I Won’t Back Down*

I keep skimming the news, looking for logical reasons to shoot up hundreds of people at a music concert, but all I see is more evidence that this was planned. Then I try to understand the brain that would do that…and I can’t. I understand anger and sadness and frustration, but not when it turns into that.

The work day wasn’t that hard…it was processing the rest that was hard. So I came home and took the dogs out…

Three miles (ish) as fast as we could go.

The sun was trying to beat us back. There’s coyotes out there, so that shit makes me nervous with the little guy…but we made it.

Good for them, good for me.

After making dinner, I had decided I wanted to do another eye, so I started it randomly on the right.

I only do one strand a night…this is Sunday’s and Monday’s…

I saved the blue for the iris, but maybe I’ll keep going with another color instead. I’ll have to see how I feel about it.

Then I had to force myself to get up and go in the office to sew.

Yeah. Well. Understandable. I realized how long ago Sandy Hook was and it took me that long to be able to process it into a piece of art. Some of that is not wanting to make A work that commemorates ONE event…it’s more about the feelings and ideas behind the event. Certainly Sandy Hook wasn’t the first school shooting, but it was the hardest to process…someone coming in and shooting up little kids for no apparent reason. Having worked in middle and high schools, the reasons to be angry and feel harassed, bullied, oppressed, to the point of thinking a shooting is a good idea? I can imagine that. Unfortunately. But little kids…seems so much worse. It’s not really…it’s innocent people of all ages, isn’t it? And Sandy Hook obviously wasn’t the last.

I hate that we’re becoming a country where it feels unsafe to do just about anything: go to work, get on a plane, go to a concert, go to school, go to a church, go to the store, the library, wherever. It shouldn’t be like that. There’s nothing about possessing a gun that would make me feel more safe. I have one and some “lone wolf” (really??? he was an older white male…most dangerous species out there, if you ask me) has 20 of them. Legally.

OK. Well. With all that weighing on me (and it IS weighing on me), I have a parent meeting this morning. I haven’t even gotten to Tom Petty…sad sad sad.

So many favorites of his…but this one is making me cry this morning.

*Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I Won’t Back Down

Your Eyes Make a Circle*

Yesterday, I sewed. Not a lot. I also cleaned some stuff and organized some shit and moved some crap around and booked flights for the kids and I don’t even know what else, but I also sewed. I kinda wanted to see what it looked like when I sewed, so I figured out a way to prop the phone tripod on my bosom (yes, I just typed that…laughing while I did it, but for realz, that’s what I did) so I could do just that. Here it is…

And all I can say is wow…no wonder I’ve sewn through my finger more than once. Yup. I sew like I drive, I guess. Except fewer driving accidents than sewing ones, honestly. It’s very strange to watch one do things that one has been doing since one was 10 years old. Seriously…I’ve been sewing on a machine for 40 years. Wow. Long time. Longer than I’ve been doing most things.

So I started the meditative stitchdown in the afternoon and got the entire bottom section done…more later today…that’s the plan anyway. I’ve got errands to do first.

It’s fast because there’s not a lot of pieces or detail, but not REALLY fast, because everything is very big.

I pile it on the machine when I’m not sewing so that sweet furry black thing can’t lie on it…

Later, in front of the last episode of Ozark (not the baby! not the baby!), I did three nights on the left of this…staying caught up is getting harder I guess. Some star stitches and fly stitches and a herringbone. I think the corner is almost done.

Then we were still watching, so I got all the dots on this one; now it’s ready for embroidery…

And this one too…so that’s April, ready to go in the bag for the fun part.

I started working on June, but then TV time was over and there were dueling cats and eventually bedtime. Plus I got sidetracked by the fact that June blocks are supposed to be sewn to other blocks before I sew stuff down, but I’ve already started sewing stuff down, so I’m fucked. That’s it. Throw it out.

Naw. Not really. Just gonna improvise a bit.

Up too early this morning for the airport (not me, not the cats).

I keep the trash pieces around for a while…needed to cut a pencil tip, because I’d lost it and never found it and didn’t realize until I was doing the stitch down. These are useful because of weird shit like that.

Straight up, I’m tired, I’ve got a ton of schoolwork to do, and I really need a neck/shoulders massage so my chiropractor can crack the mousing side of my back. Just so you know. This week is going to be a bit of a challenge…but I’m trying to plan out enough that it’s not worse than it could be. I might need a nap. Like now. Not now. Now to stores. Bad Kathy. No nap for you.

