Just the Wings…

Some days it feels like I am just getting by until I can go back to whatever art project I am working on. I get through school and errands and exercise, except I really enjoy exercise, and then I get through cooking and eating and paperwork (is it paperwork if it’s on the computer?) or the technological equivalent, and then I look at the clock and calculate how much time there is left in the day for artmaking. I really wish it didn’t always start after 10 PM. Especially when daylight savings is already kicking my butt. The night owl self wants to stay up an hour later, but the morning self reminds me I have to teach 155 7th graders tomorrow and patience is one of those things that wears thin with little sleep. It already wears thin on project weeks. Gone are the days of scantrons and multiple-choice tests (well, they’re SUPPOSED to be gone…some teachers still use them), which means more work on both sides. Kids want me to give them all the answers. Then they get mad when they calculate their BMI as part of this project (yup. I brought in a scale) and realize they are classified as obese. Or that they have a higher risk for heart disease because of their gender or their race. Or that the parent who smokes around them is increasing their risk as well. Yeah. Well. Welcome to critical thinking.

So what little patience I have gets fully used up by 3:30 and then I’m supposed to do tutorial after school…unpaid tutorial, I might add, and I’m doing it today because of that project that’s due, but what I really want to do is come home and finish ironing. Well, that’s not all I want to do. Tonight is a little different, but it’s OK. It will get done.

This is a messy pile. I don’t like messy piles, but even if I straighten it all up before I start, this is what it ends up looking like…

I had a lot of little fussy things to iron last night: a cat, some hair, a uterus, lungs, a jellyfish.

I actually had myself convinced at some point that I would have no problem finishing the ironing last night, but then it was after midnight and I stood there staring at this pile…

Totally exhausted and still completely undecided as to what color(s) the wings should be. And that’s all that’s left. The damn wings. Hard to make decisions at that hour. So I packed everything up, turned off the iron, peed the dog, and walked down the hallway toward the sweet comfy bed, and the solution popped into my head.

Yeah. That’s how it works. If you make art every day, even on the days when there is no inspiration and nothing strikes your fancy, and all you’re doing is picking up fabric and moving it around or drawing godawful things in your sketchbook, or even just stitching something down because it needs to be stitched and you don’t feel like being more creative than that…if you do all that, then your brain gets in the habit of solving those creative problems while you’re too tired to even consider them. My brain figures shit out while I’m doing the dishes, while I’m driving to work or on errands, while I’m standing in a line. I let it wander and it does. It wanders until the answer is just there.

This is not an instantaneous thing. You have to work at it. I make so much work because I work at it. It seems so easy now, but there’s almost thirty years of practice in there, some years better than others. More intensely now than ten years ago. In fact, that might be my greatest fear about getting old is that I’ll lose that. I won’t have art every day. So when I talk about getting old, there’s a few things I want: I don’t want to be that old lady with the cane or the walker. I want to be the one who’s still hiking the mountains. She may have poles and she may go slowly, but she’s still moving. I want to make art every day. In fact, I will have worked my butt off for years and I deserve to retire and make art every day. No, I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to afford to retire, but whatever. Those aren’t the only things I want, but they are two of the most important.

With that, I guess at least I know what color I’ll be ironing tonight…just the wings…and then I’ll be ready for the next step on this project. Time to cut out all those little tiny pieces. Way better than stressing out about school.

Sustenance

Deep breaths. It’s only 5 days, 1 major project, 1 unit of study, 2 parent meetings, and 1 field trip away from Spring Break. You Can Do This. Seriously, though, Friday was a bitch. So was Friday night and most of Saturday. I didn’t get anything done at all except art, because that was all I could handle. So that’s what I did. Friday night I drew…

I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, so I messed with one of them…

The cats kept me company…they don’t really like each other, so this is as close as they get.

No, that heating pad is not on. I guess it’s possible it had residual heat on Friday night, because my neck was still a mess. It’s better now.

