Everything Is OK with Everything…

It’s supposed to be very warm today. I’m hoping the A/C at school keeps up. I’m already sweating at home. I made dinner last night for Tuesday, which is the last supremely hot day…supposedly. For now. I wanted to be able to go to the gym on Tuesday and come back and just throw something together, and so we’ll see if that works. I have to really scramble sometimes to make sure I can exercise on top of all the other stuff, especially in the first few weeks of school, with my parents gone, trying to get back in a routine. Blah blah blah. I realized around 6 PM last night that I hadn’t actually made posts for this school week. They weren’t exactly like last year’s, so I couldn’t just copy from the old class. I still need to make a demo video of one of them. And finish setting up labs. I was at school on Friday until 6:15 setting up labs, after a remarkably useless meeting. Today is another meeting, but I think just one. Oh yeah, the dryer died again, so I gave up on it, even though it is just under 8 years old, and bought a new one. Good thing I did that extra work this summer. So I got home on Friday to a dead dryer and decisions about that. I also booked camping for the end of September. So stressful to pick the ‘right’ campsite. Luckily there weren’t many choices? Is that lucky? Probably waited too long. Hopefully it won’t be over 100 degrees that weekend. Our Fall looks a lot like Summer. Also dealt with a sprinkler issue at the parents’. Had to call Ireland for that one. Anyway. Hopefully everything is OK with everything now.

This quilt. Man. It’s because there are so many discrete little things on it, and each needs to be considered by itself but again as part of the whole in terms of fabric and color. It just takes forever. I snuck in a little extra time this weekend on the ironing, and still haven’t hit halfway. I think. It’s hard to say. So many tiny pieces.

I ironed Friday night, the umbrella I think…

Oh yeah. And I picked the justice robe fabrics for the three I like. They got black with color.

Then Saturday, I worked on the goddess’ legs and lower torso, finally.

A closeup on the box.

Sunday, I ironed three whole pieces to fabric. I had a late start because I was cooking two meals, had to run to Staples for toner cartridges (the printer’s like, ‘Imma run out of ink’ and then that was it…it was out. No real warning where I could order stuff. Just done.), then getting stuff graded and ready for teaching this week. I don’t have help on a couple of tasks, and I have a new task (well, we used to do it before COVID, so not REALLY new? But it’s been a few years.), so I’m not in the routine yet. I need to do more during the school week, but last week was a doozy. So this one should be better, and then the next one is OK too, but the one after that is a clusterfuck and a half. So there’s that. I didn’t even iron BIG pieces. I ironed an earthworm. It’s pink. See it?

Yeah, but I did lay out all the other justice robes, the bad guys. I used two runs of four black fabrics.

Kitten did not help. I didn’t iron any of these, because it was almost 11 and that’s a goodly chunk of ironing. So that’s tonight.

I pulled from all the boxes from the 800s to the 1500s, and then I left piles of the rest of the justices: what they’re holding, their feet and hands, and their faces. Watch the video for details.

So I still have to go back and iron all those faces. Complicated. Probably gonna need runs of 6-7 fabrics for each. I’ve got some runs of 4-5 in one of the bins from some other part of this quilt…that’s going to be the complicated part.

So I’m in the 800s, but I’ve done some of the 900s through 1500s. This makes it very hard to know where I’m at in terms of the whole thing. I might be halfway? Certainly close. And I’ve been ironing for 18 1/2 hours, just to give you an idea. This might be the most complicated, time-consuming thing I’ve ever ironed. It’s a marathon. So my revised estimate for finishing the ironing to fabric is this weekend, mostly because it’s a 3-day weekend, so I have some extra time. I also have nothing planned (I blew off one of the things I was supposed to do on Saturday). So that helps. This is not a side job. It’s another job. Two jobs y’all. Plus the copyediting…that’s a side job.

Saturday, we went for a hike at 6 PM. It was too hot before that. 6 was just about right.

My parents’ dog Katie is not used to 3 miles, but she did it. She’s getting older, but she was a trooper. Except when she kept trying to turn around. She gets a walk every day with my parents, but I can’t do that when I don’t get home until dinnertime.

Anyway. She slept well Saturday night.

We noticed these new anthills. There’s always been these spread-out hills, but I haven’t seen these tower things before.

And deer tracks.

Or big hare? Possibly. We know there are deer out there, even if we don’t see them. I really am trying to get that hike in every week. Heat and time don’t help.

The cat condo is currently in the bedroom to give the cats some space from Katie…although to tell the truth, I think they’re fine.

I’ve watched both cats walk right past her to get to the food and then back out into the living room. She just stares at them. She used to chase them. No longer.

Yeah. Well. Sometimes. Feel free to explain electrical hookups to me. Or space. But not the English language. Some issues. Some issues from 8th-grade boys! Oh fun.

OK. Energy preview today. Staff meeting. Hopefully efficient use of prep time and meeting time. Grade some stuff (I didn’t get through all the school stuff in the end). Survive the heat. Go to Lowes and return the stuff they said I had to have to install the dryer (even though I already had those things) plus get a refund for the thing they said I had to have and they didn’t bring. Pick up the parental mail, because the store was closed all weekend. I was supposed to go Friday but didn’t leave school until after they were closed. READ MY BOOK. Seriously. Fuck the world if I can’t do that every day for at least a little while. Then iron some justice robes tonight. In here. Where it will probably still be 90 degrees. Woo hoo!

