Holidaze…

It seems I spent 24 hours straight cooking and cleaning and doing household mom-type things. I’m exhausted. How weird. Some people like doing this shit? Whatever. They crazy.

So this is how Kathy’s brain works: Yes, these are homemade cinnamon rolls…

No, they are artistic shapes. See how they expand to fill the space and the spiral changes to fit that shape?

And when the dish is a different shape, they do even weirder shit? Yup. Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you have Kathy’s brain. On the positive side, we did just freeze that last dish of cinnamon rolls, because otherwise there is entirely too much sugar in the house (they are now covered with a river of maple-flavored sugar that might kill the diabetics among us). Plus there’s a drawing (or seven) that I need to do BECAUSE of the cinnamon rolls. Totally.

So Christmas morning started late, due to teenagers who sleep in (oh hell, I slept in)…

So did Grandma. Besides, it’s all about the children…I mean, the dogs. Calli got a tummy rub from everyone.

She loves Christmas. She doesn’t seem to notice that Jake is gone, but she’s never been the smartest dog in the world…Babygirl is getting used to boychild again…

Mostly, though, she sleeps a lot in the sun and on the chair in my office. She is directly behind my butt, even as I type.

I had two hours yesterday after gift-opening and cookie delivery to finish all the cooking and get to my ex’s house (turns out, I really had three hours, because girlchild was behind)…so I made green beans, cookies, and deviled eggs all at the same time while watching an amusing Wild West movie on television.

I actually frosted MOST of the cookies this morning. I took some over last night, but the frosting is supposed to dry, and I didn’t have enough time to do that. These are the POST-Xmas cookies…for the POST-Xmas sugar hangover. Which is why I’m going hiking in about 20 minutes. Probably I should go run 10 miles (not happening).

While waiting for dinner to get done, I drew…

I really like the dog. I might mess with this a bit more, try again maybe. I want to be in the habit of drawing.

Then I remembered I only had 10 minutes left on this bird…so I finished it.

There’s another soccer game tonight where I can start the next color way.

Finally, I left the ex’s house at around 9, after listening to girlchild read out all the comments on his old report cards (nothing was a surprise…to anyone at the table)…I fortified myself with caffeine, because yes, I was tired. I don’t want you to think I never get tired. I do. Freakin’ exhausted sometimes…but I bully through, have a cup of tea, and persuade my brain to keep going. Usually if I can get beyond the 8 PM slump, I can go for a while. And I hadn’t quilted during the day…I flat out ran out of time. So I was determined…

I got 2 1/2 hours in. That was good. The whole body is done and I’m up in the tree.

My goal is to finish the outlining tonight (after the soccer game) and start the background quilting. Of course, I also have to fit in some hiking, some hanging out, some eating, some soccer, some cleaning (again? WTF.), and who knows what else. I did just bribe the kids to do one of my errands though, so that is cool. Checks one thing off my list. Because part of finding the right balance in your life means not taking it all on yourself. Saying yes when people need help, but then also saying no. Or putting your foot down and saying, “I’m taking this time. It’s mine.” I’ve been working on all that shit for so many years…I’m almost getting good at it. Sort of. Going to put my boots on now…

Best Present Ever

So in case you haven’t noticed, Christmas is about to bitchslap you across the face, whether you like it or not. I’m so not ready. The tree is finally done, and there’s three presents and a big fat black cat underneath it, waiting to vomit up the three pounds of pine needles she’s eaten.

The house is getting closer to clean, after I threatened all living bipeds in the house and got the floors cleaned (well, part of them…I have to do the rest, and no, there are no undead bipeds here). The shopping…oh god. The shopping is not done, and I’m afraid of going anywhere, plus we’re still down to one car, because the mechanic can’t find the problem in mine, so he’s gonna drive it to LA and back today to do his Christmas shopping and to see if it will reproduce the issue (not really. But I told him he could.).

Girlchild had a soccer final yesterday; they lost in the penalty kicks. It sucks, but life goes on. She was more traumatized by it than I. I was traumatized by the yelling that happened afterward and the 45 minutes I had to spend in the grocery store with other people who could not find the fancy cheeses and the eggnog. Apparently I have to go again, because Meat Armageddon here at home for Christmas dinner. I suggested we just serve side dishes and dessert and fuck the meat. I know three people who will fuss about that though. I also know three who won’t. And the dessert is chocolate, and I still won’t complain.

