The Muck

Hey. So yeah, this week has been a mess. Seriously. Adults make such a mess sometimes. And I can tell that I ME I am dysregulated. I am. Let alone students. Sigh. Like take your hood off and stop interrupting instruction. Plus the adults in charge of teachers…sigh…just do a better job. And the adults who schedule meetings, for goodness sake, 8 AM is not necessary most of the time. And if you set a meeting, show the fuck up to it. Yes, I get that there are emergencies, but as a teacher, there are so many meetings that the people who need to be there don’t show up to and then I’m sitting there, because I’m responsible and I show up. And I sometimes wish my car would break down so I could just go home.

I have to tell you, I’m incredibly cranky and beat down by the day job at the moment…not the kids. I mean, there’s some annoying kid stuff, but most of it is because another adult didn’t do what they should’ve done, so I’m having to handle it. So I’d rather not. Please do your job. I have a weekend tour of ceramics studios I’m going on this weekend with the Man and I’m totally looking forward to just doing that and telling school to fuck off, but for at least another 10 hours, I need to deal with school and all the requests that I shouldn’t need to deal with, welcome to the job.

OK. And the Man wants me to think more positively, and keeps trying to force that on me, and please, you gratitude people, please stop. Some of us think about what we appreciate all the time and there’s still a bunch of slimey smelly crap from the day that we need to get out of our system so we can function. That’s me. Every day, I am thankful to make art at the end of it. Seriously. I love that part of my life, even when it’s stressful and I miss deadlines because I have so many of them. But I still need to verbalize the muck or it fills my head. I need to go yell out into the universe regularly, it seems.

Artwise, I’m still slow. I framed another (pain in the ass) thing for the girlchild…

I think I have one more frame to cut for her, plus figure out how to hang this one and stabilize the other one. Don’t ask me how my Xmas shopping is going…it’s not.

I did iron last night, for more than an hour, to try to make up for all the not ironing the night before.

Solid start on the mucky bathtub.

I also went to ceramics last night, because I can’t go this afternoon; they’re setting up for the ceramics tour. I was hoping they would start that later, but no. So I did some finalizing work on the other one and then glazed more on this one.

It’s pretty close to done. I need to patch up some of the black and clean up the back. The other one is pretty close to dry, to being able to get fired. Hopefully Monday.

Bart(holomew) the semi-feral cat of the ceramics studio, was very helpful.

Sometimes he bites if he doesn’t like what you’re doing, so I fed him. That generally works. I also squirted orange underglaze all over everything. Fun times.

And I graded. Because I never don’t grade. Scribble was very helpful.

She’s very people-oriented. Which is nice.

OK. I have a parent meeting at 8 because someone thought that was a good plan. My co-teacher is out, so I have to print her plans and seating charts before 8, which means I need to get my ass to school soon. I need more tea. I need to finish and print a worksheet and set up lab bins for magnets on Monday and write a note to our TA to do something and probably write warmups and I think I have abdicated teaching to the students mostly because they need to do some independent work so I can think straight. I’ve been doing direct instruction all week and I’m tired. Then an emergency union meeting (on Zoom, thank goodness, I’ll be on that while I’m at Home Depot) after school. It’s cold and the Man keeps overheating at night, so I haven’t been able to put the flannel sheets on, but I think this weekend is the time where I do it anyway, because I’m freezing at night and that doesn’t help my sleep. Until I’m hot, and then the blankets get thrown off, and that never stops people, it never stops. Yes, I have all the meds and the things and this is just something the women in my family get to do: vomit all through pregnancy and overheat at night until we die.

Positive thoughts. You know what I’ll be doing tonight at SOME time? Ironing. I’ll be ironing. A bathtub with a body bag in it and a rifle underneath it and bullets and blood all around. Yup. You got that.

Mostly…

Back into the screaming fire that is school sometimes. Trying to keep the head above water. It’s three weeks. I can do that. Maybe. I mean, I don’t really have a choice…it’s just how much hair pulling and mental screaming I might do while I get there. All good. Deep breaths. My office calendar still says November. No worries.

I did get the office/studio managed enough to iron in here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fucking disaster area in here, but I can iron. It’s genetic, by the way…the stacking of things in a studio. I saw my mom’s on Sunday and it was just as bad, although the boychild said hers was organized better than mine. Her studio is also 4 times the size of mine, so I don’t feel bad. I do need to do something about it over Winter Break though. I can’t breathe in here at the moment. Too much chaos.

