Apparently Adam and Eve…

So. I can’t show you the trimmed quilt. I can tell you some things about it though. First of all, apparently I made an Adam and Eve quilt. I guess that makes sense when you are looking at an image of gender equality and you have a society with all these images of Adam and Eve together, who really are not quite about gender equality (or ARE they…you don’t have to read the pictures with scripture supporting them), but the tree…I wasn’t thinking when I was drawing. I just like trees. But there are so many trees in the Adam and Eve paintings. I did leave the snake out! Interesting that, because I often include a snake. In fact, I just realized the snake in Love (not) probably has more symbolism than I even had thought about. This is why it’s kinda funny to watch the video my mom took at Celebrating Silver when the nice woman asks me what the skull symbolizes and I snarkily say Death, but I’m not even sure that’s the case. When I draw, there are things that have power, weight, meaning, that I plan on including for just those reasons, and then there are the things that sneak in when I’m not really thinking about it. Subconscious symbols just wandering around and plopping themselves on the paper. Because if it took both Adam and Eve to make all humanity, and that’s from the biblical times, before we understood the genetic implications of that, before we knew there were factors from Mom AND Dad that became a part of each human child, then at what time did one become more important than another in any part of the world? Why do women have to be the cookers and cleaners and the baby-minders? Why do men have to be the money-wranglers and decision-makers? Why does anyone have to be in charge? Why this perennial argument over who is REALLY in charge? I’m not really arguing about religion here, but about the images that religion has co-opted or paid for to support their doctrine (because a lot of religious paintings were paid for by the church, and you can’t piss off the boss, so you paint what you’re told unless you’re a rebel). Yes, I had to study all that stuff in school. Years and years of That’s All There Was…religious paintings. And they are fascinating in the ways they are different, but also in the ways they are the same. The Madonna, the baby Jesus, God in his sky, Adam and Eve on the ground, the tree, the animals, the snake.

So yeah, all that to tell you I made an archetypal Adam and Eve quilt. That you can’t see until January. It’s cool, though. Even the girlchild said so. I trimmed it (and ouch, I think I lost 3 inches with all that tight quilting, so don’t tell anyone, but I think it’s gonna be about 1/4 to 1/2″ too short. SHHH. I’ve never had one too small. Crazy.).

I wasn’t going to put the binding on right away. I was going to write first. But somehow, I just kept ironing, and then cutting, and somehow sewing, and then I might as well pin it…and it was done.

I asked the girlchild to help me out by wrapping the UK Xmas gifts for me…did she finish? Fuck no. This happened…

So it’s still not done. Sigh. Tonight.

I promised a photo of the skateboarding skellies…

I’m in love with this, especially the guy who is skateboarding over skelly parts.

Tonight? Sewing bindings. Very exciting. Yup. Got bug videos to watch. Seriously. I do.

Forced Smile

I talked to three people yesterday. One of them was the guy who held the door open at the gym for me. I said thank you. The other two were a student and his mom, who met me at school, because he apparently hadn’t turned his journal in and I had missed it (I really thought I had caught everyone, but he’s a sneaky guy). Well, until the girlchild came home from Disneyland at 11 PM, but she was really cranky and didn’t want to talk much, just complain about whether I had the lights on or not (I do need light in order to walk down the hallway without killing myself, especially since she keeps leaving things IN the hallway for me to kill myself on). And I talked to the dog and three cats. Pretty exciting.

I graded my butt off until around noon. Then went to the gym and then to school to pick up the journal from that kid. Finished grades around 5:30 PM and started cleaning out this one section of my office that has been getting worse and worse. Basically, it was a pile of random shit that had fallen over and then been piled on again, and cats had knocked stuff over and spiders were living in there. Yes, I probably should have taken photos, but I decided to just get in there and clean it. That was good. Now I have 17 other sections of the house that need the same level of attention. It took about an hour to deal with this one section, about 2 feet square.

Giant ass sigh.

It’s a move in the right direction. Then, after procrastinating all day (yes, I clean to procrastinate), I finally started quilting again.

Tiny little squiggles. Sigh. Lots of them. My left elbow is bugging me again. I stopped lifting weights because I thought that was the problem, and it may be part of the problem, but it’s certainly not the whole problem. Tendonitis, yes, and I have a doctor’s appointment right before Thanksgiving, so I’ll bug her for more physical therapy appointments, because I used up my allotted amount for the year on my knee. My question is does the number of PT appointments per year go up as you age? Because maybe it should.

I got a couple of hours in. Not as much as I wanted, but then I thought I was further along in the grading and would have more of the day. I do have most of today.