See the Chaos…

Oh my. First full week of school. Started losing my voice yesterday (again)…but I made it one more day this week! Yesterday I talked all day. Nonstop. Ugh. Lecture/notes stuff. It had to happen. Today? Today they make slides. By themselves. The second most common question from a middle-school kid (after “how old are you?”) is “Can we work with partners?”. Not today. All next week? Yes. Not today. I have this one kid who might be on the spectrum and he’s kinda driving me nuts. He is constantly raising his hand, which shouldn’t be annoying, because at least he doesn’t just yell things out, but when his hand is in the air, he’s not listening, so I’ll get the same answer I just got from another kid. He always raises his hand. For everything. I’m working on getting the rest of the class to answer right now. Might have to resort to popsicle sticks for answering questions. It wouldn’t be the first time.

There are some parts of school that are easier this year, but I’m at 7 hours of afterschool meetings after the one this afternoon. In one week. Too many. In September, there’s one week that might kill me. It’s a lot. I’m really looking forward to this weekend, except there’s no dinner plan for tonight and that is always a mistake. And I have to start grading, which kind of sucks. Because once I start, I have to keep going until June. Seriously. No breaks.

So I’m struggling to get ironing done around all this. Wednesday night, I got home after 6, after 2 hours of a sex-ed curriculum meeting. The pro is that the state has our backs. They wrote something (California Healthy Youth Act) that is on our sides, not the kneejerk parents’ side. I just need them to opt out, but one actually said, “I thought this was a meeting to decide what our children were going to learn.” Sigh. And if you think that, please go get your teaching degree and credential and join us. Or homeschool them. Because I’m tired of people negating my 21 years in the classroom and educational/professional experience. You know better? Then you fucking do it. I need to teach ALL the kids, the kids with two moms, the kids going by names that you don’t think match their gender, the kids who are attracted to the same or both genders. I teach ALL of them. I respect and honor ALL of them. Not just your kid. And I don’t hold your idiocy against your kid. I hope they do better.

So I ironed after that, after dinner, after IDK what else.

So this is what it really looks like while I’m ironing. Piles of fabric that I pull out, I go get more from my drawers, I pile those up, there’s piles and piles. And then I put them all in the bins to make it neat each night for the photo. This thing has a lot of fabrics in it and I’m not even halfway.

I ironed a lot of body parts.

Little ones. There are a lot of people in this quilt. Twenty-six? If you count the Swamp Thing (I didn’t), it’s 27. And they each need different shades of fabric. Last night, I did their clothes.

I didn’t quite finish. I have one more to go. Then IDK what.

Usually I would crop photos like this so you only saw the fabrics, but then I was like, no, let them see the chaos. Iron on the edge because all the boxes of the rest of the pieces are taking up so much room, teacup full of tea, unfinished stuff everywhere, fan on because it’s still warm in here at the end of the day. It’s supposed to be 102 degrees next week. Not a fan (ha ha I’ll need a fan though). So this was clean up. Put all the piles in the bins so I can see them. The bin on the top left is all flesh tones, and I’ll need to go darker still for some of the justices. Probably pinker too. Lots of pink. Too much pink. Next up? The umbrella and then, FINALLY, the goddess legs. That will go quickly. Dirt and roots.

I’m about 20 pieces away from 700. That said, I’ve already ironed some of the numbers higher than that. So let’s say 700. Only 1350 to go! Woo! JAYSUS. In the last 7 days, I’ve managed 7 hours of ironing. The previous week? 9. Before school fucking started? 14…well, that was the week I went back for 3 days. The week before? 19 hours. Sigh. Fucking sigh. Last night, we had to deal with the dryer, after a 2-hour sex-ed meeting, after my stitching Zoom (which I appreciated, don’t get me wrong, even though I didn’t do much). So I didn’t start ironing until 9:50 pm. May tonight be better. Please.

Well, on top of all that, Nova has a bladder infection that might be part of a genetic issue, so she’s on meds. Kitten’s gastro stuff got significantly worse, so the Man picked up 5 meds for her last night because I couldn’t get to the vet in time. She doesn’t feel well; she actually hissed at me this morning. That said, she took all her meds and is back to sleeping in the blue fabric drawer of fabrics I will have to wash to get clean at this point.

And Katie is here.

Katie is absolutely chill, but the cats remember times when she wasn’t, and they are freaked out. They walk right past her though, in the dark, so IDK what the issue is. Everyone is adjusting.

SO! Don’t talk at school today if I don’t have to. Get the energy labs set up. Finish cutting out all the energy cards. Roll around and talk to all the kids today (I roll around on a chair…it’s fun) (wait, I said don’t talk…don’t talk LOUDLY). Survive the meeting after school…I didn’t even tell you how someone came in my classroom and stole the bag all my literacy books are in, but I have to take them to multiple meetings and now I don’t have a bag for all that shit. So frustrating. It’s fine. It’s almost done. The week is almost done. Write warmups for next week. Let all the stuff I had to do last year to survive planning 8th grade go and start planning with the new teacher, who may or may not be willing to adjust/adapt. She needs to be. I don’t know how to flat out tell her that, but I suspect I will need to at some point. I need so many things right now. It’s fine. Really. I got this. More tea though.

