You Show the Lights That Stop Me Turn to Stone*

Somehow I came home last night after a long day at work, and instead of pulling out the last pages of the assignment I’ve been grading at school on and off for the last couple of days and finishing it, I sat down with a cup of tea and my sketchbook and vomited out one thing that’s been in my head for weeks.

I had two or three false starts, where the body or the head weren’t quite right…and this guy trying to get on my lap didn’t help…

Maybe he was just after my color pens. They are pretty awesome.

So yeah, nuclear bombs much? This totally reminds me of getting under my useless school desk in middle school…those Cold War bomb drills they did with us. Even then we were smart and savvy enough to know we would totally die if the Russian nukes hit our school while we cowered under those tiny little desks.

I think if this becomes an actual quilt, I will make it bigger to the sides, maybe change the figures under the umbrella, add more earth. Or not. Who knows…

Then I started tracing Wonder Under. I’m sure I ate dinner in there somewhere and sewed some more binding bits on, but I’m not sure when that was. Post drawing? Probably.

I took a break from tracing at one point and had both dogs back there…

Then back to the tracing. I have about 6 hours in and I think I’m just under the halfway mark…somewhere in the mid-300s.

It went slowly last night, because it was mostly the big sky pieces, and they take longer to trace. I think I have two completed yards traced, and another two in process…filling up all the little spaces…with fingernails and finger creases. I have the whole background traced and I started on the first of the two figures.

Next up is that back with all the tiny pieces…needs to be earlier in the evening to do that. So tonight…should be good. Hopefully I’ll get that assignment graded at school, so I won’t even need to worry about grading.

I’m hearing just a little from girlchild at the moment. I know she hasn’t figured out how to get the blog to post yet (wifi is the issue)…but here is her program center, where all her classes are.

Hopefully she’ll get the blog sorted soon…that and learning French. Meanwhile, I’m going to go to school and try to persuade kids to do some work. They like doing labs, but writing stuff down is apparently some high level of torture. Fun stuff.

*Ellie Goulding, Lights

Wonder Under Meditation

It’s pretty boring watching me trace stuff. But for me? The tracer? Oh my, it’s meditative. Pure brain alpha wave stress-releasing joy. Weird, really. I’m just sitting there drawing around lines I’ve already drawn. Except they’re upside down and I have to read the numbers backwards and I have to figure out where everything overlaps. But my brain is just so much happier doing it. It’s a repetitive task. It’s not even a particularly skilled repetitive task. I guess the overlapping part is, kind of…but probably you could teach a 10-year-old to do what I’m doing. If the pieces were bigger, probably a 5-year-old could.

After teaching all day (I basically demonstrated chemical reactions all day), I graded one assignment, cooked dinner, got about 3/4 of the way around one small quilt, handsewing the binding down…and then I traced for 2 hours.

I took a short break for the animals…and some ice cream.

Then back to tracing all the pieces…I hate wasting space on this, but at some point, it’s harder to fit the pieces in than it’s worth it to save Wonder Under. So I go to a new sheet.

I made the executive decision to make those eyeballs into French knots. They’re way too small for fabric.

I’m somewhere in the 200s…around 262 I think. Much more productive than the night before. I have one full sheet, one almost full sheet, and one barely started…all about a yard long. So maybe I’m a third of the way through.

There were 9 missing pieces at one point…I misnumbered, I think.

And so far, only one piece that wasn’t numbered. Not bad. I’ve made some pretty massive numbering mistakes in the past…100 pieces double numbered (2 of everything! What a mess…). That was the worst. I missed the entire uterus section on one quilt, so it got numbered from the end. That was annoying when I was ironing…to skip from the 700s to the 1300s and then back. Doable though.

Don’t number your quilts when you’re tired. Or drunk. I’m rarely the latter, so it was probably the former.

Hoping to continue the roll tonight…although at some point, I need to go to the gym. Probably not after tutoring…but maybe? Which reminds me…I have a parent meeting this morning. Ugh. OK…need to get going then. But meditation will happen tonight…Wonder Under meditation…best kind.

