Words Are Very Unnecessary*

It’s Monday. You know how we all feel about Monday. Except there’s some anticipation here…only two more Mondays of school this year. Now that’s stressful because of awards and grades and cleaning the classroom…but in general, it’s a good thing. People keep asking me what I’m doing this summer. I really don’t know. I mean, I need a copyediting job or 17…and I’ll surely make quilts. Plus the boychild claims we’re cleaning the garage. Frightening! I have some quilts I need to do for an art group I’m in…the first of 3 came home with me yesterday, but it’s big enough that it will have to be 2 different pieces for quilting. So it’s not like I have nothing to do. I have too much to do, as always.

I spent some time looking at art and listening to music at Art Around Adams this weekend. We walked the whole 2 miles again, even though we said we wouldn’t after doing it last year. We stopped twice for refreshments this time. I think that helped.

We saw some cool ceramics at Clay Associates…

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Made me remember how much I loved to have my hands in clay.

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Love the spiderwebs on this guy (he’s been hanging up there a while I guess)…

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I always love work by Peter Geise.

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He has such an interesting way of looking at things…

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This one had quite a few wonderful word combinations…couldn’t decide whether they were band names, quilt names, or the names of future children…Chinchilla Forcefield Mishap seemed particularly good for that one.

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I didn’t get the name of this artist, but I know my friend Julie will have it, because she bought one of the smaller pieces.

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Ah those eyes…this is one of the painted city boxes.

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It was nice to get outside and relax a bit (I didn’t…I was grinding my teeth most of the way, still stressed by school etc.). Sigh. Getting there.

I’ve been doing this every night (or doing three nights in one, like I did Saturday, while watching The Handmaid’s Tale)…

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Is it halfway done yet? I’ve noticed a huge dropoff in people posting pictures of their pieces.

Puppy love.

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I’m rambling. My brain.

I’m in this show with three pieces, I think. I’ll be at the opening Sunday from 1-3 PM.

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I graded, of course. Then I made the huge time commitment (not) to tape these together…still trying to decide which one to work on first. This one still has tiny pieces, even though I enlarged it 300%…

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I ran off the paper on this one…

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So I added a little piece at the top to do the meteor and then added some on the right so the nuclear power towers could be completed.

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It looked weird otherwise. It was bugging me. I leave things for a bit sometimes, hoping it will stop bugging me…but then it doesn’t stop. That’s a sign I should do something to it.

Here’s the third, another in the Earth Daughter series, I guess. I didn’t originally consider a series, but here it is.

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People tell me to do all three, but I do actually have stuff I need to do as well…I just can’t deal with those AND with the end of school…so I need a transition piece. That’s all. Time and space to create without all those other pressures. So I’m trying to give myself that…because after the drawing, the rest of the quiltmaking process is pretty easy. It can take time, but the creative input is easier. So there we are. Decisions later…tonight probably.

*Depeche Mode, Enjoy the Silence

I Never Did Anything Out of the Blue*

Fuzz brain. Ten-hour days at school don’t help. I’m just trying to give my body a little more sleep than normal. I know a lot of people are getting sick, so I’m trying to keep myself healthy. Making art helps with that, but art brain seems to have wandered off…or she’s still asleep. I pulled out all the art entry information last night, made a list of what was coming up in the next 9 months that I had an interest in, started looking at requirements, sizes, due dates, whether I already had a drawing that would work…one that I actually wanted to make into a quilt. I even considered just picking a smaller drawing and starting to make a quilt, even if it wasn’t going to fit a specific place in the to-do list…just to get me working and jump-started.

I’m still considering that. I have three drawings marked. I need to get them enlarged though. I might do that tonight. Maybe.

I have 5 quilts that need better photography for the solo show, so last night, the boychild and I went through the crazy pile of quilts on the girlchild’s bed (yes…she’s coming home in July. I will have a solution by then.) and found all of them. Well, one was on the wall above my bed, where it’s been for years. But otherwise, all in the pile. I ironed all of them and cleaned them up, ready for the photographer tomorrow…

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I think they’ve all been in shows somewhere before…but it was interesting to look at this older quilt and see how I was using color and fewer fabrics back then…and BEADS. Yeah. I love me some beads.

