Like I Have a Choice…

Well I came home yesterday and had a minor nervous breakdown…not because of school. That went OK. Not perfect, not amazing, just OK. Sat through another hour of how to deal with a shooter on campus (doesn’t make me feel more prepared, trust me, although as science teachers, we have a more useful arsenal than most for the FIGHT section of Run Hide Fight. Yes. That’s what we learn in staff meetings. Fun stuff. Actually kind of upsetting stuff. I really don’t like it. But then again, there’s a lot of things I don’t like…fish, chocolate…allergic to both. Staff meetings, grading stuff, trying to explain to middle-school boys why they need to shower every single fucking day. Nope. Don’t like those things.

But no, that wasn’t it. I even stayed for about 45 minutes and reworked all the groups for the project they’re doing this week, because I realized how many kids would be out of my classes on Friday because an elementary school is coming to visit, and that means those kids will be helping with that, and it just wasn’t going to work in a group of 5 kids if 4 of them were gone on the day the project is due. Plus there were some groups that were dysfunctional. It’s not fair to put one hardworking high-level kid in a group when you know they’re going to end up doing everything. So I redid all those.

And then I came home. And got the damn mail. US District Court jury summons for the entire month of June. You know, the month when I teach sex ed. At the school where we either get no subs or we get subs who are incompetent and discuss bitcoin with the kids when they should be working on ecosystems. Or the sub who…well, I probably can’t talk about that one, because it’s an ongoing investigation. So every night, I’m supposed to call and get my status for the next day, and then if I have to go in, I’ll have to write sub plans right then for a sex ed unit that has no script for a teacher who doesn’t know my kids and probably really doesn’t want to talk to them about puberty or penises or HIV, and may actually be completely ignorant (I swear, when I did the training, there was a male science teacher…SCIENCE TEACHER…old enough to know better, who said he thought you couldn’t get pregnant the first time you had sex. Fucking A.). You’ve gotta be kidding me.

I was pissed. I still am. I do my civic duty every damn day. I don’t need more of it. So I walked the dogs, and I was still pissed. I tried going online to figure out how to postpone it to my vacation, to my break from my school year, to the one month a year when I can do all my doctors’ appointments, do my yardwork, run errands that take more time than 20 minutes…the one month a year I don’t get PAID. Yup. This is how I want to spend that month. The website is faulty. The website lies. I’m going to have to call in between 9 and 4…interesting, since those are my teaching hours…and sit on hold for at least 10 minutes, they say. Well then maybe you should make the website functional so I can do it there. Downtown too. So parking. I’m so annoyed. If I can’t postpone it, June will be a very difficult stressful month. Wait. June is always a difficult stressful month. Fun stuff.

And then we didn’t plan well for cooking this week. Well, there’s meals planned, but they’re all meals I know how to cook and it’s just easier (especially when you’re pissed off) to just do it yourself than to have the presence of mind to explain in detail to someone else what you need them to do. You can push the recipe over toward them (that didn’t work), but I really don’t want to be in charge all the time. I’m in charge all the time every day at school. I would like to come home a couple times a week and not have to deal with cooking. So I guess that’s my rule for next week, eh? Yeah. It is.

Stress. Need to find time to make the phone call (I have 3 other phone calls I need to make that have been on the to-do list for a long time). Need to grade stuff (did none of that last night due to mood from hell). Grades are due in a week. Again. Never-ending.

So eventually, I was able to push most of that shit over to the side, a big pile of festering fucking crap of when am I going to get everything done, so it’s still there, smelling up the place, but art brain is a pushy broad and gets her shit done. Holds her nose when she has to, breathes through her mouth.

I had that drawing of the two figures, which is from 2014, one of the ones from when I was broken, but the image in my head never made it completely onto paper. Which is interesting, because it’s all still in there, the drawing. I pulled it right up. Can’t remember what that thing with the three legs and the pump-like structure is called, but I still have a drawing in my head from more than 3 1/2 years ago…and I taped more paper around the edges. This is Calli probably getting offended because I’m bopping her in the head with the paper…or maybe she’s just giving me a loving look because I walked her.

