I See Progress…

Even when nothing seems to get done…

I didn’t do anything quilt-related last night. I was too braindead to quilt. I’m likely to sew right through my hand if I try in that mindset. I had a union meeting, the last one of the school year (that’s when you start realizing you’re almost done…when everything is the LAST one of the year). I drew during the meeting, mostly to stay awake…

I’m not good with late afternoon meetings. Ever. And I’m still working on versions of this drawing for making small quilts this summer.

This one…I don’t know what this one was…

Nice eyeball though. I’m fairly sure the teacher sitting next to me was confused. I don’t really care, because like I said, I was listening to all that was said…I was just tired and drawing keeps me from falling asleep in long meetings.

I didn’t get home until almost 6 and then had to cook a meal I’d never cooked before, which actually turned out OK, and then I cleaned up and holy crap, I know I did a bunch of school stuff, like 17×4 certificates and analyzed a bunch of data for our fun awards and who knows what else.

I meant to post this earlier this week as one of my small successes, but Tuesday kinda kicked me in the balls, as it were…one of the art groups I’m in, California Fibers, is doing a recycled art show in Los Angeles at The Loft at Liz’s. It’s called Diverted Destruction 8, and it opens June 27 from 7-10. I will be at the opening, barring any crazy life happenings that I can’t control. Anyway, we had a bunch of upholstery samples and some of us used other stuff as well (I used Mariah’s leftovers for the second one) and made work, and Fiber Art Now published an article about us. I was concerned at first because both of mine are nudes, and Quilting Arts won’t do nudes, although Quilters Newsletter Magazine does show my work regularly enough, but the editor was aware of who I was (that in itself is a bit frightening), so one of my entries to DD8 made it in the magazine. The article is well-designed, and each of us sent in a paragraph about the process…

The show looks like it will be very interesting…although we made two pieces and she’s going to jury from those, so I don’t know whether this one or the other one will be in the actual exhibit…

There’s mine in the middle at the bottom. Anyway, if you’re in LA that night, stop by. So I got published…and that’s a good thing.

Another good thing is that boychild has been cleaning out his room. He dusted and vacuumed and is getting rid of old stuff and then started cleaning a pile that’s been in the hallway outside his sister’s room for probably a year, maybe longer, and he’s really fucking efficient (unlike me), but he forces me to deal with stuff…mostly by handing it to me as I walk in the door or leaving it in my office. He was looking around the garage again, and I think maybe the week after school gets out, I’m going to spend some time kicking the garage’s ass with his help. I think it’s hysterical that I got an organized neatnik for a son (OK, I’m organized, but not the other thing). Of course, he has more free time than I do.

That’s it. I’d be neater if I had more time (see comic from yesterday).

I forgot this drawing…

This is definitely going to be one of the Cats of Summer, like last year we had the Birds of Summer? Except I think I want to do a different owl and that heart/hand thing as well, so it won’t just be cats, and I have one dog I want to do. I’m going to aim for 10 different ones, like last year, but I also have another quilt I have to finish before mid-July, so I really need to get started on that one too, because that’s just over a month away. I guess I’ve only been working on the Bathtub quilt since early May, so…except that’s still more time than I have for this one and I’m not done with the Bathtub yet…it’s probably got at least 10-15 hours left in it. SO. Yeah. Luckily there’s only 6 more days of school left, and then I will have (notionally) more free time. I didn’t sign up for workshops at all, because I just couldn’t deal with it, and honestly, there weren’t a lot that I would have found helpful. I hate sitting through useless professional development.

Anyway. I see progress, even though I got very little art stuff done yesterday. Tonight might be better. It might not. I can’t predict it at this point. I know I’d like to get some things done, but I have a lot on my plate up until about 6 PM (or later…might need to hit Home Depot as well, ugh). I really do need to go to work though. That damn job really gets in the way of my getting shit done.

I Just Can’t Seem to Manage It

I don’t know where my head is this morning. Turbulence. Headache already, and it’s not even 8 AM. I haven’t even left for school. Haven’t finished the first cup of tea either, so maybe that’s part of it. My to-do list is too long. My stress levels are too high. I need more help than I’m getting, but my stress levels increase when I have to start arguing for that. I’m close to crawling into bed and pulling that pillow over my head that drowns out the damn early morning birds and maybe staying there until July.

