Nobody’s Right if Everybody’s Wrong*

It’s Friday. You may have noticed. I had this long conversation with my brother’s family last night and he kept asking, so what are your plans for the weekend, and I’m like, survive until it happens? Sleep in? Send a parent email? Get 300 email addresses input from the spreadsheet that hopefully the students have filled in properly? Did I mention sleep? I suggested a hike to my household and my one reluctant co-hiker was like, what? Really? And I’m like there’s three days off…seems like a hike could inhabit one. Really? There was a lot of disbelief there. And the other co-hiker will probably want to do 17 miles (not happening). In full sun. So we’ll see. But I did just finish a quilt and the next one is around…sort of…but not quite ready for starting, I think. Maybe. And I have no grading to do yet, because we have a wondrous teacher’s aide this year who is highly efficient and even writes positive comments to the kids. The best I do is smiley faces and the occasional Very Nice or Awesome. She finished the one assignment we had this week. Woo hoo! So that’s three days with a lot of stuff I don’t have to deal with yet. I know I’ll have packed, stressful weekends with a ton of work involved. This isn’t one of them. Revel in that. Somehow. Imagine me dancing around!

So the first thing I did when I got home yesterday is do these blood-type tests. Girlchild keeps telling us she’s O-neg and that’s why the Red Cross harasses her to come in and donate all the time. I had this vague memory of being A-something, but wasn’t sure. I didn’t know the boychild at all. So we did these tests.

Boychild is O-pos and I’m A-pos. So we did some Punnett squares in our heads and read up on it…it’s like doing science labs at home. He was convinced she couldn’t be O-neg. I wasn’t sure either. Surely it would help if we knew what their dad was. Now we know he’s a lot of things, but probably O-pos.

Puppy on my lap…I’m still in that state where I come home from school and half-collapse on the couch.

He doesn’t mind.

After everyone ditched me for the night, except for the cats, here’s Satchemo harassing a baby gecko on the screen…the same one that was there last night.

Might be a really stupid gecko.

Then I entered an art exhibit that took a really long time because I had to write art statements for two quilts that I finished a while ago, and my brain was not in the right place for that. I think I wrote coherent things. It’s hard to know. I still have three more to do this weekend, but I need photos for two of them.

Then I ironed these two quilts, removed as much cat hair as I could, and rolled them up for the photographer. So I have duty before and after school today, and then after that, I’m driving to the photographer’s, so I can meet two deadlines. Cool stuff.

I should have rolled them up on the light table, because it’s nice and big, but I prefer to torture myself with trying to roll up a really large quilt on the ironing board, all the while trying to keep the parts from hitting the floor and getting covered in hair again. It’s a challenge. Really, who needs to go to the gym when that’s how you’re spending your afternoon.

I didn’t eat dinner. It’s a good thing I didn’t feel like eating dinner, because my dinner plan had already been eaten by the boychild. I just didn’t know it. I guess I could’ve cobbled something together, but I was tired and that is not the best mindframe for cobbling stuff together.

So then I settled down to draw. I had no real plan in mind, except I was supposed to be drawing for the poem exhibit I’m going to be in. I had drawn for it a few weeks ago, but then rejected it for some reason. Except now when I look back at the drawing, I think it’s fine. It needs more, sure, but I think it’ll work. So I’m going to enlarge it today, tape it together, and see how I want it to go from there. So after photographer, I need to go to the copy place. And then I need more milk, so that’s a grocery store on a Friday night. That’s probably a mistake. Expect more collapsing on the couch when I get done with all of that. Everyone is helping cook tonight. It’s not just gonna be me.

But I’m sitting there last night with my sketchbook open. And tiredness all throughout me. So then, I’m like, what other shows am I considering? I picked one and read the requirements and thought about it a little bit and drew a little bit. I did actually sketch in pencil first (I don’t always do that), because the parts needed to look a certain way.

Not a bad start. I’m not sure this will be anything in the long run, but if it is, this is a good way to begin.

Although it’s not what I meant to draw at all. So there’s that. And it’s not done, if I’m going to keep going with this one…there’s a whole bunch of stuff that should go on behind her. Anyway. We’ll see. I’m not sold on it yet.

So this weekend? Sleep. That stupid email with all the crap that goes with it. Some sort of thing outside with my hiking boots on. Hopefully with one or another persons or maybe dogs or who knows, I’m on my own with the coyotes. Probably some food. Maybe some music or art or a movie or I don’t know. Something that sets my head up for the month of September, always a joyous month of holy crap is that my to-do list when it comes to school. Laughing. Really. And maybe some more random drawing.

*Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth

It’s No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry*

This summer, the heat is really getting to me. I don’t have a lot of extra money in general…even less so during the summer…but I’m sort of currently obsessed with installing A/C in my office for NEXT summer…and maybe the bedroom as well. Although I think my lack of sleep is more about noise (of the ceiling fan) and my brain not shutting down properly than about temperature…so A/C in there won’t help. It’s hard to say. I’m currently fighting heat rash on the inside of my elbows from ironing…I think if I could get my sliding glass door to open in here, that would help at night. I’m ironing more at night because (in general) it’s cooler. It’s at least dark. Sometimes there’s a breeze. So today, my plan is to get the sliding door to open and to finish the ironing. Then I go on to cutting things out…and YES, I’m a good three days behind where I wanted to be, but that’s reality, so you just suck it up and move on. I have no jury duty today, but there’s no guarantees on the rest of the week, and after this week, things get hinky. Sigh.

Anyway, I did manage just about 7 hours of ironing over the weekend…not great, but progress. My total is currently almost 22 hours, so maybe I will finish at about 25 hours. Hard to say at this point.

So let’s walk through the weekend. I entered another show on Saturday morning and did some techy stuff to help with that group. Kitten helped.

Calli also helped. She’s especially helpful when I’m trying to walk across this small room to get to the drawers of blue fabrics. Usually she leaves after I do that a few times.

More sleepy Kitten. She’ll be 10 in two weeks.

So the first thing I needed to do was pick the fabrics for the hill behind everything. I did finally decide on greens (no florals though)…and I dumped the last one…the lightest one…because it was too busy. I found another interim one and bumped the second-to-last one down.

I really like that fabric, but busy isn’t good for backgrounds…usually.

This is a lot of fabrics for what was two tiny figures on the hill.

I’m having to pull a different flesh run for every body…in this case, only a hand. It means I’m using a lot more fabrics than usual.

This was the pile before we left on Saturday for the man’s show…

And this is the to-be-cut pile. Growing growing growing.

Interesting wall near the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. I really like this wall…wish I could afford to put one in my yard.

So we had to be up there early so the band could set up, but I wasn’t allowed in (no problem)…so I found a coffee shop and drew. I have a piece that needs to be done by the end of October.

This drawing is pretty close actually. There’s some things I would change.

I ate and read my book and then walked back to the show…this wall was on the way.

No doubt about that.

Announcement board…

Here’s that drawing so far. Tree needs stuff. I think the whole thing needs more space. Not sure about the bottom leg.

In the Belly Up, we had an hour wait for the opening act…so I drew some more.

And another one…

The show was great…they did well. Hopefully it will turn into more shows for them. I don’t get to see all of the shows…the next two are high school reunions, so those are harder for me to get into (I do crash some things). I guess that means more artmaking time. On a Saturday night. Ugh. I do like to make myself get out of the house and do stuff, but sometimes, making art is easier.

So I started ironing late on Sunday. Got up late, did a bunch of stuff, groceries and all. This is the run for the next human…a light one.

I had to move 3 of the now 5 boxes of fabrics being used in this quilt so I had enough room on the ironing board…it’s the three smaller boxes on top of the grays. I’m still pulling from those boxes.

One of the fabrics I picked had a piece ironed to it…from I DON’T KNOW WHAT. Seriously. I obviously forgot about it, and probably had to cut it from something, but it’s a very low number. Strange. Maybe that small quilt with the hand?

Kitten is still holding down the fort. She likes to be near me, but isn’t keen on being out in the living room. This feels safer for her.

At some point, I looked at the clock and went Huh. OK. Well past bedtime. Wide awake, brain racing along, but I knew I’d have to pee both dogs and I’d be woken up at 6 AM and you’d think I could fall asleep that late, but no…my brain was going overtime on the next figure and how to make it stand out from the background. Sigh. I need to get the brain under control before school starts.

So the pile grows.

More today. I think I’m in the 1400s at the moment. I lied. I’m in the 1500s…about halfway through, but a huge chunk of that is leaves, so they’re all chunked together and will get ironed in one fell swoop. So I have about 350 pieces left. Easy peasy.

I did some Palestrina knots on the hippo last night at the parentals…

Almost done. OK, need a shower, some food, finish ironing, do some GISH stuff (google it), wash a sleeping bag, try to clean a tent that was immersed in Madagascar mud (yup, it’s been a while), and maybe check some other stuff off the to-do list. Running out of days. I start looking at school stuff August 1. I need to put my classroom back together too. Ugh. Don’t wanna.

*a-ha, Take on Me

Art for the Win

Well the best thing I did yesterday was to get kicked off two juries. I didn’t even do anything that I know of to get kicked off (ah, profiling)…but I’m OK with that. I had to be there most of the day, unfortunately…two trials and not enough jurors. I finished a book, which is pretty good, considering how much time I spent staring at ceilings, listening to other people try to answer the questions. The plus is that there shouldn’t be any more trials this week, and although I’m still on call for the rest of the month, they have a new batch of numbers they’re calling in next week, so hopefully that was it. Knock on wood…wait, the woodpecker outside my office window is doing that for me. Nature loves me.