Sun’s Going Down Like a Big Bald Head*

The work week starts. I did not finish anything. Some things I didn’t even start. Some days, that’s the way it goes. I did drop off a quilt that will be in a show in LA opening February 25 (I should be at the opening) and then traveling to Sweden. I think I did most of the stuff I said I would. I believe I have one more awkward email to write, requesting something from someone who doesn’t even know me. It’s good. The worst that happens is that they ignore my email.

I didn’t handsew any bindings. I did cut out the bindings and sleeves for the newest quilt…but then dad was messing with my electricity and then I had to leave, so they’re not sewn on. I can easily do that sometime in the next few days.

I did start tracing Wonder Under for what we’re gonna call the scoliosis quilt for now. I’m sure it will have a better name in the future. The commission is on! So now I need to stay on task, which should be easy, because I like the process. I like having a goal.

So now that I have the final drawing and it’s numbered, I put it on my gigantic light table, inherited from a stained-glass person who was downsizing, and turn it upside down, and start tracing all the pieces. I trace with overlaps, so I have to decide as I’m drawing what is on top and what goes underneath. I don’t always do it right, but it usually works out.

Last night, I got a good chunk of the Earth that’s the base of this done. Not a huge chunk. Just a good one.

With only 740 or so pieces, I should have all the Wonder Under traced by the weekend…hopefully. That’s my goal anyway.

I also have grading goals, one thing a day/night. I did grade at my meeting yesterday…a little crazy, but hey, I got stuff to do. I can’t just sit and listen. I won’t get anything done in class today, because I’m demonstrating chemistry all day. But there should be time later this week, as the kids start to get into their projects. I hope. I say that and management of behaviors is often what happens instead. Project time seems to wanna be goof-off time. Annoying, but true. Some classes can handle being independent and some need constant reminders. So I try to balance that. There’s something to be said for letting them figure out that doing no independent work leads to an F, but some of these kids aren’t mature enough to see the connection.

Anyway…I’m hoping for some grading time in class; otherwise, I’ll come home every night and do some.

But mostly, I’m thinking, I’ll be doing art stuff. Girlchild is still trying to post her blog from the land of no consistent internet. I hear from her briefly, which is good…makes me feel better about her being so far away. I do wanna see what she’s seeing though. So hopefully she’ll figure that out…along with figuring out French. Not sure which is the harder task.

*Laurie Anderson, Sharkey’s Night

No One Told Me About Her*

I have these goals to go on long hikes on the weekend or go hang out at the zoo (new passes for Christmas) or sit down on the deck and do a new drawing (that’s a perennial goal for me), but often it just ends up being the grocery store and the compost bin and maybe laundry if I’m really organized. I have two openings coming up in LA, and the thought of having to drive all the way up there and back in a day is disheartening…although I’m gonna do it. Twice. Which means having to plan ahead for the school stuff I normally do on the weekend.

It’s not that I’m not getting anything done…I just always want it to be more. And I forget how much energy school sucks out of you (I have three THREE parent meetings this week…for parents who just figured out their kids are failing. Sigh. I guess I’m glad they figured it out.). Meetings and grading and explaining and planning and grading and sending the parent email (I did that at 11 PM last night. Normally I do it today, but I’ll be in a car for a significant portion of the day.). It’s supposed to be almost 90 degrees here today, but my feet are freezing. I should go sit on the deck. Really. It’s warm out there.

I am glad to say that I finally finished the quilting on the small quilt.

The lighting in here seems worse than usual…so quilting during the day is easier (although impossible during the week). I’ve been considering pulling this room apart at the beginning of summer, removing wallpaper, replacing flooring, painting the whole thing, maybe a new window, take the TV I never watch out and put more shelves in, replace a bunch of plastic drawers with something more sturdy and wall to ceiling, maybe even put in French doors instead of the sliding door so I can get more air in here…or something. But I don’t think I can afford it. I can think about it though and price shit out and see if it’s something I can do in the future.

At some point, I won’t be paying for college any more.

This was really quick to quilt because it’s small. The tree leg was the most complicated bit. It was only 4 hours and 45 minutes total.