I think I wrote the same thing last year. Which is sad. Or…normal. Hard to say. Maybe my normal isn’t that healthy.

I posted this comic on FB…

I love Purje’s work…she seems to really get what it’s like to be an artist. And I’m not sure I do the center row well. I try to, but I feel like a mutant sometimes. I do shower regularly. I sleep less than a third of the day (I sleep a quarter of the day). Right now, last night, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and not be me for a while, maybe experience someone else’s life and see what that was like for a week or two. Give me some perspective, because I’m not sure I have any, and I’m living day by day at the moment, terrified that someone’s going to come ask me for more money than I have. Oh wait. They already have.

Any time I think I don’t need my counselor any more, life bitchslaps me back into realizing maybe I will never NOT have a counselor.

Suffice it to say that I did not curl up into that ball last night. I cried a lot; there are tears in almost every quilt I’ve made in the last two years. They open the floodgates, tap into emotion. They are my brain in fabric.

I pinbasted instead.

Because when you’re in a horrendously sad and depressive mood, crawling around on a tile floor closing a million safety pins seems like a good idea. I should probably apologize to my neighbors now for the music. Whoops. But hey, that makes up for that crazy pirate party you throw every year.

And then I started quilting, because that’s the next step, and even when I’m flailing and cursing and flopping around in a depressive place, my brain knows how to do this process…and it just does it. Because not doing it is worse. I see people who don’t do it at all, who succumb to inertia and express their unhappiness with that and don’t change it, and yes, depression kicks your ass on that, and maybe I was lucky because the process memory was in my brain before the depression, so it is just dragging me through, whether I like it or not (strange metaphor for parenting there).

And in quilting, there is that meditative space where your brain can inhabit the needle and the hands moving the fabric, prethinking only enough to realize where to push the needle next, to guide the fabric through. The rest of the brain settles down into a curled-up ball and tries not to think about life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, because honestly, it can’t handle all those questions and not-answers at the moment. It just feels broken and damaged and irreparable.

And maybe that’s what I am. Broken. Damaged. Irreparable. If that is the case, then I will have to live with that.

So I quilt.

And I find tiny bits of joy in outlining a cat’s face.

Or in these tennis shoes. They pop with the lines done. That’s what I wanted to see.

It’s not exactly how I want to live my life, but it’s where I’m at right this moment…looking at this one day and deciding what has to be done (which will only stick for a short period of time until someone else adds to my list). The sad part of the brain obviously cried most of the night, because my eyes feel it, my head feels it, and I just don’t want to feel any of it. And that’s not an option. You can’t turn the feeling part off. You can slough some of it off onto paper or the screen, send it out into the world where a bunch of people read it. But you can’t make it stop.

So yeah. Today I’m not funny. I don’t have pithy remarks about parenting teens. I don’t have answers. I don’t even have the energy to get out of this chair and go to work, which is lame, because I don’t have a physical excuse. My body functions. I don’t have a disease that physically inhibits me. I have no excuse.

I just can’t seem to manage it.

Launching Cat Turds…

Well, the good news is I finished stitching down the bathtub quilt last night, after school and the gym and cooking dinner and washing all the itinerant dishes (you know, the ones that don’t go in the dishwasher, so they just pile up in the sink and on the counter until the world is full of dirty dishes, and even then, teenagers won’t wash them). I started grading all the makeup work, but got kicked off my computer at some point (something about printers but then my color printer sucks because it is literally a million years old and I would replace it but I can’t afford to do that) and then there was a gluestick shortage, so I sincerely and strongly refrained from telling someone in the house (I cannot tell you whom) that leaving your major end-of-year project to the night before and expecting your mom to have all the supplies available at 9:30 PM (when in fact if you had texted her earlier in the day, she did in fact have access to TEN THOUSAND gluesticks, ok, maybe that is an exaggeration, but SERIOUSLY, I am a teacher)…well, that’s really incredibly stupid.

I did not say any of that, although according to my students, I do not need to say a damn word…they know exactly what I’m thinking just by looking at my face.

Oh well.