Then I went into the studio and tried to iron a bit…

Exhaustion took over at some point. I got up the next morning, made my post-it list for the weekend (this is becoming a disturbing habit), and stared at it for a while. Then I ironed fabric instead…these are the flesh fabrics…

I needed to cross something off the post-it, so I went and picked up the dog from my ex’s house (soccer tournament) and walked her about 3 miles. She was very excited to see me. I brought her back here and she lolled around on the floor for the rest of the day. And I kept picking fabrics…

Honestly, most of this piece is the three figures, so lots of fleshy bits. At the end of Saturday, I had this stuff left to iron…

Basically everything that wasn’t flesh. Notice I still have all those loose bits of fusible web on that blue lid over there. Honestly, it hasn’t been that bad finding the missing pieces. I’ve only had to redraw a few.

At the end of Saturday’s 5-hour ironing binge (yeah, you read that right…I only got two things crossed off the damn post-it list and one was walk the dog)…this is how much I had ironed down.

I went to watch a band play. The waitress really liked this one…

The sitting at the table part is a piece of another drawing in my head. I think I’m going to try that one in a bigger sketchbook.

And this one…

Three drawings in 25 hours…not bad.

Sunday was busy. I crossed two more things off the post-it list and did a bunch of stuff for school that wasn’t even on the post-it. Plus the grocery shopping and crap around the house and cooking for the week. And I graded. Shocking. But I tried to stay away from it most of the weekend. I want to be sort of caught up for vacation…which is actually impossible, because see above…one major assignment and one unit due this week. It will take a long time to grade those. Oh well.

But later Sunday night, I got started again…slowly. This is ironing a tea set. You know. Like you do.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far in a remarkably messy pile.

And here is the dog…still lolling around at my feet. She groans if I step over her.

Here’s what’s left to iron. Two sets of wings…I don’t know what color to make them. Should they be the same? Different? Bright? Dull? Earthy? I just don’t know. There’s a set of lungs and a uterus in there too. And her hair, which involves some seawater, a jellyfish, a starfish, and some other fish.

Here’s what’s in the box as of last night.

I’ve been ironing for almost 9 hours. Almost all this weekend. Yeah. I wasn’t really in the mood to Real Life it this weekend. Art. It’s what’s for dinner. Actually, no, bacon/leek risotto was for dinner and it was quite good. But art is my late-night snack, my dessert, my sustenance.

Which Parent Will You Be?

Neck is still messed up. Call to chiropractor today. Same with the pool. Whatever. I survived yesterday with about 300 people saying or singing happy birthday to me. I think 6th period was the most melodic AND in tune. Fourth period was just screechy and although 8th period was a nice volume, they only knew three notes.

I sat through a union meeting and drew this…

I have two drawings in my head that are Big Heads (way bigger than this…the sketchbook is probably 6×9″). Need to find time for that.

Then a quiet evening with pizza, Walking Dead, and my sofa companions, some more needy and some more verbal than others. Then I did the dishes and put the dishwasher stuff away, wrote an email to my union people about what happened at the meeting, moved a bookshelf (17 other pieces of furniture had to move first), and finished putting fabric away. While I was doing that, I remembered Amanda Palmer had posted on Facebook about a new song, a serious song, not a last-minute plinking of the ukelele (not that I mind those), and I scrolled through until I found it…listening to the song, I read the story behind it, which is sad, of course. But this part got me…photo of babe in suitcase while she tries to finish writing a song all night. Being an artist AND being a mom…two of the hardest jobs to juggle at the same time.

And I like that…“you are either going to be the person who stayed up and wrote the song, or you’re going to be the person who went to bed and didn’t write the song.” I don’t care about the boring fucking parent side, but I guess I was always the one who stayed up and made the art. Who made it despite parenthood and divorce and all the other crap. I think that’s the artist’s drive, the one that woke me up around 2 AM with this vision of a drawing in my head. Anyway, the song is good…see link below for the story and the song. I read it while I listened, which I think is the best way to do it.

Amanda Palmer: Machete

So in the light of being that person, the one who stays up late to have her other artistic life, here’s what I did after 10 PM last night. First of all, the damn Wonder Under is being an asshole. Here are all the released pieces.

So when I’m ironing, if a piece doesn’t have the web on it, I do this kindergarten-level pattern matching. It has a pointy bit here, it’s long and skinny there, and I try to match them up. If I can’t, I trace a new one. It is a rancid pain in the ass. It’s like an online intelligence test.