But it was just big enough that I wouldn’t have enough fabric for binding…I generally buy half yards, and that’s what this was going to take.

But nothing worked. OK. Don’t lie. You didn’t even try. You wanted to go to the fabric store. It’s true. I haven’t been there in a while. I like the fabric store.

Here she is trimmed…

About 36 x 42″ or so. So I made a trip to the store and put all that in the wash…

Then settled down to some TV and finishing this finally. Packed up all three blocks to send back to Social Justice Sewing Academy…

And then graded for a while last night…cleared out all the makeup work (37 emails) and input those, plus pulled grades for another assignment from the website. I don’t have to grade anything but the last question…and then it gives me the score. Easy peasy.

Then heard briefly from the girlchild. With 11 hours difference, her day is my night etc. But this morning, I heard a lot. I’m going to let her tell her own story on her blog, though, although she’ll need wifi to get that posted. There are two posts so far, but she’s got another two written and ready to post. You can read her here if you want…all I can tell you know is that this is her bed in her host family’s house…and she’s feeling a little overwhelmed. (The bed alone would do that to me.)

I remember doing this…barely knowing the language, staying in a strange house. It’s hard. But worth it. I hope she feels better after a long night’s sleep. She’s trying to learn two languages at once and adjust to a new place and not get sick. Hard stuff. Makes me appreciate my host family even more. They were really easy compared to some.

Here’s the fabric I bought after they came out of the washer. I didn’t allow myself to wander and shop much. I didn’t have much time and I don’t have much money. Although! The first check for the commission piece showed up yesterday, so I’m going to be starting tracing Wonder Under tonight! That’s actually exciting. I’m looking forward to it. In fact, I got some of the purplish fabrics for the spacey bit I think. Or I just liked them. Yeah that’s it.

There’s the one I picked for the binding. I actually picked two, but couldn’t decide until I got home. The store was full of people, so I didn’t feel super comfortable throwing my naked climate chick out on the floor and trying binding fabrics out around her.

Sometimes you just have to buy more than one and decide in the peace and quiet of your own home.

So now I have three bindings to sew down, plus one quilt that needs a lot of hand embroidery…it’s going to be my go-to for after dinner but still watching the end of that TV episode. So it’ll probably be around for a while. I’m hoping to finish one of the others in January, just to say I finished something in January, because I’ve been lax as hell this month. Normally I do 50+ hours of art-related stuff each month, and the last month has been only 20 hours…and that’s WITH time off from school. Lame. Yeah, it’s OK, I know the kids being home and being discombobulated about what I was doing next was part of that. But I’m done now. I’m on a roll. I have 60 days to get this quilt done…partially because that’s what I put in the contract, but also because I leave on vacation in 63 days. Don’t laugh. I’ll be fine. I have a goal now, a place to look forward to. That helps so much. Really, it does.

I’m going to be feeling better this week. The cold is going to go away, I’m going to get some exercise in, I’m going to finish some things and start some things. It’s all good.

*The Zombies, She’s Not There

I Got Some Lovely*

I realized this morning that my brain has been a week off…well, all week…simply because I forgot to cross off the days of the week on the paper calendar that hangs to the right of my computer. I kept thinking I have more of January…but in reality, January has slipped through my fingers. I’m such a visual person. As a teacher, I write and say the date multiple times a day and it just doesn’t stick until I SEE it. This is one of the reasons I started doing something like a bullet journal this year, although I dunno if it’ll stick. But it helps me to see the tasks and write them out or cross them off, even though I’m using online calendars and to-do lists as well. I have paper calendars on my wall at school and in my office, and a white board-type calendar on the fridge, but I often lose the little tasks, the tiny stuff, the transfers, the payments, the mailing of this or that. I think the weekly thing is helping with that. Maybe. I know for me that writing it down, not just typing it, helps me remember it.

Plus if I’m feeling a little unmotivated to do other stuff, I start drawing in it.

I don’t usually do a lot of color when I draw. Wait. I don’t do any color when I draw. But when I was a kid, the best Christmas present ever was the big pack of 50 different color pens…because all the ones from the year before had dried up, except for the really ugly colors. I find myself buying colored-pencil or pen kits, even though I don’t color. Yeah, maybe I should color. In my spare time.