I finished sorting fabric pieces on Monday night…

I had about 30 minutes of super tiny pieces to figure out, after matting and framing a couple pieces for my daughter. I miss Aaron Brothers for mat board, y’all. Had to wait forever in Michaels for a few beatup pieces. Annoying. Their fabric selection still sucks too. We asked about one that was on the website and said it was available here, and the staff was like, I dunno? It’s over there. People put fabric back wherever. Which is true, but hey, thanks for helping…we’ll go to an independent store (which unfortunately, they all have shitty hours if you work full time). And for those of us still using Alto mat cutters, the blades are hard to find. Too bad they went out of business…the cutters don’t die. I think I’ve solved that problem though. Maybe.

Then last night, while dinner was cooking, I sorted the studio (really I just made more bigger piles out of the way of the ironing board) and started ironing after dinner.

Still a week behind on this quilt, and at some point, I have to catch up. Don’t ask what that is. It’ll be clear later. Ironing like a beast each night from here on out. Maybe. Girlchild is still here. I love it. But I suspect more framing is in my future.

I made it to ceramics last night for a lovely 80 minutes of painting sgraffito. I think I finished the other one (mostly touchups) and it’s drying. This has an hour into the painting alone.

IDK how to make simple things y’all. But I love it.

Scribble missed me my first day back to work. It was her first experience with people leaving all day. That night, she curled up by my face and purred at me all night, occasionally reaching her paw out to pet my face. I didn’t sleep much. I’m not mad though.

She’s still really unsure of the dog, but is doing fine with everyone else. Last night, she settled on my lap while I was trying to grade, and in the way of most cat owners, I let her. Graded around her.

Here’s Simba letting you know how he feels about not being invited to the dinner table.

Yeah dude, whatever.

OK. My left eyelid has been twitching for a week now. Really driving me bonkers. I’m still teaching electricity, plus vocab and independent and dependent variables (sheesh) for a few days before going into magnets. I realized it’s a lot of direct instruction, so pretty exhausting and a lot of talking. I did spend all day yesterday rubbing a balloon on my hair and using it to make a soda can move. Like you do. As one student said, by the end of the day, “Ms. Nida, your hair is CRAAZY.” Well yeah. It does that. Things you do for learning. After school, I have a lovely pilates break, then book club, I think. And ironing. It’s a lot. I do love the artmaking. I don’t mind the teaching…I mind all the minutiae and the adult crap and the school board crap and the state school board crap (which is because of the local school board crap). Anyway, I need to go write a parent email and then go to a meeting with the principal (sigh) and then do the teaching thing. All good. It’s Wednesday and I mostly have a handle on things. Mostly.

Teacher Dreams

Wrong day. I’m all discombobulated. Usually I work Fridays. Well, I still worked Friday; I graded all day. But not at school and not with kids. I finished one big assignment; today, I started the second one and got side-tracked by the possibility of a new kitten tonight plus having to clean out the girlchild’s room for new kitten AND girlchild (not at the same time), and then took all those assignments (packets in plastic bags, cat toys!) back to school and went for a hike and then came back here and continued to try to organize quilts and the room. Didn’t finish. I can’t get a handle on storage at the moment. I have some ideas for boxing stuff up and putting it in the garage at this point. I don’t know that I still need all the books I used when I started teaching school. I don’t use them any more. Not quite ready to totally get rid of them, but close. Because I use the internet now instead of books. So much more. But organizing takes time and this week off never has enough time to do a lot. Too much family and other obligations. Plus grading is always an issue. It’s not enough time off for all of it.

Anyway, so I’m still in the stage of hoping to get a lot done but haven’t gotten a lot done. Fun times. I forgot to write yesterday because it didn’t seem like Friday. I don’t know what day it was, but it wasn’t Friday.

So Wednesday night, I ironed things down…

And didn’t freakin’ finish. So frustrating.

Thursday night, I finished.

18 hours and 54 minutes, 152 fabrics. That’s a lot. There were a lot of small detailed things in this quilt…stuff I love, but that is time-consuming on all levels.

Here’s everything that needs to be cut out.

And then I barely started cutting things out.

It never looks like much. Last night, I did some more…

We went out and watched friends of ours play in a different band, so we got home at 10:30, but I still had about an hour in me.

This is the Chameleons, which is really the lead guy and then whoever he decides he wants to play along with him…

But three of those people are in the Radio Thieves, so we got free tickets and hung out and watched them and talked to some friends, and then skipped the main band, because we’ve seen them before and we were both tired. The Man did actually go to work yesterday; and I am tired all the time, so there’s that. There will be no sleeping in during break. Cats don’t care that I need more sleep, and I stay up later, so I’m fucked. Ah well.

I did manage to gently chisel the base off the head; I used the base to hold up the head in the kiln and the clear glaze dripped down and attached them.