I need to buy more thread though (did that). This is the back. And I need to get the binding fabric. And my car is having an issue that might be nothing and might be an alternator or battery. I’m trying to decide whether to be proactive and take it in or just ignore it until it’s a real issue. Really mature way to deal with life, eh?

Ugh. This week. I’m not allowed to say or think that it will suck until I have experienced it (thank you, counselor), but ugh. One day at a time. Except I can’t do that, because I have to plan. So I’m trying to plan without thinking about how the days will actually go. Difficult to do. Especially when you experience a sinking feeling just by typing out the instructions for your guest teacher. Dammit. I hate being out this much, but I don’t have a choice.

I really was writing my book on the stationary bike and the elliptical yesterday at the gym. I wrote a whopping 2800 words yesterday. I didn’t mean to; it just happened. I’m over 19,000 words at this point, and totally keeping up with the plan to finish on time.

Girlchild petting Babygirl, who was very demanding yesterday.

Oh dear. Am I the only one wondering why the parents don’t just grab their baby in their beak and fly them down from the nest? Don’t panic…there is a happy ending (I got very worried at one point)…

Barnacle goose freefall

Yup. Need to go quilt. Fighting a really down mood. Tell it to shut up. At some point, depression just gets old. Don’t think about the crap that makes you depressed. Look at clean area of floor that was not clean yesterday. Smile. Then quilt. Forced smile. Yeah, sometimes when I smile and don’t really mean it, it scares people.

Craphole

It IS a word. Shut up.

Oh holy craphole of days, in which I plan on xyz and manage to only get through a, which wasn’t even on the list. And xyz languish, unfinished, unfortunate, because I would probably FEEL better if I had managed xyz. I had a two-hour respite last night hanging out with stitching friends…in which we analyzed our children and our failings (or not) in regards to them. Since I’ve been yelled at in person and via text every single day this week, I’m obviously failing big time (or succeeding, depending on how you look at the parenting spectrum). I have to admit that I’m running especially low on parental tolerance, and it feels awful to be sitting on the couch as they scream away from you and you really just need to have someone hug it away, because I only have so many resources within me to deal with the crap that is thrown and I guess I’m on the low end at the moment. And of course, a lot of that is hormones. It’s hormones, I think, that take whatever small emotions I’m feeling about being overwhelmed, too much work, not getting it done, irritations, rejections…the hormones take that messy soup and just charge it with crazy electricity and make my head spin and spill salty water over the world.

Holy crap. I just got an amazing idea for a drawing. Dammit. I have to leave for school in 34 minutes. There’s no way I can draw it in time. And grades. I’m buried. I can’t draw today. FUCK. It’s OK. I wrote it down. I typed it down. Whatever.

So I found out yesterday that I have one day less than I thought to complete grades (competing calendars…I should have know better than to pick the one that benefited my crazy schedule), so basically I just need to grade until it’s done. Then, if I’m lucky, there will still be part of the weekend left to quilt. But previous experience with long weekends is that it gets frittered away, wasted by lame-i-tude and whatever. Mostly OTHER people’s crap, not mine.

I’m confused by people with a constant positive attitude, like they’re never angry or down. I get there eventually. I talk myself out of the crazy downer that tells me I can’t get it done. I yell inside, yes you can and here’s how. I know I will get there, but it’s hard for me. And when people say they want “no drama, positive attitude,” I think, well fuck. You must just have an easy life. Or you’re genetically wired that way. And I’m not. And if I were, would I make the art I make? Fuck no. I don’t know what I’d make. Maybe nothing. I realize my responses to overwhelming shit are part of having a positive attitude, but hell, sometimes people have a rough day or week (or year). Being positive to me means you still got up and took a shower and packed a lunch, and tried to figure out how to manage the day without assuming it would all go to hell in a handbasket, and if it DID go to hell (like all week has), then you get up the next morning and you do it again, trying to figure out what to change to avoid the handbasket part (because doing the same thing again is kinda stupid if you want to avoid what you don’t like.). So fuck you for reminding me that I’m broken in that way too. That there’s something wrong with me for not being perky Pollyanna. Look at my art. Do you like it? Where the fuck do you think it comes from? Then don’t tell me I’m doing it wrong.

So I didn’t quilt last night. No time. Too late. Too tired. Wrote a little bit, not enough (see why I needed the word cushion?). Graded a little bit, not enough. Should have blown off the social stuff, but since that was the only thing all day that felt calm and nice, that would have been stupid. Didn’t read. Didn’t meditate. Didn’t exercise. Didn’t clean. Didn’t fold the fabric in the dryer. Didn’t eat healthy. Didn’t solve the world’s problems or even my own.

