Participating in Art…

Rough weekend. Not as bad as next weekend. I think of a good weekend as some relaxation time with a book or some art, and a hike in the late afternoon (haven’t done that since I got back from Oregon…mostly due to heat, but lately due to life). Lots of time to wander the house, maybe water some stuff, clean up a little. Just not a lot of pressure to get things done. No deadlines looming. This was not one of those. Grades are due Tuesday (I finished those). It sucks to spend most of a weekend day on that. And that’s what happened. There’s no way to get all the planning, copying, designing, and grading done during the real work day. Or even in an hour after the kids leave. It’s frustrating. September is always a hard adjustment. We’re getting near the end of it though…so maybe I’ll adjust better in October. Ha!

My art goals this weekend included washing a few more dye paintings out and finishing the ironing to fabrics on the current quilt. I did achieve both of those things. I ironed Friday night…

This thing took forever, mostly because each little clump of mushrooms needed a new color range.

I ironed for a little bit on Saturday afternoon, after finishing grading the assignments I needed for the progress report.

The Man had a show Saturday night until midnight, so I knew I wouldn’t get time after that. And then last night, I stayed up a little late to finish all the ironing.

Almost 16 hours to iron 800+ pieces. Insane. Also, I need to organize the fabrics in color order. There’s lots of brown. Because mushrooms. Anyway, I’ll be cutting things out starting tonight. Hoping to be done by the weekend, but that may not be realistic. I do have 70 thousand Zooms this week I can trim through (slight exaggeration). This one has a deadline.

I also managed to wash out two dye paintings. No photo of that. I have two more to do and then another one that needs more dye painting. Not sure when that will happen. I have a Friday off next week (random 3-day weekend, thank you, school board). Maybe then.

Some book club friends of mine drove up to Oceanside to see the FIG exhibit there with 6 of my pieces in it. They sent me a photo…

I was in the middle of grading and it was so nice to see that. It’s one thing to tell people you make art, and another to have them just show up to see it. It was cool. By the way, the closing exhibition is this Sunday from 1-4. I’ll be there for the last bit, mostly to take stuff down.

The Man’s show Saturday night was interesting. I enjoyed the show…the venue was weird about glass on the dance floor, but they ran out of tables/seats and the bar was serving in glass?

The Man had hurt his back on the way over…but he powered through.

They do fewer shows now, so I try to go when I can. I was pretty tired though. Not so tired that I didn’t dance a bit. A lot. Maybe.

Scribble tore up a cat toy and then fell asleep on the innards.

She’s a cute baby.

I wish this were true…but it’s not.

AI is staying. It’s annoying except when it’s helpful. Like what is up with Muse wanting to help me. I don’t even know how to turn that off. I just keep Xing the box. I read a thread about AI and art and someone was saying that if we didn’t let them use AI, then they weren’t allowed to participate in making art. Um. Sigh. So many things wrong with that. Also, I could stop putting my images online, but the whole purpose of social media is to share, and I want to share my art…I just don’t want AI (or anyone really) using it to copy or make their own art. I’m not sure why that’s so hard to understand. It’s not the same as a human brain processing images it’s seen and interpreted with its life and background and turned into its own art. It’s just pulling bits and pieces and putting them together. There’s no life experience in that. And it shows.

Anyway. No AI here y’all. Shockingly. Work today though. Giving a test. Didn’t really tell them it was today. I’m OK with that though. Then a staff meeting and chiropractor. Trying to get my neck/shoulders to behave. Then hopefully cutting some stuff out. Probably need to do yardwork first…I did some of that yesterday. It finally cooled down enough and I had time during daylight (well, almost…I was stomping around in the dusky bits trying to figure sprinklers out. Was not successful). So more of that this week. Also have a fence falling down I need to deal with. I’m not sure HOW to deal with it, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Dreams

Y’all, the day after Back-to-School Night is always the worst. I feel like I’ve already done a whole week. Usually I’m smart and plan independent work, a low-key day, but no…we’re doing a lab. Ugh. Bad plan. So yeah. At least I’m getting better from the weird virus I had…never really manifested as a cold…just sat around and made me feel like shit for four days. And grades are due, so I’ve been trying to get through all of that and plan for next week and copy stuff for next week and go to a million meetings…I have another one this morning. Most of the issues we’re having are either learning issues that should have been dealt with by 8th grade, but teachers dropped the ball (which is so annoying) or parenting issues…please don’t let your kids do whatever they want. We’re in the middle of some particularly exhausting parental bullshit. Fun times.