Anyway, so that made it hard to do anything else yesterday. I was mostly braindead and pretty tired…although I did finish numbering the beast. I don’t think I’ve put this many people in a quilt ever (trying to confirm that in my head…three has happened…wait, I can think of one with four people…). This one has eight people. Ah. Eight different runs of flesh tones. That will be a challenge. So will the background, so the people will show up. Will have to consider all of that.

Simba watching me number…it’s pretty exciting. Not. Not exciting at all.

So I thought it had 1854 pieces, but then realized I’d forgotten to number the cat, so 1880 it is. I was really hoping for like 1200, but it was not to be. Oh yeah, and there’s a penis in it. I like to point that out these days because people keep hallucinating those things. And no, it’s not in there because I need attention. This quilt is about women and the things we do to them, like send them dick pics or use the penis as a weapon. It’s also about that whole (if you were an art or art history major, you know about this) male gaze turned on itself. What about the female gaze? How we see the world? It would be nice to have some of the world interpreted equally. It never seems to be.

Anyway, I had hoped to start tracing last night, but I was exhausted…fell asleep on the couch at some point. Did not get enough sleep and spent most of the day sitting around and doing nothing. So today? I’m going to bingewatch bad television and trace Wonder Under…because there’s about 20 hours of tracing to do and I’d like it done by the weekend…and I have nothing else to do today. I do have to call tonight and check that I’m not on jury duty again tomorrow (aack no). But then I can trace more tomorrow.

I still need to finish this weaving of my story. As I weave, I kind of think to myself, “so what happened next?” and I weave what I think that might look like. I have a limited amount of yarn, so that makes it more difficult (not a lot of colors), but I’m OK with that.

Satchemo likes it too…

Expand the view, and you can see how Simba feels about it.

I’m finally more than halfway…which is good. It needs to be done by Sunday.

I got rejected for the last copyediting job, with a really snotty comment about my fees. Well I knew those would be an issue for her, so I had addressed it in the offer. Sure, you can find someone who will copyedit your 80,000 words at $15/hour. And they might even be awesome at it…but if they are, they are totally underselling their abilities and making it harder for the rest of us. You should be paying them more. And if they aren’t awesome, which is more likely, then you get what you pay for. Honestly, I’m not going to undersell my skills. I’d rather be making art, and at the moment, I can afford to make that choice. There is, however, no need to be snotty about it. That just leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. Welcome to our America, eh? It spills over into everything.

OK. So I’m up. I got some sleep, hallelujah. I’m going to go trace stuff. I am NOT going to talk to people for a long time (I will talk to animals though). Art for the win.

Gonna Read for a While

In case you’re wondering why I’m writing so early (because this is early for Kathy on break), it’s because I’m sitting in a dead silent jury room, half (or more) asleep, after fighting my way through motorcycle accident traffic. Honestly I have zero brain power right now, and I tried going to bed early (for me), but I was still the first one up. Hoping for no jury, but you can’t predict that shit. I have had so much anxiety about this process…I hate being forced to sit like this.

Anyway. Onward and upward. Trying not to read too many political things. Our country…what a disaster. Even the quilt world is full of it. I start so many responses in my head…such a difficult world we are in.

Kitten held hands with me yesterday. She feels me.

So yesterday, I did manage to get my butt in gear eventually and quilted the two little quilts.

They’re so tiny, it doesn’t take long.

Fully quilted, ready to trim…

I didn’t put a real binding on these…just trimmed them to size and zigzagged the edges with a heavier thread underneath. There’s probably a technical term for that.

Now I just need to decide how to label them, hang them (after this exhibit), and attach them to the boxes. No problem. I have until Sunday.

Then I hung out on the boychild’s bed with the dogs…long enough to decide to walk those beasts. Might be my last chance this week.

Lucky dogs. We went hunting for the vernal pool. Very little evidence of it in summer.

But sharp eyes (not mine) spotted two baby California horned lizards…we must have disturbed their hanging out together…

Hard to see…

But very cool. I’ve only seen 3 or 4 of them while hiking, and never so small…not even an inch long.

Then dinner and more weaving (whoops, no picture)…and then I really wanted to finish drawing last night. The last woman went in. And I think that’s it. Ten hours to trace the stuff that was on the other drawing and then do the rest.

It doesn’t sound like much.

I did start numbering, but I knew it was a big job, so I quit at 488 pieces. I’ll finish the rest tonight and then start tracing.

That 488 got all the waves and everything in them, including the Earth Mermaid, numbered. So maybe a third? Hard to say.

Gonna read for a while.