I stitched at the game (I also finished my book, because it was warm and sunny and people are annoying and I don’t want to talk to them right now).

Another bird done…and there’s the third one in this group that is almost done. Seriously, it would take me like 10 minutes to finish it.

Then I made a concerted effort to clean crap up and get the house in shape for Christmas morning, which is here. At my house. But one of the chores for break was to replace two broken fabric drawers, because the sun was starting to fade some of the fabrics…I had bought a bunch of new containers a while ago, but never got around to doing the deed…and what’s cool is that if I buy three more, I actually have more storage space under there.

These are shorter in height, so I can fit three instead of two in there. They’re also thinner in width, but I think that’s OK. I had four in there before and all the blacks and pinks were in those four, but I had about 6 or 7 shoeboxes worth of pinks on top of that, and I think I can get all of them into two more drawers, and then maybe move some of the brown or gray that’s taking over the world into the third drawer. I’m really working on organizing this shit. The old drawers were from when I was married, and plastic does age, especially plastic in the sun. I couldn’t get opaque drawers cheaply this time, so I have old towels covering the backs of these, because yes, that’s a sliding glass door behind them that never opens. Whatever. You make a studio wherever and however you can.

But there is no way in hell I am going to the mall today to get three more drawers. That’s crazy talk.

I finally started stitching down last night again…

I did a little before I made dinner, and then a bunch after…

I was waiting up for girlchild, who has now finished two college applications…of you don’t want to know how many…and needed a break to ice skate. In Southern California. Whatever. I think Denny’s was involved. Remember high school and Denny’s? Yeah.

That pile is going to be awesome when the quilting happens. So I need to sandwich and pinbaste today (which means I need to clean yet another floor), but first we’re doing the gym and I do have about 400 other things to do. I really wanted to draw yesterday, but I can’t find the mental space (or physical space…there’s competition for couch space now). So maybe…um…shit, I don’t know when.

But back to the title of this post. I realized I would be quilting on Christmas Day. You know that down time between opening presents and serving dinner? I don’t have to cook much, being the support chef only, so mostly, I do art stuff during that down time. Every year. Whatever project I’m working on, I get to spend time working on it, usually in a very peaceful space with no one bugging me. Sometimes I have to take dogs for a walk (we’re down to one dog…that’s sad…and yes, we considered puppies for everyone for Christmas presents). Sometimes I am stuck at a grocery store (hell). But mostly, I give myself the gift of art time. That whole art/work/life/love balance is on my mind today. Making sure you get what you need AND what you want…best present ever. Looking forward to it.

Oh Holey Moley

Car died yesterday morning on Sunrise Highway, about 40 miles away from home. Luckily the hiking group behind me stopped and picked up me and the boychild and took us to the trailhead, where we hiked 11 miles (more on that later). Then we got towed back to town (oh holey moley) for a million dollars, and this morning, when I called the car guy, he said, “I thought that was your car parked out on the street.” So he recognized it. Not good. We are down to one car. Three drivers. Errands galore. Girlchild wants a social life. I want her to finish her college essays.

Christmas dinner has turned into World War III. We are going to prepare an 1890s Christmas dinner with peas in turnip cups (you totally have to check out this website if historical food descriptions amuse you at all). And you’re going to eat it and like it, dammit. Then the girlchild was sick, so I had to cook a complicated dinner, which turned out fine, but the drama around it was no fun, and then I came home to a Hamlet essay. I don’t even remember anything about Hamlet, except that he was an asshole and “Alas poor Yorick…”. So I think I came in here, my office/studio/retreat at about 9 PM, meditated for the first time in a million years, and then put my head in my hands for 10 minutes, processing all the stress into a tiny ball that I could gack up like a cat’s hairball. Except that didn’t work.

So I tried stitching on this for a while…

I really wanted it done this weekend. Ha! Weekend fucked me over on that one. I was so tired, I realized my eyes were closing while I sewed. Um. Bad. Stop. Now. So I did. And I went to bed. Best decision I made all day. And the gack ball is mostly gone this morning. I’ll draw later. Seriously. I NEED to draw.

Boychild nicknamed me the Diplomatic Avenue…the one who has to negotiate between all the conflicting forces. Funny, my SIL has said that before. And I didn’t have the energy for it. I just want us all to GET ALONG. Without my help. And help me make decisions and clean up please.