So I make art all through that, because it is my sanity. On Wednesday, I started sorting fabrics for the next figure. I did iron some stuff too, but not much because I was washing out a dye painting as well. Here’s the washout, but it still needs a couple more washes…

Another one of my summer pieces that needed more washing. There’s still more.

Here’s the beginning of laying out the second figure.

I didn’t finish on Wednesday. Thursday, I got home close to 7 PM after staying all day and working. So I didn’t work at home. I had a book that was getting sucked back to the library that I needed to finish for book club (it’s 11 weeks before I can get it again), so I was trying to finish that and gave up and went and ironed for almost two hours…

I ironed all of the fleshy bits for the second figure, which rolled into a brownish-green color, but I still have all the things in and around, like the heart and the eyeball and about a million fungal things with mycelial things.

All that stuff. And another bin full of stuff. There’s a tree in there too. So I still have no clue how many I’ve ironed and how many there are to go, which is how I predict how much time is left. It’s frustrating, but it’s my fault for numbering the way I did. I pulled from the 400s to the 700s for the 2nd figure, but not ALL those pieces. So I’ll be working my way through these tonight. I’m getting close, but I’m not there yet. And the weekend is a shitshow, as always. It must be September.

Rustic Sphinx moth last night.

The cats were fascinated. It was apparently throwing itself against the screen. The Man sent photos of all four cats enthralled. Cool moth though.

OK. Lab today. Meeting this morning. Kamikaze out to a new chiropractor after school. The neck is truly a mess. I need a new pillow and don’t know what to get. Hoping they have suggestions. Plus relief. Of some sort. Grading. Figuring out dinner. Ironing. Tomorrow, a lot of the same, although the Man has a show. So hopefully I’ll get plenty of rest tonight (ha!) for that. More than getting up at 6 AM anyway. Hopefully I’ll be efficient at school today and get through some of the grading while the kids follow instructions I explained yesterday. Hopefully no fights about vaping in the bathroom (not me). The right eye is twitching. Early in the year for that. It’s fine. I have art to make, shows to enter, residencies to enter. That’s where my brain is right now. And the stuff at school doesn’t make those dreams go away.

The Alternative

Being sick sucks; being sick as a teacher sucks even more. The job is physically and mentally challenging on a good day; trying to do it when you’re feeling shaky is harder, but the alternative is writing sub plans, assuming your classroom will be a disaster and no one will get anything done, and betting on the fact that you’ll feel better tomorrow…like is THIS the worst day of this illness? Or will that be tomorrow. And it won’t matter tomorrow because it’s a lab day (not leaving that with a sub) AND back-to-school night and one teacher on your team is already going to be missing. Plus you don’t really know how you’re going to feel until you get up in the morning, and then it’s too late usually to get a sub so a bunch of random teachers will have to be in your classroom. So yeah. That’s where I’m at. Today is NOT independent work mostly. There’s a bunch of talking and excitement I’m supposed to be pushing out (with what energy?) and then lots of walking around and encouraging. Meanwhile, the honors kids are trying to work ahead on everything, because it’s how they roll. They don’t know how to just let something sit. And wait. I understand that. I want the blank papers done too y’all.

I’m still ironing…so very slowly.

Not sure why it’s so slow.

Last night’s…

I just laid out the 400s. Some of them were already ironed to flesh bits, but mostly not. I might be halfway; I might not. It’s impossible to say. I feel like I’ve done a lot and question why I am not done yet.

I washed out the dye painting that needed repainting…

Doing some crazy stuff with distilled water in the laundry room, because I think my really hard water bleaches some f the dye out.

After drying…much better.

So yeah, the dyes I mixed at the end of July are still working.

I also washed out one of the glue resist pieces…

It needed more glue removal. I think it’s good now. They’ll both go through a regular machine wash at some point.

And then I finally made it to ceramics.

I’m done underglazing. Just need to figure out when it can go in the kiln.

I have a neck that fits in that hole sitting in my damp box, ready for me to build a head. And maybe a bird. That was the original plan anyway. We’ll see how that flies. It’s nice to have progress at least.

This AI conversation…interestingly, I heard one pundit talking about how we needed to stop separating AI from the techies who built it/own it. To hold them responsible.

They designed this system to make them money, and in doing so, endangered the future of billions of humans. And the big dumb guy says all we need to control it is a smart president. Oh well.