And I started adding the fireplace behind them that’s been in my head this whole time.

It still needs fire and stones, and I gave him feet…but I still need to draw the third figure in the bottom section. Tonight hopefully. This deadline is before the other one…so let’s see if I can get going on that. Sigh. Trying to put all that angst into this piece instead of letting it sit inside me. Hate this shit. I really look forward to 8 weeks (it’s not even 8 weeks) of not thinking about or worrying about my job, so having something else I have to worry about instead, every single fucking day? I really can’t. Sigh. Like I have a choice. Plus how am I going to take any copyediting jobs over the summer if I can’t be sure I’ll be able to work on it every day? I can’t. That’s what it means.

Meanwhile the boychild is like…whoa! Jury duty! That would be so exciting! Um. Can I transfer it to my unemployed college graduate? Nope. No ma’am. We’ll torture him later. You? Now.

For a Minute There I Lost Myself*

Most common nights that teachers don’t sleep: (1) The day before school starts in August (or September, if you’re on that track). (2) Sunday nights. I don’t even know why. I totally tried to shut my brain down. It just didn’t work. I was talking to the girlchild right before, but I also was just glad to hear from her (earlier that day)…the no-internet week was difficult. Meanwhile, boychild is sending me pictures of lost weather balloons (REAL ones, not the Roswell kind of weather balloons).

Some weekends just aren’t long enough.

Yes, I spent most of Saturday in a car. Then talked about my work and all the other quilters’ work (because I was the token quilter there). Then we took all the work down and shoved a bunch of it in my car and drove back. Woo hoo! Ugh. Sunday was like it always is…do some work, clean up, do some yard work, grocery store, prep some food, hopefully get to some art. And the art started early, because I had graded all the makeup work and couldn’t handle anything else. There have to be days of the week when you don’t work. And I already had.

I have my post-dinner routine that will get this quilt done…we finish watching whatever not-quite-an-hour-long show it is and then I sew more balls on until the show is done. I’m on the last thread color…I think. I missed one pink one and some of the red ones seem darker, but let’s just say I’m close to done with sewing them down. Then I need to embellish them.

I was actually looking up how to quilt wool last night, because the quilt BEFORE the birds has been pinbasted for a million years. I feel like it needs a heavier thread than what I usually use, but the woman I watched on YouTube used a thinner thread. So now I don’t know.

Anyway, so I am trying to get the other one done too…I guess this is number 3. I have all the wool cut out for September and October, but nowhere to put it. So I pieced September to one of the first blocks I embellished…

And then pinned down the beginnings of stuff.

I think the whole thing gets sewn together after that, which is a little scary. Don’t worry…it’ll be a while. I have a ton of embellishment left to do on the other piece that traveled with us throughout the Southwest. I didn’t get much done.

This was because the boychild needs to come home after college and may well be driving.

I was just curious. It’s about how far we drove over Spring Break. But with no help. Long way.

Then I started drawing…it was easier last night. I added an octopus and a jellyfish. So much for keeping it simple.

Then Christmas lights, of course…and the requisite bones.

Stardard fare…some ribs, a uterus, the inevitable iPhone, some stuff from the past, and gingko leaves.

Her hair on the right side…haven’t decided the left side yet. There’s more to add in there.

This might be a little crazy.

Found the other drawing I was considering for the time theme. This is good. It’s almost done, as far as the two figures are concerned…

There’s a third figure I need to draw…but I need to add paper to do that. I think I’ll try to do that tonight, because this deadline is earlier than the other. Honestly, I’m not sure I can finish both. So there’s that. Never let that stop me yet though.

Wow. This is a tired way to start a week. Ugh. Oh well. Must go on.

*Radiohead, Karma Police

Grading and Weeds…

I got a good night’s sleep last night after an hour of drawing (yes, only an hour…you can thank my day job for that). It was delightful. Except when one of my neighbors was slamming car doors at 1 AM and the puppy decided he needed to protect us from that.