Sweet Dirty Floors

The internet is molasses today. Man, this week sucks for after school. Meeting after meeting after meeting. I hate Friday meetings. And we haven’t even gotten to the parents we need to meet with (on the 6th day of school, we already have two concerns, academic, not behavior). I got 5 new kids yesterday with no warning…those emails warning me came after two kids I didn’t recognize showed up in my class, ready to learn (really?), even though I wasn’t prepared. I actually gave an assessment yesterday, a quiz. And yes, I made 3 of them do it (the other kids came too late). Well, one didn’t have a computer, so not him. Two of them. Some were already at our school in the Newcomer program we have for kids who are new to the country. So we expect them to be unclear on science concepts and sometimes in need of lots of help. The first month is such a juggling act, too much shit; it’s a relief (usually) to get to the end of September and some sort of normal routine. But right now, science is a lot, union is a lot, literacy is a lot, sex ed is a lot. Today is the first of two 2-hour meetings this week with parents and school-board members about creating a sex ed curriculum that is specific to our kids. I think this is idiotic. Programs already exist. Why reinvent the wheel? You can’t NOT teach the stuff this group doesn’t like…it’s required by the state. My boss. Opt your kids out. Please. And yes, I am getting paid for these meetings, but I’m not sure you could pay me enough to make this worth it.

Anyway. So I come home and cook dinner or eat it or whatever, and read my book for a little bit, because I NEED that, and after all that, I iron. I don’t clean or dust or vacuum (oh man, the one thing the hurricane did was mess up the floors I had just cleaned. Fucker). I have my priorities. Monday night…I ironed a lot of money. I tend to iron in numeric order, but I took this picture…

Because I was going in numerical order, and then I’m like, there’s about 75 pieces that are money and I should just iron them all at the same time, so I rummaged through the 500s through 1000s and found them all, and then did all of them. It’s more efficient that way, and it adds to continuity in the piece to have all the money be the same color. I’ll do the same with the justice’s robes. Probably. I’m debating on that. I have some black fabrics with bits of color and I may use those for the justices who are more for ALL the people than some of them. We’ll see.

Anyway, so these pieces are tiny and even if I iron 100 of them, it doesn’t look like I did much of anything.

But I did. Maybe the closeups are more useful…

You can see the money and the fish I ironed. Plus a fishing pole. Yeah.

Then last night, I wanted more than an hour…and yes, I’m still staying up too late at night. Not good. But I did a whole bunch of people parts, little people. So I think it was almost all fleshy bits, except for a slippery hill.

Many versions of flesh and a big green piece. I still have some of the 500s left (the clothes and apparati of the fleshy bits, some signs, a recycling bin, a wheelchair), but you’ll notice some of the flesh was in the 600s. Nowhere near halfway. The goddess’ legs weren’t next. I thought they were. I think they are next after I do these people. There might be an umbrella before that. It’s slow, people, so slow, and coming home the next two nights after 6 PM is not going to help.

Doesn’t look very colorful here. I like color. You may have noticed. There will be lots of black, gray, and fleshtones in this one. I think the goddess will be more dirt and sky. That’s the plan anyway. Something has to be tied to the earth.

My anti-anti-abortionists quilt, My Body. My Choice., is still at the Virginia Quilt Museum. They sent photos of it in situ, which was nice, because I hadn’t seen any.

There’s a fall artists reception on September 23, from 4-6 PM. I won’t be there, but the exhibit looks cool. Check it out. There’s my piece on the left. I don’t know whose the other pieces are.

I’m intrigued by the tools to the right of mine.

Simba was not pleased by my perusal of his fur for knotted bits…

It’s a constant struggle.

I’m sewing things down brainlessly after dinner for a bit. It’s satisfying.

Sue Spargo’s Forest for the Trees block of the month. The trees are cute. This one has crabs and fish. Totally opposite to the crazy shit I’m doing on my own quilt. Perfect!

OK, today I’m having the kids practice writing CERs (claim, evidence, reasoning). Should be interesting. My new 8th-grade teacher, who I have barely worked with, does not know what a CER is. Sigh. That will be fun. We meet today. Hopefully we can work together. I don’t know her well enough to get a good read on it so far. Then two hours of kneejerk stupidity. I will be breathing deeply and taking notes to control my need to yell at them for their ignorance. I’m hoping it’s productive. Got 16 hours total to deal with these people.

Then home. Sweet home. Ugh. Sweet dirty floors and dogs and cats and dirty counters and stuff that needs doing and trash that needs to go out. But ironing after. People accroutrement and all.

Hazardous Mattress

Well I love short weeks at school. Must say it. Three-day week…just about what I can handle. It’s OK. Then we have two 5-day weeks and then a 3-day weekend. I don’t love coming home exhausted and rewriting my to-do list every day with nothing crossed off. I took a 20-minute nap yesterday (yes, I set an alarm). I stayed later at school to clean up the lab (which went really well) and set up for today, so blood sugar was crashing on the way out the door (hello yogurt!), then got home and opened every window (no A/C here), peed the poor dog, grabbed the mail and trashcans, ate more stuff because blood sugar still not happy with me. Then napped. Then Zoomed while editing 20 videos of kids doing the lab into 1. The best group yesterday all worked together, awesome, 2/3 special ed kids. Super impressed with those kids. All the kids seem OK so far, but it’s really at 2 weeks that we see for real what it might be like. We have some high flyers from last year, one who is already driving me a little bonkers, but not too bad. Last year, I had COVID for the first 10 days of school, so we didn’t do any of the fun stuff at the beginning. I’m a little behind in planning and making assignments because I wasn’t here those days, so I have to create new stuff, but I think it’s all working out OK. We’ll see.

The lab was about teamwork (always), so they had to dump one cup of M&Ms (toxic waste) into another empty cup (neutralizer) without touching the cups with their hands, and without putting their hands in or above the red haz-waste zone.

I had the kids tell me what they thought ‘haz-mat’ meant, and most of them figured it out, but my favorite, laugh-out-loud moment was the kid who yelled out ‘hazardous mattress!’. Oh yeah. That’s sticking.