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I don’t use them much any more though.

I did some blue/brown variegated cross and herringbone variations on the right side between the light fly stitches, near the red flowers. I wanted to fill in some space.

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And then I sat there and looked through the sketchbooks. I knew I had some gun-related stuff in there that never became anything. Looking at the feet and the hands in here, I can see why I didn’t go anywhere with it.

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Plus, honestly, just drawing a gun is scary for me. I wasn’t raised around people who shot guns. I don’t like them. I don’t even like fake ones. They just scream out danger and death and pain to me.

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So I’m going to have to figure that out if I want to pursue that imagery. Mostly I sat and stared at a blank piece of paper while art brain curled up in a ball.

So I suspect I’ll have to jump start it with something else, something easy and light? Well. I don’t necessarily roll that way either. I have a couple of ideas. We’ll see. Or maybe I’ll come home tonight and the drawing will roll right out of me, right? It could happen.

*David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes

Don’t You Shiver*

I’m apparently still in recovery mode. Yesterday was long and exhausting, and my body responded with a few dizzy spells. I think it’s because of the diabetes…not knowing when I should be eating (my body…not me…I know when to eat…I’m back on California time…I just think my body is somewhere in Texas or something). I taught all day yesterday and did tutorial, and then went to the vet to pick up the dog. I wish they’d say what time she was ready, so we didn’t have to sit around there for an hour (ugh) waiting for her to be released. She had a fox tail that was causing abscesses in her foot, and finally we had to go surgical to clean everything out. The fox tails are nasty here this year because of all the rain…so she’s wearing a sock at the moment (not sure how long that will last…) and looking somewhat miserable.

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The cone isn’t helping. She has a new one now…hopefully she’ll be less capable of folding it out of the way to nibble on her wounds.

When I took the dogs out to pee (when I finally got home), there was a weird plopping noise in the pool. So I finished up with them and went back outside and there was this guy clinging to the side of the tile…

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I helped him out and he did that weird running lizard dance to the nearest bush. I’ve never seen one that color before. I was debating whether it was normal for his species or not. Looking at the California herps list…I’m not sure. I didn’t get a great picture of him, but he was really pale gray and white and spiky around the head…anyway, he’s in the yard now, doing his lizard dance.

I spent a bunch of time last night putting together stuff for the solo show. I need to take about 5 quilts to the photographer this weekend…then I’m done. I think.

So I came out to stitch for a while…too stressed to manage anything else. Both these guys were all over me, so I petted them and scratched them and combed them.

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I did three nights’ worth on the stitch a day (how did I get behind?)…some blues and browny greens and another green purple…honestly, I was just filling in spaces with straight stitches and French knots and fly stitches…all around the lower part of the hand and above the tree. Bullion knots as well, I think.

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I forgot to post this last week…this is what’s done on Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails, my hobby stitching. There are 6 blocks done…the block attached to the funny-shaped tree is not done yet. I think it’s part of the next month. I’m not exactly doing stuff in order apparently.

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I did do some of the next month while I was traveling, but not much, honestly. I was too tired last night to do anything else. I brought the sketchbook to the couch with me, but gave up to exhaustion. Today won’t be better…we have a World Cultures Fair at school until 6 PM. I’m hoping I’m still functional by then, but I don’t have much hope for getting a lot done tonight.

I think I need a week to sleep off the jetlag. Ask me when grades are due. Plus I have all the photos from Quilt National and from the other show…need to deal with all that stuff too. This is teacher survival mode even without all that! I’m laughing. Seriously. It’s all you can do at some point.

I am starting the pregnancy video today. What I really want to do is sit in my chair and stitch while the kids watch and take notes. I will not be doing that. My grading will be screaming at me instead. No rest for the public-school teacher (until June 16).