Seriously, this dog is the biggest (sweetest) asshole there is. I finally got up and sprayed him with the water bottle (No BARK) and he grumbled for a while, let out a few rebellious yips to show I’m not the boss of him, and then went to sleep. Until 3 AM or so when he did it again. Yup. I’ve got control of that beast.

Yeah, I graded last night. I came home and finished the other big assignment that I was supposed to finish over break. I still have more to do, and progress report grades have to be done in about a week, so I’m trying to be on top of it all. LAST PROGRESS REPORT OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. Yeah. That’s good. I like that. I had to really force myself to grade the last period. I wanted to put it off so bad. But no.

So while we were driving around last week, in the middle of the night (well, no, at 3:11 AM when someone in the hotel room next to us was banging on the door and yelling LET ME IN over and over again), I got this amazing idea for a drawing that related to time (one of the topics I need to hit in an upcoming quilt…I have two dueling deadlines of course). I sketched it briefly and described it (the picture is still indelibly inscribed on my brain, so that’s enough), but now I need to get it out of the head and onto the paper. I tried earlier this week and failed, but I will try again. But when I started trying to draw it, I realized it was going to be huge and massive and I like to do at least one really big quilt a year, usually in the summer, but the deadline for what I was trying to do is early June. So then I thought about this other drawing that I started ages ago and needs finishing and would also work (and would be much smaller and doable in the next two months), so I had sort of decided to pull that one out and finish it for that show, and then draw the other one for summer (although there are two other deadlines I’m interested in for early fall, so there’s that as well. Aaugh.). All that decisionmaking, though, made me give up on trying to do that drawing first, so I started this one.

This one is kind of about me as an artist, starting way back, although not TOO way back, because I don’t remember everything, but just thinking back to what influenced me, what kinds of art I’ve made, what’s made me the artist I am…so that’s this. There is, of course, no guarantee ever that it will get into the show for which I make it…that doesn’t bother me at all. It’s an idea that spoke to me and I’m drawing it. All good.

So when I finished grading, I did some more stuff on the one arm in the air, worked on her hair, added lungs and then worked on the other arm, which lead to upper thighs and a uterus (you knew that was coming, yeah?).

Obviously there’s some stuff that needs to happen in the middle. That’s still whirling around in my head, although a gingko tree is in there somewhere. I used to be a screenprinter; hence the squeegee.

I did photography when I was younger…but also sewed. I learned to sew when I was 8. I might have embroidered before that. Thread, fabric…all part of me forever. Art also a part of me forever.

I’m driving to LA today and talking and taking down a show, so I’m not only missing the March for Science (dammit), but also not getting a lot done today in the art world. The show was supposed to be up for another 3 weeks, so I’m more than a little irritated that we have to do takedown today, but whatever. Some people in the art world are flakes…we all know that.

This popped up in my email as being from 9 years ago (I think actually the book I made from these is 9 years old…some of the pictures may be older). It’s my kids and my brother’s kids…all so tiny and cute.

And smiling! Mostly. Kinda weird. And no, I still haven’t heard from the girlchild. She’s either walking back from that village tomorrow or Monday, so hopefully she’ll reappear. I know she has to check in with her local advisor every two days, and if there were a problem, he would have contacted us, so that’s what keeps me from freaking out. Mostly. Mom brains. They’re so annoying.

Other annoying things: Apple’s new update to iCloud now does not allow me to select multiple pictures. Their solution says to use iCloud on my PC, except it still thinks I have a corrupt database and wants me to sign out of it. That bug has been around for months with no solution. Buggy as hell. iMessage is also still buggy as hell, and that’s on an Apple device. And then one of my local school board members (one I did NOT vote for) is pro arming teachers…unfortunately, I think it’s another two years before we can vote him out. Sigh. Stupid stuff.

So driving to LA…gonna pray to the traffic goddess for no accidents or stupidity (ha!)…hoping for good attendance at the talk and an easy takedown. Tomorrow? Not much to look forward to…grading and weeds. That’s about it.