The boychild is here…

Calli is happy. And he is calm and easy to deal with. He hiked with me yesterday and dealt with the towed car and handled a million questions from the grandparents, and then he ate all my chicken salad. Sigh. So I’ll make more. Better, I’ll buy the ingredients and show HIM how to make it. And make enough for your mom while you’re at it, eh?

A little chaos today…Christmas gifts to be shipped, car to deal with, a final game in a soccer tournament, more grocery shopping, and then maybe some quiet moments tonight with the sewing machine and my quilt.

I did finish this last night…

Getting there. Damn birds. Whatever.

I know it’s vacation, but it’s kicking my ass.

Time off

Time off for teachers: with so many constantly watching us and thinking we have so much free time (ha!), loads of vacation (I work every vacation, no extra pay), too much pay (I have a Masters degree…seriously? Not too much pay), it’s hard to explain to them why I need three weeks off right now. NEED. The fact that I’ve been working 60-70+ hours a week (with no overtime pay, and certainly not a paycheck worthy of professional standards in corporate world for those who don’t get paid for all those extra hours), mostly creating curriculum from scratch, figuring out Google Sites by myself, determining that my in-class wifi wasn’t working, and troubleshooting a hundred different tech problems a day…maybe an hour on some days. AND keeping track of 140 students, letting no one fall through the cracks. Much. Because that’s kind of impossible, actually.

Plus I make art in a pretty serious way on the side (can we really call what I do “on the side”?), and I’m a mom, and sometimes I cook dinner from scratch. House isn’t clean though. Christmas tree is half-decorated, and my Christmas shopping is in some serious trouble. FUCK.

So. Yeah. I need these three weeks, not only to get the shopping done and clean house, or to finish the quilt that’s supposed to be done in a week and a half (I started stitching down on Friday, hoping to get done today…AFTER hiking 12 miles), but to give my brain the necessary downtime to Do It Again. Because that’s what we do, as teachers. We work our butts off and then we take a few weeks off (when we usually spend a significant amount of time planning for the next bout of teaching, plus grading like crazy people), and then we go at it with the same intensity, sometimes even harder, because what we were doing before wasn’t quite working, and we do that until the next break. Repeat. Until retirement or job change or death.

I want to draw tonight. I want to be in my art brain and let it wander about freely, because I have barely been able to do that lately.

That said, I have probably 20 hours of grading to do over break. Seriously. Ouch.

I’m not starting today. This morning, I am going on a hike with my regular hiking group and the boychild, who came home Friday night (no photos…he doesn’t like ’em). I’m looking forward to more hikes and hanging out with kids and girlchild being done with college apps so maybe she’ll be less cranky and all kinds of other good stuff like baking. And vacuuming. And maybe even starting a new quilt. Yeah. I know. Got some stuff to finish first, but then I will be starting something new, and I don’t even know what it is yet. That’s exciting.

Meanwhile, I’m spending a lot of time doing this (two tournaments in a row)…

But they made it to the finals on Monday, so that’s good. And I finished a bird. A miracle.

What Is It Good for?

So this was my theme song today:

Although it took me all day to get there. To the ironing of War, that is…which may now have a title related to that song, but I’m not positive, so I’m not committing yet. You know, cuz I’m the not-committing type. Ha! Yeah. I know. Those who know me know that’s bullshit.

So I had a hard week getting to work on this quilt, and there were two soccer games yesterday that ate up many hours, but I got a ton of grading done (yay!) and I managed to pull the birds out and be working on them as well, because there’s nothing like freezing to death on narrow cold metal bleacher benches and doing bullion knots with ice-cold hands.

Because that’s how I roll. Seriously, you should try it. And yes, it absolutely is taking me more than two years to finish these fucking birds, but I’m OK with that, because it’s nice to sew on them at soccer games. I do enjoy it. It’s so easy sewing through wool. I have a bunch done already…

OK, they all need eyeballs, but otherwise they’re done…

But there’s probably another 15 that aren’t done. Maybe this season they’ll get there? Who knows. I’m not that bothered. Wait. So I’m only halfway done? Shit. Whatever. There are four soccer games this week. Surely I can get something done in four games, right?