I did. I did throw away my trash. I did enjoy that episode of Dr. Who. I did (not) clean off the kitchen counter. I meant to clean off the kitchen counter. I did feed animals. I did take my meds. I did brush my teeth. I did finish the UK Xmas shopping (I should actually jump around a bit on that one, because that’s been hanging over me and I get no help on that front and now it’s done and I need to get someone to help me wrap it and pack it all up. I WONDER who that will be. Yes, the screamer. Fun times.).

I did.

So I got up this morning and I showered and I ate breakfast and I pondered my lunch options and I made a plan for the day, and at no point did I assume it would suck or that I would not get through my plan and I remembered that I did this last night…

And I told the part of my brain that is whinging about the fact that I will never ever finish this to shut the fuck up, because I will EVENTUALLY finish, but maybe the girlchild will be speaking to me normally by then and not assuming everything I say is a criticism of her existence. Because she’ll have kids of her own and she’ll realize how fucking hard it is to do it even with someone else’s help and yeah.

Shit, I’m having a bad time of it. Tell my brain to get all that emotional shit into the laundry basket and shove it in the corner, because I’m not going to make it through the day otherwise.

Because dammit, if I’m going to criticize ANYONE’S existence, it’s going to be my own.

Barely Awake

Started this on Thursday morning…days ago…so this is less than 3 hours of sleep. Hmn. Yeah. Don’t like it. Head is all swimmy. Brain thinks it’s still asleep. It told me to go lay back down. Stop this uprightness and just lay the fuck back down. On a bed. With a nice soft pillow. Yum.

I did this last year too…got up at 3:30-ish to get out of here. I just don’t remember it. You know why? I was asleep when it happened, that’s why. Just like I’m asleep now.

Did I go to bed early last night, like a normal person would? Nope. I quilted. Here’s Midnight watching me quilt…

I wasn’t tired. There’s no point in going to bed if you’re not tired.

I realized some things in Houston this year. One is that I’m not particularly stable. I mean, I’m not completely off my rocker, but stable, normal people do not stay up until midnight making art (stitching around a penis, let’s be specific here) the night before they have to get up really early and fly to Texas. They go to bed early. They schedule their time differently. They probably have a clean house. They probably seem a little less frantic than I do. I am not that person. I think of the unstable as the part that gets me to drop all the grading and grab my sketchbook one night. The part that blows off some Have-To for a Want-To. Not all the time…just enough times that I’m not predictable.

I also do a lot. I know that. I always have. It’s not a choice…some people think it’s a choice. I think I’m a little ADD and that doesn’t help, but also, my brain does not like to just sit in a chair by the pool and relax. It does not like peace and quiet. It can do that for a short period of time, but there still better be a purpose, a plan. Maybe there’s a book I want to read or a drawing I want to do, or I just want to enjoy the sunshine, but I’d still be better off DOING something. Not doing feels bad. As I attempt (and I say ‘attempt’ because quite honestly I suck at it) to venture into the dating world (again, shoot me now), it’s all online and there are all these questions and you have spreadsheets and graphs of info on your potential dates, and questions like “how does it feel to do nothing all day” or “normal or weird” put me in the small percentages. I feel like crap when I get nothing done. Workaholic much? Yeah. But a hike counts as something. And a drawing counts as something. And reading a book counts as something. And maybe if there were someone around, hanging out with them and doing nothing would be OK, but I don’t know. And weird. I’m definitely weird. And apparently intense. I guess that’s true. I guess…what’s the opposite of intense? Mild. Mild-mannered. Temperate. OK. Yeah. I’m not any of those. Nor am I calm. Or drama free. Look at my drawings. Seriously.

Houston: one thing that has been great both in Houston and as I post pictures of Awakening the Crone and You Make Me Wanna Die is that I am getting a lot of comments, positive comments about my work, my vision (for lack of a better word), my art sense. I have people coming up to me or messaging me and saying the work is good, reminding me of that, because deep down inside me, I know that. But when I am deep in a hole, it’s hard to see that there is a purpose to my work, that when it is done, it will go out there and cause conversations and thoughts (even negative ones), and people will come back to me and grab my hands and smile at me and make it feel worthwhile. So I guess I needed that. Because sometimes being an artist is such a solitary pursuit (and maybe that is why I write SO MUCH, talking to myself) that you forget that this is an image and you are putting it out there with your name on it and people will see it and then they will associate you with that piece (and no, that’s not always a positive thing), but mostly, the vibe coming back at me is good, keep it up, don’t stop.

So I have that. And that is what I am holding onto right now.