I got the awesome news Wednesday that Woman Version 3.0 got into Stitchpunk and will be traveling with that show, which opens at the New England Quilt Museum in April 2024. Maybe it’ll even be during my Spring Break and I can go (but probably not!).

I really loved making this quilt. It’s a lot of weird biopunk, genetic engineering, and mutational wonder. You can thank my reading Margaret Atwood for the last 30 years, plus all the other dystopian sci fi I’ve read over the years. Plus my overactive imagination. I’m glad it will travel.

Meanwhile, I’m carving out that hour (plus when I can) of ironing every night. It’s hot, so that doesn’t help my motivation. My current school shoes suck, so my feet hurt by the end of the day, and this is standing at an ironing board, so that doesn’t help either. Plus I can have a fan under the ironing board, but not on my face, because the Wonder Under pieces would fly away, so that is also hard. That said, I do it anyway. Wednesday night, I started ironing the swamp under the questionable justices…

Last night, I finished the swamp by ironing the alligators and the Swamp Thing. It didn’t seem like much, but it took most of an hour. I also laid out all the 200s. Yeah, I have officially ironed 200 whole pieces in a lot of hours. I’m hoping it gets faster. It usually does. I don’t have anything to grade yet, so I really have no excuse for not coming home and hopping in here, except for the heat and the exhaustion. Yeah. Well. Tomorrow would be a great day for ironing, but I have a retreat thing to do. These are the times I turn into an ultra-introvert. I don’t have any weekends truly free until that glorious 3-day weekend.

That’s two weeks away, so hopefully I’m done ironing by then. But maybe not. At this rate. Sigh. It’s slow because there’s a lot of choices to be made. I can do huge numbers of pieces when lots of them will be similar or the same…but this quilt doesn’t have a lot of that. Even with the justices and their robes, I will need multiple black fabrics, and each justice overlaps another, so I will need to be able to see the differences between them. Ah well. Again, it is always the designer’s fault. And that’s me.

Trying something new on Simba’s crusty nose.

Seems to be working, although he’s not truly a fan of the process. It’s all natural, so when he licks it off, it’ll probably just help his coat be smoother. That’s what I tell him anyway. He gives me side-eye.

Still avoiding spiderwebs everywhere I walk in the yard.

I told the spiders this morning about the hurricane/cyclone headed our way. People are freaking out. I’m not a fan of high winds myself, and we have a fire southeast of here that doesn’t need wind at all (think Lahaina)…so the boychild is on hold for a few hours. Not sure if he’ll be home in the next few days or not. Someone asked me if they’d cancel school on Monday. I doubt it. They don’t cancel school for much…power outage once (countywide), smoke from two major fires (countywide). Yes, there’s supposed to be a lot of rain Monday, but…I doubt it will mean a day off. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be home and watching my trees (not falling, hopefully) than at school, but if there’s no power, I can’t iron. I’m up on a hill, so flooding isn’t much of an issue for us. I know it will be for some though. Until they finalize landfall, though, we don’t know much.

OK, so SpongeBob safety assignment today. Gotta love that little yellow square guy. Then hopefully ironing tonight. I had forgotten how much easier it was to teach just one subject, which I haven’t done since the year we went out on COVID. So much easier. I do miss my co-teacher though. She’d be horrified by the prep room at the moment. So many things I don’t know what to do with. Actually, she’d probably just come in and figure out where to put things, which might be part of why I miss her. It’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out. Maybe today I can have the teachers’ aide I’ve never met sort washers into piles by size. Yeah! One thing at a time.

Untitled #1

OK, I have a good reason (or 10) for being late today. Just trust me. I could’ve gotten up earlier and written this, but you know what? I have just two days left before school stuff starts for real, and I didn’t wanna. So there.

So where’s the art at? Now that school will suck up a major portion of my life and I won’t get more than an hour or two a night? Well, the good news is that I finished tracing on Saturday night…almost 6 yards of Wonder Under in 23 1/2 hours…

And then last night, I started cutting all that out.

Guess what? It’s not fast. And chicken butt.

It’s fine. I’ll finish it this week hopefully and get it sorted, and then I can spend the next two weeks ironing it to fabric.

My quilt guild met on Saturday, so I did a little more on this…

Which will probably never be finished.

We also walked the dog…

It was after 6 PM before it was cool enough. Speaking of cool, we saw this tarantula and tarantula hawk wasp that had apparently been in a struggle…there were drag marks across the path…

So when you watch our video below, you’ll hear us guessing what is gonna happen next…

Oh no. Well here is what actually happens: The female tarantula hawk wasp stings a tarantula between the legs, paralyzes it, then drags the prey to a specially prepared burrow, where a single egg is laid on the spider’s abdomen, and the burrow entrance is covered. But oh yes, that spider is dinner for the progeny. Yummy. Mmhmm. Yup. Pretty cool to see it, although the creepy crawly things were going up and down my spine the whole time.

This morning, my co-teacher and I went to the Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art. It’s not that I don’t like Moore’s stuff…it’s just that I think I need to see it full size and I need to touch it. The security people are very much NOT about the touching. I understand…but also the airspace around things is sacred. Yeah. OK.

Anyway, it was a cool exhibit…quite a few O’Keeffe goodies in the show. You only have until 8/26 though. At the end is an interactive thing where you can sit down and color. I wonder sometimes why teacher professional development doesn’t have more sitting down and coloring, because it calms adults AND kids. The days we do cover pages of units at school are the calmest chillest ever.

And then we hung them up with everybody else’s and left them there.

Which is always a weird thing to do as an artist who sells their work, but this isn’t worth anything except in tribute to O’Keeffe. So there we are.