Here’s the first 100 laid out.

I honestly didn’t get far, through the 50s and into the 60s I believe. Tiny little pieces and a tired little brain. But I started and that’s what matters. Now I have a plan for the next few nights. This is one of my favorite parts of the quiltmaking process, picking out the fabrics. The piece isn’t even colored in my brain. I just stare at the drawing and imagine it in a variety of colors as I’m picking stuff.

It’s a little crazy actually. The background is on the left. The stuff I’ve used so far is on the right. This drawing is small enough that right now I have it just sitting on the ironing board. Easier to see what’s what, cuz that’s some tiny-ass pieces.

I got to a stopping point and was trying to straighten other stuff up in the studio, when I realized I had a piece of dowel that would work for the SAQA auction piece I bought last year and hadn’t hung yet. I cut the dowel, stuck eyebolts in, and then realized it was REALLY tight. The sleeve was tight against the piece…making the dowel bulge out…

It’s hard to see in this picture, but look on the left, where you can see the bulge of the dowel. I hate that. I always leave room in my sleeves so that won’t happen.

So I ripped the bottom edge of the sleeve and repinned it.

And then I’ll sew it down where it belongs. So I can hang it up with all the other art that needs to get hung up.

Wow. Tired. Sore. But looking forward to that late night tonight when I can hang with the fabric again.

Up All Night…

So I stayed up too late. Not all night, but even this morning was just troubled sleep and I couldn’t fall asleep last night, despite the late hour. My brain’s in overtime. Overload. Overwhelmed. Just over. But I wanted to finish the ironing…I started with the eyeball tree growing out of her head…

And then the other two faces got done. That was it, really. A hundred pieces or so in that space.

Then I ironed her legs onto the torso…I’d kept them separate. At this point, I started pulling the arms and heads up off the teflon sheet.

Then I looked at the clock. It was that in-between time…in between when I might go to bed and when I should go to bed, and my brain just wanted to be done. So I grabbed one of the two fabrics I’d picked for this quilt and ironed her down…

That was fast. Well. 12 hours and 45 minutes total. Not uber fast really. I’m hoping to start stitching down tonight, but I have two meetings tonight, so that might be too much hoping. Finish stitch down tomorrow night, sandwich and pinbaste Friday night and start quilting. I think I might actually make this deadline. Which is good, because there’s another one right behind it. Aack. I did have something I wanted to do next, but it won’t work for this next exhibit. Luckily, it only needs to be mostly done by the end of March and there’s a Spring Break in there. I might go into overload schoolwise before I get there though. Speaking of. Need to go there and do stuff.

Ironing Arms…

I so wanted to be done with the ironing yesterday. I ironed pieces quite happily for 4 hours until I realized I needed to go to bed, although honestly, with the amount of sleep I got, it would have made more sense to stay up another hour or so. I’m 10 hours in, but I’m not done. I did have a 3-day weekend, but it doesn’t feel like I got a day’s more of work in. I’m not sure where it all went, but it did. Errands. Stupid little stuff. I only crossed two things off the post-it note weekend list. That doesn’t feel good.

So keep making art. That feels good. And another tight deadline just popped up after this one, so I need to get moving.

On Saturday, after finishing a bunch of errands and other crap, I started on the torso.

That was easy, so I started torturing myself with hands and arms.

The arms all were drawn basically the same, so I got into a rhythm of ironing them down, knowing what piece came next. They were tiny pieces though.

Each arm/hand has something about it…sometimes two things. One thing near or in the hand, like the needle and thread, and one thing on the arm…although some don’t have both.

I think that’s where I stopped on Saturday. Not sure…wait, I only had two arms on Saturday.

Then Sunday, I kept doing arms, but I didn’t start until almost 10 PM. Dealt with grades and school stuff. Not sure where most of the day went. I think I even took a nap. Crazy, huh? Things I would never do on Sunday during the school year without Monday as a holiday for catching up.

By the end of Sunday, I had 7 arms of 10.