Then You Really Might Know What It’s Like*

I’ve been up for a while, fed all the animals except the human ones, balanced some money stuff out, paid the Visa (oh crap) and then the girlchild’s fall semester (oh holy crap), and read some stuff, but haven’t really got the goop outta my eyes or the even the full cup of tea down my gullet. This is NOT the Summer of Sleep. Totally not. Perhaps I should go to bed earlier, but I really do find the late-night hours are the most useful to me, especially if it’s warm. It’s not too bad (yet) today, so that’s nice. Maybe I can use that to my advantage. One more day without jury duty. That’s good. I swear, this regular uncertainty just fucks with me.

I wasn’t very efficient yesterday until later…I was tired and had a brunch thing I had to do, so then you eat the the brunch foods and they make you tired and it’s Sunday so you’re already tired even if you didn’t work all week. Yeah. That. I did bid on a copyediting job last week or maybe the week before? I didn’t hear anything, so I’m betting I didn’t get it. I bid on one this morning, but she’s already said money might be an issue…I think people don’t have any idea how many hours copyediting 80,000 words takes. We don’t just read it once…but at least three times, looking for a variety of stuff. And her sample wasn’t great. So I’m assuming I won’t get that one either. Oh well. Not sure I’d have time to do it anyway. It would really suck to get a job and then get stuck with jury duty…double hours. Ugh.

Anyway, each day I don’t have to sit in a courtroom is a good one.

Kitten is a freak…very needy at the moment.

We had dinner with the parentals…so Calli wanted the ball thrown 700 times. Grandpa obliged…until we decided she was tired. She won’t ever stop unless we make her.

I worked on the sun…all I got done was chain stitch around the whole thing and a little bit of backstitch. Then I have to go find the hippo instructions from March or something.

I tried to get all three dogs in one picture…semi-successful. They don’t follow instructions well.

Calli is a good girl. Simba is on a leash because he gets up the slope in the bushes and no one can get him down. We let him loose at one point, but he was tired and behaved. Katie was a pain because of food.

Then we came home and I sewed the binding on the other quilt. This is Satchemo supervising the pinning. He really wanted to sit on it, but I wouldn’t let him.

Pile of quilt. I won’t be working on this really soon. Or maybe while I’m watching the telly. Who knows. It’s a nice break from standing.

It’s hard to get up off the couch when the headless wonder is all draped over you. I feel bad getting up and leaving him there. He obviously wants the loves. He was licking my leg (ick).

But eventually he left, and my brain strangely went to graffiti walls. You can blame whatever I was watching on TV. It had a graffiti wall that said BOOM. And that was it. I was down a rabbit hole. Suddenly it made sense to have a graffiti wall in here.

Continued it on the other side, added a viewpoint, finished the hill behind.

There isn’t much left…just the sky to the left. Then numbering it (I’m a little scared of that).

It’s time to get this one rolling. The deadline on the other one is a ways out, so I can slowly hand-stitch the binding and wait a bit on photography. I do need to finish those two little ones too, but since I finished the binding on the other one, I can use the machine for that today. So finish the two little ones, finish the drawing, number, start tracing onto Wonder Under. Hope for no jury duty.

*Everlast, What’s It Like

Purple Hair, Tea, and a List

Friday the 13th! My favorite day, besides maybe Halloween (as long as it’s Halloween when I’m not at school so I don’t have to deal with the candy and the kids). It’s supposed to be bad luck, but really it’s just a number and a day and a really bad series of movies. My favorite! I only just realized what day it was…I keep having to look at calendars to remind myself that it is a day or another day and WTF am I supposed to be doing today (meeting at my district print shop with my co-teacher to print all the crap we need for the beginning of the year, instead of waiting until the week before school starts, for the first time EVAH.).

So I started writing that a million hours ago and then she texted that she was there and we hung out in the foyer at the print shop for over an hour, because it’s the only place besides school where we can be on the district server and actually send stuff to the print shop. Annoying…but air conditioned. So that’s done…the entire first unit is in for copying and we will start the year out organized! Maybe. Well. There’s the disasters of a classroom we have to come back to, after shoving everything in cupboards at the last minute because of the district use of our rooms. Sigh. I’m not thinking about that…or when I might be able to deal with that.

So we took about 8 hours to plan the first unit and beginning of the year stuff, and that was just the time we were together doing that…not all the time we spent doing shit on our own for that. Unpaid. Oh well. It’s my sanity. It’s not like anyone was going to pay me for that prep time anyway.

Then I came home and realized I needed to go to the store for milk, shampoo, and beer. One for each of us! The milk is mine, by the way. Need tea. Should have bought the other kind of milk too, for drinking, but oh well. Yes. I require two kinds of milk.