OK, so for the rest of the day, I need to organize all my clothes, cut the cord with cable TV, finish uploading 12 thousand photos to my art group’s Google Drive, try to organize WTF I’m doing the first week or so of school, finish the gardening list, and I don’t know, read a book or something. I’m reading Margaret Atwood’s book of essays, Burning Questions, but probably need some actual fiction as well. But seriously, these two old ladies of word and image…

When you read about O’Keeffe arguing that her flowers were just flowers, and not female genitalia, not what the masculine gaze demands, and you think back to your art/reading education and realize it was always from the male gaze…man, it just makes making art as a woman such a better thing to be doing in this world. As I get older, I get more and more feminist. I am also less concerned about wearing a bra…although that’s not such a shocker if you know me. OK. Do the things.

Wishing That…

Late again, lost my days. Not many left until every week is prescribed, Monday this, Tuesday that. So it’s OK that I lost one? Maybe. I was doing something else, posting for an art group I’m in…and then had to drive forever for a meeting for another art group. I have more of that to do today for another art group and some organization for yet a third art group. Volunteering is hard.

I’m still tracing, but I’m close to done.

It’s funny, because I’ll comment on social media on things, like this necklace…I knew I was making it harder for myself by drawing this, and one part of my brain thinks it’s stupid, but I know I can do it, so it’s OK, but people are like rushing to give me alternatives. It’s OK.

I know what the alternatives are. I chose to do it this way. My brain already had that conversation. I guess people just want to help…and I’m help-adverse. Independently minded. Nope, I’m good.

I traced just under 2 hours on Thursday, because we went to a concert that afternoon/evening. Then Friday, I did a few more hours.

This is where I’m at…in the mid 1700s, so about 300 pieces to go. I’ve finished the justices except for Ruth and all of the Supreme Court building. I’m up into the goddess and all that stuff. Almost done. Maybe today? Who knows. Today’s to-do list is massive.

One of the things I need to do is get this piece of a jade plant that broke because it was too heavy into the ground, probably in pieces.

Poor thing.

Annie getting pets after being peed…

Only a couple more days I can do that I think before I go back.

I walked Simba one morning, but it was already too hot.

I had water, kept him in the shade as much as possible, and kept it short. He was so excited though.

I also want more walks but am too hot. Not as hot as he is though. So I’m careful with when and where I take him.

Nova guarding the Wonder Under box.

Also there’s a breeze up there on the light table.

Simba excited about bedtime for some reason.

Or maybe just excited to be him.

So the concert we went to was Danny Elfman…

Yeah, he’s old. And it did show in what he could do, but it was still fun. We were invited by the Man’s brother and SIL to join them in box seats, which were pretty awesome.

Space around us, nice padded seats, drink service, etc. Nice touch. I’ve avoided the big stadium-like shows for years, but this was very nice.

They played some Oingo Boingo, some from his new album (which was eh), and lots of musical scores from movies and TV shows, with clips, which was cool.

I didn’t realize all the things he’d done music for…

I really want to watch all the video behind him again…there were some truly inspirational things going on, very surreal, sometimes not so nice, but some very cool stuff. I’m sure they’ll make a video/movie/doc and I can watch it again then, right? Anyway, we had fun, but I think we’re still tired from it, two days later. Because we’re old. And I don’t sleep.

OK, it is Saturday. I’d like to walk the dog (and ourselves) later. I need to get that jade plant in the ground, and then get some things crossed off the to-do list. I have a quilt guild meeting first though, so I should do that, with more caffeine. This is my last Saturday before I go back to school. I don’t feel like I have it in me this year, but I’ll figure it out. I never get particularly rah rah about going back anyway, but it would be nice if it didn’t take me 2-3 hours to fall asleep every night. Yeah. Wishing that for myself.

Days Disappear

Well. I finished the drawing. And I numbered it. That in itself is a major achievement for the week. I’ve also been copyediting a teacher’s manual, which is different, but not. It’s work. I need the money to pay for the dog’s dental visit and the dryer fix, which both add up to much more than I will get paid for this, but that’s OK. It means I spend a few hours each day staring at this computer in this hot room and feeling like I’m getting nothing done. Which is fine. It’s too hot to do the other things anyway. I currently have two fans blowing almost directly on me, not on my eyeballs, because they get dry and weepy and tired if I do that. My goal is to finish the copyediting this week, around the other things I need to do, and then next week is mostly wide open, if I ignore all the appointments and meetings I tossed in there. Yeah. That. They have to happen sometime. I did get the referral to musculoskeletal for my knee…they messaged asking for days/times, and I ever so hopefully gave them all this time before school started, and then realistically gave them some guidelines for after school starting, and then said if it was more than a month out with those guidelines, to use these other guidelines. I have an appointment in October. They should have just said they were booking two months out. I’m glad I’m mobile and can get around…it just hurts. It’s workable.

So finishing the drawing happened in bits and pieces at night, when it cooled down. I can’t draw in the heat and make sense of it. This was near the end…most of the last bit was penciled in when I went to bed on Sunday…

And then I finished it Monday night…

It’s about 48″ x 56″ I think. Not as big as I thought, but still big. And complicated. Kitten for scale…

I started numbering it Monday night and realized it would take forever…

So I finished last night, very late…didn’t even start until 10 something…

I thought it was 2023 pieces last night, thought that was weird because that’s this year, but it was actually 2029, which is funny, because that’s the year I’ve set for retiring from teaching. It may slip a year or two, but that’s the goal, that’s what’s keeping me going with all the clusterfucks, and yes, I’ll still have to work, copyediting or something else, but it won’t be in the classroom.