I’m still sick. Not horrendously sick, but not feeling my best. Just want to lie around in my pajamas all day and read fiction while drinking tea. Can’t really justify doing that though, because I also want to finish my quilt and get some grading done, because it’s weighing on me. Last night was gaming, though…so I was working on this a little. Just the tree to go really.

Came home and sat on the couch until I realized I was really tired and should go to bed. The animals are smarter than I am.

I got up this morning and saw this…this is what I want to finish this morning. So I will.

Girlchild was silent for like 14 hours…and I realized she was flying to Northern Madagascar, done with orientation and starting her first home stay and classes. When there’s no wifi, I don’t hear from her. There’s going to be a lot of that. Really, 14 hours is nothing. When she’s in Boston, I sometimes go days without hearing from her, but I see her liking my photos on Instagram or whatever, so I know she’s there, I feel her presence. I paid her parking tickets from school, so hopefully they won’t tow her car while she’s gone. Hopefully her friend will move the car around too. We couldn’t find anywhere to store the car for the 4+ months she would be gone, so this was the solution.

When I was driving to gaming last night, a 20-minute trip I can do in my sleep, I had this idea for a series, but not just my own work…so I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever pull this off, but I like the idea. When reading all the negative stuff toward white women, with the Trump vote and white feminism overwhelming the feminism of others, it’s not enough to say “It’s not ME!” because really that’s irrelevant. The real question is what can I do to (not fix that, because that’s not a thing…I can’t fix it)…to open up the conversation with all women and those who identify as women and those who don’t fall within the two-gender system. I always think of my art as a conversation with the viewers…easier for me as an introvert to talk through my art than to talk in person, I think. So I had some ideas about having a real live conversation with someone who is not a bog-standard cis hetero white chick, like me, but who has a view of themselves that can be drawn…ideally they can draw, although maybe not necessary.

I have this one woman in mind who is engaged in her ethnicity, her color, her race, her culture, and her femininity (honestly, she’s way more feminine…I hate that word…than I ever am), and she draws. And we talk…we talk about our experiences…being a woman in the world (or however she thinks of herself as being in the world) and we draw. You’ve seen my work…I like figure drawings. I imagine she draws herself or a figure that is her, and I draw myself. We surround our drawings with the things we feel about the conversation, about how to find the intersection between our experiences. I listen a lot, because honestly, I know my experiences of being a white woman raised in a fairly affluent community and expected to go to college and following through with that…these are much easier than the experiences of say my female students, who didn’t go camping with the Girl Scouts or to summer camp or to art classes when they were in elementary school or freakin’ tennis lessons (I hated tennis. I sucked at it. But I did have lessons) or cotillion (oh holy crap, another thing I hated). Or knowing you were going to be able to go to college. It’s funny, because I don’t feel like those tennis and cotillion lessons are part of who I am now…but they probably pushed me into what I am. I don’t know. But I feel like if we can talk one on one, then maybe some connections can be solidified. Because it’s true that there is no equality for women unless there is equality for ALL women…and honestly, if we could figure out how to dump this either-or system of you are male or you are female, that would be cool too.

So she draws her figure and I draw mine, and we try to draw some intersection between the two. Then honestly, I want to make a quilt out of that. But I wonder if that is my taking over her image, and I don’t want to do that. I could teach the process and let her create her half…I could do the drudge work, the cutting, the ironing, the quilting. Or I could have her color a cartoon and then follow that when I iron her side to fabric. Or have her bring fabrics to the table. Some of this may be overwhelming to someone who doesn’t create similarly to me though…I don’t know. Maybe even just asking for the figure is too much…although I’d be totally OK with having this conversation and both of us drawing and then maybe coming back together and they have this painting or drawing or charcoal or sculpture that is their version and doesn’t even have a figure in it, but it sits/stands/hangs next to mine. I do want some sort of intersection though, some connection, some place where we come together. So that’s part of the conversation. Where do we intersect? Where do we have things in common? Where can we live and converse and support and create a better, more inclusive world?