I read this…and Polly, thanks. I feel better now. I’m not one of those girls. I know that. I’m not trying to be what someone thinks I should be. Because she says it’s OK to be messy and have emotions and not be perfect and still to WANT to be part of a relationship but on my own terms. Even when people tell you it’s NOT OK. They’re wrong. Because life isn’t always calm and pretty and positive and perky, and if that’s the woman you want to be with, then maybe she’s just faking it because she’s afraid of rocking the boat. I don’t want to be with fake people. I’m spending a lot of time and energy trying to negotiate some level of balance with my body and my brain, and I’m open and will tell you exactly what I’m thinking and feeling and if you can’t roll a bit with that, if you are going to run away when there’s sad or mad, because all you can handle is happy, then I feel sorry for you…because you can’t really feel the happy, experience the joy, unless you’ve felt those damn awful really lows, those sads that make you want to crawl into bed. They are there for everyone. You need to experience them just like you experience the others. And own them. My sad…it’s mine. I know that. I hold on to it sometimes and it struggles and I just hold on until it stops and subsides and I can move on. Read a book. Have a cup of tea. Draw.

I had a great time at the Halloween party last night. It was funny, amusing, intellectual, and engaging. Am I still lonely and sad on either side of it? Yeah. I am. But I can hold on to that few hours of feeling entertained, amused, as a cushion…not a solution, not a goal, because I don’t believe all of life is like that or SHOULD be like that…but accepting that both sides exist, that the spectrum is normal…that’s what I’m looking for. Someone who thinks THAT is OK…meanwhile, I will keep being who I am, because I can’t really do anything else.

Ode to a Safety Pin

This poor pin…stuck into 4 or 5 layers of fabric pelvic girdle and Wonder Under, then somehow wrenched open and destroyed.

Probably it got caught on something. You know, I use a lot of safety pins in my work…but I reuse the same 500 over and over again (and yes, I think that really is how many I have…so I can have more than one quilt pinbasted at a time. I think I have at least one pinbasted right now besides the one under the machine). The thing about a wrenched-open safety pin is that it’s no longer useful. I tried rebending it, but the top section (OK, I did in fact Google the names of the parts of a safety pin, and despite the fact that many disturbing things pop up in that search, I did find out that the top portion is called the clasp. So you learned something today. Or not.) is almost pulled out and separating, so it is in fact now completely useless for its job. So I threw it away. I almost never throw them away. I’ve even been known to sand the burrs down on the pin part if they are snagging while going through the fabric.

I’m sure this is some metaphor for my life, that I am a useless, bent-out-of-shape safety pin, right? Eh. Whatever. I’m getting by. I’m getting shit done. I’m not getting it all done, but getting some done. It’s not easy. I don’t know why it is easy for some people. I guess nothing affects them. This is a continuous conversation I have with my counselor. I need to learn to barely react to extreme stress. Or something. Sigh. I think I spend too much time in my head with no distractions. I don’t think my brain works like those people’s brains. I don’t even understand how their brains work.

So when I finished all the work duties yesterday, I went shopping for stuff for the boychild (and me, although I failed at that) because snow starts Friday. And I don’t know. He might die. OK, not really. But I’m shipping him some stuff today, including a rewards card to the local sports shop (which is also out here). And I sat and finished my book. And exercised. Because drama. And girlchild. And stress. And garrrr. And then I made dinner after being screamed at, because it’s my fault Etsy people can’t ship stuff here by Thursday (sigh. Don’t leave Halloween costumes until the last minute if you want choices). And we ate together, watching the last and final episode of Big Love, which made me cry, and girlchild is getting all freaked out because I’m crying, and I say, HORMONES, like all the time, and she’s still freaked out (I’m a little freaked out too, because the hormones don’t seem to be mellowing out, and my face breaking out nonstop tells me it probably IS hormones, and hell…WTF? Leave me alone, you silly chemicals. I don’t have the patience for this.). I’m fairly sure all this chemical imbalance is not helping with my moods or my reaction to stress. And my blood sugar levels have been completely fucked up for about two weeks now. I’m getting tired of it.

I finally found the energy to quilt after 10 PM again. Ugh. I really need to go to bed earlier tonight and tomorrow night, because my Thursday AM wakeup call is actually in the middle of the night.

But I quilted two legs…

And a pubic area, plus pelvic girdle and uterus…and then I should have gone to bed, but I’m an idiot and I quilted a bird as well, because it was kinda fun and I didn’t feel like stopping.