And managed to seat the head, although not quite how it originally fit.

There’s going to be acrylic paint on this thing. No way not too. And there’s a lower part too. Anyway, I’m hoping to epoxy these three pieces together, but also to get the tree for the top of the head into the glaze kiln too. And add the wire for the coathanger, and then design and make the little quilt that goes in the belly area. There’s so many hours in this thing, it’s insane. It’s definitely been a learning experience. So many things broke off so many times.

I did hike about 3 miles today to make up for not moving at all yesterday.

It was nice and cool out.

Threatening rain with no rain.

As I was walking, I thought I saw something up on the hillside, but it didn’t move. I even walked forward a little ways and then came back, decided it was a tree stump, then took a photo of it as far as my phone camera could zoom, and still couldn’t decide. It still hadn’t moved. I hiked on and figured I’d check the spot on the way back.

Of course, looking at it now, that’s a fucking coyote, but at the time, I really was seeing a tree stump. My eyes vs the camera’s eyes. It seemed too dark to be a coyote.

I got home to a beautiful sky.

We had a lovely cool, rainy in bits but not horrible, week. This coming week holds no rain, and then it comes back the following week. It’s pretty cold at night (for me)…definitely in my sweats and socks and slippers stage. I must be getting old, because my neck gets cold, but I hate turtlenecks. I have a couple of scarves, one a friend made and one the Man brought back from Denmark? I think? They are doing the trick.

I saw these on a friend’s reels and loved them.

Please pause. I shall return in a better place. I will be pillow-forting for a few days first. Don’t mind me.

Yup. That too. Bingewatching bad TV, reading books, and dreaming about all the things I could finish if I just stopped sleeping and eating and peeing. Really.

These sweet boos.

It must be cold for them to not be killing each other. And I’m about to shake up their existences with another cat. Woo!

This is too real.

Anyway. There’s no school all next week, and I am thankful for that. I am thankful for being done with the packets, and for getting a new furry baby tonight. Whichever one I pick. I was interested in one and then someone else had gotten in before me (this was the third time it had happened), and I’d been offered a slightly younger one, and figured it would be fine from the description, and then the 3rd one came back up as available, so I’m meeting both tonight and somehow I’m supposed to decide. Which is why there are two carriers in the back of the car right now, just in case. Then home to acclimatize whomever ends up coming home with us, some cutting stuff out, some kitten time, more cutting stuff out, more kitten time. You know how that goes. And grading. I should do more of that unfortunately. Ugh. But also relax and hike and read and pee when I want. Plus drinking my tea warm instead of cold. Teacher dreams.

A Day Off…

Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.

Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.

OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night

Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.

And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.

I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.

Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.

Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.

I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…

Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.

I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.

I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.

It looks nice.

I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?

That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.

I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.

Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.

He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.

Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.

Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.

This is me always.

The night is better.

I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.

Because we all wanna know.

Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.

Long Shot…

OK, so struggling to make art, but I have managed to get into a new show, get rejected for the first time ever to a ceramics show (!)…also never gotten into one, but that’s OK, and mostly packed up another quilt to send to a show. Plus organized photos and sizes for a 2-person show in Virginia this spring, which needed to be done as well. Organization is hard. Art management is hard. Having to be at a school board meeting to persuade the damn people in charge of the money that we are the resource they should be supporting? Also hard. Followed by an early meeting this morning and tomorrow morning, also hard. Plus my knee was acting up yesterday; actually had to wear a knee brace all day…and we did a lab, so it was kinda necessary that I be mobile. I don’t know what’s up with my knee, but it can fuck off. I do lots of physical stuff to stabilize it, and then it just randomly decides…nope…today I’m not gonna. Ugh.

Anyway…I did do art-related stuff. Monday night, I sorted all the Wonder Under, so technically I’m ready to iron to fabrics…

Hopefully tonight? I need to finish packing this quilt up so I can get a shipping estimate, and then I need to clean up the fabrics from the previous quilt. That might take all my available time tonight, but I hope not.

I made it to ceramics after finishing grades on Monday afternoon. For once, they canceled a staff meeting so we could get actual required work done. I had spent a goodly chunk of the weekend getting grades done, so I finished what little was left and headed for the studio. My piece is waiting for the head to go in the glaze fire and my tree to go in the bisque fire. The rest of it is at home, waiting to be put together and fancified. Fabric and paint I think. So I wanted to try out some of the things I had listed as want-tos before…one of which was sgraffito frames. I may have thought myself into crazytown again though. Instead of just doing a plain square or rectangle, I got fancy. And complicated.

Twice.

We’ll see how it goes. It’s something new anyway. And smaller. By far.