But more importantly, I finally tackled the pile of men again. HOLY CRAP. What was I thinking when I numbered these? I totally should have numbered from the bottom-most piece to the top, but I did the exact opposite…

Which meant I ironed from the top, then pulled up, and tried to fit shit underneath.

The whole fucking time. Which is just fucking crazy. Nuts. At some point, I had the whole pile done, although I need a couple of dark pieces in this one…

I can do that tomorrow…

Seriously though. Wow. That’s a pile of naked men lying on flames. No socio-political commentary there, eh? Anger issues? Naw. It will look much better with outlining…once I get to the quilting.

I am so far off schedule right now though. I was going to be done with the ironing tonight, wasn’t I? And I’m only 3 1/2 hours in, and only 280 pieces are ironed of 700+. Granted, I think I just did the hardest bit, but hell. I’ve got soccer games and holiday parties and sheesh. Monday night and Wednesday night I think are my only freebies this week. Maybe Friday? Hard to say? Oh shit, the boychild comes home Friday night. Wow. He’s been gone for almost four months. I miss his cranky ass. I wonder what he will think of this one.

Anyway. So this is very much a survival week, a Fuck Me week. A week where teachers pray for videos and certain kids to be absent (you know who you are) and lots of holiday parties and eating and not enough hours at the gym. But I think I can survive it. And I think I can get this sucker ironed down and then stitched down relatively quickly. Hopefully. Because I’m running out of time. Sleep? Fuck sleep. I suck at it anyway. Why spend more time at something at which you suck, right?

Sigh.

I drew tonight. I was at the gym this morning and texting a friend and the main image just popped into my head and would not fucking leave. So I sat down tonight and spent about two hours working with it…

It is nowhere near done. But it’s growing…

Girlchild had a bunch of friends show up here tonight and one came early and accidentally one of my drawings was on the light table and caught her eye (and probably slammed it to the ground and kicked it to bits), and you could see her stammer in her head for a minute and then recover, because yeah, I guess I’m the weird mom. Whatever. Can you imagine being 17 and trying to parse me? I would have been fascinated, but I think most of them just wonder. Plus I use swear words around them. I figure they have enough good influences. I should be the one that throws them out of the norm and makes them think there might be something else, that there might be creativity and art and crazy shit. There’s a lot of things I’m not good at, but creativity is something I embrace wholeheartedly, even at 2 in the morning when I should be asleep.

I’m excited about the drawing and the quilt. They’re good. I love when what comes out of my head is good. It makes the teeth-grinding better. It makes the late nights better. It makes the inability to sleep better. This is the being of an artist. It’s just all there in my head and I pluck it out and make it and it is good.

What is it good for? You wouldn’t ask if you had it. It’s so fucking obvious.

Before Someone Gets Hurt…

First of all, I am behind on everything. EVERYTHING. It’s December? When the fuck did THAT happen? Second of all, failing at sleep. Complete utter failure. EPIC fail. I went to bed so late on Tuesday night, it was well into Wednesday morning. And then I got up and taught. I don’t even know how. And this post should have been written like Wednesday morning, but that got destroyed by, well, life, and then last night was soccer in the rain outside on the bleachers (at least it wasn’t cold) and it started late, so I didn’t get home until after 9:30, so that’s when we ate dinner, and I almost fell asleep right then and there, but managed to rally. So then I was going to write this morning, and I don’t even KNOW what happened this morning, Godzilla stopped by and sucked my brains out my left ear, and by the time I made it through a whole day of kids going “What? What did you say? What page is that? I don’t have that. Can I have another copy?” and my impersonation of a fire-breathing dragon, eyes popping veins, well…there just isn’t much left. I don’t know what day it is. I’m tired. I’m not on top of anything (except this chair, and that’s questionable). Well, except grades are done. I’m totally caught up (until tomorrow). And the cat just skidded down the back of the chair and slammed into my back. So now all I have is the edge of the damn chair.

I need a Christmas tree. I need a list. I need a new computer. I need a new stove. (I need a new life. Swear.)

So I stayed up late Tuesday night because I was doing this…

I finished ironing all the War pieces down. There are 80 different fabrics in this quilt. Notice how many browns and flesh colors there are. I’m not sure why there’s so much red. Not a lot of color otherwise…

Here’s the pile of pieces to be cut out.