I’m sick. Definitely worse than yesterday. Hoping the meds kick in. I’m supposed to have pilates after school and it’s too late to cancel without a penalty. I’m watching a squirrel yell at something in the neighbor’s yard. I need to be better tomorrow. Doing a lab while sick is hard. Labs are hard anyway. It’s not even set up. I need to go in this morning and try to get through that. I started yesterday and it got too complicated. I really just want to go back to bed. Too late for that. Time to bully through. Ugh. And grades are due next week, so I just grade nonstop at the moment. Also not fun. Hope it gets better…the cold at least.

Mushroom Ironing

It’s finally cooler. Still summer for us, but not in the 100s. Still running all the fans and appreciating when it cools down at night…knock on wood, so it doesn’t go away. My studio still holds onto daytime warmth, which is great in winter and not so much now, so I’m ironing with a fan on my legs so it doesn’t blow the pieces away. I feel like I’ve been ironing for days (I have). Wait. Not a lot of days actually…well, I started slow. I’m not sure I’m not still slow. It feels incredibly slow.

OK, I’m 7 1/2 hours into the ironing and I’m still in the early 300s. That said, I did iron a bunch of the 800s already. It still feels like I should be further along. Here’s Friday night…

I got all the flesh laid out and ironed…

I feel like there’s some 400s and 500s in there too. Can’t remember.

Saturday night, I managed a couple of hours…

Ironed the heart and some other stuff. Then last night…

A couple of trees, some mushrooms, some of the bits and pieces of the body that weren’t flesh-colored. Like I said, low 300s. Over 800 pieces in this thing. I usually figure 100 pieces a night, although I’m not hitting anywhere near that at the moment. Each little clump of mushrooms is a different thought of what color, how many shades of that color. So notionally, I could be done ironing Friday? Ugh but this week is painful and grades are due next Tuesday. We’ll see how that goes. Too much on my plate again.

I made time on Saturday to set this up…this is the last dye painting I did at Playa, on the last day. The flesh color washed out completely.

I checked the dyes a few weeks ago and they were still holding. The stuff that washed out had been mixed with about a thousand other things at that point. So I made a new version of the flesh color.

It won’t be that dark…I added a bunch of print paste to lighten it. But it looks much better. Now I just need to make time to wash it out. Hopefully tonight.

Bowie and Scribble come in here to investigate. I think Bowie is still looking for Kitten. He was mean to her in the end, so I locked him out for a few weeks at the end.

He does like to come in and sniff around.

It’s baby lizard season. The leaf in the background shows how tiny this one is.

Luckily it’s outside. We keep finding them inside, and I think there’s still one in my car. I’m hoping it got out. I mean, it got in.

I saw something yesterday about how the current admin is gonna let power plants pollute with impunity.

The ignorance is mind-boggling. And devastating.

OK. It’s Monday. I’m tired. What’s new? I have a parent meeting with a translator this morning, the counselor called in sick, we need to call the translator, and our current conference room doesn’t have a phone. Because the main office removed it. Because we don’t need it? WTF. In case you’re wondering about the state of education these days. I have to use my personal phone to call a translator so we can do a parent meeting in Haitian Creole. Yup. I am still teaching energy transformations and transfers. Hopefully getting to a little independent work today, because I need to grade packets…and tests…and set up for a lab later this week…and realized that Back to School Night will be in the middle of a 2-day lab, so my room will be a mess. Fun times. Two-hour staff meeting after school teaching me how to do something I already know how to do AND already do. Regularly. Also fun. Then hopefully ceramics, because I didn’t get there all last week. Frustrating. I canvassed for the local school board on Saturday, because two of ours are ignorant. Annoying. But there will be mushroom ironing at the end of the day. Not often you get to say that.

All That Flesh

The heat is finally starting to fuck off. I meant to put some artsy evocative word there, but this is more appropriate. 104 degrees. Ugh. Still in the 90s, but bearable. My studio was down to 88 degrees last night…it’s amazing the difference it makes. The heat will probably be back…it’s September and that’s what September (and sometimes October) does. It’s just hard to concentrate on work and art when it’s that hot.

So ironing progress has been slow. Some of that is the heat and some is what I’m ironing. I did a bunch of grass and mycelial network on Wednesday night.