And yes, I entered my first ceramics show ever and got rejected. I’m OK with that. It was a long shot. But you know, in the beginning of my quilt career, Quilt National was a long shot too…so we all get there.

This sweet weird thing, Why. Not., got into Art Quilt Elements.

I entered one of my big complicated pieces and then two smaller pieces that were not as complicated, both in construction and concept, and the big one did not get in. Which is fine. I made this piece in between two big complicated political pieces. And it is its own kind of complicated. It will be at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, PA, opening the same weekend I’ll be in Virginia at the closing ceremonies of my 2-person show. Same coast! For once. But too far to get to, I think.

Anyway. My art travels. Sometimes I get to travel too. Just not as often.

OK. Today. Sigh. I don’t think I got into pilates this afternoon, but I’m taking my stuff just in case. I have an annoying meeting this morning, then am getting kids through ideas about force and mass and motion all day. Then hopefully pilates and then book club. I know I read the book, but I don’t remember which one it was. As always. One day at a time. Then hopefully getting this space clean enough to start the fun task of picking fabrics. I really do enjoy that part. So that’s a good thing.

Forgotten All the Things…

OK well that was a lot. I think I graded for 9 hours yesterday and didn’t finish. Need to adjust something. Might be me. Not sure how though. OK, so what art did I do? I finished tracing pieces on Wonder Under…

Well, I traced Friday night and almost finished…and then traced Saturday night and finished…

It took almost 13 hours to do about 4 1/3 yards of Wonder Under.

Then last night, I started trimming it and didn’t even finish a yard.

Also, that’s just under an hour, because that’s all I’ve been able to pull off the last week or month or eon. And this week, I think I have to be at school early 3 days, so I really should go to bed early the nights before, but I never do. Sleep is so HARD y’all. I just am not very good at it. I finish meditating, I’m all chill and relaxed and ready for sleep and then my brain yells “HIGHLIGHTERS! THE KIDS WILL NEED HIGHLIGHTERS TOMORROW!” and I’m like, Brain, you could have told me that tomorrow morning and it would have been fine, but no, “HIGHLIGHTERS!”. Ugh. Anyway, I will be trimming most of the week. I did get my quilt photos for the last one back from the photographer yesterday, but was too busy grading and cooking dinner to look at them. I’ll do that tonight and pack up the quilt and ship it to the new owner, which is exciting in itself.

In other cool quilt news, Kathy Ford was nice enough to photograph my quilt Portrait of One Self at Quilts=Art=Quilts this weekend.

Apparently it is right up front at the entrance, which is cool.

I wish I could have been there, but I also greatly appreciate the photos. Sometimes my work goes to shows and I never see it in the exhibit and I wonder if it’s actually there. Of course it is, but it doesn’t seem real if I don’t see it. So there it is!

I also went to the ceramics studio on Friday and did a copper wash, mostly wiped off, on the base and the upper torso, and then a light clear satin over that, and then put it in the pile of stuff to be fired. I also put the head in for a bisque fire, and fixed the tree again. Hey, compared to all the fixes on the upper torso, this is nothing.

Remind me to work on something smaller next time. Way smaller. Yeah, I know, it’s not in my nature.

I also went to the dentist on Saturday, where they did this weird 3D scan of my teeth.

Creepy shit.

And then I graded for a million hours.

Fun times. We’re having to go back and reteach some stuff, like the difference between evidence and inference, and where explanation goes (not in your claim), so they can write about science without making it sound like a narrative of their lives (tough one that). One of the more frustrating parts about teaching 8th grade is the obsession with getting Principal’s Honor Roll so they can sit on the stage for promotion. Except they’re learning new skills and it’s really hard to get an A on a new skill in the first month of doing that skill. And they’re so obsessed with the A that they can’t focus on what they need to do to get there. Anyway. It’s a challenge for them (and me) to get them there. Hence 6 emails from one kid and then one from his mom, all on Saturday, until I sent one back about hey, school is about learning. If he already knew everything, he wouldn’t need to come here. And some more stuff. Parental pressure like that is also not helpful. But also, it’s only going to get harder from here on out and I’m not sure he has the A in him. We’ll see. But that’s the point, right? That they grow and progress? Not that they are an A straight off the bat. Sigh.