My brain was in overdrive Tuesday night after finishing the ironing, so I tried to calm it down by finishing the episode of Star Trek I was watching, while starting to cut stuff out.

I don’t usually cut stuff out in the computer chair (see note about cat and chair and edges), because it’s not particularly comfortable, but the episode had already started here, and I don’t have the same Netflix account on the TV as the computer (don’t even ask. It’s not worth the time it would take to explain it). It was probably a mistake, because my brain got into it and wouldn’t shut down…this is what I got done last night.

I got a little more done last night. Got smart and went to bed before 1 AM, dontcha know.

I did sew at the soccer game…in the rain…under an umbrella.

Lots of green variegated bullion knots. It’s gonna take me a million years to finish these birds.

So when did I say I’d be done cutting pieces out? Sunday? Oh yeah. That’s funny. I’m going to try, I guess, but sheesh. First I have to go sit through a stupid parent meeting and pay a shitload of money (more than it would cost to replace my stove), and then I don’t have time to go to the gym because they scheduled the meeting at such a stupid time, and I’m cranky as hell from school and hormones, and I really just want to curl up in bed and sleep for three days, but the sleep of the dead…the sleep that is not interrupted by rain storms and raccoons on the roof and monstrous hot flashes and nightmares involving Big Foot and that thing that is in that Christmas TV show from a million years ago…

HIM. The Abominable Snowman (NOT the Abdominal Snowman). Dreamed about him last night. He was scary. Except he looked more like this…

Christmas happy dreams, eh?

Make art, Kathryn. Before someone gets hurt.

Hello Monday…

Hello Monday. I was not ready for you. I finished a bunch of stuff this weekend, but not enough (it’s never enough…isn’t that a song? Of course it’s a song.). I don’t feel prepared to face what you will be throwing at me today. For one thing, my voice and throat are significantly challenged (not a good thing for a teacher on the first day of five days…it only gets worse as the week goes on). I think I am officially sick, but with some really low-level viral beast that won’t just come out and make me actually ill. It’s content to lurk in the shadows and make things feel slightly off. I have a formal teacher observation today, though, so I’m thinking through how to teach this lesson without speaking…can I do the whole thing with hand motions? I think I can. At some point, when you’ve been teaching long enough, you can do just about anything.

I worked on the male figure in the quilt last night…I wanted to get it done.

Looks a lot like the female side, eh? Thought I could do it all in one evening, because it was less complicated than the female…plus I started earlier. Here’s all the 600s laid out.

I finished the 500s and 600s and did a few of the 700s. OK. Well, I got a significant amount of him done. I balked at the hands (hands are hard. I was tired. Tired and hard do not go together.). I got his sixpack done.

So tonight I can do the hands and the briefcase and the head maybe. It’s good progress. I’m getting there. It’s moving along.

At that point, I should have been smart and gone to bed. It wasn’t super late though, and I wasn’t tired. At all. Even though it was almost midnight. So I decided to watch the rest of the episode of Star Trek that I had been ironing to, and to work on some hand embroidery until the episode was done, and then maybe I’d be tired…

Yeah. Right. Made it through a whole ‘nother episode after that before tired hit. Something to do with the cat on the back of my neck? By the way, Data appreciates the embroidery.

It still wasn’t super late, but it wasn’t early. I seem incapable of going to sleep, or even to bed, at a reasonable hour. Seriously, that damn cat is on the back of my chair right now. Gives me a crick in my neck.

We did have soccer yesterday morning too…not super early, but early enough to set an alarm.

Everybody loses to this team. They’re good, sure, but they’re also pushy…and not in a constructive way. In a hand-on-the-back kinda way.

Our girls held their own, though…still lost, but only 3-1, and as you can see above, when their girls threw themselves into ours, most of the time, ours did not fall down. I think girlchild dropped about 4 of their girls just by continuing to stand upright.

It’s amazing to me to watch 17-year-olds who are about to go to college and play soccer with big scholarships (because one of their worst offenders will probably do just that) and they’re winning by being bad sports. Play the damn game, little girl. When you get beat, you don’t run into someone because you’re pissed.

Of course, that’s not true. That is what lots of people do…and not just in soccer. You get pissed? You get hurt? You try to take the other person down.

Soccer as a metaphor for life. Damn that pink vibrates…will be glad when we get back to our normal uniform colors. And one of their parents actually had the balls to come over and tell our girls to calm down? The ref was a good guy, though, and did a good job of calling the dumbass maneuvers.