I had guessed 2000 pieces, so that was a good guess. I knew it was complicated. It took 15 hours and 38 minutes to draw it and 2 hours and 54 minutes to number it. Big time. Tonight I start tracing. It’s good going into the new school year with a big project. I appreciate the meditative time to work on it.

I did a little of this while watching TV over the last few nights.

Very basic applique. All I can handle. I say that, and I’m reading two books at a time. Not sure why. Some sort of ploy by my brain to read twice as much because I haven’t read any of that book today, even though I spent an hour reading the other one. I’m going along with it for now.

I have work in this show, opening August 11 at the downtown library in San Diego.

I’ve never had work in the library gallery, so that’s cool.

I don’t want to be tolerated. True that. I also like my tea really strong.

This guy has been licking his leg where they shaved all the hair off for his dental visit. So it is time for the floatie around his neck.

It’s hot and uncomfortable and he keeps looking at me like this, please take it off, but sir, you have licked a sore onto your leg and we will not be dealing with infected leg sores. It is not on the Bingo card for summer. So there.

OK. Today. Sorting through clothes, found a white school shirt that I will never wear because it is white, so I’m going to tie dye it…it’s a good size and fit, so that’s why I don’t just toss it or donate it or whatever. Copyediting…hopefully going to get all these silly Lesson boxes done that all have to be formatted the same but aren’t. I know I’m a copyeditor because I pay attention to this stuff; I’m just amazed at the people who don’t pay attention. I shouldn’t be. I need to pack up a quilt for delivery to a show…I probably need to pack up two quilts, but the other one isn’t due until next week, so maybe I’ll delay on that. I have yardwork…ALWAYS have yardwork. And tracing Wonder Under later. A book to go back to the physical library. Strange that these days…almost everything I read is digital unless I own it. And reading those two books…crucial part of the day. Oh wait, I have pilates too. That’s nice. I should remember to go to that. Days disappear if you aren’t watching. That’s not entirely a bad thing unless you’re like me and you like to check off the boxes of what you’ve done.

Fold All the Laundry I Didn’t Fold

Mmmm. No class today. Well. I say that and I signed up for a different kind of pilates class, just because I wanted to try it out and that shit’s harder to do during the school year. But I like pilates and it’s actually an exercise class, which is good for me. No more literacy class this week…I did learn some things, but more remembered that we need to do more to boost reading, and that takes time, and time is something we may not have a lot of, so there’s that. But with two+ teams doing it all together, hopefully we can make some progress with the kids. Here was my setup on the last day, with everything back in the purple bag, which will go to school, plus the stitching I did to help me focus.

I put away all the highlighters and pens and post-its. Now I officially don’t have to think about school until…the next crazy email comes from that one teacher who apparently has nothing to do over break, no books to read, no relaxing beaches to lie on (I don’t really do that anyway), no giant-ass drawings to finish. Oh wait, that one’s me. I’m hoping to finish the drawing today. In between pilates, laundry, cleaning, moving gravel (got a whole ‘nother pile of it that needs moving), keeping the pup from licking his shaved foot (he had a dental cleaning on Friday and is notoriously bad about licking a sore into shaved areas)…all the things. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so that will be (not) fun. Not sure what my plan is for that. The boychild is home but going to training all day and then leaves again on Friday for his regular shift. Exhausting. I guess I work all week, but not like that. Gotta take days off…he had yesterday off. At least he has the pup in bed at night, so I have some chance of a decent night’s sleep.

No one seems inclined to dust or vacuum or mop…even me, it seems. Oh! I also need to copyedit. I put my editing service back into vacation mode, declined all the other offers I’d gotten, so I’m down to the one. That’s the one I can handle. I have two weeks to do it, and it’s not very big, but I should actually start. Yeah. This afternoon. I will.

So the drawing. The drawing has progressed. My Art Brain has been engaged, now that it doesn’t have to think about Latin roots and spelling rules. And pretend teaching those. So Friday night, I drew the swamp. It was in my notes…and I’m realizing, I need to write a post that just documents all the stuff I took notes about and was thinking while I was drawing, because it may not be so so obvious from just looking at it. But here’s the swamp…

I hid a Swamp Thing in it.

Then what did I do next? Oh yeah, started working on the pedestals under the swamp justices.

Finished those last night…

So Gorsuch is all corporation instead of individual, so he is standing on individual people, who are sort of compressed by him. Alito has had some issues with a fishing trip and possibly some other money-related things, so he has the fish and the money. Roberts is a mess, with money clouding any decision he makes. He also seems to make decisions completely against his own race…he seems race-blind to me, or maybe if he does that, that’s how he gets the money. So I added a few chained slaves to his pedestal, because I’m not sure he remembers…I would like the Court to have more people of color, all colors, to make the decisions more diverse, more pro those groups who need support. I don’t think he does that. Kavanaugh likes beer. He also has some sexual issues of harassment in the past that popped up (ha!) before his confirmation, but it’s OK, because boys will be boys, right? Sigh. Let’s not use that as an excuse for bad behavior. Please. Amy. Oh Amy. Coney Barrett has People of Praise behind her. She claims she speaks for all people, that her religion doesn’t shape her decisions, but like the other swamp judges, I don’t find her trustworthy. Religion is fine unless it’s making decisions for a bunch of people who don’t subscribe to that religion…and reproductive freedom is something all five of these judges have voted against. Four of them have penises, so they have no right dealing with a uterus…and the other one thinks LGTBQ marriages are a sin. So should she be in the Court? Nah. I don’t think so…not representing the people and not interpreting the law appropriately for ALL the people.