*Coldplay, Shiver

I Did What I Could

It’s really early in the morning…it’s even earlier in California. Some Saturday nights, I would still be awake, for whatever reasons. On school nights, I try to pretend I am not as nocturnal as I really am. We’re leaving Athens, Ohio, and Quilt National. As usual, I feel like I should have seen the exhibit one last time, taken more pictures, something. But that was it. I did what I could. 


Now we just hope we can make it home easily. Thunderstorms are all over the place…it’s peaceful right now, but it’s not supposed to stay that way.

Yesterday afternoon, we had quiet time. I sat and stitched and then drew. Trying to recharge my brain. I graded nothing. No surprise there. I’ll scramble this week. It’ll happen. 

Drawing 1, while a thunderstorm passed over…

Some Sue Spargo, for it’s calming effect…

I managed all three days on this piece, all around the hand…fly and cross stitches…


And drawing 2…


I think I miss pizza. 

Quilt National was very abstract this year, lots of channel quilting, very tight and perfect. I joke that I can’t quilt that perfect (it’s true), so that’s why I make the quilts I make. Some of the abstract was loose and free or big and open or detailed and complex. And sometimes talking to the artist made you feel something more about the piece then you did when you first saw it.

I missed seeing Pamela Allen and Paula Kovarik this time…I was here in 2013 with both, but never found a chance to talk to Pamela. They both had work in again this year. I really loved making it to the opening this time though! Even though I missed a San Diego opening, I think the interactions between artists are truly amazing here: people I’ve followed for ages and finally got to talk to in person. That’s the value in coming out. 

Well I started writing this at 5 AM in Athens. Then we drove to Columbus and that’s where I’m sitting now, waiting for my plane. Hoping for trouble-free travel. Looking forward to my own bed and normal water pressure in the shower and a non-sticky floor…plus hopefully some mental space to process what I saw and heard.

Hello Quilt National…Hopefully

It’s not really morning. It’s still night, as far as my brain is concerned. But I’m up! Woo! Ouch. It hurts to be up right now. There’s something in the backyard that made really weird noises and the dogs totally ran away from, which seemed like a good idea to me as well at the time. And apparently my sprinklers are possessed. They’re set to go off at 6:45 PM, and one of the sections went off just a little while ago, at 3:18 AM. Confused beastie.

So I’m on my way to Quilt National in Athens, Ohio. This is the second time I’ve gotten in. The last time, Delta cancelled my flights at the last minute and I was late, missed the opening. It was depressing as hell, being stuck here and not being able to get out. We missed it by about 6 hours. My parents were there though.

This time, I’d like to be there…and hopefully I will. Neither flight has been cancelled yet. Maybe the boychild’s delayed flight, night in Newark, and lost luggage will be the karma balancing out my perfect flights. Yes? Are the airline goddesses smiling upon me today? I hope so. I’ve got art to see and online friends to meet in person for the first time.

I had high hopes last night of grading assignments that turned into stressed-out panic about the girlchild’s insurance, state testing, and packing. So I did the only thing I could…I stitched…I did blue lazy daisies to the right of the hand.

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I am taking this with me.

Then I finished the 6th block of Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails…

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I did actually go back and add all the damn bullion knots around the tree. More texture good. I’m taking the next three blocks with me. Hopefully I’ll finish at least one of them and they won’t confiscate my kiddie scissors or my needles. My good scissors are in my checked luggage.

Beyond the Concrete is the piece that’s in Quilt National

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I originally made it to enter in SAQA’s Concrete and Grasslands exhibit. It didn’t get in. I’m quite happy to have it in Quilt National instead. Plus it is now concrete proof (ha ha ha…see what I did there?) that I can get a nude quilt into QN. The first one I got in actually had no nudity and no uteri, let alone a penis (this one doesn’t have one of those either), so I needed to get in again. I’m OK now. It’s OK if I never get in again.