I love this idea of everything being connected. What we do in one place affects something somewhere else. Last night, I ironed a bunch of fungi, and then started to lay out the fabrics for one of the main figures. This is a pain because they are in the 100s bin all the way to the 800s bin. So I started pulling the flesh pieces and trying to sort them from everything else and I made it into the 300s.

All this stuff is NOT flesh in those bins…

So yeah, I’m not done with that bit. I probably will be tonight, but I’d already been working for an hour and needed to go to sleep. There is a second large figure too, so I’ll have to do that one in a bit. This weekend is a shitshow though. So I don’t think I’ll get any time beyond the hour or so each night. Too much other stuff to do. Ah September, you like to kick my ass.

At school, we had two false fire alarms yesterday. Fun times. Still teaching energy, despite my lack of it personally. I had stitching last night, where I sewed down 14 circles. It was good. Ten to go. I’d like to get to ceramics after school, but I have duty and then a parent meeting, so it depends on how I feel afterwards. I’ll still have to set up my classroom for next week. Then I’m cooking tonight (ugh) and grading and ironing. Hopefully all that flesh. I have political canvassing this weekend, although no one has contacted me about where to meet (problematic)…our school board is fucked up. I can say that, because one of the members says I’m an evil Communist predator. He’s lying about all of that, so that’s what makes it fucked up. Well, that’s not the only thing. And there’s meetings and stuff I need to do…some of it is art related and some isn’t. I managed one group blogpost last weekend with an extra day. I don’t think I can pull off another group’s post…maybe I can get all the photos organized and resized and write it next weekend. We’ll see. OK. I’m tired still. I need more caffeine. And I need to go to school and set up for the reorganization of the teaching that my brain came up with at 12:41 AM when it couldn’t sleep. Thanks brain?

All Those Things

I swear yesterday was Friday. Today is Second Friday. I know why; I gave a test and had kids turn in their science packets and they were not prepared. And I thought it would be easier…I at least should be prepared for the chaos and I guess I was not. So I ended the day with a parent meeting for a different kid than I thought it would be for (pure confusion on my part; we had already met with the parent of the other kid, so yes, I am losing it)…got home, and sat in exhaustion. I eventually rallied. I usually do. I had a stitching Zoom meeting and all I did was seating charts, because I need those this morning and one of the classes is like an impossible chart. There is no way on Earth to separate the kids who need it and support the kids who need it with the languages they need and not have it turn into a chaotic disaster. I have 7 mosquito bites from school…to be specific, from my classroom. My workload is shite. I have stuff copied for Monday, but need to copy stuff for Tuesday. Copier jammed yesterday and IDK if anyone fixed it (I didn’t have time) and I bet there’s no goddamned paper.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Pro: I think we finally got my blood sugar to stop crashing at night…by reducing my insulin by nearly half? Like WTF is happening there? It’s been fine and now this. I guess at least it’s reducing and not increasing.

So. Today. Plus. We start a new unit; it’s usually a pretty chill drawing day. I can get stuff organized and maybe start grading for the weekend. I need to make ice cubes for next week’s demos. I keep forgetting. I’m hoping the two-day lab isn’t for another week…I think we need materials. We should check that today. Deep breath again.

I’m still in the boring trimming stage. It’s boring to look at, but I don’t mind doing it because it’s meditative and I need that right now.

Compare Wednesday night’s progress (above) to Thursday night’s (below).

Yeah. The trash pile looks deeper? Maybe. I think I have two yards left. I might only have one. I was too tired to look last night. I’m hoping it’s one.

This old lady is staying with us right now, my parents’ dog Katie.

I love this sweet baby. But we are near the end. It’s always a matter of where the end actually is with pets though. I mean, it is with humans too…we just have fewer choices. Trying to make the best decisions for her…and that’s hard.

This is cool. IDK if it’s legit, but it’s fun anyway.

And I don’t need one of these.

If I want to read another chapter, I probably will…and I realize the negative effects of not enough sleep on my next-day’s self. Although I do still stay up too late to make art. I’m rolling on a sleep deficit most of the time.

Sigh. OK. Today will be easier. It has to be. Well. Except maybe for the dog. I’m hoping she’s OK today. And tomorrow. And all the days until my parents come back. I’m hoping to go to ceramics today (depending on the dog). I’m hoping to do some art this weekend and enter some shows and a residency and to clean the kitchen floor because it needs it and to read the books I have and get far enough ahead in grading that it doesn’t feel like it ate up my weekend but so that next week doesn’t feel as heavy. All those things.

