no meditation at all.

Mr. Meditation says I need to allow my emotions the space they need to exist. I think I do that. I don’t run away from them. They are part of human existence. We can’t control when they come and go. We can’t get away from them or control them. There needs to be a willingness to listen within. Listen to my own emotions and watch them and exist with them. If more people did that, I think there would be a lot less pain in the world. Fear of one’s own emotions seems to cause an awful lot of stupid behavior.

Despite all the bad mental stuff over the last three or four days, I found myself today being grateful for the art. I’ll write tomorrow about what I’ve gotten done, but better than that…I currently have 9 pieces out for shows, either in shows right now or traveling to a show that will open soon. I have 4 pieces guaranteed for shows in the next few months, another one that I will finish in the next few months that has a guaranteed traveling exhibition starting next winter, and another one I haven’t even started that will be in a show next January. There is no shortage of work in my head that wants to be made…one was crying out to be drawn during meditation today and I ignored it…at least for now. The art brain is there, it’s active, it’s holding my head out of the water. The art brain doesn’t mind being alone…it’s the non-art brain that gets lonely. The two don’t exist apart from each other, unfortunately though, so I have to help one to help the other…at the moment, the art brain is ruling the roost…it hears the other part, but it knows that the art will get me through…so it keeps making and dragging that part of the brain along with it. They don’t often get along, the two pieces of my brain, but they do know to take care of each other…give art brain ample time to create, but let the rest of my brain have a life outside of art, and they will both be happy. Right now I will settle for one part being hard at work and somewhat distracted by that. For now.

People and Portraits Exhibit

I went to the Houston IQF show mostly because I had two pieces in the SAQA People & Portraits exhibit, which is based on Martha Sielman’s book Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits. We got official pictures of the exhibit, which travels next to the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas, from January 9-March 30. Here was the entry to the exhibit at IQF.

Turning directly to the left, the first artist is Margot Lovinger, who works in layers of sheers and tulle. Maria Elkins is next, with her portraits combined with traditional quilt patterns. The cover shot from the book is in the exhibit, but her more recent piece, Surrender, has a heartbreaking story that goes with it here.

Next comes Margene Gloria May, whose portraits are made from a variety of different fabrics, including a wrinkled shirt and tie in the piece on the right.

Joan Sowada‘s work is next, with overlapping views of skateboarders and a closeup of a loving couple.

Lori Lupe Pelish‘s work has fascinated me for years, with the busy fabrics she uses to make up her portraits. There are two pieces here: the mother and child on the left, and then a quadtych (is that a word?) of 4 pieces. Her work requires closeup viewing and then a step away for the big picture.

Pat Kumicich‘s work is in your face. These aren’t pretty portraits…you need to take a closeup look.

Cheryl Dineen Ferrin does portraits of people she meets or knows, especially in motorcycle groups.

Pam RuBert‘s pieces always have some sense of humor or a pun that draws you in. Jenny Bowker‘s work has recently focused on people she met in a variety of countries, including Egypt.

Sherry Davis Kleinman uses a variety of pencils and paints to create her portraits on fabric.

Sonia Bardella uses paints and patterned fabric to make her portraits.

Lora Rocke uses thread painting to make her portraits, whereas Carol Goddu uses vintage and fancy fabrics to dress her dancers.

Bodil Gardner‘s quilts are always happy, and often use recycled fabrics. Ulva Ugerup‘s quilts are small, but have lots of impact and hand embroidery.

Yoshiko Kurihara’s quilts seem to be about parties, with all the characters very stylized and angular, yet also faceless.

Next to Kurihara were Mary Pal‘s cheesecloth portraits of the homeless.

Around the corner were Viola Burley Leak‘s graphic portraits.

I shared a corner with Leni Levinson Wiener‘s pieces.

Last of all, my two: Fully Medicated on the left and I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket on the right.