When I Pick Up the Pen

The opening last night was nice…the show itself looks really cool, some really interesting work. Although all these local shows can be a pain in the butt for delivery and pick up of work and trying to get to all the openings, I like the opportunity to put my work in with other people’s work that I’m not usually hanging with. There were a few FIG members in this exhibit, but there were a lot of other people whose names I didn’t know. It’s cool to see my work hanging out with theirs.

The show is Art That Cuts, and it’s only at Mesa College through next Friday. Definitely worth a visit, though. Bhavna Mehta was the juror and the class on campus designed the exhibit and all the stuff that went with it. I often say I would have loved to have taken a gallery class like that when I was in school. I even occasionally think about it now (and then slap myself a lot because I don’t need to take that on right now).

Helen Redman is still rocking the art world in her 70s (I wanna be 70 and still making art)…this is her piece To Become Her.

And Bhavna’s two pieces Beat and Wade…combining paper cutting and embroidery.

My piece, Some Like It Hot, is hanging on the wall with their work, which I loved…

This piece was fascinating…lots of sewing paraphernalia, but then there are rattles…from rattlesnakes…and they’re wired to rattle…

So there’s this constant low-level rattling going on that is just so dangerous sounding…

The piece is Now Is Not a Good Time by Margaret Noble.

It’s a fascinating piece…here’s a link to a video of it from her website.

This is one of three by artist Kirsten Francis, Sounding OFF…

I was looking at her work and I liked it, and then I read her name and thought, hey. I know that name. Why do I know that name? There was a printmaker about a million years ago whose work I just loved, but never had the money to actually buy any of it. But I saw her at Artwalk or something. Well this is her. Obviously, she’s moved away from the printmaking, but I was so glad to see that her work still speaks to me. Weird, huh?

These were fascinating. One of the materials used in making this? Fire. A beautiful piece, Colour Bunny, by Vincent Wray.

A detail…

This is a tiny piece, but so detailed. Little Hands, Little Feet by Nicole Waszak.

And this piece…Resistance through Existence II by Martha Gil…her Instagram is @gildednopal. Definitely worth a look at her nopal-influenced uterus stickers on Etsy.

Home after all that, picked up dinner for me and the sick guy, who was getting all the sad looks from Calli.

I was pretty exhausted. I did some sewing of wool circles and eventually made it to a standing position to work on this…it’s slow. But it’s coming.

Yeah that one boob was way too high. Although that’s more realistic. Oh well.

Tonight was to be gaming, but sick guy is too sick. So I’ll be grading. It’s OK. I need to get it done. And maybe I’ll have the energy to draw as well. I won’t be marching for science unfortunately tomorrow…I’ll be driving to LA instead for an artist talk and take down of a show. Long day.

But first to get through this one…to the fun stuff, when I pick up the pen.

I’ve Got Nostalgic Pavements*

Sometimes there’s a moment and it reminds you of a space in the past that was so incredibly different, a moment that should have been the same or similar, and you have a choice: be thankful that the current moment is not like that at all, or worry that all moments will be like that eventually. My brain is a worrier. I spend a lot of time telling that core part of it that those moments aren’t inevitable, that they are the choices of others, sure, and you have no control over those, but that there is a different person in each of those moments, and it’s better to believe (hope?) that this person is better at moments than the last one…or the one before. I think humans are great at hope…it’s what keeps most of us going.

Including that student from yesterday at tutoring who was telling me his plans to play American football and I’m thinking about his grades and, straight up, his size (sure, he’s gonna grow, but maybe not enough), but I’m not going to tell him nope, that’s not your future. I pull out my phone and show him a picture of a former student with not-great grades but an amazing drive and attitude and I tell him about his full college scholarship and his current amazing GPA and maybe just maybe plant some drive or motivation in there, because he has the hope, the hope of a 12-year-old, and I’m not getting in the way of that, and he asks, then can I come back and show you what I did? And I’m like, well hell yeah, I hope you do. I hope you all do.