Anyway. It’s in my head. Maybe it will become something real in the next year. I do know that even if all I had was a drawing and I did all the fabric choosing and ironing and quilting, it would still be a piece by both of us. Owned by both of us. Then maybe it can go out there in the world and speak to both sides. If there’s a lack of understanding, maybe the viewer connects with one side and can try to see the other side. If that’s a problem…and I think it is. It might even be worthwhile to try to find some white woman who voted for Trump and would be willing to have that conversation with me and draw with me. That might be the hardest conversation, because this is about empathy in many ways, and I have a hard time holding on to empathy for a group who seems to inhabit hate for others as part of their existence. But I realize some of that is my misunderstanding of why they voted the way they did. Change is hard. Change is scary. Some of us embrace it more than others. Some of us jump on its back and ride it into the sunset. Some hide in the closet.

Of course, there’s a strong possibility that my idea is just more white feminist trying to fix it all. Hence the need for conversations.

But today? Today I’m going to finish quilting this little piece. And hopefully the cold meds will kick in. And maybe I’ll draw some stuff. I’ve only got about 17 drawings in my head right now.

*XTC, My Brown Guitar

How to Bend Without the World Caving In*

One thing I can say is that I’m really glad it’s Friday. Some weeks just seem harder than others. This one maybe because I lost sleep the first night of the week and then got sick immediately after. I want to just lie around and sleep and read a book and maybe eat some ice cream. Really healthy stuff. In reality, I’ll be grading and sewing and dropping off a quilt and going to a meeting and doing the grocery shopping. But I might sleep in. That would be nice. Life goals! Sleeping in!

I’m quite a few hours from getting to that point, unfortunately. I did come home last night after running a few errands and I finished grading another assignment and put some stuff in the gradebook. All good. Very efficient. Good Kathy. Keep going. Stay on task. The fun thing about being a teacher is that as soon as you finish grading one assignment, they turn in two more. Some people (who do not understand my population of students…or maybe any population of middle-schoolers) say hey! Why don’t you assign fewer things that need grading! Well. They won’t do anything then. It’s hard enough some days to get them to read instructions (hence yesterday’s lab, which continues tomorrow)…I adjust my speech each period based on the things the previous period did that I didn’t tell them to do. My basic lab mantra is, “If I didn’t tell you to do it, don’t do it.” It makes it hard for any real experimentation to happen. The one kid who wanted to eat the hydrogen peroxide and yeast, I said, “Hang on, let me get 911 and your mom on the line…then you can eat it.” Sigh. Probably it wouldn’t kill him. Burns going down, eh? Did I tell you to eat it? Then why are you doing it?

These are the things they don’t teach you in teacher school.

So yeah, after grading, I made some dinner and read my book and cleaned up some random stuff. I keep finding piles of things the girlchild left, so I funnel them to her room (which now has some of my stuff back in it…but I went through one container and cleared it out…only four to go! And I have 100 days to do it! Actually more…she’ll be going home to Boston, not here.).

And then I felt pretty good…I went to buy the better cold medicine, the one they use to make crack, and it works. The other stuff just makes me feel woozy and clogged up. So I’m totally willing to give the government my ID so I can breathe!

And then, because I could breathe, I quilted! For over an hour!

I actually got close to done on the outlining…

All I have left is the wooden tree leg thing, which is actually really complicated, and the world stuff to the right of that. And then the background, which isn’t very big. Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow and find a binding. I could handsew a binding (or three, because that’s how many are lying around right now) at my meeting on Sunday. I don’t like just sitting around at meetings. Obviously.

At some point, I needed to fill a bobbin and this happened.

No. I was not watching. Do you watch your bobbins fill? I do not. Unfortunately, because this was unsalvageable and I have no idea how it happened. Also, at some point, after I ran out of black thread for the bobbin, I started using a dark gray. I have no idea when I switched to the lighter gray, but there it is. So the back is kinda funny looking. Not that I recommend you ever look at the back of an art quilt. It’s not going on a bed and the wall doesn’t care.