I think this might be one of the first earth mother-type quilts where I put animals all over her body…I was trying to contrast the earth mother who cares about, well, the EARTH vs the mother of the Earth that we have made…the concrete and asphalt and electrical wires and power plants and smoke and cars and lighted buildings. (I think I did a good job of that.)

I know who I want to win…

Anyway, if you’re on your way to Athens, Ohio, say hi. I’ll be the one with my mom and dad (please. Help me. I’m joking. They’re nice people. And they’re paying for me to get there, so I’m immensely grateful.). I’ll be the one pleased to be missing school for two days during testing and sex ed. Hopefully I’ll be the one on time this time, instead of stranded in an airport on the other side of the country.

If You Can Hold On, Hold On*

Holy crap we’re in chaos mode (me, not we). Did I make any art last night? Well if you count collapsing exhausted on the couch and stitching two pieces of thread down art (I don’t), then yes (no). I taught teens about periods and sperm. I coached two lovely ladies during tutorial on what they should have been doing for the last week. I talked to a friend. I drove home and graded stuff. I texted the boychild about his missed flight and the wonders of New Jersey. I FaceTimed the girlchild about her new (not new) car and how to deal with insurance and license plates. Like I know anything about license plates. I graded while I did that. I think I ate dinner at 9:30. Then I started cleaning out where the washing machine is, because a new one is being delivered tonight.

It was exhausting. I was exhausted before 5 PM. It only got worse.

I leave at holy shit in the morning tomorrow. I am not packed. A washing machine is being delivered this afternoon. Today we have state testing for math and a science meeting. I think I have 30 seconds between each task. The grading is still hanging over me. Like a slavering monster. I feel the hot drool. Oh yeah, and the boychild will finally show up today. His flights get screwed up about 75% of the time. We got a voucher this time though.

No panic. I did this.

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What exactly did I do on it? Brown tree things off the hand, then filling with orange French knots.

Oh yeah. I helped Calli soak her paw. She can’t do it by herself. She requires talking and pets. Some scratching of the chest as well.

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My dope daughter and her “new” (no it’s not) car. She’s picking names for it now.

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And the two doofuses who would not leave me alone while I was trying to veg out on the couch.

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Needy little beasts. I combed the pale one. He needed it.

OK, off to school. I’m a little crazy in the head right now. Not enough caffeine. Plus interaction with an insurance company first thing in the morning. Ugh.

*The Killers, All These Things That I’ve Done

We Really Got to Ramble*

At some point, I give up on the school stuff and move on to the art. It is not a full and satisfying life without the art. I did spend some time yesterday at an art opening, but I’ll have to post about that later…no time this morning. Making the art really is the most important part for me…I know for some people the exhibition is a huge part…and I guess I DO it, so it must be important. But I’d really probably rather be in here cutting stuff out or ironing it together than listening to people talk about the work around me. Which reminds me, I have to explain my Quilt National piece on video this week. I should go read the statement again, so I don’t spend the whole 2 minutes staring at the piece.

Yes, Quilt National opens this week. That’s exciting…although getting there will probably kick my butt…it’s kind of nice to have a couple days off work this time of year.

I love this app, Momentum, even though it’s pretty simple (it gives me stuff to stare at, plus a highly visible to-do list). It always asks me what my focus for the day is though, and I often can’t grab that…as you can see by Saturday’s focal thought. I often am not focused.

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I did spend some time Saturday trying to figure out my solo show. I couldn’t SEE it, so I made a doc and started dropping pieces in so I could see the walls. I’m almost done…

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I might need better photos of a couple of them, so I really should figure that out.

A mural on the way to the art show yesterday…we saw this artist at ArtWalk too, but I tossed all the paperwork…but a quick Google search reveals this is Catnap by Michael Summers.

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Then there was this…I couldn’t even figure out what it meant, being outside a clothing store.

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After home, negotiating laundry elsewhere (the washer died for reals this time), groceries, school stuff, making dinner…then I did two days worth on this…some straight stitches and French knots in yellow on the left and then some green around that weird purple flower under the tree branches.