That late-night bad judgement that tells me it’s OK, that I’m really not tired (I wasn’t. I had a really hard time falling asleep, even though it was almost 1 AM)…I don’t know what that is. It’s the part of me that wants a different life, I guess. I’m totally jealous of all those fulltime quilt artists I meet, the ones who have a marketable skill and can sell classes and books about their technique (OK, I really don’t want to do classes, to be honest), the ones who have a partner who fully finances their habit, their drive. Man oh man. Do they know how lucky they are? Do they know what it’s like to work a 60-hour-a-week job and come home to screaming drama and cooking dinner and no one will help you take out the trash (yes, we were doing that at 10 PM and she was yelling at me then too, because it was my fault we hadn’t done it earlier). Bloody hell. Maybe I would just be a shitty lazy artist if I didn’t have all that hanging over me. Maybe I would never get anything done because I wouldn’t have this incredible drive to create something to make up for all the other crap. Maybe I’d have given up on art completely.

Seems unlikely. This is who I am. This is how I am. But it would be nice if it were a little less ouch. And weepy. Tired of the weepy. Damn safety pin.

The Pieces of a Weekend

Here’s to trying to pull all the pieces of a weekend (and a brain) together into one coherent post. Why start now? I mean, sometimes I am probably coherent, but if you really expect me to be all together on a Monday morning, then you’re probably a pretty demanding person, and I don’t want to hang out with you. Leave. Go read another blog…the blog of someone who has perfect hair and wears makeup and is all fashion-conscious and shit. I don’t want you here anyway (OK, you can wear makeup and be fashion-conscious and stuff, but just don’t expect me to be making any sense right now).

Weekends are kicking my butt at the moment. I make lists that are miles long and then I realize I got one thing done on them. ONE THING. I actually took grading with me to the California Fibers meeting yesterday. I needed to get grading done. I graded in the car on the way up and at the meeting. It was a slightly contentious meeting anyway (many of them are, but it’s a good group that gets good shows and there’s a core group that I get along with just fine)…so it was good to have something else to focus on. Artists…we are so emotional and opinionated. It’s hard to have a whole room full of us. Saturday night I actually went to a Halloween party, but no one knew what I was…OK, not true…they knew I was a painting. They just didn’t know who the artist was (SIGH. Jackson Pollack. I know. Maybe I don’t expect you to know, but it would be nice if someone knew. I expect too much.). I’m not much of a party person…and I know these people, but it’s still hard for me to stand around and make small talk and ask the appropriate questions at the appropriate times. It makes me want to crawl back into my studio by myself (yes, counselor, I am isolating myself) and make art. And rarely come out.

I didn’t have a lot of time for that this weekend. No art at all happened on Saturday. Saturday was all about errands and soccer and finishing stuff and being sociable. Sunday was all about trying to finish the stuff I didn’t finish Saturday because I wasn’t efficient enough and going to a meeting. But I finally started quilting around 10 PM.

I didn’t get far, just an hour in, just the very bottom section of the scales, with the two hands. I got the heart done too…

But if I figure I have 15 hours of quilting, then it’s not surprising that I didn’t get far. I wanted to start much earlier in the day, in case I didn’t have the right colors of thread, but I was lucky and I seem to have enough of what I need. I might be a spool short (ha ha ha…is that a euphemism for not having all my brain parts in working order? It feels like it is. Don’t judge.) of the background color, but that isn’t going to matter this week…this week, I will just be outlining. I love the outlining stage, when all the features start to pop, like drawing that black line on the white paper. The defining moment. Except I never use black. Black thread is so dead-looking. On this one, I’m using a dark blue. Anyway. This part of the process is very meditative. I gave up over a year ago on listening to music in this stage. I used to always listen to music while quilting, but music has fucked with the dark side of my head too much, so I just put the sound up real high on Netflix (still watching Star Trek) and listen to the blather instead. Fewer triggers.

I also went to the last official game I will see of the girlchild’s season (she has tournaments, and then high-school soccer, and then more tournaments, so it’s not like it’s OVER over…it’s just the season is almost over…one more game, but I’ll be in Houston)…

She really likes to head the ball. By the way, the ref in the back? Asshole. We used to be on a team with the daughter, who seems perfectly nice, but the dad has a Napoleon complex that makes him a psycho jerk on the field, and he seems to be getting worse each year. So we played half the game down a player because she got red-carded for calling him ignorant (which he is). If you can’t control your game, get off the damn field.

We should have won, but tied.

Toldja she liked to head the ball.

Makes for amusing pictures.

Babygirl is annoying me with her need to be right next to (or ON) the computer. She also wants to be on fabric. Or my hand. Or my leg. She’s very needy at the moment. I really need to clean up the studio and get her off the stuff I need less cat hair on…

I did clean this weekend. One thing (well, besides the entryway floor so I could pinbaste). This:

Yup. A spider web. It was a big one. No one sits in that room now that the boychild’s not here. Kinda weird to realize that.