*U2, I Will Follow

And I Will Try to Fix You*

Silly me, thinking I was gonna finish last night…because it bugged me most of the day, way back in the way back of my brain, but I was fairly sure I could make it better. So once I got home and got past the paralyzing exhaustion I apparently caught on the way here, I grabbed a blank piece of paper and traced over the part of the drawing that I wanted to change…

I was trying to keep the original drawing simple, so I only added one target, but then it ended up being on one of the lighter-colored heads, which was silly (but random) and said something I didn’t want it to say. It’s not that one kid is a target in a school shooting…in reality, a lot of the time, I think some kids might be because of bullying (them being the perceived bullies, and perhaps even in real life) or teachers or other staff might be, but sometimes it’s just anger at the whole world and a school has a lot of concentrated human beings so maybe it’s easier to go in there if you need to shoot a bunch of living creatures? Humans, to be specific…you don’t hear about zoo shootings or pet store shootings. I’m not being facetious…I’m serious here. Why does any sane (and that might be the issue) adult walk onto a school campus and shoot unless they feel the campus is part of their problem? I don’t pretend to understand anyone who uses a gun to solve their problems.

I did trace Wonder Under before dinner and a movie (it was one of those nights)…and caught up on three night’s worth of this. I’m behind because I’m doing other art stuff. I did stuff in the bottom left again…filling space…leaves and parts of that vine…

And after the movie (where I was sewing wool bits together)…I ironed. First I finished the thought cloud…but I had lost (misplaced) one of the Es…so this is why I keep my trash pile. It was in there. Duh.

And ironed it together…

Again, making a guess about what’s going through their heads. It’s hard…bullying is a real thing in middle and high school. Kids can be vicious assholes. But it would be nice to live somewhere that the solution was NOT to bring a bunch of guns to school and spray bullets everywhere.

So this was all ironed down already. I was hoping it wasn’t ironed down super hot, so it would still release and allow me to push stuff underneath. Otherwise, this would have been a pain in the ass.

I was still gonna do it though. Luckily, it did release pretty easily.

So I ironed and cut out and then ironed down all these little tiny target pieces…so it wasn’t about one kid with a target that was supposed to stand for all of them. I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about the target. Mostly the kids that get killed or shot (and hell, I go back to Sandy Hook Elementary every time…) just happen to be there. Because who shoots kindergarten kids? Because he had access to guns…otherwise maybe he would have done something else, something less deadly.

Such a dark place I go to when I work on this. Because as a teacher, I always have in my head what I will do if a shooter arrives on campus…how I will protect a classroom full of 12-year-olds? And if your response is to arm ME? Yeah. No. That’s not a solution. More guns. You want a gun to shoot? To protect yourself? To hunt? Is that more important than a 6-year-old’s life? Tell me that. Truthfully.

No. I didn’t finish.

*Coldplay, Fix You

Your Conscience Will Be Mine*

Grades are almost done…they’re close enough that I could ignore them last night and iron for a few hours. That’s how you know you’ve done it right. I’m up early for a parent meeting…I don’t really like morning meetings. I’m not fully functional even with a cup of tea in me. I need time and space to get my head in the right place to teach, to get my classroom ready, and morning meetings fuck with that. It’s better than the days my school day started at 7:25 AM though, so I am glad of that.

I managed three nights’ worth on this…blue, white, and peach down in the bottom left, a variety of stitches…some lazy daisies, straight stitches, fly stitches, and French knots…whatever it took to fill the space. Chain stitches too…

Then filling in the elephant…that might take a while.

Then I came home and ironed…got the face done. The eyes are always a bit fussy. I don’t like ironing one down to the face until I have both of them and I can place them together.

It can be a bit fidgety sometimes, getting them in the right place that is…

And then it gets dark. This is a dark quilt. There’s no doubt about it. I guess many of my quilts are challenging, but this is straight up painful to think about and to make. So maybe that’s why I’m so troubled about whether it says what I want it to say.

I finished the head and the arm in the middle…gray, not flesh. I guess people will read that however they need to.

I’m 500 pieces in…only have 360 or so to go. So hopefully by Tuesday night I’ll be ironing it to the background, and then maybe stitching down after that. It’s big, so that part will take a while. I think I’m about 7 hours in on the ironing. I can’t check right now…my phone is in the other room charging…I’m not sure why it wasn’t charged this morning, but it wasn’t. Weird. Hopefully this is not a sign that the phone is dying early.

This morning’s reward for having to be up too early…

May the rest of the day follow that with abandon.