Still need to clean floors, mopping and vacuuming…with the boychild’s assistance. But before that, finish this, AND dye my hair purple. Because what else do you do on Friday the 13th? Hopefully it won’t fry all my hair, although then I could just shave it all off and be annoyed by it even more than I already am. Seriously, when you’re hot (because of weather AND hot flashes), hair seems like a useless accessory. Then again, so does a bra…so there’s that. So I’m sitting here cooking my hair off and writing this, trying to make my plan for the day when it’s already 2:30 PM, where the fuck did the day go? I just don’t know.

That’s what happened yesterday also. I dropped my car off to get the damn window motor fixed (oh holy crap, those are expensive, but if I have to crawl out of my car one more time to deal with a ticket booth in a parking structure, I’m gonna scream.). So that. It won’t be done until probably Monday. Slightly problematic if I have jury duty on Monday, but whatever. Then off to pick up a quilt from a show that ended…it’ll get shipped out to Arizona in October, so it’s staying in the box. Then to the fabric store for binding fabrics…still haven’t dealt with trimming those two quilts. That would be good to do this afternoon. OK. Make list:

Trim two quilts
Sew binding on two quilts

So then I went to quilt “class” (aka hangout) and trimmed the fabrics for the two little quilts. The more complicated one is on the left…

And here’s the easier one. Yes, I am using a sandwich tupperware to store those pieces. The other one is a lunch container, I think. They work.

When I made all the bird and cat quilts, they were all in tupperware for a while. Easier to keep parts separated but organized that way.

Then I worked on the coral-colored flowers at quilt hangout…finished all of them. Also finished the second block for June? July? I don’t know. And started the third one, the one with the sun in it.

But that was at my nighttime stitching meeting. Lots of that going on yesterday.

Progress! No worries…it will be 2019 before I finish this one. I only work on it at meetings and gaming. I also worked on sewing wool on this one…but I didn’t have the thread to sew the blue circle on and then the leopard is supposed to have spots, and I have the fabric for it and the hole punch, but it’s this huge piece of fabric and so I start reading the instructions, because there must be something else that’s supposed to be made from that fabric, and yessiree, it’s a monkey. Damn. Which monkey?

So I’ve been doing Sue Spargo patterns since I think 2012, with Earth and Twig (maybe earlier?), and she sends the pattern but she also emails a newsletter. And I just realized this year that maybe those were important, that they had information that wasn’t in the patterns. I always saw the corrections and would go hand write them in the instructions, because I knew I would be way behind in making these (this one, which is called Folk Tails, is from 2015.). But you know what? I didn’t save all of them. So I had to go back to my old email address archives and find all of them and load them onto my computer so I would be able to find them when I finally got around to making the quilt…and sure enough, that’s where I found out about the monkey. So that wool is not done. I needed to find the monkey and trace him onto freezer paper and cut that out and iron it onto the brown wool, and then, ONLY THEN, can I use what’s left for the leopard’s damn spots.

Well we are 27 minutes (nope, now it’s 47 minutes…I went down an internet rabbit hole about stitching patterns, because I don’t have enough of those stashed in my house to keep me going into my 3rd or 4th life) into cooking my hair and nothing is stinging or burning. Also good. My allergies have ramped up since being a disastrous 20-something, so you never know. Sure, I could have tested it in my inner elbow like they always tell you, but fuck that shit. I need the purple to wash out before school starts (OK, maybe my principal needs that), and I don’t have 48 hours to fuck around waiting. Plus Sunday is looking quite busy. So not then.

So if I’m at urgent care later or downing Benadryl, just say nothing. I’ll know it was a stupid decision. I don’t need you to tell me.

Then back to the drawing at 11:20 PM or so…woman on the left, a skeleton, although looking at this, I need a bone pile in there somewhere, and then the volcano. I’m down to just a bit of land and sky…maybe tonight? Damn. Wait. The list.

Trim two quilts
Sew binding on two quilts
Iron small quilts together
Stitch small quilts down
Finish drawing

Probably those are out of order and more than I will get done today, but it at least reminds me of what I should be thinking about working on, once the hair and the floors are done.

Speaking of hair, those who are around me may have noticed I had one side shaved when I got most of my hairs chopped off. So I have to decide whether to maintain that or not, and I guess I decided that today.

Tiny little hairs. So tempting to just get rid of all of it in this heat. It’s not even that hot right now. Anyway. I have a list. I can ignore the list. I can get some of the shit on the list done. I can (not) get it all done. But it’s a list. Yeah. Need more tea. Here’s why I bought the milk. Tea. Purple hair. List.

I Can’t Feel a Thing from My Head Down to My Toes*

I keep thinking I’ll get so much done, but then reality kicks me in the head. I did quilt. I did draw. I even walked dogs. All good things. I also drove 2 hours to pick up a quilt and went to the chiropractor. And made dinner from scratch. Still all good things. I did not finish the quilting. I didn’t even finish the outlining. That’s OK. I’m going to do more today. There’s progress…

Although, even though I checked the back for missed stitchdown areas, sure enough, there were three I fixed yesterday…the octopus tentacle was just one of them.