Here’s a video of the SAQA exhibit that is at Poway’s Center for the Performing Arts until Thursday…my Eyeball Tree made it in the video, so that’s cool

That’s all I got. The brain is still wallowing around in Feels-Like-Shit (the town next to Feels-Like-Crap), so I distract it with books and quilting and trying to push everything into the corner. I stay off the social media, I don’t read anything online. I just focus inward and get shit done. I don’t know if it’s healthy or not. It just is. The counselor warns about not letting myself fall back into the hole, and I really do try…but it doesn’t feel like I have control over that. I have control over that damn spider web. The ability to just switch that part of the brain off…I wonder about the person who can do that, who can shove everything under or in a drawer and lock it up. Maybe it’s healthy? I just don’t know. I do know that I don’t know how to do it. I just have to work through it. Apparently for months on end. Frustrated yowl.

Drawing on Houses

OK, so I did it. I finished stitching stuff down. Presumably, I can sandwich and pinbaste tonight. If I have enough backing fabric and batting, which I meant to check earlier this week, but was sideswiped by a stupid mood that is still here, still messing with me. So I didn’t do it. So hopefully when I get home from school and counseling tonight, I will either have what I need here or the energy to go out and get it. Ha!

I know. Whatever. But seriously. It’s moving. I’m on schedule. I’m doing OK. The rest will get there. I did stay up too late to finish, but that’s only because I was having a 2-hour-long texting conversation with my son about how to stay warm in winter snow…because I’m like an expert (ha!). When it snows in our mountains, I try to avoid hiking. I hike before snow, after snow, but not during snow. And not in a lot of snow, because I don’t have the right equipment or gear, and I know that. The poor boy is stuck there. He’s been looking at gloves. He doesn’t know what to do with a scarf (I could send him pictures). Meanwhile, it’s supposed to be 90 degrees here today. Hmn.

Anyway. I had a late start with everything, because after school, I raced over to Art Produce to help with a house-building workshop…and ended up making my own houses. I’ll show you the wooden one later, but here’s the paper one…

I think it’s cool…

I drew on it after I built it. It was somehow important to me that I build it first. The others drew before building.

By then, I was exhausted. So I came home and tried to grade papers while texting and talking on the phone (SIL) and at one point, I had all three cats in the room with me (wow! don’t know if that’s ever happened before), and then I was finally done (seriously, it took 2.5 hours and it should have taken one), so I came in to finish the stitching. I wasn’t going to, because I was tired, but that’s a lame excuse. So I sewed.

And then I was done an hour or so later…

That’s the back. And then the cat laid upon it. Grr. So I have the next step in the process tonight and tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be quilting Sunday, although Sunday is already chock full o’ crap. Because my brain’s not already exploding.

Sigh. And no, the mood hasn’t backed off. It’s getting heavier, like a wet scarf around your neck. Or a wet hoodie. All things we texted about last night. Wet jeans. Heavy and cold. Muffling. Chafing. Apparently a winter storm is attacking my brain.

I really need to get to school this morning. Yesterday was frustrating because listening to instructions is apparently something that the 12-year-old brain cannot handle. And they were somewhat surprised that I could read their Google chats, and that I would put it up on the screen so they could SEE that I could read it. And print it out. And show it to their parents if they bloody well didn’t stop doing it right now. Dead silence after that. I might have been a tad cranky. Can’t say I’m less cranky today. Last night’s staying up late has left me with a morning headache. But there are two, maybe three meetings today? And a flu shot? So yeah. Have to go. Stop typing Kathryn. Get off the fucking computer. Yes, it’s quieter here. Yes, the house needs cleaning. Yes, you have stuff here you’d rather do, but you are a responsible human being and you need to go the fuck to school.

God Dammit.

Life. A Moodfucker. News at 11.

Hey, did you see me fall into that hole Tuesday night? Or maybe it was during the day…yeah, it definitely was. I don’t know why. OK, I didn’t know why. I was actually all excited by the lesson I was teaching, because I basically had one kid at each table open up a new Google doc and then share it with their table, and then I handed them a rubric, yelled GO!, and ran away. Everything they asked me I turned back on them. Check your research. Ask someone at your table. Wow, that must really suck. Yeah, you have to work with people all the time when you grow up. I need you to work with your coworkers. There was some screaming, some lambasting, some frustration, but hell…yesterday? Yesterday I saw the product, and they were WORKING. Like TOGETHER. Because they HAD TO. It was a revelation.