*Adam and the Ants, Stand and Deliver

Everyone’s Taking Everything They Can*

So everything I was supposed to do last night got canceled, and I ended up with a free evening. Which is strange. So like any good teacher worried about grades, that’s what I did first…but it was good, because I got an entire assignment out of the way and in the gradebook. I’m feeling much better about progress report grades being due next week now. I’ve got one major assignment, but I’m just over halfway through grading it, and I think I can get a chunk done at school today (I hope), so that will help. I don’t want a weekend full of grading. I’m trying to avoid it.

Never look a bunch of cancellations in the mouth? Just go for it?

It meant I was back to art stuff pretty early…well, early for me anyway. When I sat down on the couch, there were three animals with me in about 14 seconds flat…Satchemo, looking plaintive.

Calli, who is finally feeling better, and Simba with his bone…

Seriously, Satchemo always looks a bit plaintive.

Mostly it’s because he does not get all the food and all the pets.

Two nights’ worth on here…in the bottom left still…the pink lazy daisies and fly stitches, and then the flowers in a slightly different pink.

I have to decide on how to add another thing, a motif. And what to add.

I did finish cutting out finally…it’s a good thing I didn’t try the night before, because it took another hour and a half, for 14 hours total.

A lot of bigger pieces…filling up the box.

At that point, it was just after 11 and I was trying to decide…do I sort tonight? Well yes, I do. It’s easier to do that and then start clean tonight with ironing.

It took just under an hour to sort them all…not bad.

Nine bins full of pieces ready to be ironed together. I’ll hopefully start tonight and get some done this weekend. I do want to do some enjoyable things this weekend too, though, so that will be on the agenda. I’ve read another 17 articles about teacher work/life balance (it must be September!). It’s a myth that you can ever have that with this career and do a decent job of it…but certainly you should always be carving out time for self and friends and family. Carve is the appropriate term too…with a rather sharp, nasty, and dangerous sword.

Good news though…three pieces are in an upcoming local show at the Rose Gallery, located at Francis Parker School…so yeah, no nudity! And I had three of them. Miraculous. The opening is November 16…put it on the calendar. They do a lovely reception and it’s a beautiful space…it’ll be the first time I’ve had work there. It’s all good…persuades me to enter yet another show.

I don’t actually need persuading. I know better than to look at any one (or series of) rejection(s) and take any life’s purpose from that.

*Zero 7, In the Waiting Line

I Need Direction to Perfection*

I spent an hour plus last night fighting my internet…slow as heck, same old stuff. Whatever it was, sludge speeds, figured itself out by the time dinner was done, so I could upload photos at the speed of light again (entering a show…yes, hope springs eternal) and do the other internetty things that needed doing. But I had carved out an hour and a bit for grading and then that didn’t happen…and I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and do it after dinner, because I wanted to get to the art stuff, you know? Too many hours of working and you start to go nuts.

So no grading yesterday. None. Sigh. Don’t think about grades being due. You’ll do what you can.

There’s Calli…she’s sick. Some tummy thing. She’s going to the vet this morning…hopefully it’s something simple. Because she doesn’t feel well. Usually she comes down the driveway with me to get the mail. It’s one of the exciting parts of her day.

Yesterday she just sat there until I started coming back and then she got up and slowly walked toward me. Poor baby.

I did two nights on this…the green feather stitch and blue lazy daisies on the left, building up from the bottom now.

I guess it’s all either curved lines or straight ones.

Puppy hung out with me on the couch for most of the night.

See how close he gets? I’m still cutting out…did almost 3 hours last night and I can see progress, the end of the road.

Although all those octopus bits were a tad annoying. The suckers…that’s what they are.

But it meant I was down in the mostly big pieces of the female figure by the end of the night. Those are the 100s, I think. There’s dirt below…more big pieces. The top box still needs to be cut out, but you can see the box is nearly empty. All the stuff that’s cut out is in the bottom left and the trash in the bottom right.

I’m pretty close to done I think. Unfortunately, I have a potentially longish meeting tonight, so very little time for grading or cutting…but we’ll see. I’ll still cut stuff…I just may not finish. I’d like to finish…but then I have another meeting Thursday, so even if I finish and sort before that, I won’t be able to start ironing until late Thursday at the earliest. But progress! Remember progress! Because that’s what keeps me going…that and getting to see it finally ironed together and deciding if I actually like it. That’s a big one with this quilt.