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Finally in here to iron…

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Tiny little pieces…

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It got late, but I kept going…

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She just needed to be done. And she was, around midnight. A good time to stop.

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And now she’s ready for a background and some stitching down I believe. Which is good, because I think she’s supposed to be done on Monday. But right now, I need to go to work. I don’t feel ready, but I’ll be going in anyway.

*Led Zeppelin, Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You

Sturdy Up Your Heart*

I’m frozen again. It’s 95 degrees out there. But my brain. Frozen. Too many things on the list. Dogs have been to the vet…one is now coneless and fancy free…the other is on more meds, a bloody abscess cleaned out, and still a conehead. Fun stuff. The washing machine died (again…it died last August too) last night while trying to finish up the boychild’s bedding. I really don’t have the time to deal with that right this second. Maybe tomorrow afternoon? I just don’t know. This might be an online thing. Trying to decide if it’s worth trying to fix again (I never actually fixed it last time…gave Sears the money to fix it and then spent 4 months trying to get the money back because they said my husband let them in the house and they fixed it. Interesting. I have no husband. Or male who lives here at the moment.) or whether I should just accept that the last 9 months of forcing it to work, even though it was apparently unfixable, was better than I thought I would get. Write that shit off. Because buying major appliances when I have no paycheck during the summer seems like a good plan? Fuuuuck.

Deep breaths. The list is long. I will get through bits and pieces of it, a little at a time.

There’s the nervous conehead at the vet. She gets all freaked out.

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And on the way home, she wouldn’t shift over to give the puppy some room…

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Don’t squish your baby brother.

I’m typing now with this one lying on the caps lock. I keep shoving her over.

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I did do some stitching last night…two nights’ worth on the stitch-a-day…it’s about all I did. I was so exhausted. I’m better today. Got over 8 hours of mostly OK sleep. I really needed it.

I stitched a (dammit…just forgot the name of it) feather stitch in blue and then straight stitches in the purple vine, and then put in a few French knots and a stem stitch under the eyeball to finish the thread. Then I did a pink lazy daisy in the feather stitch and straight stitches off the purple vine.

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Filling space. Plus trying to relax. Then I graded for a while. I’m so incredibly behind, it’s not even funny. Trying to catch up. Frantically.

I did work on this at gaming…

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I did the frog and started the grass…plus the symbol on the tree. Still debating going back and adding bullions to the outside of the tree. Then this one is done. Not taking it with me to Ohio.

It’s funny, I’ll be frantically stitching while gaming, trying to keep myself calm (not) and awake (that works). Stress levels are a little insane at the moment.

I woke to good (but a little scary) news this morning. Both the pieces I entered into Threads of Resistance got in.

This is Absolutely Nothing, originally in an exhibit called Women at War

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And this is Work in Progress, from the exhibit Expressions of Equality.

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These were made one after the other…hence the tree showing up in both…I wasn’t done with that imagery apparently. Much like the bathtubs I keep doing.

So yeah, I didn’t have time to make new work for this show, but I do often roll in those topics anyway. There was a climate change one I wanted to enter, but it was like 2″ too big. It’s all good.

So why is it a little scary? Well. So. A few of my quilts have upset people’s sensibilities. And these two have about 10 penises between the two of them, plus yes, full-on nudity, and one is NOT very nice about how I feel about the way women are treated in society.

So. I guess we prep for the media storm this time…because some of these venues could be an issue. The plus is I know the group that organized this show has my back. Most of them have supported me in the past with personal messages or posts online. So I’m feeling OK about opening some eyes, or getting those heads nodding up and down in agreement. And I know the Mancusos will just invite the press in…still think I should get a kickback on their ticket sales if I make the news again.

The show opens July 15 in Lowell, Massachusetts, at the New England Quilt Museum. And then it travels through 2018. Or longer. So check it out.

Now I gotta get through this to-do list or I’m gonna go crazy.

*The Beautiful Girls, La Mar

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