The pieces on this quilt are tiny. That’s what happens when you draw most of it to size. Well. That’s what happens when I draw most of it to size. You might be smarter than I am.

See that iPhone? Yeah. Too small. Tiny pieces.

Hearts with wings. One thing that’s interesting about looking at them on the white teflon sheet is that they will end up on a dark background, so it will all look very different.

When I drew the flying hearts, I squished them in too tightly, so when I traced them, I made sure the one that was originally UNDER a hand had all its parts so I can move them around and make them fit better.

So Monday I started on the upper torso, which had a lot of little pieces.

And the last set of arms finally. As I was picking fabrics, I was trying to make sure I (1) used the same fabrics on each side for each set of arms (not an easy task) and (2) each set of arms was layered so the darkest fabrics were used on the arms that were furthest back. For flesh fabrics, I usually do a run of 7 fabrics…this quilt had 11 I think. Or 13. Something like that.

Oh yeah. And a rocket ship. Plus the inevitable dog I picked up on Monday.

Calli is my daughter’s dog. She travels between the two houses while her mom’s gone because I’m home more and Calli’s lonely, but she really likes her grandpa more than me. He lets her do stuff I don’t do. So she escapes my yard. During the week, I drive her to his house every day, and on the weekend, she gets to stay with him. Crazy really.

I started on the head…well one of the heads…last night. I usually iron the eyes as a separate unit so I can place them on the head and make sure they’re not crooked.

There she is! Except there’s stuff growing out of that head and there are two more heads on the side.

So that was at 11:55 PM last night and I knew I had to leave for school early (in fact, in about 5 minutes), and there were at least another 100 pieces to iron. So an hour, maybe more. I guess that’s tonight. Sigh. I wanted to be stitching down last night. It’s OK. I probably won’t get to that tonight though and tomorrow night is busy. So maybe Thursday night stitching down, Friday night pinbasting and starting to quilt. Time’s a runnin’ through my fingers here. That said, technically I still have three weeks. Barely. And it needs to be photographed. Minor issue.

OK, need to go to school. Tired, not enough sleep, still cranky. Aargh. I did fight the crank last night. Was absolutely fine for the four hours I was ironing. Keep that in mind. Grading papers makes me cranky. Making art does not. Making art does, however, make my brain wired and unable to fall asleep for hours. Whoops.

Head in a Hole

I didn’t get any art done yesterday. It happens. I’m pretty good about doing something most days, but I didn’t have the energy to stand and iron at 10 last night. Strangely. And this morning…this morning, I’ve written out the weekend post-it note and it’s a bit ugly. Why oh why. And it’s supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow. A stark contrast to the girlchild’s photos from Friday morning…

Meanwhile, I’m considering putting my pale winter legs in shorts. I haven’t been outside yet. I’m in hermit mode. My post-it note sent my brain into an overwhelmed frenzy. And I have a 3-day weekend to deal with all of it. What does it mean that the only thing I really want to do is iron the damn quilt together? Oh yeah. It means I’m an artist and an overworked teacher. Fucking A.

We did decide that it’s my fault my co-teacher hasn’t given birth yet. I haven’t finished the binding. I got side-tracked and never finished. So that’s what I did when I got home late last night…worked on that.

But did I finish? No I did not. So she still can’t give birth. Bad Kathy.

And then I walk in the studio this morning and there’s the next batch of 100 pieces laid out with the bins on top that keep the cats from lying on the pieces and messing them up and walking off with piece number 117 stuck to their tail. This has happened. Most of the weird shit I do is because of experience.

So I really just want to ignore the post-it. But I can’t. Too responsible. Maybe. Certainly some of the things on the post-it make me want to put my head in a hole. None of it is easy. It’s all a pain in the butt. I didn’t even put the standard stuff on there, like laundry or groceries. Or sleep. I did put grade stuff on there. Ugh. So tired of that. Taking a break this week from tutorial and detention at school. I’m burnt out. Funny because school admin was just talking about how my team goes above and beyond to deal with parents and support our kids, and I’m going to totally blow it off this week. Maybe the next as well. I’m going to blow it off until I can stand to do it again. Just to clarify, I don’t get paid to stay after school. And it’s not in my contract. So I’m just going to work to contract (sort of…because you know I’ll come home and work) until I can be a better teacher again.