Then I got hit with a Wall of Tiredness. It happens. I sat on the couch and drew in my journal, but nothing worth looking at, just doodlings, and then this happened. Puppy is on me, everyone else to my left…

It’s still cold at night, eh? And everyone wants attention. I was OK with that. Petting warm furry beasts is not a bad thing.

Weekend plans? Grade. Finish quilts. Maybe start Wonder Under on the commission piece? Get some rest and get well. Most importantly. So probably more of those sitting-on-the-couch-with-all-the-beasts photos…those are OK.

*Jason Mraz, I Won’t Give Up

I See This Life Like a Swinging Vine*

Well the sick is going away, so that’s good. I did sit down for most of yesterday, though, and I won’t be able to do that today. It’s a lab day. It’s a walk-the-room-and-avert-disaster day. Although this one isn’t bad. Last year, though, one kid read the instructions wrong and destroyed a significant portion of the materials. We’re ready for that this year. Reading instructions is hard…especially when you’d rather just mess around and make people laugh. Cooperative learning is difficult y’all.

The girlchild is still alive. We’re currently using Facebook Messenger for communication and she’s posted one picture on Instagram. It will be harder later when she has spottier or nonexistent internet. She has to have some for school, but not every day, and since she’ll be living with host families for part of the time, there’s no guarantee that they will have internet. I thought about telling the boychild I was gonna have to text him more to make up for radio silence from the girl, but I knew he’d just ignore me. It’s only the first week she’s been gone…I’ll get adjusted soon enough.

I was more efficient yesterday, despite feeling like warmed-over crap. I graded two assignments and part of a third, including the stuff I did when I got home. Then I rested, because still tired, even if not that sick. And then I started quilting.

Apparently I did almost an hour and a half. I must have been feeling better. Honestly, as soon as I started feeling really tired and spacey, I quit. But I got some of the quilting done. Broke a needle too. Exciting stuff.

There’s at least 3 more hours of quilting in this. My quilt class tonight was rescheduled, so I can quilt…and grade…because I still need to get caught up on that. If I’m smart, I’ll bring my school computer home, so I can lounge around on the couch with animals sandwiching me while I grade. It is somewhat comforting.

This morning…up early for a meeting, so I get to see the sunrise in all its glory…

The phone camera never really captures the pinks and purples well, unfortunately.

I finished reading Leviathan Wakes, the book that was the basis of the TV show The Expanse. I wish I’d read the book first…it made more sense, but then I had the TV characters impressed on my brain. So it’s for book club and we usually read relatively recent stuff (not always)…so when it said there was a series in the plan, I figured, ahhh, I’m gonna have to wait to see the rest. Oh no. This book is not new. The series will have 9 books and 7 are already published…and if they’re all in the 600-page range, I could read them (presuming they remain being good) for quite a while. The second one was available for the Kindle on my library app (I don’t buy many books any more)…so it’s next on my list. I’m intrigued that two people wrote them…I always wonder how that works. I suspect I could Google that. Anyway, I’m hoping they stay good. I wanna read a big long story that continues for a long long time.

OK, well, I’m running low on cold meds…debating trying to get them before school, but think the pharmacy doesn’t open early enough (it doesn’t). I should have gone last night (I didn’t). Guess I will limp along on what I have here.

*One Republic, Counting Stars

It Could Be Normal but It Isn’t Quite*

Being sick just sucks, even when it’s that low-level stuff that makes your nose run and your head spacey, but you’re still able to stand upright and appear human. I didn’t sleep well all night, between the sinus stuff and wondering if the girlchild was still alive. I knew she landed…

I watched her flight all the way south…and then she texted me that she got there…

That’s kind of a joke, because I can’t pronounce the capital city of Madagascar (Antananarivo)…it’s got way too many nananana’s. But then she texted that the lights kept going out, and then I didn’t hear from her for like 6 hours. Which would have been fine if she’d gotten through Customs at that point, but she hadn’t. So in typical worry mom fashion, I assumed she’d been thrown in jail for her stash of ADD pills (she really does have ADD) until I saw her texts come through at like 2 AM.