Give…or Explode…

OK. Deep breath. Wednesday. All I can think about is making art and applying to shows and residencies. My job is demanding though, so I keep waking up at 3 AM and going SHIT. I FORGOT TO DO THAT. This morning, I forgot I set my alarm early, ignored one of them, and reset the other one. SHIT. It’s fine. I got it. Just so many things happened yesterday and so many balls are in the air that something is gonna drop…and bounce. I’m not sure if bouncing is good, bad, or neutral at the moment…or just more chaos. I know that my nighttime art brain wants more time. And my day job demands more time. At some point, things give…or explode. Kinda like me. For now, though, I’m demanding an hour a night and hoping for more. The real problem is having all these more computer tasks for art, and not my personal art, but for groups I’m in, and it’s hard to give up my personal art time for that. I do have a 3-day weekend coming up though…hopefully I can do both. Plus grade. And plan. Ugh.

I finished tracing Wonder Under on Monday night…

Thanks Scribble. It’s a little more than 5 yards.

Trimming is usually about an hour a yard. There’s a lot of big pieces in this.

As of last night, I trimmed the little piece, one full yard, and about 1/2 another. So yeah, about an hour a yard.

On Insta I said I thought it would take another 5 hours, but I think it’ll be less than 4. One a night. Sometime on Saturday. Then sort, then start ironing to fabric. I don’t know if I have a background fabric that will work, so I need to start thinking about that, because that’ll have to happen Saturday if I need to buy some.

I made it to ceramics on Monday and it was quiet and almost empty and not as hot as it would have been last week. So I glazed all the ribcage.

I also started on the front with some details. I had some glazes dry out over the summer, so I rehydrated and am hoping they’re OK by Friday. Getting close to done with this part. Then I can work on the head, which is just a neck at the moment, sitting in my damp box.

This is Social Justice Sewing Academy…and I started the block in the bottom left.

Presumably someone embroidered it (can’t tell) and then it made it into a quilt. I made it at the first QuiltCon in Phoenix after COVID. It’s about trying to protect kids from all the things teachers have to worry about with them. Still doing that…the worrying.

Still worrying. Because this is sick.

Seriously, this is where every dystopian novel goes. And then real kids are caught up in it because the AI isn’t ‘good enough’ or the AI gets trapped in it. I’d be OK with the AI taking out the users of this when that happens. I just don’t get why the lawmakers don’t think this through. They won’t stop with AI…they’ll just use it as a jumping-off point.

Making the world a better place gets harder and harder every day right now.

OK, I woke up late, I have a meeting early, I’m teaching (ironically) about AI today, but mostly with the environment (bad bad bad) with brief forays into trade-offs. Then Pilates and book club, with a dog drop-off in the middle. It’s busy. I’ll be grading in there somewhere. And cutting out little pieces of Wonder Under.

You Never Finish…

Hey Monday. As always, you appear too quickly. Busy weekends make you show up even faster. Hoping next weekend is better…oh wait! It is! Three-day weekend for the win.

The heat wave has finally backed off a bit. It’s still in the 90s, but not the high 90s. It makes a difference. I was actually cold last night in bed. A freakin’ miracle. I’m still getting woken up by the low blood sugar alarm every night. We’ve reduced my insulin. I’ve tried a snack before bed. Nothing seems to work. And now I have the diabetes nurse AND my doctor giving me conflicting info. I guess the educator I talked to last summer is gone? It’s so hard to get a working relationship with a medical person when they so often leave. I’m sure there’s a reason. My medical group has laid off hundreds of people…thanks to the big beautiful asshole of a bill. I don’t see this getting better.

So I did trace all weekend and managed to get within 100 pieces of the finish…

Friday night…

Saturday night…it all kinda looks the same…except for the cat.

Sunday night…

I have about 100 pieces left…I keep finding pieces I haven’t numbered yet, so I’m not sure what to say about that.

I sat the Techne Art Center gallery on Saturday for 5 hours. Thanks to all the friends who stopped by…like this one from school…

She came dressed for an evening out with her husband. I sewed two of his buttons on his suit coat for him. Then did one for the boychild last night. See? A sewing education is useful.

I wandered around and took photos of everything so I could write a blogpost.

Not as many people as at the opening. Much easier to get photos without random people in them.

Not sure when I’m going to have time to write that post for that group, or the other two for the other two groups.

The ceramics are by Linda Litteral.