I can’t even think straight this morning…can’t pick one of the things on the post-it and do it. Too much fluff in my head. Alphabetical order maybe. Or just crumple that bastard up and start ironing.

The Whole Nude Thing

Sometimes it’s so easy to come home and blow off school. I had my monthly stitching meeting, where I embroidered bird parts, birds I may never finish, although that part doesn’t really matter. I embroider because I like it and it’s relaxing. And not everything I do has to be art.

Then I came home and made art…even though some student emailed me about her missing assignment that she turned in last week and I haven’t graded it yet (I actually have time this weekend set aside to deal with the pile of late work, which is always a pain in my butt). I totally ignored her. She’ll get an answer today, no worries, but I might explain that if she turns work in two months late, I don’t feel any real urgency to grade it. Maybe I should take two months to grade it?

Oh yeah, I need that 3-day weekend, let me tell you. Even if I will spend a chunk of it working.

Sorting all the fabric the night before was smart, because it made it really easy to start ironing last night. I started with the rug and the stuff on it…

Here’s where I work…Kitten supervising. Looking at this makes me think I should spend some time cleaning up the desk, and that is true…because taxes and financial aid need to be done soon and I will need to get through all that paper to do that. Not really looking forward to that.

Oh yeah. The obligatory Nida crotch shot. The thing is, if you’re going to do nudes, you have to work pretty hard to never show an open crotch shot (and this one isn’t done, by the way). So many male-created female nudes have these lovely lines and fluid motion, but she’s never just sitting there…and if she’s sitting down, legs crossed, dammit. There’s a vulva. And why we’re scared of it? I don’t know. To me it refers to childbirth, to creation, to sexual pleasure, to where we all came out (except those C-section kids). The path we all traveled into existence in the free world. Why are we scared of that? Why does that offend? Why do people FREAK OUT at a crotch shot?

One of my art friends said something at the opening about where are ya gonna go to see crotches just Wide Open in front of a lot of college students? A Nida exhibit. OK. So there we are. And it’s not porn. I’ve been accused of that too. Why is the vulva porn? None of my work shows pornographic sex or even sex for that matter. Very few penises even, and certainly not used in a pornographic matter. The plain existence of the vulva is porn? Really? When we deal with it every day? It brings periods, delivers babies, gives pleasure, excretes pee? This is porn? That’s pretty utilitarian if you ask me. Nothing to fuss about.

Same with breasts. Hey! There’s gonna be breasts in this quilt too! Breasts are for babies. Yeah, they also apparently stimulate male brains and are good for a number of nerve endings and fill out bras (not a good thing in my book), but we can live without them. And they aren’t evil. Seeing a breast shouldn’t cause paroxysms of outrage. Appreciation for the human form…understanding that when the figure is nude in art, there’s fewer clues about their status, their upbringing, their culture. It’s more about all humans, all women. It’s universal. Even by choosing skin color, hair color, eye color…those already color a viewer’s perception. And you want me to add clothing? I’ve never been a fan of drawing clothing. It’s too fussy. I like bodies and their parts. Always have. Assuming the body is transparent and what’s inside is clearly visible. The systems that make us go, that also can kill us. Way more interesting than pants or a skirt.

So yeah. That’s why the whole nude thing. You’d never ask a white male painter about why he paints nudes. You wouldn’t.

So that’s what I got done yesterday, about 100 pieces. It took longer than I thought it did. Not sure why.

Torso next. Then 10 arms. Gonna take a while to get through all of those. Yes, 10 arms. Gonna ask me about that too? Well hang on. Wait until all the other stuff is on there and then you can tell me what the quilt is about. Universal theme, I think. At least to a large chunk of the population.

Obtain Fastidious Knowhow

I love reading spam sometimes just for the crazy phraseology that pops up. I’m good at making up words. I had a student tell me she was going to use “legitimous” from here on out, not realizing that “legit” was short for “legitimate.” I made her look it up. But legitimous is kind of a cool word. I’m sure “knowhow” should be hyphenated, but I really think hyphens are lame most of the time. Must be my German genes…just SQUISH all those words together into one! Anyway, the title is from spam. They came to my blog to get the fastidious knowhow and I know how to provide it. Fastidiously. Legitimously. Uh huh.