So I graded in the car as a lovely person drove me to Huntington Beach for a meeting that I also graded through (I contributed to the meeting, so don’t think I blew that off…it was a lot of discussion of how to meet and get members moving forward, which was necessary but not fun), and then graded on the way back. I think I finally quit in Oceanside on the way back…so from 9 AM (I left my house at 8:30) to probably 3:30, and then I picked up my quilt and went home and graded some more. So yeah, at least 9 hours just on Sunday. Another 3 or 4 on Saturday. And an hour or two on Friday. I’m not done with that assignment either, although I didn’t do that in the car/at the meeting mostly. I did all the other things that needed grading. So three homework assignments, all their warmups for the week, plus essays, probably about 100 of them. I have 18 left…that’s probably 2 hours. Seriously. Ugh. I took one picture at the person’s house of this really cool piece of art…

I meant to ask if it was the same person who made the piece I saw at Sebastopol over the summer. I’ll email her and ask.

Otherwise, my weekend was a bunch of memes when I would take a break from grading…

It’s weird. And this really bugs me.

And harassing people who are following the law to be here. Or were BORN here. That’s fun. I totally want my money going to that when you can’t fund special education any more. Or rural schools.

I would love a Schoolhouse Rock song for this…

Someone will do it.

Yeah. That.

And lastly, though I’m going to BREATHE in instead of BREATH in…I think this is how my week is gonna go.

It’s been like that since the beginning of the school year.

Today, my coteacher is out, so I’m not sure whether I can copy the things I need to copy. We couldn’t meet Friday because she had to sub our prep period, because teachers called out without any warning and we couldn’t get subs. I get emergencies, but also, leave sub plans. Have emergency sub plans. I do. I also need to grade those 18 essays, but get kids through a review of what the fuck a CER is, because they’ve forgotten all the things. Next year, we’ll do this earlier for goodness’ sake. We will NOT assume they were taught things last year. Even if we’re the ones that put all those things into the 7th-grade calendar. It’s fine. Really. I love reteaching when I have a shit ton of content to get through before the state test. Then staff meetings about a debrief of something we didn’t do because they never opened the list of sign ups for us to be observed doing it. So yeah, that’ll be a fun, “hey y’all dropped the ball yet again”, in fact I don’t even know if you know where the ball is. Then ceramics today? Or tomorrow? I can’t decide, so I’ll take my stuff with me…I think it needs to be tomorrow though. Yeah, it does. I forgot about book club. I don’t even know what book I was supposed to have read, so hopefully some other part of my brain took care of that and already read it. Yes, that’s where we’re at right now. It’s not great and it’s not particularly enjoyable, but at least I’ll be doing art stuff at the end of the day to make up for all that crazy nutso fuckedupedness.

There Needs to Be Balance.

When the texts came in at 11:30 PM and continued at 6:30 AM and somewhere in there, your new diabetes sensor decided your blood sugar was low even though it really wasn’t because it takes it a while sometimes to behave appropriately (much like oh so many people I can think of at the moment), so it kept buzzing until you put it on the floor, and then you know you have a difficult meeting in the morning, and one of those texts told you something that explains a lot of the bullshit at school and now you’re PISSED, ffs, why why why. Well it’s not the best way to start a Friday. But it IS a Friday. My weekend is too full and I have feels about the No Kings protest and I’m in a place in my head where protest is legit and so is self care and promises I made to people and I’m trying to do all of the things and probably semi-failing at quite a few of them. So I’m processing all that and potentially editing the weekend to-do list to manage that.

How can I be the best American this weekend? Still working on that.

I’ve been tracing every night…well for the last three. Big time.

Not. I’m still in the 100s, although I’ve traced some of the 200s. Probably a mistake that. Might end up with an extra traced bug somewhere. But the bug parts are small and it’s easier if I trace them and cut them all in one space so they don’t get lost. Makes sense to me anyway. And the big pieces of water are a pain to trace. I remember now from the last bathtub quilts. I like how it looks but it’s a pain to make.

Ah yes, so if you don’t know, I think this is the fourth bathtub quilt, definitely a series. It’s actually the 6th drawn bathtub. I was looking at Frida Kahlo’s bathtub painting and then George Bush Jr did one and I don’t know, it hit me as a way to document a life. Or in the case of this quilt, a life and an unalive. All four bathtub quilts will be at the Virginia Quilt Museum January through March, along with a few others. I will be there the last weekend in March too, along with the other artist in the show, Lena Meszaros. Should be interesting.

Yesterday, I underglazed the tree, which miraculously did not break again.

It took an hour.

Which is crazy. This is going on top of the head that hasn’t been glazed yet. I also signed up for a handbuilding/slab sculpture class in November. It looked interesting and I need more tips on building stuff. I always feel like I’m doing it by the seat of my pants…because I am.

Um I should probably send this to someone in particular. But it’s true! We need to vent. Especially if your job is a whirlwind of crazy all day. Because that shit festers.