There are 8 days of school left. There are two days of (teaching) pregnancy left, three days of STDs and HIV, or maybe four…or maybe I just show some stupid movie in there (must go stupid movie shopping, oh WAIT, I have Netflix. I keep forgetting about that.). There’s a field trip in there and a graduation and some other shit that I can’t remember. At some point, none of it will matter any more.

So I finished stitching it down (as I was SAYING…hello brain, it would be nice if you would wake the fuck up)…

It didn’t take long. I didn’t have a lot left. I didn’t start until almost 11 PM though. So I think it took about 4 1/2 hours total.

Then I found a piece of batting (need to buy batting before the next big quilt…might have enough for the next skinny quilt) and cut a backing, and thought about ironing all that and maybe even pinbasting it…

And then I looked at the clock and it was 11:47 and I decided that was crazy. So maybe tonight? Or not. It’s hot, I have 5 science teacher interviews after school, and then back to the whole clean-up-the-kitchen thing even though I didn’t mess it up. Yesterday involved some crazy-ass screaming about cashews and the recycling never got taken out (see above crazy note about last-minute projects). This summer might be a tense one.

Kitten continues to come out and be sociable, which is nice.

She’s not sure she approves of the sex scenes in Sense8, but whatever. She doesn’t need to screen my Netflix.

Midnight was also in here for the sewing activities…

They are tolerating each other, much as I am tolerating the teens. Actually, one is OK…he just needs to get a job. He’ll be working for Grandpa today, but I really need him to get a real job. The other one is still in school for another week, so I won’t kill her until after that…and then when she refuses to do stuff around the house AND demand money for gas etc, then you will hear the yelling from here in East County.

But meanwhile, I’ll be getting another calm and soothing bathtub quilt done. OK, they’re not very calm and soothing, I admit. But maybe that’s where the imagery is aiming…if I sit in a nice warm bathtub for long enough, maybe I will feel less like launching cat turds into the girlchild’s bedroom, just to see if she notices with the disaster mess that’s in there.

OK, in retaliation mode. Gotta get off that. Gotta go continue to terrify students with my stories of pregnancy and labor. Not hard for me…

Waiting for the Dial Tone

I spent some time this weekend doing brain-deadening work…trying to clean up and organize photos on the computer, mostly of quilts. I had to go back AGAIN and try to figure out how many bathtub drawings there are and how the fuck I’ve numbered them. I still think I have it wrong. I think there are 5. I know I started by making number 2. Because it made sense at the time. Don’t question it. Anyway, I had avoided photos and videos from 2013 for the longest time because that’s when my world exploded for the second time, and I wasn’t taking digital photos when it happened the first time, so it’s not the same organizational issue, and I couldn’t handle the photos. So I was trying to clean up and thinking, hey, it’s been almost two years and aren’t you over all that? Dumbass. One video was all it took.

So that dragged me into a hole, and granted, I’ve got a uterus that’s holding me down there as well with all it’s dysfunction, plus it’s almost the end of school and I’m just a tad stressed out, but HEY. Yeah. Guess I will have to deal with those 2013 photos in maybe 2016. Or 2032, when I will have forgotten my name. Better that way.

Prom took over our world on Saturday…how these girls know about Charlie’s Angels, I don’t know…

They went as a huge group, so we were at the photo session with a million parents.

It’s funny. I don’t remember prom itself, just the stuff before and after. Which I guess is the good stuff anyway. By the end of all that prom assistance (trust me, all I did was drive around and pay for stuff), I managed one small cat drawing and that was it.

Sunday wasn’t much better for some reason. I had to get two labels on quilts that have to be delivered next weekend…

Only one of the two will be in the show. The other one is a standby in case the first one sells, so they can just put it up on the wall to replace the first one. Strange…never been in a show where that was what happened.

I didn’t start stitching down again until almost 11 PM I think.

I got a good chunk done because I once again decided sleep was not as important as others have made it out to be. That might have something to do with my mood, sure, but the mood goes all to hell and back if I don’t do some artwork each day, so I figure I’m better off losing the last hour of sleep, which is never a great hour anyway, because of bird noises and kid noises and kittens who hurdle my head. None of those are good things. Being a light sleeper sucks. Even in my own environment, in my own bed, I sleep badly, but I sleep better if I really push it until I’m exhausted. Otherwise, give it up…I’ll lie there wide awake for an hour or two before I fall asleep.