Yes, my brain does that. Plus iPhone, could you please fix the stupid iMessage problem where the texts come in out of order. It’s really annoying.

Sleeping is not my strong point at the moment. Too bad, because I hear sleep is good for you when you’re sick.

It was cold again last night, cold enough for the pup to put up with a purring cat on his butt.

I stitched some more…almost done I think.

Eventually he realized the cat was there.

Although he refused to stay on the couch without humans. I came into the office and sewed the binding on the second piece I’ve had lying around since like 2007…

I still need to do all the handwork. I was going to go back in and quilt, but I felt like crap…so I read for a little while and then went to bed early. Funny, because I don’t feel like I slept much at all, despite being in bed well before my normal time. I can only hope that today I start to feel better…because I can’t get anything done when I’m sick. And the grading is piling up too, although we’re showing a movie today and we were smart and got loaner computers, so we can grade while the kids watch on the other computer. Planning ahead! What a concept. I always bargain with myself…if I get a lot of grading done at school one day, I don’t have to do any at home. And when I have tutoring, I also don’t have to grade at home. I already did my time. Monday, I cleared out 33 emails of late work after school, though, and this morning, I have 26 more. Holy crap. I mean, yes, I want them to turn in their late work, but that’s a lot of emails to wade through. Gotta get caught up. And hopefully do some quilting tonight…that’s on the list. Hopefully I’ll have more energy than I did last night…or I do right now!

But first, treat the headache, hope the cold meds kick in, pack up, and go in to work. Be efficient today.

*Suzanne Vega, 99°F

Mahna Mahna*

So the girlchild got stuck in Paris for about 5 more hours than she was planning, which sounds like an awesome thing, unless you’re stuck in the airport and haven’t slept in 24 hours or more. She just left for Madagascar, 11 hours long, but she has the whole row in the airplane to herself…I suspect as soon as they hit altitude, she’s stretching out and drooling sleepily for as much of that as possible. It’s a horrible feeling, not being able to lie down when you’re that tired. So sometime tonight, I’ll hopefully hear from her again.

Meanwhile, I’m sick. I guess your body holds off all the crazy sick around you (all my students are sick) until you release some of the stress by putting your kid on a plane…and then that’s it. Not true, actually…I must have been exposed Friday or Saturday. Oh well. It was gonna happen sometime. It’s not the crazy flu everyone’s been having…feels like a bog-standard cold. Woo hoo! While teaching! And setting chemicals on fire! I was so tired yesterday that I forgot to go to the chiropractor. Unfortunately, because I think I needed it.

Instead, I cleaned up all the girlchild’s leavings…we had boxes and plastic wrap and those stuffed-with-air bags that Amazon uses. I sorted it all and recycled most of it. And then went around finding her left-behind bags and water bottles and all the stuff she borrowed from my dad that she didn’t take with her (she did take a lot…just not the 20-year-old lotion…Dad, if you’re reading this…I threw it out. It smelled really awful. I’ll buy you a new one.). And I did some grading and some school tasks. I even made dinner from scratch, but it turned out weird. Dunno why. Probably did something wrong. I’m not an awesome cook like she is.

Then we watched Ghost in the Shell, which was OK…still don’t know why they cast white people in Asian characters…that shit is stupid.

It’s been a while since I worked on the SJSA blocks, and I’m almost done with the last one…

Gotta decide what to do with the gunshots…

It was really cold last night…

Simba is super cranky at the moment. All his favorite people left and he’s stuck with us. We don’t sit still enough for his liking.

Girlchild texting me from over the Atlantic Ocean…

No such texts on this flight…batteries are dying.

So there were a few small changes I needed to make to the commission drawing…I re-angled the “perfect”…it was bugging me…

The original poem was about a boy…but this quilt is about a girl…so one request was to change the two gendered words…

And then these screws are like what is used in scoliosis surgeries (and perhaps other back surgeries), but they weren’t exactly like what was used in hers, so I had photos of the screws to change them…

So I did…I just cut out the space and put new paper in and redrew…just a few things…

Easy fix…

Straightened out…

And then, I numbered…because I couldn’t stand it anymore, not knowing if I stayed within my own boundaries. I knew I tried, but I often suck at that.