Where the pin is. It’s OK. It happens most times.

Then quilting the rest of the legs, above the knees…

Then the dogs earned a walk…and it was cooler (although still humid) yesterday, so we dragged them out to our regular place. I’ve seen the stinky melons on this vine, but don’t remember the spiky balls. So many plants around here have spiky balls for protection…

And I don’t think I’ve seen these out there ever. It’s weird, because I was just there maybe a week and a half ago…so maybe the bushes were there, and the extreme heat made them flower?

Lovely cloudy skies…cuts down on the temperatures. Not so today.

And wild roses…not sure I’ve ever seen them blooming here. But they were beautiful.

I made dinner…it was lovely. No seriously, it was. I’ll be eating leftovers tonight before book club…for a book I read over a year ago and don’t remember (I just wanna hang out with my book-club mates before school comes back and screws up my schedule). Then I finished all the orange balls (fly stitches) and started on the pink balls (bullion knots).

Second to last set of balls.

Then back to quilting, up into the torso, which was a bit complicated.

Uterus done (it’s not a vajayjay, people). Stomach, liver, intestines (it’s not pornography…it’s parts).

Full view of that section. I have the upper torso, arms, and things floating around. Not a small amount left, but not hard.

OK, quilting is never really HARD…it’s just time consuming and I’ve got a hard time sitting still sometimes. Like now. Hence the walk in the middle of quilting.

When it’s late and my co-housemates all go to bed, they prefer it if I’m not quilting. Apparently the WHOP WHOP WHOP noise of the machine with my music loud enough to cover that is disruptive to sleep. Who knew? Luckily, I have another project in process, so I moved into the living room to work on the drawing. I seriously haven’t started drawing before 11 PM on this thing most nights. It’s too hot in that room. I need to buy another fan. I used to have it in a certain place and it was easy to unplug and move. Now I share it (what!) and it’s not so easy to move. So a new fan would be smart.

Anyway, I had decided that the mermaid sea mother needed a viewpoint, but I had already drawn in that space. So I could use liquid paper, but then when I trace, there are multiple lines that show up with the light and it’s confusing. Usually that’s what I do, but this was a fairly straightforward cutout. So I did it.

Then inserted paper behind and drew the earth.

I added a few more things to the plastic trash.

And then broke up all the water spaces. It looks really complicated, but I just needed smaller pieces of fabric for easier ironing. Lots of dead fish. But I think the ocean section is done. Although looking at this, the space under her arm looks empty. I need to visualize a sand fabric back there…it will be fine.

Then while I was driving to Oceanside yesterday to pick up my quilt, I had some ideas for the last figures…definitely a breastfeeding woman. Faceless though…standing for many women? I guess. There’s another one on one of the other waves that I didn’t ink last night…she’s just in pencil.

Here’s the whole drawing (ish…the top is falling off the back of the light table). As you can see, I’m getting there. Also penciled in is a volcanic area, and I need to put a skeleton in. And then maybe a bird or angel or something? Still considering that. Cherubim? Yeah. Maybe.

This will be a fun one to explain. It started out as one thing and morphed into 17 other things and I think all I can do to explain it is to call it my brain on politics right now. It feels really bad. Although the Thai soccer players are out! That’s good! Distract me from judges and laws and stupid policies and tweets and everything else. We can’t look away…we don’t dare. But Shee-it. So this quilt is that. All that.

I spent about an hour this morning going through upcoming shows and deadlines and organizing for them. I don’t know if I’ll be able to enter everything I want to, just because I have a finite number of pieces available. But at least I have an outline and some organization for that. I do need to iron fabrics for the two little ones though, because they’re supposed to be done in 11 days. OK, stop hyperventilating. It will be fine. They’re small. You could finish both of them in about 2 or 3 hours if you wanted to. Shush.

What I need right now though is breakfast. And then once I finish the legal stuff I have to do today, then I can quilt all afternoon. It’s warm, but there’s a breeze…and two fans in here. One day at a time. (don’t think about the school stuff you have to organize before Friday. Shush.)

*Genesis, That’s All (so I had this significant other who used to give me shit for some of the music I listen to, and this is one of the bands he shamed me for, even though Pandora picked it this time. But I like Phil Collins…and his bald head…and his earnest voice. So I guess it’s a good thing that SO is out of the picture.)