My car is back. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. It’s funny though…because they want me to bring her in for an oil change every 3000 miles, and I barely remember to check the little sticky thing in the car. I don’t even know when 3000 miles might be. I mean I did 2500 miles last week (whoops, with not enough oil, although THAT light never came on)…but during the school year, I have no idea when that is. And when you’re talking to someone who lives, breathes, drinks cars on a daily basis, it’s hard to explain to them how low the car’s fluids are on your priority list. I mean, I can’t even get the floors and the bathrooms clean at the moment. I swept around the pool last night, but didn’t have time (I was grading) to scoop it all up into the composting trashcan. There’s Too Much to Do. In fact, I stopped typing this for 5 minutes to send a school-related email that I should have sent two days ago. I’m sometimes surprised that my brain can hold onto some of the threads tangled up in there.

Calli agrees.

Anyway, one more assignment is graded. One more thing to check off the list. That’s a plus. Gotta keep doing those.

I finally got done with that assignment around 9 or 9:30 last night…then spent some time trying to center myself. But almost falling asleep at the same time. Fighting that sleep instinct is the crazy part of my existence. This week I am so tired. And I’m hot-flashing constantly…although that might have been my air conditioning not working at school. OK, no, it’s hot flashes…thought they were mostly done, but apparently not.

And then it was 11 PM and normal people go to bed if they have to get up at 6-something the next morning. But I hate going to bed without some art being made, so I managed to wake up enough…because that drawing had been muttering inside my head all day. So it’s rude not to listen. Get up and grab a pen and do something.

I stared at the paper for a while. I’m not ready to draw the thighs, even though it’s weird to start at the bottom and then jump to the top. It’s weird, but I did it anyway. I’m trying to think about who I was as an artist when I was a kid, when I was in high school and college. It was harder then. I didn’t do it every day. There were many other things to do and I wasn’t always inspired. I love that the inspiration is such a deep well now.

So the head…and the cat…

And I put roots in…

Hopefully more tonight, although this evening is a clusterfuck.

I sat on the couch for a moment to finish my thoughts…Simba was happy to be with a human…

There’s some art stuff coming up in the next few days…the opening of Art That Cuts at Mesa College is Thursday night from 5-7 PM. I’m planning on being there. I have one piece in the show…

Then Saturday, I have two events…I unfortunately will only be at one. The one I won’t be at is the closing reception of Mind the Gap at Southwestern College on Saturday from 1-3 PM…I’ll finally see the show next week after school one day.

I’ll be at the artist talk for California Fibers’ Surface and Structure, at the Branch Gallery, Saturday at 2 PM. The show is coming down after the talk, so it’s your last chance to see it. I hope you come by.

See? Busy week in art. Oh yeah, and Fantastic Fibers opened last week I think? Or is it this week. It’s the 14th…right. So that’s in Paducah, KY, at the Yeiser Center, and you should go see that from 5-7 PM. It’s not just quilts, so that is also cool.

Meanwhile, all I know about the girlchild is that she had to walk to the next village (12-15 miles?) and I haven’t heard from her since…it’s possible that I won’t hear from her until she gets back next week. Hopefully all is well and she’s doing interesting things. Crap. Gotta go to work! I love when time just flips by like that.

*Kate Nash, Mouthwash

Crawling in My Skin*

First day back to school after two weeks went just about how you would expect. Some kids still asleep. Some kids obviously got no attention for days and were so excited to be back where there were lots of people. And all the teachers. Well, we’re here. State testing is coming up…it’s when you look at the group of kids you personally will be testing with for four days and wonder how you will keep them going. I rely on cheese and crackers and juice boxes personally. Plus a lot of coloring pages. One year, I had a lot of small plastic animals that I gave out. Whatever works.

It did mean that I came home (after dropping my car at the car guy’s place, because although the check engine light had been on since Petrified Forest, it went off yesterday morning…it’s OK, it was back on by the afternoon) and I collapsed. Well. I didn’t. I played with dogs and petted needy cats and cooked dinner and THEN I collapsed. Eventually, and honestly, it took a long while, I got off my butt and did stuff. Sometimes I think knowing I will have to write the next day and own what I did (or didn’t) do is what gets me moving…which is fine. Motivation is motivation.

We started a new unit yesterday, so I drew…although honestly, I was kind of haphazard about it…

It’s done. That’s all that matters.