Now we’ll see today what it actually looks like, and I totally lied about whether I could see what kid made what correction. I think I could, but I’d have to go back through all the revisions, and I don’t have time for that. Maybe I’ll have them write a reflection about the process and their partners, and then I can see who did nothing. It’s just like the corporate world! Or teacher world! Where you have one staff member who whines a lot and gets everyone in trouble. And another one who never does anything. And the bossy one. And the one who gets it done. And the one who goes home and does all of it and then comes back to school and their teammates are pissed off at them because now they have nothing to do (OK, that never happens in the real world…nobody gets pissed off in my world when that happens. We thank them and promise to do it for them next time, and then hopefully we follow through.).

Anyway, you’d think with a lesson like that, I would have come home with stars in my eyes and a smile on my face, but no. Hormones or thyroid or just bad depressoid brain, it’s been haunting me since the hike on Saturday, or maybe earlier, probably earlier, and I just keep trying to push it away and get shit done. Interesting that getting shit done isn’t helping. Well, it never really does. There’s just more shit to be done. So I fell in that hole, the one that holds on to me and makes me cry all the fucking time and lurks around corners and attacks when you’re not even expecting it.

So Tuesday night sucked. It sucked so bad I didn’t even try to make art. I graded papers, I got tired of that, I went to bed with my book. Which is a murder mystery. About the South. And racism and bad hinky shit that the KKK and worse did. So it’s real cheery. Yesterday, I was obviously still wearing all that on my face; I could tell. But the kids were still doing their cooperation thing, so that got me mostly through the day, but sometime in the morning, I realized part of the bad. And this really sucks, because October is my favorite month of the year. The weather is that in-between stage in Southern California…still super hot some days, beautiful blue skies, then chilly enough for a sweater the next day. There’s the promise of holidays and vacations looming, there’s Halloween, there’s soccer coming to an end. It’s just a nice month. Except 12 years ago yesterday, my life blew up into a million fragments in October, and then I thought I had it all put together again and got my month back, and then I didn’t. And it was somehow harder the second time around, the second time it all exploded. I still haven’t put that back together again. Because I had gotten to a point where I could get past October 22 without much of a thought, because my current life was enough, it was good, I was OK with it, but now it’s not, so the ouch is back, the pain is back, and it SUCKS. And I carried that all day yesterday, once I realized what the heavy was, and it’s still here today, because it still is. Here. I have this elephantine memory that never forgets the bad shit.

It didn’t help that I didn’t see the girlchild at all on Tuesday. I saw her a little more yesterday, but mostly she just screamed at me. I know she’s stressed with school and college apps…her first interview is today and there is proof that she is my kid…the interview isn’t until 4, but it’s a long way north, so she’s leaving right after school (like 3 hours early) to make sure she’s there in plenty of time. She has homework, and all she would do after school is go to Starbucks and do her homework anyway, so it’s just a farther-away Starbucks (or equivalent), but I’m like…oh yeah. I would totally do that too. I would be totally early, just in case.

And then last night, Dr Who was making me cry. Or life makes me cry and I just blame it on the closest TV show.

I tried to do a better job yesterday of taking care of myself, although I don’t know that going to bed early and reading a book is NOT taking care of myself…I just know it didn’t make me feel better. So last night, I meditated (because I had just been screamed at for explaining reality)…and cried through the whole thing. So much for achieving equanimity, or whatever the fuck I was supposed to be doing in my head during that 20 minutes. And then I stitched…

for a while…I’m a little over 4 hours in. Those are knees above…and a bottle below…

And at some point, I thought, “You could finish this step tonight. Totally. It wouldn’t take much longer.” True that. It wouldn’t have taken more than another hour. But it was already 11:48 PM, and I really need to work on sleeping enough each night, and that’s not how you do that. So I didn’t. I left it for tonight.

Because I know that some of my mood is affected by how much sleep I get, although if I get too much, I really don’t sleep, and then I’m more depressed the next day, so there’s some balance, some fine line…and some of it must be related to blood sugar; I’ve been having lots of lows lately. Like almost crashes but not quite. So many things that can fuck with my mood.

Life. A Moodfucker. News at 11. Or in my case, 2 AM.

A Rejected Quilt

First of all, I get rejections all the time, and not just in the art world. I’m actually pretty inured to them and take them mostly in stride, and I did this one as well. I didn’t expect to get in. The odds are against it. That said, it’s been I think 8 rejections in a row, with one acceptance that was kind of a given. The piece I’m working on now is an invitational and I was invited almost a year ago, and yes, I’ve been in shows…hell, I’ve got a piece opening in Houston in 2 1/2 weeks. But almost everything I’ve entered since January this year has been rejected.