All You’re Giving Me Is Fiction*

So the good news is that I’m released from jury duty all this week, so once again, I feel like I have to get EVERYTHING done this week. No really…car fixed, will done, chiropractor (oh hallelujah on that one), shipping stuff, calling back on insurance stuff, all the crap I never have time to do during the school year. But also, art. Because that shit needs to get on with it. Funny, I have people tell me all the time how prolific I am, but I’m sitting here staring at some deadlines instead of dealing with them. So I have calendars and white boards and to-do lists that remind me, and I look at them and then panic. I also have a task manager that tells me how LITTLE I’ve gotten done, when you consider that I am not going to work every day. I can’t explain that. I know that the pressures of school force me to be very efficient in how I work, and during the summer, my brain kinda rebels and refuses to behave appropriately, which is probably something that I need. So sometimes I just roll with it.

Hi Calli. Speaking of someone who knows how to roll with it.

Yes, I was hanging out in the boychild’s room with the dogs and the boy’s foot. NOT WORKING.

Then I came in here (two fans still on…it’s not as hot, but it’s humid, and my hot flashes have ramped up majorly in the last month…I can’t stand it sometimes, I feel like I’m on FIRE. Before you tell me how they will go away, in my family, they don’t. My grandma had them until she died at 83. My mom is 77 and still has them. This is my world.)…and I finished quilting this fucker.

Too many years. Not even anything amazing. Just something I did while watching kids play soccer. All it needs now is a binding fabric.

Apparently I didn’t buy that in 20-whatever when I put the borders on.

Then while watching the TV after dinner, I did 3 or 4 more balls. There are only 3 or 4 more of the orange ones. I’m getting there.

I figure I’ll be done with balls by the end of July, and then I’ll sandwich this one too. Aack! Never gonna finish quilting everything. Get one thing out of the pile and put another thing in it.

Speaking of quilting…I did start quilting this one, just the outlining. It’s small, so it shouldn’t take long.

I’m actually hoping to be done with it by tomorrow, so I can buy binding for it and the other one at the same time, then get binding on and do some handsewing? Maybe Thursday? We’ll see.

This guy likes the sliding glass doors outside my studio. The cats like that he likes that window. They find him fascinating.

I kind of do too.

So at that point, it had cooled down somewhat and I headed back to the light table to work on the big drawing, which needs to be done this week too. It’s close…

I’m finishing up the water section…then I’ll finish the land section and put some stuff in the sky. I’m looking forward to all those things. The art things.

But before that, I need to go pick up a piece of art up in Oceanside. Long drive, but it has to be done. At least I can do it…I find the whole thought of not knowing what I can plan for each day very anxious-making. So when they release me from the jury duty for a chunk of time, I feel very relieved. I like having control of my time over the summer, since it’s so hard to do during the school year. I’m sure there’s something psychological in that, but whatever. I’ll take each week I can get…although now I worry that they’ll try to assign me to a trial in the last week, which they can do (thus extending the service time an additional two weeks, which puts me right into the start of school) and then I have major scheduling issues, because I pushed everything on either side of the service dates. But whatever. Let’s revel in this week and get some shit done.

*Neon Trees, Everybody Talks

Oh Life, It’s Bigger*

OK, y’all. I’m really trying to stay sane here, but my government is negatively affecting my sleep. Damn Nestle too. WTF with the breastfeeding thing. Babies need breast milk…it’s the best for them. If a mom can’t do it, for whatever reason (except getting her nails or hair done), then OK, that’s a thing. But we shouldn’t be encouraging that. Sigh. And then crazy nominees for the Supreme Court. Damn Mitch McConnell and his mealy-mouthed witterings. Plus the environment…poor unprotected space. I sat there last night staring at the drawing I’m doing and trying to focus on one thing…ONE THING. But I couldn’t. So maybe it’s got immigration and pollution and climate change AND women’s rights all rolled into one. Because it’s not all separate in my brain or in real life.

UGH. I just need my brain to chillax. So I’m writing all this backwards…I drew last night for about an hour, but had to wait for the temps to cool down. I ended up taking the arm from the original drawing and turning it into an angry sea mermaid. Still working on her. Then I can fill in the ocean around her and then try to finish the land bits.

I went to bed around 12:45 AM (but didn’t sleep for hours)…had to take some notes on what to draw next so I wouldn’t forget it. So those are on my phone for later today. I have today off from jury duty…and 14 thousand things to do.

Petting a hot puppy…

Pinbasted this last night…the entryway is really warm this time of year…

So it involved a big glass of icy water and a fan…which is why I got the dog: tile floor plus fan equals cooler fluffy dog.

She’s ready to quilt…hopefully today too…

This cat refuses to acknowledge rules. He wanted to lie on the quilt. Multiple times. All my other animals know better.

So the plan is to ship quilts to Washington for a show up there, go to the post office and mail stuff to a variety of places, find shirts for the boychild, and go get edumacated about the diabetes I’ve had for 16 years. Fun day. Then quilt and draw…now THAT part is fun. More of that.