Still trying to lift the mood. Ugh. I think I’m getting sick too, which figures. Whatever. I had someone contact me today about a job I applied for in early November. I need the money. I have other work that I’m doing tonight that should turn into some money at some point. So that’s good.

Last night, I just wanted to finish the ironing part…sometimes everything just takes too freaking long. Anyway, it took about another hour…longer than I thought it would. Ten hours and 45 minutes total. I think I estimated 10 hours, though, so that’s not too bad. All the fussy little bits took longer than I thought they would. Here’s the 89 fabrics that went into this quilt…

Not much blue or yellow, only one orange in the whole thing. Lots of flesh in reality. All the other colors are used in relatively small pieces.

I started trimming last Sunday at my fiber group meeting…and then I went to quilt class last night (people! socializing! not being a hermit!) and cut things out for another two hours…

And I cut for another half an hour after this, so there’s more done than that, but not a lot. Based on the last big quilt, it will take me about 9 hours to get through it all, and that means I won’t be done until after the weekend, I think. I have boatloads of grading to do on top of the work. I have not been super efficient this week. So I make myself look at the calendar and try to visualize finishing this quilt. Is this the halfway point? Not based on other quilts. If it were fully trimmed, that’s about halfway. And I only have 4 weeks left, and that’s if the photographer can do it the weekend before.

Nah. I don’t know if I can finish it in time. Oh well. OK. So I have lots to do and I don’t feel well. Moving on with my fastidious knowhow. Like I do.

Slow…

I’m definitely plodding along…not getting a shitload of anything done, not ever getting to the end of any project, whether grading or quilting, not finishing anything. Not accomplishing much. Except I did. Everything’s just slow. I’m slow. My brain is slow. My mood is dank. All I really wanted to do last night was draw, but I didn’t know what I wanted to draw. Just wanted to lose myself in it. No such luck. Too many things I want done and I’m not getting any of them done. Not motivated. Tired. Moody as hell.

I did iron. I thought I might finish. I might have finished if it had been any other night where I felt motivated and awake and competent. But in the end, the last few pieces (OK, there are probably 50 pieces left) just kicked my butt. I’m 9 1/2 hours in and there’s probably 30 minutes left. I really could have done that last night. Well, last night I didn’t think I could, so there we are.

Here’s everything that’s been ironed so far…

But I’m looking at that dark piece on top and thinking it might not show up on the background…I’ll have to figure that out. Maybe. Maybe not right this second. But when I’m ironing it together, you better bet I’ll be thinking…shit…I wish I’d dealt with that already.

Here’s everything I’ve used so far…lots of bits and pieces really, since the flesh is the main part of the quilt.

I should finish it tonight, but that depends on so many factors. I can’t predict the mood or how the other shit I need to do will fall out. Last night I had some technology stuff to do and the computer was just a bitch. So was my iPad and my school computer kept crashing apps, so it was altogether a frustrating day in the world of computers. Although I suspect that the latter are because they need to be replaced. My iPad mini is a first generation and it regularly tells me it is full and I delete stuff but now it’s getting cranky and slow too. I don’t know what to do about that. There’s no money to replace that. The school computer is older and was old when they bought them, honestly…I don’t know how much more time it has, or even if its problems are its age or the age of all the infrastructure around it and on it…fairly sure we need to update some of the apps we use beyond regular releases…like you know, pay some money out…things schools don’t do.

I did two things for myself yesterday, trying to improve my mood. The first was go to the gym. I liked that. Should do more of it. The second was go fabric shopping…notionally, I needed that pink there for the binding of the baby quilt (which I did not sew on last night because I did not feel like it, but will hopefully come home and do tonight because I am a good girl)…and I bought two possible backgrounds for the quilt I’m working on now…

But there’s something relaxing about walking through the fabrics, letting your eye wander, and waiting for something new to catch your eye.