When I got home, there was a lovely package from Beth, thanking me for sending her all my trashy bits from the last three quilts…these will be beautiful in my flesh stash…very subtle and wonderful texture…

In my mail was this…which I finally opened…

And saw my quilt! If you want to hear me talk about this, it’s this Saturday at 2 PM at the Branch Gallery in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, the show is closing this Saturday, not continuing into May. Long stupid story on that one. The quilt to the left is Charlotte Bird’s…

Part of my couch collapse still involves trying to sew all 96 balls on this thing. I don’t feel too bad, though, because I just saw someone posting that they had just finished this. It’s not just me!

I’m working my way around, one color at a time. I think I have 2 1/2 colors left, not that it means anything, because I can’t remember how many colors there were in the beginning…6 or 7? I just don’t know. It’s an endless twisting around, seeing if there’s another one that’s the same color (and some of them are pretty damn similar, if you ask me). And then I get to embellish all 96 of them. We could be here for a while.

Then sitting around on the couch, staring at stupid memes and crappy news until that drove me off the couch. I have two deadlines in June…I tried drawing for one of them Sunday night, and it’s not coming together. I have another drawing started that might work for that…but that meant pulling stuff off the piano (of course…don’t you keep all your half-done drawings on your piano?), and I wasn’t in the mood. So I picked the one that has to be an exact size and cut a piece of paper for that. I stared at it for a long time. And then started sketching in the shape of a body…you can clearly see that here.

Or not. I don’t always use pencil, but when I do, it usually requires a lot of erasing and redrawing. Honestly, it’s hard to fit something into a shape this long and narrow without a lot of erasing and redrawing. Luckily, at some point, I decided everything from the knees down was good enough. I’m not done with this section, but I have a solid start.

I’ve been trying those white-out things that have the strip you sort of swipe on the ink. I like it because it’s not bumpy, but it doesn’t do well in this situation. It’s coming up too easily…not sticking to the paper in a decisive manner. Ugh. Back to the liquid stuff? Maybe.

Anyway, expect to see this drawing for a while. I sit there telling myself to keep it simple (ironic…the bones aren’t even in there yet), and then I give them fingernails. Tiny little fingernails. Totally unnecessary fingernails. Ah well. I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. Things I draw automatically…fingernails…kneecaps…uteri.

Meanwhile, did I grade anything yesterday? Nope. Not really. Oh well. OK, gotta go to school again. Although all I really wanna do is work on that drawing. That’s good actually…it means it’s starting to talk to me. So that in itself will drag me off the couch, even if I’m tired.

*Linkin Park, Crawling

I’m Back…Physically…

Hi. I’ve been gone a while. Well. I’m back. Not READY to be back, but what’s new, right? Still need to clean out and patch the tent, but the sleeping bags have been aired out and packed up, the man’s head has been shaved, and very little grading is done. In fact, yesterday, while I’m trying to sit out on the deck in the lovely (not windy) weather, ready (sort of) to power through some grading, the app that we use to sign in to all our other apps decided I didn’t exist…

OK then. I still needed to grade. Luckily my phone and iPad still let me in to the app I needed, but it was slow and fussy, so I didn’t get much done. Oh well! This was the view…

No gusty winds, no 10% humidity or less…sleeping in my own bed. All good. Travel is nice, but it’s also nice to be home.

I have a drawing in my head. This isn’t it. This is the drawing I did to remind me that what’s in my head is better. It may take me a while to get there.

This is the pile of science units that I did manage to grade over break…so that’s not a small amount.

But there’s still a ton sitting around here that needs doing.

I worked on this on the trip…got all the wool bits sewed on. It actually took a lot longer than I thought I would to do that.

And that hut is significantly crooked. But I’m OK with that.

Mostly I worked on those two not-so-crooked huts and the warthog, who just needs his tail finished.

The instructions were like “use the instructions from January to complete this stuff” and I didn’t bring those. I couldn’t figure the flowers out, but for the baby warthog, I just looked at his parents and figured him out. So I didn’t get much done.