What I loved about this exhibit (besides being in it) was the variety of work within the theme of people and portraits. There were many styles represented, but all the pieces were technically well done and each artist had a singular voice, which is apparent in the exhibit. We were allowed to choose the two pieces in the exhibit from those chosen for the book, although a few of the pieces in the show are not in the book, Elkin’s piece Surrender being one of those. Owning the book is one thing: seeing these pieces in person is an entirely different experience. If you missed IQF and can’t make it to La Grange, Texas, they will be in Birmingham, England in August 2014 and will be traveling after that. I’ll let you know future venues as they are added…definitely worth seeing.

I should add that all photos were taken by Gregory Case; the exhibition information can also be seen here on the SAQA website, this being a SAQA-sponsored exhibit.

Cuyamaca Peak

Sunday was supposed to be a 6 1/2-mile hike…until it mutated into a 10-mile experience…it was totally worth the muscles that are still sore two days later. We started across the street from last week’s hike. The easy way up to Cuyamaca Peak is up the fire road…but that’s always the boring way…so we started out through Azalea Glen on a trail that was apparently probably closed (whoops). Signage was confusing.

For some reason, I don’t have many pictures from the first part of the hike…probably had something to do with the 1700-foot-plus elevation gain. Here’s near the peak…small people, awesome view…

And a closeup on the people…yes some were in shorts.

They didn’t stick around for the extended dance mix at the end (goosebumps).

You can just see the radio towers at the very top.

This is at the very top…

We took a few detours on the way down for the sake of “pretty” (the extended dance mix) and saw these large pine cones…there were at least 3 varieties of pine cone…

This is still fire territory, but it’s great to see the dead burned trees with all new growth surrounding them…

In fact, a lot of this trail, ironically called Burnt Pine, was seriously overgrown. We had to climb over some trees that had fallen while fighting thorny bushes.

All that green is new trees.

This is the view towards Cuyamaca Lake, coming down the fire road.

Then we detoured on another road past the creek, where we saw multiple deer…this guy kept an eye on us as his peeps ran through the meadow.

This is Stonewall Peak from the valley below, last week’s hike.

Poop. What else can I say?

These are morteros near Paso Picacho.

The sun is going down as we get near the end, illegal paths, all blocked. We end up just picking what we think is a trail that will get us back, ignoring the signs. Bad hiking etiquette, but we couldn’t find a pattern to the signs or a reason for their existence.

10 miles, 5 hours. The peak was at 6512′. Tired? Yeah. Good hike? Yeah. It’ll be a while until the next one unfortunately. Life conspires against me.

Muddling

I just want my mind to give up and let me have a rest from its constant noise. I get that for about 20 minutes in meditation…well, some days I do and some I don’t. I’m getting better at it…not silencing it, per se, but being able to step back from it. It’s the same thing that saves most teachers: the ability to block out all that excess noise and focus on one kid’s voice, eyes, face. Or the voice in our heads…telling us to keep it together, despite the chaos. It works that way now sometimes…I can step back from the sad and the grief. They’re still there, I still feel them in my chest, my gut, but I can stand back, arms crossed on my chest…and watch. It doesn’t make it hurt less. It doesn’t make me feel less sad. But it gives me some distance, I guess.

My life needs to adjust: the purpose needs to be to Live and not just to get through or survive…because that’s what it is now. I wake up in the morning and think about how I will survive the day. I don’t think about how to Live it, most days. When I can, I add a hike or artmaking. That’s closer to Live. I’m not happy about what the Live looks like, but that’s what it is. I can’t control what other people think or do…I can’t even control my own mind half the time. During meditation tonight, I hugged it, my mind. I just freakin’ hugged it from behind, because it wouldn’t turn and face me. Girlchild accused my radio station of playing sad songs all day, and I guess it was true, because I cried on the way to pick her up and on the way to and from quilt class. And to school. And to the doctor. The rest of the time, she was in the car with me. Distraction. My mind was in a bad place, wandering around in the cold and the dark. Someone should have put on some better music for it.