I’m once again on hold with financial aid, since it seems impossible to clear everything this year. I think they just hung up on me, because the awful music stopped, but who can tell? I guess I wait for the dial tone. Sort of a theme for my life right now, until school gets out. This week is for rushing to get grades in the system and finished, so I don’t have to do them all over the weekend. Hopefully I will be efficient. Same with the quilt. I need to finish the stitch down tonight and then maybe pinbaste…not sure I can do that tonight too. We’ll see. I need some gym time as well. The recording just told me there were 10 calls ahead of me and I’ve been on hold for 13 minutes. I have to leave for work in 20 minutes. What do you think? Gonna have to call again during prep? Probably. Sigh.

Settling In…

There was a crazy tornado mood that swept through me yesterday…up and down and turned all around and settled somewhere in the middle by nighttime, which I guess is better than where I started. It’s strange to sit there and watch the hormones blow through, feel what they do to your brain and body, all the while watching the video you’re showing to your students about PMS and nodding your head quite vigorously along with the goofy chick who’s on there (Lilly Singh, aka iiSuperwomanii…gotta love her…and my students do). When the mood was finally gone, I had finished grading the last major project (still have other stuff though), dinner was made and eaten, and I’d watched two more episodes of Elementary, another version of Sherlock.

It was officially time to sew. So I did.

I stitched stuff down for over two hours and got a goodly portion of it done. I’m hoping to do some more this morning before I have to leave for prom preparations, but we’ll see. It means getting my butt out of this chair and into the shower (waiting for the hot water to return, since girlchild probably just used it all). Today’s kinda weird, but I’m looking forward to some relaxing time in the evening at least…trying to ignore the 17 thousand things I’m supposed to be doing as well. Shhh. Quiet. I know you’re there. That’s what I have list apps for. You’re not going anywhere. The true deadlines? Crap. There’s one I forgot about. Hold on…OK. I paid the $2.70 the boychild owed school. Really. I am not kidding. I don’t even know what he could have charged for that little…probably printing something. But I DID IT. Seriously considering how long I would have to work at my job to earn $2.70 so I can compare it to the amount of time it took me to pay that bill.

I am yes…still…a bit cranky. But I can blame that on school and all the pressures of the end of the year. I continue to be pleased by Kitten’s new explorations of the house, even as I deeply miss Babygirl’s squawky presence.

She really enjoys Voyager. She said. Actually, she used to hang out in the studio/office with me all the time. It was her special space until Babygirl commandeered it, so it’s nice to see her back in here. She climbed around in all the holes and spaces, which have probably changed around a bit in the last 2 1/2 years, and then she settled down on a big pile of fabric, happy as a clam…

Which did make me happy too. Which is good, because I think all the prom stuff today might kick my ass. I have to keep my cool for quite a few hours no matter what, and then I will collapse on the floor and draw something really angry and explosive and painful, and I will be fine. Maybe. Until then, know that the 18 months I spent doing meditation Every Single Day (which I really should start doing again…really) has definitely come in handy this year, with students, adults, and my own children. And probably my own brain as well. Yup. Should maybe start meditating right this second. (some days, you just survive.)

Stuck Down

I’m trying to stay on track. I have a list a mile long. Actually, I have multiple lists. When I wake up in the morning, my phone says alarming things like, “You have a busy day today. There are 22 items on your calendar.” What the fuck? Are any of them “eat” or “sleep?” Nope. The standard stuff isn’t even on there. That’s just the extras. And some of them are easy, like “pay the damn bills” or “enter a show.” OK, that one is not easy, and many thanks to the three varied and useful brains (plus Google) that were helping me come up with a theme/show title for a one-woman show I’m considering. Though it made me realize that a lot of the words that have to do with women just annoy me. Like “feminine.” Anyone who knows me is clear that I am sort of the anti-feminine, and yet that is the word, the adjective, that is supposed to go along with me and my parts. There’s “womanly” as well, which just means you have curvy boobs and hips, right? “She has a womanly figure.” Fuck me. I hate that stuff. “Feminine” implies pretty smells and wafting silky fabrics and a pinky raised for tea. It’s interesting what words just set my teeth on edge. “Tits”…that’s the one my male students use that just sets me off. I don’t know why. (I should probably carry warning labels…maybe I do.) Don’t call me a girl, don’t call me a lady. I’m not either.