Our trees were trimmed this week and the guys somehow broke like 6 pots and full on disappeared some with plants and I’m upset but I get it. I moved the ones I thought they’d hit and they full on hit others instead. So I’m also sad. It’s OK; the tree guy is paying to replace pots but there was this adorable little succulent that had just bloomed and it’s just gone and I’m sad about it. I’m also sad about my kitty being gone, even though it’s been two months. Bowie keeps coming in here looking for her, and I’m like SAME dude, I keep looking for her too.

Oh my. So sucky meeting in the morning, teaching net force all day with a simulation; let’s see if the day chaos can NOT. Then errands woo hoo love errands ugh no I do not. Then dinner and grading and tracing and deciding what I can deal with this weekend. There are things I WANT to do and things I NEED to do and things I HAVE to do and there needs to be a balance. And I don’t know what it is right now. Peace and love to the protestors and the marches across the country. Because this shit is crazy and needs to stop and yes, it’s easy to say that and as always, I struggle with the how to make the crazy shit stop and/or make sense (that’s not happening). We need a Day of Remembrance for our democracy, for empathy, for American values, because this ain’t it.

Today the Oatmeal Exploded.

Monday was burning oatmeal. Today was exploding oatmeal, all over the side of the bowl, where it will stick like concrete. Fun times. And yesterday kinda felt like that. Or maybe Monday. Or both. The workload is a challenge. Too many parts to it. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to have some literacy thing done by the 27th but they haven’t provided a calendar for it, so it’s just not gonna happen. Or they’ll tell us on the 20th that it has to be done by the 27th (‘it’ being something where you schedule admin to come watch you do it), and that’ll be the end of me.

Teaching-wise, the content is fine, the kids are OK (except for the dingbat who couldn’t shut up yesterday about all the reasons she didn’t want to sit where she was put). I just can’t get far enough ahead to not feel like I can’t breathe. Might be a me problem.

Monday, I made it to ceramics, where both pieces were out of the bisque fire. I tentatively put them together (it’s a little wobbly, hence my hand)…

I go back and forth about what to do next. I know these colors won’t survive a glaze fire, so the plan is to iron oxide, darken it all up in the crevices, and then use a satin matte glaze on some areas for color. Or all areas. I don’t know.

The only crack in the upper torso is where that finger attaches to the breast. And the crack in the bottom piece got smaller in the second bisque firing.

I fixed this, which will hopefully go on top of the head. Scary to get to the point where I have to put it all together.

Not sure where to store all the parts at the moment. I don’t have enough shelf space for any of it at the moment. I could move the head out, but there probably still wouldn’t be enough room for more than the base. I’m hoping to go Thursday to underglaze the tree and maybe put the head in the bisque fire.

Meanwhile, at home, I finished drawing the big piece…added that target and a few other things.

Numbered it Monday and Tuesday night…it’s a little over a thousand pieces. Not bad for trying to keep it simple (ha!).

And then last night, I started tracing…

I didn’t get far. But that’s OK. I’ve got fewer meetings at night this week. Should help. Although I’m trying to catch up on grading still. Always.

We got a chunk of rain yesterday…my app had been saying 0.04″ so I wasn’t really prepared for being sopping wet after school…just walking to the car.

And at home, checking all the new gutters (one had an issue) and digging a trench…in the rain. Fun times. Then pajamas on and finally finishing the book I had left in the morning, under duress.

So many uses for this.

I stayed late at school yesterday to document all the behaviors from the beginning of the month on our digital system and to call two parents, one of which didn’t answer and his voicemail was full, so I texted, used our parent communication app, and sent it to the translator, so there’s no question of their understanding the issue. The other one tried to say “you know he’s ADHD” as an excuse. Ah ma’am…I raised one of those, and you better stop enabling that shit right now. I always counter with, oh yeah, I raised one of those.

I love Gemma Correll’s drawings…

And they feel very real at the moment.

Especially that…I’m thinking of some specific buildings. Empty of humans of course.

I feel like I post this every year. And it’s true every year.

OK, trees are being trimmed today (stress!) plus I think I have to come up with something for the kids to do for the last half of the period, because I’m ahead of my co-teacher. Or not. Just have them finish their cover pages. There we go. Simple. Then pilates and grading and tracing. And reading. All good.

Earth Is in Retrograde

OK, maybe just the US. Maybe the rest of you are okey dokey. If so, send snacks…and help.