I hadn’t seen this one for a while. It’s fun…for a quilt about the onset of COVID. Good show…you should go see it.

I’ve got a couple of local shows coming up…one at Grossmont College opening in October…when I have the social media blurb for that, I’ll post it…and this one.

I’ll be at this opening, although not for four whole hours. But you should stop by. It’ll be nice.

Speaking of nice, the boychild graduated from his fire training courses this summer…he was gone for 10 weeks. The girlchild went up to support him and we got this awesome photo.

We’re very proud of him for getting to wear the fancy uniform with all the buttons. Plus the better job situation. He works hard. So does she, but she doesn’t get to wear fancy uniforms and have bagpipes at ceremonies. I watched the livestream at school on my phone with my earbud in…I did tell my students what was going on. It was short. They were being taught by a counselor during that period, so I don’t feel bad.

I do feel bad about the fucking climate change idiocy that doesn’t believe in that stuff. Because Nepal. And Ohio. And my lord, the list of places will just keep growing.

Maybe if the White House succumbs to a flood. Nah, they’ll just blame the Democrats for that.

Speaking of stupid…

I am totally ready for any lake to be named after Epstein if we can get all the files and then put some old white guys in jail for life. Plus bring home all those military people who don’t need to be at war.

And if you’re a billionaire, be like Dolly.

Bunch of wankers.

This car was parked where we were having dinner. I’m all for Hello Kitty doing some whack stuff (she had big teeth on the back of the car), but carrying automatic weapons?

Let’s not. This was not a small decal…it was about 3 feet high. Not a fan.

OK, I graded a lot this weekend, but didn’t finish (you never finish until the end of the school year). I did some other things. I realized that sometimes people don’t know how little spare time you have unless you tell them, and even then, if it’s not their experience, they probably don’t get it. Friday I spent a lot of time explaining food to students…like gumbo…which I’ve never had (seafood not good for me). Today though is hotdogs and they have to write about them and the pro is that it’s a pretty easy one. Which is great, because their reliance on AI is mind-boggling and they won’t have computers out today. Ha! But I need to put our surveillance software on them for the warmup, because it’s crazy what answers they will cut and paste without even trying to make sense of them. CRAZY. I fear for the future. But AI is gonna take over and get rid of us anyway, because we are causing all the bad shit. So it’ll be OK.

I have a staff meeting, I’d like to go to ceramics today, I need to finish tracing, and odds are, I need to grade more shit. What’s new? But it’s cooler. I can get behind that.

It’ll All Get Done

Oy. Friday. Hot. Hopefully just two more days of that before the weather calms the fuck down. I’m ready for that. I’m also hoping this feeling like I will never catch up or get things done will calm down soon…although it kind of is a school/teacher thing, so probably not. I have 5 hours sitting in a gallery tomorrow to get caught up. Oh wait, I’m never actually caught up. But I’m going to try. Also that means I lose all my Saturday artmaking/house fixing/cleaning time. Taking deep breaths. Weekends shouldn’t be stressful (but they are).

I’m still tracing. It’s going incredibly slowly.

It’s hot. I’m only getting like an hour a night. The pieces are complicated. I drew them, so it’s my fault.

I started my 4th yard of Wonder Under last night…a piece that wouldn’t fit in between all the other ones. In simplifying this piece, keeping the tiny details to a minimum (for some definition of that), it’s harder to fill in all the leftover bits. I’m in the high 300s. The last two nights, I have not been able to trace 100 pieces each night, like I prefer. I got through about 70 pieces last night, maybe 60 the night before. I’m hoping to spend a few hours tonight tracing…I can grade at the gallery tomorrow. Today at school, I need to prep for next week and clean up from the lab. The new teachers’ aide did a really good job of organizing the lab supplies and even WASHED things with a sponge. I love that for us. It’s a boy and they aren’t always the best at the cleaning/organizing tasks. I’m hopeful. But now I need to put them all back. Plus two parent meetings…AND the boychild is graduating from his CalFire program…he’s been gone all summer…and it’s on livestream this morning. Trying to figure out how to just watch that during a parent phone call and a counselor presentation in my advisory.

Life. It’s complicated. And currently very sweaty.

So many deaths. This one made me tear up a bit. She had such a hard time of it, but seemed to really get where she needed to be.

Hoping she has peace…and all the dots.

Lunar eclipse last night! I love all the bad photos going back and forth between friends.

Some professional photographer online will have amazing photos.