Plus the next one is percolating in my head. It’s already started on paper, and it’s gonna be big, but I need to finish this one first. And I might cut myself a break and finish that other smaller one in between. Or not. Hard to say. It’s partially done already.

Anyway, hopefully the dog is better by tonight, the meeting is productive but doesn’t put another piece to be done on my plate (not sure where that would fit), and I get through the cutting stage. My hand would be happy with that.

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

Face Away and Pretend That I’m Not*

Grades are due in a week…it’s part of why I put my head down and put in 10 or so hours this weekend. I got some significant stuff out of the way, but there’s more in the classroom. That plan to spend an hour on the deck drawing? Well it turned into a half hour of talking and a glass of wine, but that was fine. I forget to take that time for myself…there’s always something dragging me back into what I have to do…so it was nice to have someone else remind me. Yo! Go sit outside and relax!

I’m not great at that.

So I didn’t get as much art done as I wanted to, but it’s coming…this is a busy week with lots of meetings, so who knows what’s going to happen. I’d like to be done with the cutting sooner rather than later, but I can’t guess how much longer it’s going to take. I’m over 6 hours in now and it doesn’t seem like I’m half done…although I did a bunch of tiny pieces yesterday and I feel like the rest is mostly larger pieces, so maybe I am halfway? Hard to say.

Lots of numbers and letters…this bit took forever and fussy little scissors.

You can see them all there…the little triangles will wait to be cut out until I’m ready to iron them down. They get lost too easily.

So here’s where I’m at…trash box at the top…to-be-cut-out on the left, and stuff I’ve cut out on the right. It seems like there’s still more in the to-be-cut box than the cut box…so I guess I still have a lot to go.

Usually cutting out takes less time than ironing, so this being halfway would make sense…and big pieces are generally easier to cut out than the fussy little ones.

We’ll see. I’ll be lucky to get 2 hours in tonight…Tuesday might be a little better. Wednesday for finishing? Eh. Maybe Thursday. But ironing together by the weekend? Maybe even Friday night? That would be nice…this thing is taking longer than I thought it would.

Cat standoff…

Things are getting slightly better. Less growling. Not getting along yet per se, but hey, we’ll take what we can get.

Still working on this…filling in the left bottom. I did a pink and a maroon, lots of French knots and some chain stitch.

Soon I’ll have to decide what to do with the rest of the left side.

Puppy sleep.

Spending the whole weekend working makes my brain fuzzy…seriously. It does. Aaugh. This job. It really does try to take over everything. I guess the art is kinda the same way, but I prefer that. Almost every waking moment thinking about art? Not a problem. Maybe it’s because school is such an impossible problem and art is a solution to me.

*Linkin Park, Faint

Hung Down with the Freaks and the Ghouls*

The parrots are back…San Diego’s loud squawky parrots, perched in the trees around my house. They’re quiet at night, unlike the dog I live with, who took offense to all noises last night. I forget how hard September is…I keep walking around muttering “This is HAAAARRRDDDD,” to myself, like that helps. It doesn’t, by the way…in case you were wondering.

Yesterday I taught 130 students how to create a webpage. For most of them, it was their first time. It actually went pretty well…we’ll have to see how it goes from here on out. It’s our first year doing digital portfolios…so we’ll have to make sure we stay on top of it. Really. However hard it is.

I’ve been trying to do some grading every day. Can’t say I’m always particularly successful about it, but I’m trying.

I was 4 nights behind on this…seriously, what is my problem? I did 4 different things/colors in the bottom left…almost filled up in there. Gonna hafta decide what to do next. Aack.

It’s funny that the dogs and Satchemo have figured their shit out, despite cross-species shit, but the other cats are still not OK with it. I spent about 10 minutes last night with the treat bag, placating all three of them. LOOK! When we’re together, she gives us treats! Let’s be together and not scratching or hissing! Fun stuff.

This dog? Huh. Getting jealous in her old age. Or maybe she always was.

I was watching 28 Days Later last night and cutting shit out. I did a couple of hours of it, I think…but I wasn’t very efficient. The top box is trash, the big box under it is all the stuff that still needs cutting out, and the bottom box is the stuff that’s done.

And this is where I realize the heating pad has been sitting on the couch for months…like since my back/neck last bothered me that bad. Maybe May?

OK, I already know I have to grade like a crazy woman this weekend to make up for being sick all last weekend, but I really want to draw for a bit…just sit out on the deck with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and just watch the sky and draw. I keep saying that and then life slaps me upside the face. Anyway, will I be done cutting all these out by Monday morning? I think it’s unlikely…just looking at the weekend…but maybe I will be. We’ll see. But soon anyways.