*R.E.M., Losing My Religion

I Turn to You, You’re All I See*

I didn’t get up early enough yesterday to write. I had to rush around dealing with animals. I went for my annual mammogram which was quick, easy, and painless. No really! It was. So I was convinced I’d have to go back in because they did it wrong. They also gave me this hairband for free. Apparently hair was getting into the scans and freaking out the radiologists, but they can’t reuse the hairbands.

So I tried to give it back, because you know, medical waste, reduce costs. But no. It’s mine now. We squish your boobs? You get a hairband. And everything was fine. Cleared until next year. Thank you.

Simba tryna make friends. Or just clean Calli’s nose. Hard to say.

Satchemo sleeping on my quilting chair. So I didn’t quilt for a while, because…respect for cats.

Eventually he left…this is actually the 4th of July…I finished the quilting around everything…

And then I started on the background…

And then I took a picture of these beetles mating.

And went back to working on the background.

Sewing around these embroidered trees was a little hairy…

Then we went down to Campland on the Bay for the show…this was the view behind me. It actually got cold eventually.

I do know I would never ever camp here…they’re packed in like sardines. It’s crazy crowded. And a lot of people who are not necessarily my tribe…I can handle it for an evening, but all of those kids are gonna be up at 5 AM…right next to your head. No way. But it was fine for the evening…I finished the wild dog, although I need to comb his fringe.

And then I finally started doing these crazy flowers…I’m on the July blocks? I think? But the instructions for the flowers are in the January instructions…which live in a notebook. So I finally took a picture of the instructions, then read the two sets of instructions (because it’s not exactly the same) like 300 times, and then did it and went OOOOHHHH.

Like that. So I have about 30 of those to do. I think.

This is the man doing his best impression of an old man telling you to get off the lawn…he was looking at the view behind me and all the crazy shenanigans people were getting up to when you’re at an urban campground in San Diego on the 4th of July.

I just tried not to look. Although I faced that way so I could duck when the kickball was headed toward me. Plus so many ways to desecrate the flag…and I don’t really care about that, but oh my eyeballs. At some point, you just laugh and shake your head and be glad you get to leave at the end of the concert.

Later that night, behind me were a million people and eventually about 5 different fireworks displays, which was cool…

It’s still not as cool as having them right over you though. It was a good show. The food was eh. Remember that for next year.

Girlchild asked me for a picture of us from when she was little. I sent her this…

Mom on very little sleep…looks like Thanksgiving (jacket, up at the mountains), so she’s about 3 1/2 months old. Ugh. The tired years.

Not that I sleep well now.

So yesterday, after the boob squishing (yes I know my brain is all over the map. Welcome to Kathy on Summer), I went to a friend’s air-conditioned house yesterday and had a hot flash from hell (I’ve been having lots of them in the last few weeks), so she had to turn a fan on me as well. And then I got cold afterwards because menopausal bodies are fucking insane. But I was trying to do stitchdown on this quilt. Because I started looking at the calendar again and I’m being fucking inept this summer.

But my machine’s tension was being a cranky ass bitch. So I kept having to stop and rethread and try to persuade it to work. Very frustrating. I did get almost halfway up (basically I’m about to do the uterus). So that was good. But it’s so freakin’ hot today, I don’t know if I’ll get any more done. I do sit at the machine with a fan right on me, but ugh…doesn’t feel like enough. If I ever remodel this room, maybe it will get air conditioning. Maybe. Except SDG&E wants us to reduce electricity use today (it’s supposed to be either 106 or 109 degrees, depending on which weather app you look at).

Last night, I finally got some balls done…in fact, I finished all of the second color, which was the Pekinese stitch. So that’s 2 out of 6 colors done.

Then I stared at the colors that were left and tried to decide which one was orange…and started fly stitches…

Seriously, the one next to it? Not orange. Blush. Ugh. Or maybe the pink one is blush. No, I think it’s pink. I don’t even know what the 6th color is. Whatever. No one but me (and Sue Spargo) will know. So not important.

Then my brain was hot and tired. But I didn’t want to not use the time. I feel like I’m losing time. So I stared at the blank sections of that drawing that’s been sitting on the light table for a long time, then figured out where to put the first line of waves (I’m taking two separate drawings that were put together in a long horizontal thing and I’m sort of stacking them and then adding and taking away).

Then I traced in the female figure, the hand, and the oil drums from the old drawing. There’s more going in…most of this base drawing is getting tossed though. And I have to decide where the bottom is and what’s going on the hill above it. There’s a couple of issues going on in the drawing…obviously some women’s issues, but also environmental. Currently it’s named Womanscape, but I don’t know if that will stick. Remind me when I don’t remember what I called it.

OK, today I am working for a while on actual school stuff, and then going into survival mode from excessive heat. I do have a pool…I wonder if I can put the sewing machine on a float. Except there’s a foot pedal. Hmmm. I need an engineering brain for this shit.

*Coleman Hell, 2 Heads