Anyway. My brain is on overload with that, and I have about a week to figure it out…surely from the list I typed into my phone as the other three threw stuff out at me, I will be able to find something semi-appropriate.

Meanwhile, I finally made it home and tried to focus. I’ve been so tired, and I’ve been going to bed early, but then I don’t sleep, so it’s fucking pointless. I am going to buy a gun just to go find that fucking mockingbird on my street and blow its perky, loud feathers away (moody much?). Then I will sell it back (the gun).

I wanted to iron everything to the background on Wednesday night, but that was exhaustion level tired. Last night, I had a cup of tea and some food and started to revive. I cut a background piece…luckily it didn’t need to be pieced, because this quilt isn’t actually that big, and then I started ironing…

The tree leaves tried to be fussy little assholes, but I ironed them into submission. This was actually pretty easy to iron down, because it was all one piece and only the tree was fussy.

It took me less than an hour…

So that’s a little over 10 hours in ironing, more than I thought, but not unreasonable. Notice in the bottom right corner that Kitten is venturing out into the house again. She’s still really nervous about being out, and keeps looking around for Babygirl, and Midnight is being kind of a pissy bitch about her being out too, so there’s some growling going on, but I think they’ll adjust.

ANYWAY. Hopefully tonight I’ll start stitching it down, which shouldn’t take long. My Saturday is kind of a mess at the moment, though, so I do have to grade papers tonight. I wanted to pinbaste it on Sunday, but I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ll see. Probably not an option.

But I’m two weeks ahead again. So that’s good. Anyway. Stuck down to the fabric. Ten days of school left. Then I have to get my head above water and try to figure out how to get some extra money this summer. I have three things going…I just need enough time and space to get them moving. Right now, it’s a lost cause, but it will get better soon.

Last night, I did sew some feet…

Although it feels like I should have been able to do more than that in an hour and a half. Whatever. Thirty-nine bullion knots in 90 minutes. OK, see it doesn’t sound so bad when I say it THAT way. That’s 2.3 minutes per bullion. OK then. I’m not going for the world record in bullion stitching. I think. Is there money in it?

Babygirl and a Bathtub

Yesterday was Babygirl’s last…I’d like to say she just fell asleep and went off into kitty heaven, but we had to assist her in that. Both kids came to the vet for the first time ever (girlchild came for Ivy) and petted her and made sure she was purring at the end. We guess she was closer to 16 than 12, unlike my great aunt’s records on the cat.

(I watch Star Trek with my cats…yes)

Babygirl came to us 2 1/2 years ago when my great aunt died. She came with an attitude, being a bit of a kitty terrorist, sure she was Queen here, disrupting all three existing cats. As things worked out, there was an uneasy truce here between the three remaining cats (one died of kidney failure soon after her arrival). She had been spoiled rotten by my aunt, didn’t like other animals except humans, and for a while, we even tried to find her another home, one where she could be Queen, the only cat, because we thought everyone would be happier that way.

It didn’t work, so we kept her…and everyone adjusted. She adopted the boychild as her special caregiver, and he was happy to have her. Kitten learned to run fast or have an escort to the litter tray and food (I carried her down the hallway every morning and every afternoon), and I learned to close my bedroom door at night, so I wouldn’t have cat fights in there at 2 AM.

Dec 28 14 001 small

That said, she did love us and we loved her cranky psychotic self…so it was hard to do, to let her go, but it was time. I hate that. You know it’s the right thing, but it still feels like shit. Babygirl is the only cat of mine that has had a quilt named after her…

A quilt that won a prize as well. She’s also the only animal of ours who has a tag on this blog, because she caused so many issues in the beginning, so I wrote about her a lot.

It was a rough time at the vet.

And then I came home and did the dishes and cooked dinner and tried to distract myself for a while…and then that stopped and I cried again. It is what it is. I am down to only two cats for the first time in about 19 years. And Kitten, who has been hiding in my room for all that time…she’s coming out. She’s in my office right now, sniffing all the things she’s been missing. She was out on the couch yesterday. I slept with my door open.