I started this in the morning. I typed: “Just electronically checked in at the doctors office. Cute perky little things ask if I want to try the kiosk. Yes. If if means I don’t have to talk to anyone and say have a good Thanksgiving to people I don’t know but recognize because I’m here all too often. That superficial social stuff. Becoming a hermit. Must be the holidays. Plus I’m a tech person? I guess.” Is the world becoming more antisocial with kiosks? Maybe. I do prefer the self-serve at Home Depot and the grocery store. I’m tired of making small talk. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “No, I’m not. I’m having a really bad life at the moment. I’m not going to kill myself, which is what people keep asking, but I’m just not having any fun. Or even anything anywhere near fun. Why do you ask? Are you looking at my purchases differently now?” Yeah. So. Kiosk it is. Then no one needs to know that I bought artichoke hearts AND coriander seeds.

After doctor appointments, there was someone I would always call, because the appointments make me feel unsettled, shaky, unsure of my own body. I just needed to check in with someone who apparently cared about me. I can’t burden the kids with my health issues. There are so few health successes. Even today. Doc was all excited about the weight loss, but then wanted to know how. So I told her. She was…I don’t know how to describe how she was. She’s been my doctor for a million years…since the girlchild was born. She was worried about me. She asked if I was getting help, did I want more help, did I want more meds, did I want to hurt myself. She tried to tell me that single women were happier (is that true?). She even hugged me at the end, and that’s why I cried on the way home. I made it out the hallway and past the waiting room and the perky little things and the kiosks and through the parking lot and into the car. And there was no one I felt I could call. I’m sure that’s not true, that there were people I could have called, but my brain was all tied up in whom I would have called.

My numbers aren’t bad. Some are better, but I didn’t get rid of any meds…I got more. Fucking meds. Fucking body. It feels like a conspiracy. How are you supposed to reduce stress if bad shit keeps happening? I don’t know. Mr. Meditation will tell me, maybe.

So a rough day. Discussed holidays with the girlchild. She says to have no expectations. I say it’s not even expectations, because I don’t expect anything. It’s that I had something and now I don’t, and the holidays are a big slap in the face reminder of that. Plus no routine and too much thinking time and it just reminds me and I don’t want any more reminders. And it’s all about survival and not Live.

So I did a lot of fabric stuff today, despite a million hours of grocery shopping and errands and driving (or riding, because girlchild is driving me). I did the fabric stuff to try to counteract the brain muddling through its holiday crap. I wanted to get through ironing half the pieces down, but the errands took longer than I thought…

I did get through about piece 535, though…

So not bad. And I have the flesh run of 7 fabrics now, so it will be easier when I get to the other bodies…

Babygirl was not helping by sleeping on the flesh fabrics…

I’ve done the Mother and the bird above her head…tomorrow, I’ll start on the Maiden maybe…if I have time. I’ve got 5 hours and 40 minutes into the fabric choosing, with probably 7 plus hours to go. I also cut pieces out at our rescheduled quilt class…

Got about two hours into that. And then came home and ironed some more…

Probably worked later than I should have, but I’m wide awake and scared to go to bed when I’m this awake.

My brain really doesn’t need more opportunities to get all worked up at the moment. Someone needs to whack it over the head with an iron frying pan to gently persuade it to sleep. Seriously. It’s significantly late and I am wide-fucking-awake.

Just tell it to stop. My kids try to distract me with stories and videos and movies that we all watch together. Discussions of who is hotter, Thor from the Avengers or Gale from The Hunger Games (the boychild just scoffs at these conversations). Talk of what movies we’ll see later this week…there’s some guy named BatDad. There’s a geeky video of Miley Cyrus infiltrating Key Club. I would probably be OK without all that stuff, but I know they are trying to engage me in life, in Live instead of survive. So I go along with it. It’s OK in the moment. It’s the standing in line or waiting in the car moments where I start to muddle through the muck again.

I thought y’all should see my recipe card for the Nida family holiday Swiss green beans (no French-fried onions were sacrificed for this dish)…

It is well-used, and every year, my SIL calls to get the recipe again because she’s lost hers.

Thankful I can always find it. Thankful for kids who care. Thankful for a doctor who pays attention and remembers enough details of my life to ask the right questions. Thankful for the art…for as long as I can remember, it has been saving me. I hope it never leaves, because everything else probably will.