So a successful game, even if they lost. You gotta lose sometime, right? Not the green team, apparently. They tried to justify their girls’ behavior, saying “well, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” Um. So when you break someone’s leg? Will it be a problem then?

So. Yeah. I’ve been sitting with Monday for a while now, and it’s still a petulant whiny beast. I’m not sure I want to spend the rest of the day with it. It’s like an immature 7th-grade boy. Ugh. I got no choice. I gotta deal.

Prioritize the Many…

I’m debating Nanowrimo this year. Since school started, I’ve been finding it harder to find the time and mental space to write…shockingly, since I’m working full time as a teacher and trying to be a regularly working artist as well. But I wrote 1300 words last night. Just like that…Boom! In the book, it’s still Saturday. The book starts on Thursday. I’ve been writing about Saturday for 19 pages. A lot happened on Saturday. At the rate I’m going, the whole book will take maybe a week to take place. Most of it seems to be happening on Saturday…which must be like 46 hours long. Huh. Might need to deal with that issue.

I really enjoy the writing. Strange. It would be nice to make the attempt to write 50,000 words next month. I’d be almost done. Not sure I can do it, but I can make it a goal anyway.

Because I don’t have enough things I’m trying to do? I was really good today, though, despite crashing blood sugar after school (damn Minimum Day schedule fucks with me). I came home and ate (important) and did one household chore on my list and prepped for the sub I have in my classroom for two days so I can do professional development, and I dealt a little bit with grades…I’ll have to finish in the morning. Then I cooked and dealt with girlchild and animals and kitchen cleaning, and finally ironed for a while. I achieved things. I prioritized, but got most of it done. I need to finish my book…it’s way overdue (can’t renew it…there’s holds on it). It really should be a priority. But only so many things can hit the top of the list…

Last night, I started sorting fabrics out…

It took about an hour and 10 minutes to get through all of them. There were a lot of really small pieces…

Some of which I’ve already misplaced. I started ironing late last night…

I tried to number things for logical ironing. Turns out it made sense for picking fabrics, but not for ironing them together. There are arms on either side of the bases of the scales…arm one…

Holds the Earth…arm 2 holds the heart…

I’m about 200 pieces and 2 hours in. That means I can estimate about 11 hours total ironing pieces together and maybe two hours to iron it to the background. At the rate I’m going, an hour a night (not so impressive, eh?), I’ll be done on time…still aiming for the 17th, sandwiching and pinbasting that weekend. We’ll see. Ironing is difficult when you’re tired…requires too high a level of concentration for super-tired.

On Sunday, I was at a science discussion for a while, and decided to stitch on birds…

Still working on these. They take a while to do when you only work on them at night soccer games. But I find it relaxing…to sit in the park listening to people argue scientific theory and ethics and critical thinking while pulling purple sparkly thread through wool fabric. It’s not a bad place to be.

Absolutely exhausted right now. Going to take it all to bed with me. More ironing tomorrow night…because it’s still one of my top priorities…

Head’s in a Weird Space…

I’m sitting here at midnight on a Saturday listening to the rain pour down through the trees outside my office window. It’s been so warm the last week, and although it is still warm (and now abnormally humid for San Diego), the air has that rain feel to it. It’s nice. It feels good to my heart. Deep breaths of that rain air. Makes up for a long silent day of sitting on soccer fields and not feeling connected to anything or anyone. It’s a tournament weekend, obviously.

I really wanted to get a lot of quilting done today, but soccer was not helping with that. I realize I could send my daughter, who drives, off to these games by herself, but this is her last year in high school, the last year she’s home. Plus it always irritated me that my parents blew off most of my sports events once I was old enough to drive. Her dad has his own club team this year, and all the games are conflicting and at totally different fields, so he’s showing up for about half her games. She needs someone there. And she? She really does.

I did quilt today. I wanted to do 4 hours. I did 2.

This quilt is so detailed and complicated to quilt. I’m still down in the water section, although I’ve started one of the things that sits on the water on the left side…I still have to finish the seaweed, fish, and water on the right side. I’m still sticking to my 20-hour estimate though…

I just may not get 20 hours in total by Tuesday PM. At this point, that would mean 5 hours each day, and I just don’t think I can pull that off. We’ll see. I’m a little obsessed with this art stuff.