So at some point, I thought I might finish ironing last night, despite all that…

Although I was tired and felt depleted and probably should have just gone to bed, based on how I feel this morning.

As you know, I rarely listen to that part of my brain though. I ironed some knees and an arm…

And then I took a break, because it was late enough that I could have gone to sleep and I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish last night, because I knew it would be late, and I was tired. I am emotional and I have to deal with some major shit in class this week, plus all the other stuff, and I didn’t know exactly how long it would take to do all those fussy hair bits and another human body.

Then, in true Kathy fashion, I said Fuck It. And ironed.

I knew if I put it off until tonight that I would just do this little bit tonight and not get it ironed onto fabric, and I want to speed this up a bit, so I did it, and yeah, it was after midnight when I went to bed, but it’s often after midnight and that explains why I look so tired when you see me.

It’s hard to see, I know. It will be better when it’s on the background and I can hang it up. I have 8 hours into the ironing and still there’s another hour or so to get it down on the background. It is all in one piece, though, which is nice. Much less fussy than some quilts I’ve had to iron down. The gingko tree will be the worst part of it; getting all those branches and leaves laid out right will be a pain in the ass, honestly.

So the first bathtub quilt is that much closer to done. And I have sent yet another kitty into that giant meadow in the sky where they chase bugs and lie in the sun and eat endless tuna from human plates. Or in the case of Babygirl, drink my cold tea from the teacup. Where there was people food, there was her little face, meowing incessantly at you. (Thanks, Aunt Betty, for teaching her that.) Sweet crazy animal…

It’s a heavy morning…we miss you Babygirl.

Problem-Solving the Fussy Bits…

I was sitting here a minute ago with a dying cat in my lap, trying to type and failing, until she decided she didn’t want to be in my lap any more. We’ve been trying to keep Babygirl comfortable and happy, best we can, vying for the right to make her purr. She’s still doing that. It’s hard to know when is the right time to end a pet’s life. I know that I could have done that last night, and so could the boychild, but the girlchild wasn’t there yet. And she spent half the night apparently getting up and checking on Babygirl, because the cat kept coming in her room and meowing at her and she thought she was dying. So maybe tonight she’ll be ready to admit the cat isn’t getting better. Last night, she didn’t think that. Yesterday Babygirl let me hand feed her. This morning? She wouldn’t touch food. So there we are. On death watch.

The prom dress is finally finished and done and paid for. We commissioned the dress from a picture, and the woman who created it is pretty amazing. I’m sure pictures will be allowed once hair and makeup are done…which is Saturday. But that took quite a bit of time yesterday. We had dinners (pizzas, handmade except for the dough) ready and some cooked or cooking and had to go back for the dress’ final fitting. So dinner was late. And then I had to hold a cat and pet it until it was tired of me…in the old days, I wouldn’t have made 30 seconds. Last night, she lasted 20 minutes. Proof she’s not well.

So ironing started late too…and it was the hard stuff…body parts…

I had things overlapping that had to be out of the way until the stuff underneath was ironed. It was fussy ironing.

In fact, I think I spent most of the hour and a half just on the body torso and knees.

Finally ironing it to the head from the previous night. Then I started on the water…

Which honestly is just a pain in the butt. So when I got to about 11:30, I quit. I was tired, and the next step was yet another fussy body part and I couldn’t even see the numbers, because I’m trying to iron it all down together at the same time, so I have two layers of ironing sheet under the middle and I can’t see the numbers through both layers. Aargh. I’ll try again tonight or tomorrow night.

I’m in the 400s though…almost 8 hours of ironing done. I could finish in a couple of hours, I think…at least ironing pieces together. Then there’s the ironing onto the background. I’m thinking I could be stitching down by Friday. Maybe sandwiching Sunday? Is that wishful thinking? And quilting it next week? (Because grades aren’t due and you don’t have to print like 60 awards and and and…)

Because I have another quilt in line behind it already…and yes, I’m buried in grading, but I’m really trying to NOT bring a lot of that home. Honestly, I get home and once I’m done dealing with all the crap to deal with here, there isn’t any brain power left to grade papers. I’m spending a lot of brain power on problem-solving at the moment. How is that different than the rest of the time? No idea.