Because the piece needs to be under a certain price, I aimed for something the same size and complexity as one of the bathtub quilts, because they are under that price. I figure cost by keeping track of my hours. It’s the only way that makes sense to me. Some big quilts have fewer pieces (which affects the time) than some smaller quilts. So I can’t do it by the inch or foot, like some quilt artists do. This works for me. Plus keeping track of that shit for the last 15 years or so has made me better at estimating time.

Not perfect, just better…

I wanted to be under 800 pieces…and I was! A miracle.

Now just waiting for the final OK and partial payment, and then I’ll get started. I set up the contract so that they can refuse the quilt at the end if they don’t like it, but I still get a percentage, so I’m not working for nothing. I don’t think it will happen, but I want the new owner to be happy with it and I want to be protected in case they aren’t…so this was what I came up with. It’s hard for someone to look at my black and white drawings and get a good idea of what the quilt will look like. I have a better idea in my head, but I haven’t even colored it out or anything. That stuff kind of comes as I’m staring at the drawing and the drawers of fabric. It’s a very intuitive process.

Also just waiting to know the girlchild is safe on land again…that’ll be a longer wait. I’m excited for her but also nervous. I didn’t sleep much last night because I would wake up and see if she had texted that she had left…because I was worried she would fall asleep in the airport and get left behind. Mom worries, right? Because she’s a capable and amazing adult and she will be fine. Looking forward to seeing her pictures and hopefully reading her blog.

OK, taking my snotty self to school, where, I’m not kidding, I’ll be setting shit on fire. Stand back! I should take a hairband, huh.

*Cake, Mahna Mahna

I Can’t Control What I’m Going Through Now*

OK. Well the girlchild is on the first of three planes over the next 36 hours or so. She comes back in 104 days (she actually goes back to Boston, not San Diego, but that’s way closer than Madagascar). Hopefully she has what she needs. Certainly we tried to make sure she did.

She was in here, the office/studio, last night while I was sewing, practicing her French. She can introduce her husband and her sister (she has neither) and ask where the bathroom is. She should be fine.

Me? I’ve been up since 4 AM and have work with 150 7th graders today. I will be fine. I went a whole year and a half where I only slept like 4-5 hours a night (that is actually more than I got last night, honestly though).

Her bag is only 51 pounds. There’s a backpack in there, a tent, a sleeping bag, and a ton of useful crap. I think.

Sending her off. She does not want me to take her photo this early in the morning. I don’t blame her…but there’s proof I got her in the TSA line.

Last night, I guess my brain finally stopped stalling and let me finish the stitch down.

It did not take long…only about an hour over what I’d already spent on it.

Two hours and 13 minutes total…so short on a little quilt!

So then I found some backing fabric…I was going to use something extra and ugly, but I used the full width of a batik for the front, so honestly, batiks are usually the widest…I couldn’t find anything non-batik in the stash that was wide enough. It’s OK…this was a background for some other quilt.

I don’t usually lay them out on the studio floor. I used to iron on it…hence the holes here and there. But this was small enough.

Pinned down…ready for quilting. Maybe tonight? We’ll see. I should have graded something yesterday and I didn’t. Too wired.

Someone posted pictures of the Threads of Resistance show at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. The show is there until February 18. I think we’re behind a curtain again…Tanya Brown’s piece hanging with mine (presumably pooping is an issue for little kids to view? Not sure.).

Mine always hang together. I’m not even sure they like each other. They’re all feminists though, so that’s OK.

OK, I’m going to make myself go to school and make sense, or get some shit done, or something. Certainly with both kids gone again, I have fewer excuses. Just those in my head. The commission piece will come back in a bit…so I should be efficient and get the other binding on that other quilt…and get this small one quilted and bound, so I have something done in January. That would be a good plan. Do some of the drawing that’s kicking around in my head. A Frida Kahlo-esque piece of the girlchild is in there…the boychild as well (they love it LOVE IT when I put them in my stuff. Absolutely. Sarcasm there. Lots of it.).

*The Alarm, Strength