And I realized I don’t know what I’ll be working on next. I need more work for shows, because I don’t have enough for all the shows I want to enter at the moment. Too many things are traveling for too long. I’m regretting one of them…because it could be in better shows than the ones I agreed to as replacement to the ones where the shipment didn’t get there. And another sold, which is not a bad problem to have, but it was only in one show before it sold and it was one of the big time-consuming pieces from last year, so that’s made me short quilts as well. I saw a drawing I did last year for a smaller quilt and think I might do that before committing to the next big one, but then again, Spring Break is coming and that’s a good time to make a big quilt. So we’ll see. I haven’t even drawn the next big one…I have the idea, but it’s nowhere near being on paper. And with the current mood, it’s hard to know if I’ll be able to draw it. Right now, I think it would be sad and angry drawings, which isn’t a bad thing…it’s just not what I saw for that quilt.

Sigh. This mood sucks. I’m doing the shit I’m supposed to do to kick it. So kick, asshole.

A Lot of Philosophy for a Wednesday Morning

Sigh. All the feels. Hormones abound. Frustration at work. I do well when I’m distracted from all that, when I can push all the detritus from work and life and house and taxes and work, did I mention work? Push it all into a pile of unfolded laundry in the dark dank corner of my brain where it deserves to live. I’ll fold it later. I’ll handle each piece later, pull it out, dust it off, fold it up, put it in the cupboard where it belongs. Apparently my version of mindfulness equates to doing the laundry. It’s not a bad metaphor. Clean it, wash it, dry it, put it away. Takes a while to do it properly, but the clothes are warm at the end and you don’t mind handling them as much as when they were smelly and dirty.

That’s a lot of philosophy for a Wednesday morning. But if my brain is going to force me to remake my existence every time the kids come home and leave again, every time there’s shit at school (thanks for the observation yesterday, dear principal…hope you understand Punnett squares now), every time my personal life isn’t going the way I want it to, well then…I’m going to have to control it somehow…and maybe visualizing laundry is the best way for now. It’s something we do all the time…every week, things need washing. It’s a lifetime of laundry. Sometimes it’s only your laundry and sometimes you’re doing everyone else’s while you’re in there.

Yeah. I know. Rambling on. But my brain is a mess and I don’t know if it’s all the emotional stuff or perimenopausal brain. I knew I had bought more cheese last night and I was ransacking the fridge for it, blaming the boychild, maybe he ate it all (it was a lot of cheese…seems unlikely), maybe he took it to his dad’s, maybe I never bought it, maybe I threw it out. I was tossing shit out of the fridge because it was all the stuff from when the kids were here and it hadn’t been fully cleaned out and I was getting really frustrated and had found a cheese alternative (just another kind of cheese, nothing drastic) and then I looked in the fridge and there it was. Big. Orange. Just sitting there. Right in full sight. Like what the fuck is that matter with my brain that it couldn’t see that? I know I looked right there about 10 times. What the fuck?

It’s really…what’s the right word? Not annoying, more than that. Not frightening, well, maybe a little, because where is my brain? Disheartening? Depressing? I don’t know. I need my brain to work well. And it’s not.

So that’s where I was last night when I started ironing. Not necessarily in a particularly good place, but knowing that spending some time ironing would make me feel better. Because it always does. And that’s why I do it. I don’t need meds…I need to commune with fabric.

I worked for about an hour…got the heart and all the arteries done, did a tree with some stuff on it, teeth! I did teeth! Little bits and pieces of stuff. All the detritus (there’s that word again) of the body and the stuff in the air around her. A cloud. Some thunderbolts. A yin/yang sign. Nipples. Just one little piece at a time. Stare at it, figure out what it is, what color it should be. Put Netflix on to calm the part of my brain that’s still trying to figure out how the cheese disappeared and reappeared right before my eyes without my noticing.

Here’s the pile of fabric now. It’s a bit messy.

I didn’t feel like straightening it up. Here’s what’s left to iron…not much. Hair, some lungs, an iPhone. The normal shit.

And the pile that needs to be cut out. Hopefully by Saturday.

I can lose myself in all that and be OK. At least there’s that. The rest will come.