I don ‘t feel ready for the day. It’s too early. There are too many meetings. I wrote 7 emails in Spanish yesterday. I talked to a kid using Google Translate. Imma do that today with another kid, if she actually shows up. Sigh. When I care more about a kid promoting to high school than their parents do…then I know their parents have way more on their plates than I do, and that’s saying something. School is a challenge. It’s always a challenge. It’s hard because we’re redoing a unit for the fourth time (for me), and we’re using ChatGPT, but (1) it uses natural resources, which bugs me, and (2) it’s not particularly smart or helpful sometimes.

Sigh. I know it. And I guess I’m not using it to write this (as if you couldn’t tell…I ramble worse than a baby lamb). My school district is really pushing it. At some point, maybe with a different government in place, there will be limits…but not for a while. Not until the damage is done.

Time is difficult too. I had a meeting before and after school yesterday, and before I went to the afterschool one, I drove out into this…

Which could have been way worse (I was on the freeway that isn’t all yellow and red). And after that, I went to an opening at Hyde Gallery, which was cool. More about that later this week. Pro: the quilt is being photographed and I did the other things. I even came back (and collapsed for about 30 minutes) and got work done. I sort of set up a worksheet I need for next Tuesday (sheesh) and then started grading stuff. Always behind on that. Significantly so at the moment. That said, building roller coasters has been relatively good, except for some minor stupidity (ah, middle-school boys…operating without a frontal lobe). I got a little grading done even, which rarely happens (and won’t today, I suspect).

Ceramics update: I went on Monday, despite the two-hour staff meeting before it, and amazingly, the woman in charge was there and all the kilns were empty, and the upper torso had NOTHING BROKEN (OMG, this never happens), so it must have been fate, so we loaded it in.

I also refired the base because it needed some refinement on the underglazes. Understand that it’s probably $75 of firing fees right there, but I don’t feel bad, because I haven’t fired anything since like March. I’ve been working on the upper torso since fucking January 8. It’s about time I fired the fucker. And it survived! IDK if there are cracks, but it came out of the kiln last night; I saw it in the video. So I might go see it tonight. Maybe. Then I have to make decisions about glazing it. I’m conflicted on that. So many of the underglazes go super dark, so I’d have to put something on them. But I might want to do some iron oxide as well? Not sure. Might have to sit on that decision for a while.

Meanwhile, the head is done and drying…

And in photos…

In case your video is annoying.

I did go a little weird on the head. And yes, I had to make a base and will fire it in the base. And then throw the base away. It’s OK; it’s reclaimed clay.

And then I worked on the very top bit, the tree on the top…

I wrapped it up with like 20 paper towels, hoping it would hold up as it dried, and not dry too fast.

Pain in the ass. Seriously. Why do I build this crazy shit? So this comes out the top of the head. Wish me luck.

In between that and packing up two quilts for the photographer, and driving all over town, I managed to tape two big pieces of paper together on Monday night and start drawing last night. The taping and drawing was complicated by this standoff.

Bowie wanted to play and Nova decidedly did not. But eventually they left, and I started with one of the campfire sketches (I’m changing it a bit as I go)…

There’s a little pencil on there, just to make sure stuff isn’t a stupid size. I can’t make it too complicated or I won’t be able to finish it in time. Bathtubs (yes, there will be more than one) and politics. Perfect mix. I’ll be doing this for a while. Hopefully not more than a week, but you never know.

From the book I just finished…which was eh.

But I liked some of her sentences. Like that one.

This is probably relevant to my quilts…because people sometimes say that to me about my work.

Make the world a better place and I’ll make prettier quilts. Also this…Goodall didn’t mention me at all. And I’m OK with that.

So the barn owl is still here, shitting all over the entryway steps and shrieking occasionally. I accept that as part of the wonder of having barn owls. I also accept the dead gopher they dropped in the driveway. But now we have romantic Great Horned owls…this is one of the males.

Horrible picture, at night, with a flashlight aimed at its horny self.

Not that the video is any better. At least they’re quieter than baby barn owls. But the female…holy crap, the most scary noise you’ve heard. I don’t have video of that. So there are two males and the one female, and the other night, they would not shut the fuck up. IDK how gentle hoots can keep me awake, but I guess it says something about me.

Last meme…

I blame my feeligs on the US actually. Well, and Russia and Israel and a few others. And billionaires. And people with no empathy. So there’s that. Earth does seem to be in retrograde though.

Meeting this morning, another after school. Last day to build roller coasters, so lots of yelling and ‘get on with it’ and recording videos of successful runs. Then two days to shut up and get the rest of it done. Ha! While I try to catch up on grading AND plan the next unit with my coteacher. Fun times. Long day. No pilates; couldn’t get into the class. Sigh. Ah well. Maybe on the weekend. Things my body appreciates…exercise, reading, peace and quiet, nature. Some of that.