So why is Roberts on the other side? Well, it was getting crowded on that side and occasionally he votes like a sane person. OCCASIONALLY. He’s also skating on a slippery slope. He has the key to the Court (being the Big Guy, the one in charge). I still think he’s pretty swampy, but…so I’m probably going to have to copy some of this into a Court post. I’ll do that. And go back and explain some of the other decisions I made. You may not agree. I’m OK with that. Unless you think we shouldn’t have rights, like all of us, then I’m not OK with it. Feel free to limit your own rights. Then get out of my face.

I’m still working on the left side. Literally and figuratively. But I need to go to class, so I’ll be back. You won’t even notice.

So the other thing we did on Saturday, which was a little nuts, was drive up to Los Angeles. I had an opening in Torrance (which wouldn’t have been as bad), but there was a show in LA that I wanted to see that closes in a couple of weeks, Faith Ringgold: A Survey, at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery in LA.

I know I have Faith’s Tar Beach book somewhere in the house. I loved her people flying in the sky at night. In looking at her website, I might need to buy more books.

I also love her mix of paintings with quilts. Although here is one of her prints, also very cool.

The handwritten words on this one…

Very powerful seeing her work in person.

Strangely, the same gallery had some work by one of my university painting instructors, Judy Baca. She has created some fairly awesome murals in Los Angeles over the years.

Honestly, although her art and achievements are impressive, she was (for me) not the most present professor. The rumor was that she was working on a mural in Los Angeles the semester I had her, so the teacher’s aide ran (ha! he did nothing) the class, and then she would show up maybe once a month and berate many of us. I have some serious painting PTSD from her class. Maybe not all artists should teach art? I don’t know…your mileage may vary. Maybe it was a bad year for her. I just didn’t really paint after that class. I still don’t think I CAN paint. That said, a lot of the art classes at UCIrvine were just show up, get an assignment, and go make something that meets it. There was very little technical instruction. We were often just left to our own devices…so there’s pros and cons to that. I do appreciate the time to mess around and fuck with stuff, but sometimes, a little more technical know-how might have been useful (exploded my ceramics final in the kiln, which I don’t actually think was MY fault, but I made do…glued all the parts to a plywood board…most were whole and the ones that weren’t, I glued the pieces and then the shards and quickly rewrote my statement). Sometimes I think I’d really like to go back to art school now just with a stronger, more confident state of mind, but then my adult brain slaps my face and says NO NO NO, we are NOT getting another degree. But maybe more art classes would be fun.

Also in the Deitch gallery was Karon Davis: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, which was very powerful. I didn’t photograph the whole thing, because I couldn’t figure out an angle that showed how large and dominating the judge and flag were in the face of this figure of Bobby Seale during the Chicago 8 trial.

Whitewashed. Beautifully painful work.

I had been scrolling through Instagram the day before we left (like you do when you are supposed to be listening to someone talk about teaching vocabulary) and saw an artist whose work I love post that her stuff was in a show in LA…hey, I’m going to LA…I could stop by if it’s close. It was close to the other gallery, and on the way back to the museum in Torrance, so we headed for a small gallery, the Seis Gallery. The show was called The Horror…

And included two pieces by Svetlana Shigroff. This is Sim-Ya…

And this is Refusal of Man…

I took a tufting class from her before COVID, and it was fun, but crazy lots of work. I say that knowing full well my stuff is also a crazy lot of work…it’s just what do we want to do more of. Anyway, it was cool to have a chance to see more of her stuff in person.

Straight up, traffic going to LA was horrible. It was a long day. We saw good art, but were exhausted by the end of it.

I have another LA opening coming up in September. Makes you think about driving to these things. We spent over 10 hours going up, going to three shows, eating dinner, and coming back. And we were exhausted the next day too.

So the Torrance Art Museum had two shows, one of which I was in (hence the original reason for all this). Art and Med, curated by Ted Meyer…

Here’s a video of the whole thing…

I did take a few photos, but was mostly (as always) overwhelmed. Plus I forgot how to smile, so a lot of the photos of me look psychotic. A good look for the summer. But here’s my piece, Here Comes Life…

And here’s Bhavna Mehta’s beautiful piece, I Found a River in My Body #3…

With a detail of her embroidery…

The other show in the museum is Body Politics…

Which also had some beautiful work…Liz Young’s Skinning Spilling Soiling Swelling Stuffing Balls.

I did Google this one because I wanted to know more about the thoughts behind the piece. I really liked that the Art and Med show had explanations with the art, and I can see the point of having the art stand alone, but…I don’t know. There must be a fine line there.

This was Bather (after Ingres) by Katherine Sherwood.

Sherwood makes a lot of work highlighting disabilities, having had a cerebral hemorrhage and having to relearn the process of making art with her other hand. Her work was wonderful, incorporating brain scans into the paintings.

I’ll try to post more art from these two shows later this week. I know this post is already LOOOONG…all in all, though, a good art day. Though tiring. Says Nova.

Also here is my brain at the moment.

Or always. Not sure.

Friday night, we also found this in the yard.

It has flashing red lights, presumably so it can be found easily, but it made me think it might be a drone, so I left it there. Like I’m not bringing that crazy shit in the house. The Man stomped out there and then left it on the deck after talking to it, also thinking it might be a drone. But it doesn’t seem to have a motor. Just flashing lights, which can be turned off. You might think, just throw it back into the yard it came from. Well, we have kids on all three sides, so it could be any of those houses. So IDK what to do with it. I might text the houses above and below me, and if they don’t claim it, toss it over the back fence. Seems like a lot of work.