Still raining. So nice to hear.

I have to admit, it was a hard day today. I wrote sci fi for a while before the first game, only a thousand words or so. I’m stuck in this place where I want the science to be good, but I don’t know enough about it to make sure that it is. I will have to deal with that at some point. I kinda wish there was a plant scientist sitting right next to me sometimes. I write comments to myself (I’m using Google Docs to write), reminding me to check this scientific process or vocabulary later on. Right now, it’s probably more important that I just write.

That is what my document is called by the way: JustWrite.

Girlchild had two games today.

She also broke up a fight in this one. First time I’ve seen the girls almost come to blows, and she yelled out in this deep voice to get them to stop…I recognized that voice. It’s the one I use at school when I see a fight about to happen. Or when the kids are just getting out of hand. Deep. Guttural. They pay attention. It worked. The ref? Sigh. Take control, man.

So one of the things that started today was GISHWHES (The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen), which is a goofy image/video scavenger hunt with over 150 items. Teams of 15 people work to get the images and videos uploaded over a week’s time, and many of them require some feats of magic, honestly. I’m part of a Geek Girls Meetup group (yeah, laugh at me. I am one.) that had I think 9 members willing to play, and then we were combined with a group of college girls out of Illinois. This is the stuff that Old Kathy loved. I’m not allowed to post pictures of my items until after the event closes, but I’m saving them. I’m trying to do one a day, although there are some we will try to do as a local group maybe? I tend to pick the more artistic ones (shockingly), but there might be a duet between the girlchild and I, if I can figure out how to pull it off. She sings better than I do, but I have heart and soul. Or something.

She totally is willing to assist, but the boychild is adamantly against helping in any way, shape, or form…which is funny, because it’s totally a college-kid kind of event. Anyway. This is who I am. The wacky creative sort that can figure out what condiments mix together to make flesh colors. Not to mention, we have a lot of Legos.

Please try to figure out how many people are in this photo. I count 7 legs in the pile-up. That seems wrong.

We won one and lost one…

It rained for most of the second game. It RAINED. In San Diego in August. So fucking delightful. I put sunscreen on for the first game, because I will fry in overcast skies, but for the second game, that’s the umbrella and my stitching underneath it. Humid and warm, but wet…

I’m not actually getting much done on the birds, because she’s playing a lot of the games…lots of injuries on the team at the moment, so more opportunities to play. They played the team she used to be on in the second game, which was a little weird…

And unfortunately, that’s the game they lost (by one silly goal). If they make it to the finals tomorrow, they will probably play them again.

Because my brain is not working properly again (fuck me. When DOES it ever work properly?), I thought we’d have time to go home in between the two games and we really didn’t, so we found a weird little Starbucks with crappy Wifi nearby and ate lunch and hung out there. I wrote a little, read the worst book ever (I have to write a review later), and filled in the GISHWHES chart we made so that we could each sign up for specific tasks. By the way, if you know a friendly professional barista in the San Diego area who wants to conspire with me on an artistic activity, let me know. I’m not a professional.

After the second game, I was a good girl and went to the gym. And there are games tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow I can handle the Lego task for GISHWHES. And quilt for 5 hours. I haven’t talked to another human being since 4:42 PM. That’s the stuff that drives me bonkers. I think I already spend way too much time in my head for that shit to be healthy. In fact, the girlchild was trying to listen to an audiobook on the way back from soccer, and I was talking, and she got all irritated because she was trying to listen to the book, and I told her, “Hey. I have no one to talk to until tomorrow…19 hours or so from now.” She felt bad and talked to me on the way home. I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip her. It was reality. I really didn’t have anyone else to talk to. I needed to quilt. I also needed some human connection before I went into the cave that is my antisocial silent world. Talking to the cats and the TV doesn’t count.

Tomorrow? More of the same. Head is in a weird space. It may never come out.

I Had Cement for Her…*

I cannot find my head. It’s lost in a book somewhere, or under a pile of things to be filed, or perhaps I left it in Google Docs where I’m apparently writing a story of my own (best to wish you aren’t in it). It could be on a soccer field with the girlchild’s flipflops or in the hotel room in Corona where I left my nail scissors (dammit). It’s not here, though. It’s not engaged in anything. It’s performing tasks as told, based on a list. I guess the list is logical: Keep working on getting the living room done. Keep working on getting the big quilt done (and then moving on to the next logical step in the quiltmaking process). Keep checking things off that are supposed to get done. Keep reading, just take up the next book in the pile or the one that’s due back to the library next or the one that has to be read before the next book club meeting.