OK, parent meeting number one is in 40 minutes and I’m still home (problem), I need to write a chore note for the boychild, who is doing what I ask at least (someone is!), I need to pack a lunch and pet a dying kitty again. Some days it feels like I’m doing it all wrong. I know I’m not, but it just feels that way.

Nothing Is Ever Easy…Except Making a Mess…

I started ironing Saturday morning. I was sitting around waiting for my car to be finished so I could pick it up, and that ended up taking all day, but I did some other stuff too. I really should have been grading, but I did about 4 hours the night before, so I felt OK about quitting. I also input all of what I graded on Saturday morning…more unpaid teacher work. As we get closer to vacation and I hear more “You’re so lucky” about having the whole summer off, while my gut’s in knots because I don’t get paid, I get snarkier and snarkier about all the unpaid work we do. When you consider doing a professional development course over the summer just so you will get some extra money, you know it’s bad.

And it’s bad. Whatever.

So I ironed. Because ironing isn’t bad. It just makes things flat and forces them to stick together. First I lay out the first 100 pieces…

They’re in groups of 10…makes it easier to find what I need. Then I start ironing…

For some reason, and I’m not sure it was a good one, I numbered all the things outside the bathtub first, counterclockwise. Then I numbered the outside of the bathtub, then the figure at the top, then the water, then the figure at the bottom. The reason I’m telling you this is because I think it was a bad plan to try ironing everything outside in.

That said, that’s what I’m doing. So much for good judgment.

This is Kitten, obviously…

She has her paw over the side of the bathtub…which she would never do in real life. Midnight would, but a black cat is hard to see on a dark background.

There’s a gingko tree behind the bath…you know, like there is in YOUR bathroom. OK, maybe these are all wishful-thinking bathrooms.

There is no way I’m pulling this tree off the ironing sheet until I have to…

That’s where I quit Saturday and went and bought two real not-gingko trees and drew some more (where is that drawing? I thought I photographed it? You might have to wait for that). And watched Interstellar, which I really liked.

Then Sunday was full of crap and doing things and running around. Because it always is except during vacations. And around 8:30 or so, I started ironing again…a pile of clothes…

Hey now, that’s realistic. Except I don’t own any white bras…or white shoes…

Me and white clothing just don’t get along. I’m a spiller…a klutz…and then I started ironing bathtub pieces down…which took up most of the ironing space…

And it’s hard to see because it’s all white on a white background at the moment. The real background fabric is a dark blue. It’ll pop.

I worked on the first face…

And realized it was almost midnight. The time. Not the cat.

And I was 340 pieces in…and just over 5 hours. Only 250 pieces to go, I think. Of course, they are all human figures, which are fussy, and big blobs of water, which can be fussy. But I made significant progress. So that’s good.

The rest of the life shit, well, I’m working on it. School stuff…there never seems to be a way to catch up, but I’m working on it. Did I tell you I made a puberty powerpoint last night? It kind of sucked, but at least I don’t have to write it 5 times today. I can let them write it instead. Maybe I’ll update it for next year. Home stuff is a mess…Babygirl was crying this morning, so I held her, and here’s how I know how close she is to dying: she let me hold her for a good 5 minutes. No way she’d do that if she were her normal feisty self. I got her to purr, though, and I cried. Because having to decide if now is the time, if she is hurting or in pain, that’s the part I hate most. You always second-guess yourself. I wish she would just fall asleep and then not wake up, and take that decision out of my hands, because I’m sitting here looking at a 2-hour staff meeting and the vet closing, and not being able to check on her until almost 5 PM…I even considered taking her with me, but too many students are allergic to cats for me to do that. So I will tell the kids to hold her and pet her a lot while I’m gone and I’ll see where she’s at when I get home. Nothing is ever easy. Except making a mess. That’s easy.

Off to school. Today we learn about puberty…exciting stuff.

Vacation Calls…

At this point of the school year, Friday afternoons come with a giant sigh of relief. Even though I was just going to come home and grade papers, I could sit on the couch and get caught up on Orphan Black and The Daily Show and maybe even grading stuff (it could happen). And then I might be able to sleep more than 5 or 6 hours at night, and perhaps drink my cup of tea in the morning before I have to deal with people. I need this down time, as my dreams (nightmares?) of school ending and my grades being incomplete confirm.