Unlike my blurry red dragon egg. It was cool to see it anyway. Even with the mosquito bites.

OK. School today. Teaching how to write in science. TORTURE. For me and them. We’ll survive. My co-teacher is back! I wish her a lot of pain-free moments today. Two parent meetings. Duty after school. Hoping for ceramics after school, depending on my exhaustion levels. I just need to glaze…it’s not hard. Then home…I think I’m cooking tonight. Ugh. Sigh. Then tracing. Grade tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be at the Techne Art Center in Oceanside from 1-6 PM. Come see the FIG show there, Master Glitch. It’s a cool show. Probably I’m supposed to write a blogpost about it…and three other shows. Sigh. It’ll be fine. It’ll all get done. Maybe.

You Will Keep Making Mistakes…

Hey. Halfway through the work week. Woke up out of a dream that I don’t remember, but I do know I wanted to finish it. That said, I want to finish the bad ones as much as the good ones, because I want to know how things end. This is how I end up reading the next book in a series even when I’m not really that into it. I’m not sure it’s a useful trait, but it’s the one I have.

I’m tracing Wonder Under this week. It looks pretty boring, but there is always a cat involved.

She starts out lying on everything and eventually gets annoyed with my moving her around and leaves.

Mostly I’ve been tracing a lot of big background pieces with the occasional burst of tiny mushrooms.

See? Side by side. The big pieces take longer to trace. I always like to get 100 pieces done in an hour, which is the amount of time I have most nights, but last night, I only did 90 because they were big pieces.

I’m in the 200s…I won’t be done until early next week. But there’s always progress.

Here’s one of the quilts that went to the photographer. It actually has a name, Interminable Wait.

Hand embroidery with light threads, so easy to photograph! Ha.

This one’s name is percolating. I have a potential…I’m mulling over it.

It’s coming. I’ll post both of them on my New Work page in the next couple of days with details of size etc. Nice to have real photos of them.

I’m exhausted from work and the heat…it’s so hard to sleep when it’s hot. The windows have to be open, so it’s light (full moon coming) and loud (cars and nature and the neighbor’s roosters…drive me nuts). I need to clean the kitchen and laundry room floors soon…here’s the natural detritus on the floor of the laundry room telling me how it feels about contributing to the dirt in there.

I did it right before I left on my summer trip. I haven’t done it since. TIME! I don’t have enough time. I come home and read a chapter of my book and then grade stuff and then deal with food. Yesterday I had a meeting that I thought would be 15 minutes go to an hour and then I had to drive to pick up my quilts, so I didn’t get home until 5:45 and I was half dead. I still feel half dead. Not sleeping enough. Plus we did a lab yesterday. Those are also exhausting. You know what else is exhausting? The world. One of my school board members and his wife do videos every week and last week, we saw a clip where she is claiming teachers are evil predator communists who turn kids into the opposite gender.

Lady. I just want your kid to wear deodorant, not lose all their papers, charge their Chromebook, come to school, and have a pencil. What the everloving fuck are you talking about? Please don’t vote for the two Project 2025 ignoramuses (ignorami?) in our district. Text me or email me for names. I’ll be canvassing against these sweethearts in September.

This was too true…and then Dolly Parton died. A good person. Instead of the other 80-year-olds who are performing evil predatory things on our country.

Reality is that we DO have to go to work and pay the bills and pack lunches. Plus this…

I made a quilt about that.

Meanwhile, this is me.

Always.

OK. Work. Finishing up all the lab writing stuff and starting to talk about how to write claim, evidence, and reasoning. Again. There was a minor bit of stupid behavior yesterday but no one was sent out. A couple people were told to stop touching things. Ever. Always. Never again. And the principal violated one of the safety rules. Good teachable moment there. Then pilates after that. It’s hot here; did I mention that? Then home to grade and cook and maybe clean a floor, if I have the energy for it (unlikely). Then tracing into the 300s. It’s all planned out. I need to make at least one video today…without my co-videomaking partner. Awkward. Bringing a tripod instead. Can’t replace her really, but it’ll have to do for today. Need to make some copies for later in the week too. Like maybe for tomorrow. Should really figure that shit out. Missing half my science teacher brain…I minorly messed up the lab in Period 1 and revised for the following periods. Glad I did that at least. Learn from the mistakes. Sometimes you can avoid making them in the future. But realistically, you will keep making mistakes all your life and you will need to do your best to fix them, and the sooner you become comfortable with that, the better.