I’m stressed. I know that. There are many things that I am juggling and I don’t feel good about it. There is no relief when one is done, when it is retired from the juggling horde. It seems every time I get rid of one, two take its place.

Where is the part of my life where I lie by the pool with a drink and birds chirping and a nice book in hand? Having an intelligent conversation with someone I enjoy? Feeling at peace with the world, content, happy with my lot in life?

Fuck me. I really suck at this.

I think I need to find more time for exercise, meditation, and drawing. Funny that. It’s vacation. I should have plenty of time. I know I don’t have any peace…not much at the moment. Even ironing tonight gave me fits…

So I didn’t do a lot of it. I’m hoping to do more tomorrow. Hopefully I will feel less tired and more successful at crossing things off my lists. This is part of a leg…a sorta crazy chaotic leg. It will make more sense when the stitching outlines the appropriate bits.

I think what I really need is a new life. Still. All year I’ve needed that. I keep trying to make one, but it just doesn’t work out. I think it’s because I’d just rather stay home and draw or read a book or make another quilt. Even those don’t make me feel good, though. It’s escapism. People are just not in my current life formula.

Escaping your own existence. Seems like a bad TV mini-series. I don’t have the clothes or makeup for that.

Girlchild tells me every time she sees the sign at the grocery store for the shingles vaccine, she reads it as “singles vaccine” and is confused. “Dammit,” I say…”I forgot to get that when I was younger. That’s the source of all my problems right there.” She tells me to shut up, but laughs as well. She doesn’t like it when depressed mom comes out, even when she comes out making jokes about herself…which honestly, is probably the best way to be at the moment. Sure it would be great to just magically slough off the depression, but failing that (and that does fail, by the way, don’t wiggle your pretty little nose at me and tell me how if I just SMILE, everything will be fucking perfect), this is better than the alternatives. Really. It is.

So. Today was the last day of the soccer showcase, driving up to Pomona yet again…

Girlchild stepped on a bee. Because she was barefoot. Because she left her flipflops way the freak over THERE and mom had to go get them. After the bee incident. And then there were tears.

Today was the day I finished two of these guys…

I think that means 11 out of 30 are done. Not great, considering these are from last year. Whatever.

I listened to 10 parents talk about their kids’ college plans. Poor girls. So much pressure. I try to minimize that. I gave birth to a stress monkey, so I tell her I know she will get in somewhere decent and she will be happy wherever she goes, and she freaks out about it, because her brother got into an Ivy and that means that’s what she wants. I don’t know if that will make her happy. I don’t think it would have made ME happy. Then again, I have such a vague memory of that emotion…when it touches me, that feeling, a reminder of that feeling, because I don’t have it now, it just hurts and I cry. I know a college wouldn’t have gotten me there. Hard to tell that to a teenager though. They basically don’t listen to a word you say.

I worked on these guys…

They are closer to done than they were. In fact, a couple of them are almost done.

I also finished this book…

in fact, if I had read less, I would have gotten those damn birds done, but my brain, it was in that bad place (spending three days dealing with soccer games, parents, and girlchild’s related moods will do that to you, unless you have a magical outlet, a rejuvenating place that brings you back to normal)…so I read instead. I’ve always been a Stephen King fan. He messes with his characters like no one else, and this detective story is good, although somewhat formulaic…King-style, though. I still really enjoyed it (and read it really fucking fast, so there).

I’m not sure reading horror is the best treatment for depression, but neither are rom-coms or YA books half the time either. Or 90% of what’s on the telly. I seem to do best with fantasy/sci fi, but even that’s a stretch sometimes. No books that remind me that at one time I had something approximating a life and now, well, now I don’t know what I have. It’s not really there, ethereal and sad, but insubstantial, feather-light in the hands. Whisks away before you can close your fingers on it. It’s not even real.

Cat puke. Laundry. Bills. Mold. Those are real.

Today’s blog title is brought to you by my favorite poet, writer, thinker ever…e.e. cummings…

Seriously. Reading him is the closest to happy I get at the moment.