I have no voice this morning. Four days of frog dissections, microscopes, and starting to teach sex ed (or NOT sex ed, as I call it, because I’m not teaching them how to have sex. I’m teaching the scary shit that happens if you DO have sex. It’s more like Consequence Ed) and my voice is shot. I can’t sing along to my favorite songs or even talk to the dog without it cracking. The parent shadowing their student yesterday blessed me after she sat through the class (I personally don’t find it difficult to teach this unit…).

Grading papers last night…

Three episodes of Orphan Black, plus I cooked and ate dinner with boychild, because girlchild blew us off again (as he says, “less conflict” and with him there, I’ll actually cook, instead of loll around on the couch and wish I had a replicator). I finished all the science journals though (hallelujah). I have two weeks of warmups, one homework assignment, and about 20 trifolds on Google Classroom. I can do that all this weekend, right? (ha ha haha hahahaha dissolves into hysterical laughter). I could do that. But that would be crazy. What I also could do is empty the dishwasher, pick up my car finally, get the kids’ checks from the UK into their accounts, clean something, wash something, run some errand. I’ll grade more Sunday night. I’m on a break. I will input the stupid journal grades though, before the last two periods hyperventilate themselves to death. There are not enough hours in the day. If I read another article about how teachers have to give meaningful and immediate feedback on assignments when there is no way to do that unless you STOP SLEEPING COMPLETELY, I will scream. The little ones? Sure. All the time. The big stuff? Yeah. You don’t pay me for all that overtime I do already. Shut the fuck up.

Rant. Sigh. Fourteen days.

I was really tired when I finished all that stuff, but I managed to find the energy to sort the pieces out…

It only took 39 minutes. There were a lot of teensy weensy pieces. Cuz I’m crazy.

I am now ready to iron. Well, the fabric is ready. I’m really tired at the moment, so I’m not ready. I would need at least one more infusion of seriously strong British tea.

I have a strong desire to turn the music up really loud and dance in the hallways. Tea must be working. Vacation must be tickling my brain. Ha! I see you over there, beckoning me. Just start summer vacation now. Fuck the rest of the year. Just come over here (funny that, since we got an email about the end-0f-year absences and the sub shortage in California and how principals are carefully looking at the time we take off, especially Fridays and Mondays.). I have a lot of sick days. But I won’t do that. It’s OK. I take my job too seriously. Fucking workaholic.

This morning, I sent the dog out to pee. She’s a retriever. Here she is, barking at the two ducks in the pool enclosure.

The arrow? The hole she tore in the fence so she could hang out around the pool. So she could go in there and retrieve ducks. But she’s scared of them. She’s also scared of the cats. Speaking of which, Babygirl is probably not long for this world. She’s fading fast. I wake up every morning and go searching for her, expecting to find her dead. That sounds horrible, I know, but…what can I say? We give her love and food and pets, and hope she just falls asleep and doesn’t wake up, because that’s easier than some of the ends of lives we’ve dealt with in this house. And no, it’s not treatable, far as we know. She’s older than we thought she was, and we gave her 2 1/2 good years of love, so I feel OK with this. I just want her to go easily. But she does nothing easily, so she’ll probably fight this too. Right now, she’s lying in a patch of sun by the sliding glass door. Old lady contentment.

Boychild wanted to know if it was always the same two ducks in the pool, and the answer is no…

That male is way splotchier than other ones I’ve seen, and sometimes it’s two males. Never two females though. Weird. I think I have a duck time share in my yard. I’m not getting a cut, though, and that seems unfair.

Anyway. It’s Saturday. I’m playing music. I have one cup of tea in me. All the animals are fed. One kid is up and showered; the other was muttering loudly before, but has not surfaced. I just enjoy sitting here with my foot up (podiatrist appointment in July, for god’s sake) and my tea and the music on, feeling less pressure than I did before to get shit done. It’s OK. The pressure will be back tomorrow. I’m just trying to hold it off for 24 hours or so.

I think I need to draw something. Or watch a movie. Or both.