I did drive about 2500 miles though and went to a bunch of cool places, which will pop up in posts over the next few weeks, because it will take me forever to find all the photos.

But today, I go back to school…I just spent 20 minutes actually talking to the girlchild in Madagascar, so that was cool. Nice to hear her voice. And now off to work. Hopefully my brain will follow.

The Weight of the Things That Remained Unspoken*

OK. So I have multiple to-do lists and to-take lists and I keep crossing stuff off but I’m still stressed. Boychild left on a week-long hike today for his Spring Break. Tomorrow, girlchild leaves for her independent study project, so we may not hear from her for a while. I have not finished anything for school. ANYTHING. Whatever. It will still be there when I get back. And today I’ve been to two grocery stores, the UPS place, my photographer’s, the gas station, Target, and I tried to deal with the two car issues, but one is something that needs ordering, and for some reason, my tire place is closed. Do they close for Good Friday? Not clear. OK. It’s all right. It’s just a faulty sensor. It’s not the end of the world. Nothing really is the end of the world.

I finished the quilt, I entered the show. I have no quilts in my head right now (not entirely true) that have to be done. I can draw with wild abandon. Like I don’t do that anyway.

Here’s Birthing the Gender War…

I think she’s one in a series…because there are more genders, and honestly, I’m at a point where I believe we should start over on the gender stuff. Just dump our preconceptions and argue for fluidity. Not sure how I’m gonna draw that, but give me time.

Kitten enjoying our Spring weather…

I tested our new air mattress…hopefully no backaches this trip. Calli approved.

She would have approved more if I let her on it.

Simba just wanted love. Poor dogs have gotten no attention this week.

So one thing I want to take with me is this…for embellishment. I have the top block on the right and the two blocks before it that are barely embellished…

But then I added the July blocks in the row below…I’m still trying to sew all the wooly bits down…

And then the last row is for August. Even more things to stitch down before I leave.

Realistically, I’m not going to get all those on there. Then again, I’m going to a show tonight that is supposed to only be an hour of playing, but it looks like I might be there for setup before. I can sit out on the deck there and do this, right? No one will mind? Yeah, it’s somebody’s house, but I sorta know him. Considering this…

So I shipped two quilts out today, one for a show and one commission.

We have piles everywhere of stuff for camping etc. I finally got my clothes packed this afternoon…I was kind of freaking out. The temperature ranges we’re dealing with are kind of drastic.

No snow, though…not like the boychild.

Here’s the girlchild with her Madagascarian troupe (well part of them anyway).

They all separate into their ISPs now for 3 or 4 weeks before they get together again at the end. I think she made an awesome choice on this trip…still worry about her constantly (and the boychild too…he’s hiking by himself, of course. Sigh.). And I miss both of them. Apparently the girlchild’s housekeeper/nanny/cook gave her a gift for mamanao, which translates to Your Mom. Wow. OK. That’s so cool. I can’t even really send anything back. I guess I sent her my kid. But sweet Gina, thank you…for feeding her and washing her clothes (and all the stuff I don’t do for her!). I appreciate it.

Anyway, I need some down time and I’m going to enjoy it, even when there’s no showers and we’re being stalked by herds of javelinas and coatimundi…I can stitch, draw, read, and hike. It’s all good.

*Maroon 5, Won’t Go Home Without You

I Work ‘Til I Ache My Bones*

Well I finished the quilt. On time. It’s at the photographer. I’ll enter the show tomorrow, before I leave…well before the deadline. Mostly because the deadline is while I’m gone. It’s weird, though…I’ve been head down, finishing stuff, for months now…and now I don’t know what I’m doing next. There’s some deadlines, but I think they’re all in June. So yes, I need to work on them, but I need to draw some stuff and decide priorities first. I have other quilts I could start, drawings that are already numbered and ready to go, but I need to spend some time staring at deadlines before I make that decision.

I honestly thought yesterday’s finish would be a piece of cake, that I’d be done by dinnertime. Ah ha ha ha. Yeah. Right. I got up and trimmed the quilt, and then went through my stash, trying to figure out if I had something that would work for the binding. Nope. Nothing.