I’m also trying to get my head out of my ass on exhibitions…I have some I need to enter or at least look at, but the last rejection kind of irritated me. I hate thinking censorship might have happened, but you never know when you have work like mine. I don’t usually mind rejections…I mean, acceptances are nice, but you have to realize the odds and I do. I’m sure I’ll figure that shit out and start entering again. Hopefully soon.

*Smashing Pumpkins, 1979

One Headline Why Believe It?

Well. I’m up. I’m showered. I ate something. I fed animals. I’m not sure I’m ready or capable of teaching all day, but at least it’s a short day…mostly because I have to sit through a staff meeting after, but our new meeting space has beanbag chairs, so I can curl up in one of those if there’s a problem. I have in the past sat upon my rolly chair and propelled myself around the classroom when I didn’t feel well. Standing is problematic, for long periods of time even more so. Going to the grocery store yesterday took it out of me…precipitated a 2-hour nap. I can only assume I needed it.

No art yesterday, none at all, although I rallied enough to finish grading the second homework assignment. That’s a good thing. I wanted to draw, but I was too tired. Ironing wasn’t even a realistic option. I’m hoping for tonight…maybe if I come home and nap, I can do some ironing.

I did do two more nights on this…caught up again…still all in the lower left, filling in spaces.

IMG_7804 small

My nap companion, faithfully guarding my butt from invaders.

IMG_7801 small

This morning…

IMG_7813 small

It’s a new day. I don’t feel completely like crap. I think I’m over the hump. That’s good. Because I need to get some art done…it’s like grinding my teeth constantly when I can’t.

*Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World

I Want to Put on My My My My My Boogie Shoes*

Well I am ill. Not illin. Just ill. Ill enough that I spent a lot of the day on the couch, trying to grade stuff. And here, at the computer, trying to grade stuff…but not being very successful. I can’t tell if I’m better today or worse…I’m hoping I’ve hit the peak of yuck and it’s all clearing up the phlegm from here on out. But who knows.

It means I’ve gotten almost nothing done. I feel like warmed-over crap…can’t stand for long enough to iron, I guess. I did venture out yesterday and maybe blew my energy for the day. No ironing. I read a lot. I watched some TV, but even that wasn’t anything I felt like doing. I slept for quite a few hours. I know all those things are fine and good for a sick person, but it’s irritating to have to give in to it. Lost time. I hate lost time. Waiting. Standing in line. Sitting through useless meetings. Being sick. Some social events.

I’m not very patient with reality, I guess.

And there’s times when I’m making stuff that I wonder if it makes sense, if it’s what I want it to be, if I’ll make it and it won’t get in, if I’ll make it and it will never get in anywhere. That happens. Those are down moments in the making process…there will be up ones.

I did three night’s worth on Friday, all in the lower left corner…I’m now a day behind again.

See. Yesterday. Sitting. Not a lot getting done.

Although being a cat couch is something.

This was also Friday night…I felt pretty good on Friday night. Compared to yesterday.

OK. So revise the schedule. Finish ironing today? I dunno if I can do that…so let’s say I survive tomorrow and finish tomorrow…and then start cutting out all week…iron together by the weekend? That could happen. It depends a lot on how I feel the rest of today and tomorrow.

Someone asked if I call a sub for my classes if I’m sick. The reality is that we have very few subs in our district and they generally don’t like middle-school science. Plus we’re doing labs and there’s no way in hell I’m leaving these little hellions who will consistently do everything I have NOT told them to do without being called on it constantly with a guest teacher. It’s not even fair to the guest teacher. I’m still training these guys not to touch everything just because it’s there. Not to lose lab materials (there’s a marble loose somewhere in my class and I guilt-tripped my whole 8th period over the cost of that damn thing, and if you’re not a teacher and you’re thinking, it’s Just a MARBLE, you don’t know what we have to do to (a) get funding and (b) train these kids to respect the lab materials…it’s a marble today and a microscope tomorrow.).

Yes. I cannot feed my college kids because y’all lost a marble.

Anyway. It can only get better. Right? I don’t think I’m worse today. Maybe the same. Not very energetic. Not very clear-headed. But alive. And mostly upright. Watching the hurricane hit Irma…sending good thoughts that way. Someone said I should put hurricanes in my quilts…I have, for years. But more now with the climate change stuff in my head all the time.

This song? So not how I feel. But that’s OK. Maybe it will help.

*KC and the Sunshine Band, Boogie Shoes