So you do start to question what you’re doing. No, I’m not going to change and make pretty landscapes or abstract depictions of my feelings towards nature (psychedelic, man), but it’s impossible to be human and NOT say Fuck You a lot and growl a bit and complain about the universe being out to get you, even though you know that’s not really the case. And to wonder if you’re doing it right or whether you’re just wasting everyone’s time, including your own. I mean, maybe the world would be a better place if I spent all that artmaking time cleaning house instead. Or curing cancer.

And when you’re done grousing, you keep working on the fucking masterpiece that is on the ironing board right now, because it DOES have a home, an exhibit (Thank you, Sheila, for believing in me and my work. It’s much appreciated).

Meanwhile, here’s one of the quilts that Quilt National’s jurors rejected…the one I spent all summer on. The one that tears me up just to look at it.

It started out with the nickname of Menopause, because it started out being about THAT. I was having major symptoms of perimenopause, with irregular periods and hormones that were fucking with my blood sugar and my mood (I’m not sure why I’m saying WAS instead of STILL IS), and I was dealing with a severe case of depression brought on by some shitty stuff that happened that was completely unexpected and devastating and basically destroyed some part of my self in my brain, or drove it so deep that I couldn’t access it. Whatever. I’m not sure she’s all there even now, but…anyway. I started drawing in December…and continued in January…and it became this thing. This banner for who I was at the time…for who I didn’t want to be in some ways, but in others? Dammit, she’s standing strong. Leaning a bit. Not happy about it. But she’s upright.

And now, from the other side of the abyss, this quilt…it really holds so much of what I was feeling and experiencing…

That it might be a good thing it didn’t get into Quilt National, because then I would have had to try to explain it in person, on video, and I would not have been able to stand up and do that.

There’s so much sadness in this piece…

And anger. And honestly? So many pieces…

And it’s made and now I don’t know where it will ever be seen, because it’s kinda big…

And more than a little scary…

And just a bit in your face.

This is You Make Me Wanna Die…

It’s 40.5″ wide and 80″ high. And it came out of my head. And it got rejected. And it’s OK. I know it’s a fucking awesome piece. And I hope sometime in the next two or three years (before it ages out of the entry pool) that someone else figures that out.

Need. Want.

There’s this thing in my head about choices, about feeling like you don’t have choices, about the connection between that feeling and depression, and then there’s this conversation about if you can map information on the brain, if you can map learning on the brain, could you not map a happy existence onto the brain, erase PTSD, erase abuse, erase violence, erase bad things that happen to you, a la The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (that movie completely fucked with me)…

In fact, I just watched the trailer, and even that made me cry. How many years after I saw the movie in the theaters? God DAMN it. I was OK. I was. I really was. And then one thing. It’s always just one thing. It’s a matchstick on a huge firewood pile, and that fucking little thing, it topples the pile, pulls it crashing down on my fucking head and I’m in that place again. Damn, but I need to draw something. I need to spend some time in a bar with a sketchbook and a pen and people around me completely ignoring me, except for the wait staff, who are appropriately attentive, but not overly so, and someone should buy me a drink, wave at me from across the bar as the staff delivers it and stares pointedly at them, and then they fucking LEAVE, because that’s how much social interaction I need at the moment I think.

All this after I spent a perfectly nice couple of hours with stitching friends, except I wasn’t stitching, because I am a woman on a semi-psychotic mission that seems never-ending some days. Because yes, I will finish this quilt, because I have a deadline and it’s important and it’s good, but there is another one in line, and when that one is done, there will be another one, because there always is and there is nothing else.

Is this related to the girlchild’s vomitfest from last night (let’s all hope it was food poisoning, because she ate at her dad’s, not my house, and I can’t afford days of vomit at the moment…or like ever).

FUCK.

Deep breaths. Really, universe, you keep trying, and I sit in my chair, cross my legs. flip you off calmly, and say “Bring it the fuck on. I can do it.” And then at midnight, my brain implodes into a ball of messed-up goo.

What’s left to be cut out…

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s time-consuming. Maybe tomorrow night? Maybe if it’s not a fucked-up mess like tonight?

Actually, I cut out for 2.5 hours tonight, between the meeting and home. So fuck you. Bastards. I did work.

I’m at 8.5 hours. I don’t think it’s going to take 15 total…maybe another 3?

Here’s what’s done and what’s trash…

Lots of big body pieces cut out today. It’s good. No really. Fuck you brain, it IS good.

I think I need to learn to filter better. Filter the stuff that sends me off balance. I know I could do that if conditions were right (they’re not).

Need. Want. I did a quilt about that…

One of the few sold. Need on the TV. It’s actually called Lost. But yeah. Need.

Tomorrow’s brain. It should function better than today’s.