Simba was barking all morning at bugs and birds…or whatever other ghosts he sees in the driveway…

I found a cat sleeping on all the stuff I haven’t graded for the last 5 days. Smart move.

Somewhere around then, I made the trip to the fabric store and bought some fabrics that might work for the binding. Two older ladies commented positively on my choice of colors, and the woman who cut my fabric recognized my name on the credit card and asked to see it (I think she was not really happy with the image). Weird that. Then I came back and realized I needed to wash the fabric, so I started that. Then I have three quilts that have to go out this week, so I put labels on two of them and then realized to ship, NOW WAS THE TIME to finally give in and buy pool noodles. So I did that. Exciting stuff. I had already bought boxes on the way to the fabric store…

So I packed up the quilt I needed to deliver to my mom, so she can deliver it for me next week. I did that and then came back to the binding. The stuff in the middle was because I liked it. The two binding choices are on either side. Those older ladies in the quilt store were asking me what I was looking for…I said, “the one that makes sense.” Turns out that was the one on the left.

So yeah, not a blending binding. I got it all sewn on and then made dinner, and then proceeded to poke many holes in my finger, because I was too lazy to get up and find the pads a friend gave me to stop that shit.

I finished the binding at 11:30 PM. Pretty good. Not before dinner, but still on Wednesday.

Then this morning, I started thinking about the trip necessities…they don’t make my sunscreen anymore (I’m allergic to most of them)…so that will be interesting.

Yes. Jellybeans are a necessity. I won’t eat the white or black ones though. They’re gross.

I also need to get this stitched down so I can take it with me for embellishment.

Plus I think I’m supposed to stitch it all to something else, which I should do before I deliver my sewing machine for service later today. I timed all this kinda crazy. As usual.

So what do I do today? Grade Shit. Lots of it. Packing. Organizing. Delivering. Packing up two more quilts to ship tomorrow. One still needs a label. Probably a million other things to do that I haven’t even thought of yet. Seriously consider what art is gonna be made next. That might be the most important task of the day.

*Queen, Somebody to Love

A Time to Rewind and Be Recorded Absent*

So. I realize after a million years of being myself that I inhabit stress regularly. Yes, it’s Spring Break, but I have too much to do and it’s wearing on me. My counselor was convinced that I thrive on stress…I think it’s more that I’ve had a lot of it for so long that I don’t know how to switch it off. But it’s also what allows me to finish a lot of things in a short period of time. This quilt will be finished today…easily…unless a nuclear bomb drops on San Diego, in which case, all bets are off. But I have about three thousand other things that need to be done in the next three days. Some of them need to be done today. And that’s heavy on my head.

I got back from returning that hellish sleep device and cleaned the floor so I could pinbaste this one…

Had to move all the camping stuff we accumulated in the entryway to do it.

There’s something we need to take on the trip that’s not on my list. I remembered it at 2 AM but didn’t write it down (I can’t write shit down at 2 AM) and now I can’t remember what it is. Fuck.

This is not a huge quilt…

That might be part of why it’s going so fast…quilting started next and kept going…

I was done with the outlining around 6 PM…perfect! Time to make dinner…

In the last week, I’ve done over 22 hours of artmaking, compared to 11 hours the week before…granted, I haven’t had to go to school. That helps.

I love this. I need a title though. Like before Friday.

Don’t help me. It’s OK…it’ll come to me.

Birthing the gender wars.

Maybe. We’ll see. Today? Today I trim and bind. I don’t know if I need to buy binding. I probably don’t have enough of anything that will work. I usually only buy half yards, and this would probably take all of that. So I’ll have to see. Plus I need to pack up a quilt and deliver it to my mom so she can deliver it while I’m gone. Because she’ll be gone tomorrow. Although I have a key. Duh. I could deliver it tomorrow even if she’s not there. See? Stress. Plus I need to grade an entire SHITLOAD of stuff before Saturday.

And then? Then I need to figure out what I’m making next. Can’t stop.

*Roots, What You Want