Another Hole in My Finger…

No matter what I do, I’m always sitting on the couch on Sunday night, wondering why I didn’t get more done over the weekend. Like I shouldn’t have gone to ceramics yesterday, despite not being able to get there all week, because I should have graded more. I should have finished that one assignment (I have a class and a half left to grade…at least an hour, probably closer to two). I should have finished grading the homework from two weeks ago (I have two classes left, maybe three? Can’t remember). I’m two weeks behind in grading advisory assignments. Ah well. And I’m going camping this coming weekend, so I won’t be grading then. Unless I can get the Man to drive (then I might get sick…hmmm) so I can grade homework on the way up. Meanwhile, I’m trying to not waste my ceramics studio membership by not going, I haven’t made it to the gym in weeks, and I have a quilt I’m trying to finish so I can start the one that has to be done by mid-December. Minor panic. I did manage to pick a binding from the three and get it sewn on…

Although Friday night, all I did was trim it. It was all I could handle. I graded a lot Friday night. On Saturday, I had more mental energy…so I got the binding sewn on and pinned down, and found a cat to sit on it.

Thank you, Nova. Then last night, I started the stitching and ritual poking a hole in my finger until I give in and find the sticky thimble things.

So I’ll be here a few more nights, then contact the photographer, and start the next one, which has been simmering on the Art Brain stove for a few weeks.

Ceramics has been frustrating lately; I can’t get there (I don’t have the energy or the time) and then when I get there, someone has bumped the big piece shoving stuff next to it, and it’s broken again. This is the head, though…and it’s almost underglazed…

Still some work to do on the hair…

And I think I did the teeth too? Maybe? I can’t remember when I took the photo. The mid-torso piece is hopefully ready to bisque fire, but that takes coordination with the person in charge of the kilns, and I haven’t been able to show up during her work time for weeks. I could just text her, I guess. I’m hesitant to commit to putting it into the kiln. I’m afraid it’s all going to fall apart, honestly, and if it does, I’m gluing it all together. There is a piece that goes on top of this, and the base needs to be bisque fired again, so there’s a lot going on…I just haven’t been able to get there enough.

When we go out on Saturdays, I draw until they bring us the food. I don’t always get much time (some places are super fast).

But it helps my drawing hand remember the things.

And sometimes people comment…this one got some random guy telling me it was good. Thanks random guy.

This one was two restaurants, two date nights.

The first one served way too fast.

This one too.

But it seemed mostly finished.

And yet, here is what I get from students…

I could just about read his writing. There were a couple that I really couldn’t read. This is the con to putting stuff on paper. The pro is that they can’t copy and paste from Google. The con is my brain explodes. This is what I didn’t finish. It’s not hard to grade, really…just time-consuming. What is that, you say? A person falling out of a moving car. If you stare at it long enough, you might see it. I only know that because the horrendously mostly illegible writing to the right explained it.

So more of that.

While I was grading, I was watching stuff, as you do…and this amused me. ALMOST?

So you have 26 pairs? Or you have part of a pair? Also, yeah, so do I, at least.

This after a conversation on Thursday with two staff members who admitted to originally being afraid of me.

It’s OK. This was found on Saturday’s hike before dinner…

Also the sun is going down earlier. I forgot that would happen.

Same cat (Nova) on another quilt.

It must be fall, the cat-sitting-on-quilt season.

This after the Man went out with man friends. Although they did actually ask some questions this time.

I ask stuff when he gets back, and he’s like, “We didn’t talk about that” over and over again until I’m like, WTF did you talk about?! I’m not invited anymore (it’s all just guy stuff, no gaming mostly), and I just wanna know how everyone is doing. And I can’t ask them.

Let’s finish up with my favorite disappeared female aviator…

Go Amelia!

OK. It’s a short week because our school board has set these idiotic 3-day weekends (the next one isn’t even a 3-day…it’s entirely stupid) because they say parents want them. It’s true that a bunch of our kids are absent on Fridays or Mondays…but it makes it harder to teach. I’ll take this one though…we’re going camping up in the local mountains. It’s a full week though…three Zoom calls at night (none are work-related), plus at least three meetings? Four? Not sure. I give up on keeping track. Teaching something today…ah, reviewing potential and kinetic energy for roller coasters, which they’ll start designing on Thursday. Fun times. Then two meetings or three, not sure (principal says one thing then says something different in the weekly email that comes whenever he feels like it…I miss the principal that scheduled them for the same time every week). Then I’m either going to ceramics or coming home and grading, because I have book club tonight. Good book for that one. And then stitching a hole in my finger. NO! Finding the sticky thimble pad, so I DON’T stitch a hole in my finger. That’s the plan.