Oh yeah, forgot this psycho. Annie. Sweet pup. Has scratched the hell out of my arms. Still love her.

OK. Laundry is going (fixed dryer yay!). I need to eat lunch. I need to fold all the laundry I didn’t fold. I need a long-term solution to my clothing during the school year…not sure what that looks like, but the piles I currently have are not working. I need to finish that drawing and do some copyediting. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so honestly, the drawing part of the house is hot as hell for a goodly chunk of the day, although better after noon. The office part is cooler in the morning, as long as there’s a breeze. And honestly, I’m still on break. So there should be some reading and maybe a nap. I took a timed nap yesterday and Friday and I am pro. It’s still July. I’m still on summer time.

Fight a Raccoon…

Hey guys, I just won a power tool set! As long as I send all my bank information to this janky email address! On it!

Summary of week so far: It’s hot, but it could be hotter. This drawing is slow, but it could be slower. This training has some things that are potentially helpful, but also a lot of it needs to happen in English class or Advisory. The science part can be beefed up to support the program. But it’s nothing new…we just haven’t focused explicitly on it before. We’ve tried many ways of teaching vocabulary, but we’ve never been particularly successful. Probably because our kids are such low readers…so we need to do something about that. Training though? In the summer? Always hard. We’re not even halfway through. Pros: Dad was sick and is better now, and boychild is back from wherever for about 36 hours, so Simba can get his boyfix. And I don’t have to sleep with Simba for two nights. A plus.

I’m not finishing this post before class starts. I’ll be back. You won’t even notice…well except that the post is late, for me.

Or if I totally forget that I haven’t finished this…which is what happened.

So I’ve been drawing all week. An hour here or there, mostly at night after dinner, when it’s cooler. I’m in class from 7-2:30 and then it’s hot and I’m tired, plus I’ve had an hour of reading to do each day after that. But it’s coming along. Although I didn’t start inking until Monday night…

I lied. I started Sunday night, and then as I was falling asleep, figured Ruth Bader Ginsburg needed wings, so I added the post-it for that. Some people are suggesting a halo…I’ll think about it. Not sure how I feel about haloes. There are issues with angels, angelic behavior meaning one thing vs when you look at actual stories of angels in literature…a troubling thing to think about.

Monday night, I added the wings and two of the justices…

It was slow. I also did some more pencil work, trying to figure out what might happen where. I’m adding things as I ink, so there’s some staring into space happening.

I did better last night…

I went to the gym in the afternoon, exercised, read a lot, got my head in a better place, and the things came easier. How to picture this or that. There’s a lot of this drawing that doesn’t exist in my head yet. Tonight will probably be the justices on the other side. We’ll see. There’s some confusion over there too. This is 8 hours of drawing so far. Not done yet.

Monday, I drew a little during class and then found that stitching stuff down lent itself to being able to listen and think and even take notes but not fall asleep.

Here’s the drawing…

Nova took over the space at night on Gecko Watch…

(There is no gecko in that picture)

Right now, I’m trying to type this with Kitten’s butt in the way. Annoying furry beasts.

Mr. Sad before the boy came home and cuddled him.

And then Kitten decided she needed to bring me red fabric…

She makes this strange yowling sound when she brings me fabric. I do then have to put it all away later.

I’m reading two books at a time. Because I can. This one is Margaret Atwood’s collection of short stories, Babes in the Wood. I liked how Orwell referred to us living folks.

I need that to be a quilt title at some point.

And this might be me at the moment, minus the getting drunk.

I can fight a raccoon any time.

I’m tired. I have 2 1/2 more hours of training today. I have a copyediting job, but they haven’t given me the files yet. I have another hourlong chapter to read. I might need a nap. Who knows. Oh yeah, pilates. And drawing. Still. Lots of drawing.

Sculpture and Beer

Sitting in an airport again. Listening to boarding assignments and the high-pitched squeals of an obviously tortured child. Got food and caffeine in me (never enough of the latter). We had a good trip…wish it would have cooled down more so we could’ve hiked at least one more day, but so be it. We never made it to either of the National Parks, so we’ll have to come back anyway. We were constrained by how long the dogs’ bladders would last…speaking of the two dogs, Gracie and Betty are bed hogs.

These two drawings are still only preliminaries for some idea developing in my head. This smaller one was done in two different breweries we walked to…

The bigger one was done in the evenings…

The basement was cold; hence the Christmas socks.

A view from the second walk…warm but mostly shady.

We also did some wandering in the Fremont area…

Can’t miss the troll…and Lenin…

His left hand appears to be dripping blood.

We also went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which did engage the Man, but I enjoyed it.

I remember Richard Serra’s Wake from the last time I was here.

And Alexander Calder’s Eagle, which I think looks like a dog.

Love & Loss by Roy McMakin…or at least the ‘&’ part.

The Man looking reflective.

Probably wondering when we can stop looking at sculpture.

Part of Mark di Suvero’s Schubert Sonata…

Part of Seattle Cloud Cover by Teresita Fernandez.

And Echo by Jaume Plensa. It’s ok, I rewarded the Man with a brewery visit.

So we’re glad to be going home…I’ve been gone 11 days, so I will have a very needy cat and probably some dead plants, based on the boychild’s texts of doom. Hopefully the bee swarm is gone. Next week looks busy, but I’m definitely finishing that quilt that’s been waiting for me. That gets priority. That and the dryer. Thanks Seattle for the break. May the next trip be sooner than 8 years from now (that’s how long it’s been since I was here last). May it also be cooler.