Hazardous Mattress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trying something new on Simba’s crusty nose.

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

Still avoiding spiderwebs everywhere I walk in the yard.

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

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

Fight a Raccoon…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I did better last night…

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

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

Here’s the drawing…

Nova took over the space at night on Gecko Watch…

(There is no gecko in that picture)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can fight a raccoon any time.

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

Overthinking It…

Hey. Friday is finally here. I haven’t slept well all week (I know, when do I ever) because I’ve been overthinking. I’d like to thank my brain for that. Actually, that is the part of my brain that’s good at the artmaking too…it figures stuff out while I’m doing other things. And it does the same with lesson planning, runs simulations in the background and then shuffles solutions into my working brain. It’s useful…until there’s a personality issue, and then it overthinks the FUCK out of it (what did I do wrong? what could I have done differently? how will this be solved in the future? am I just being a bitch? why is she such a bitch?). You know. All the things. I guess I need to focus on the good things my brain can do and try to meditate through the others…which has meant more meditation than sleep a couple of nights this week. Could do without that.

Also a slow simmering anger and frustration about my school board and their ignorance. Bullshit tactics. Now we are designing our own sexual health curriculum, designed specifically for our kids. Um. Code words for remove the stuff they think is inappropriate: Gender, LGBTQIA…what else is going to set them off? They will have to follow Ed. Code. They’re making a committee of parents, teachers, and health professionals to create this thing from scratch, more work, lots more work, mostly in fighting the ignorance, needs to be evidence-based and science, not your late-night searchings on the internet (seriously, this one guy has way too much time on his hands). At some point, they wanted health professionals to come in and teach the curriculum, and I’m sitting here going (1) because we’re not capable? Nice. I’ve been teaching sex ed for 20 years, dude. (2) There’s a shortage of health professionals already…where are you going to get 5 of these per school for a week to 5 weeks every year? (3) And can they deal with middle-school behaviors (I already know the answer to that). Can they deal with 30+ kids aged 12-14 at the end of a school year that they have never met? I know the answer to that too.

So yeah. I’m making a quilt right now that is mostly not political (well, it is, but lots wouldn’t see it) and it’s fun and full of bright colors, and I feel bad because books are getting banned, women’s bodies are being controlled, LGBTQIA people are losing rights, my trans kids are losing their rights, it’s not safe for them in some places, and where I live may well be one of those places. People…kids…are still being shot. I read that the ERA was in danger. I know all this shit will end up in a quilt eventually, but it feels weird to be making one that is so NOT about those things.

Ah well. I did the same thing last year. Made a bunch of political stuff and one not, and it got into Quilt National. So I guess that’s a thing.

So that’s the mood I’m carrying around inside me today. I’m glad it’s Friday. I’m OK with what I’m teaching today. I think it won’t be too stressful. I’m so incredibly not ready to teach next week in so many ways. I’m fairly sure I will still be butting heads with this other teacher, probably until she leaves our school (she says she hates it here, so yeah, she should leave), so maybe forever. But there’s a weekend coming up and that is some respite. An art meeting. Some more artmaking time. Some reading time. Hopefully a hike. All the things.

I iron every night. I try to iron for an hour. On Wednesday night, I did leg parts…one of the parts was this baby in a pocket. A leg pocket. A pocket of flesh…

Because if you’re not going to put pockets in my clothes, then I’m going to put them in my flesh.

I also did the knee, I think…can’t remember. Wait. I can look back and see.

I did the back foot, and then all of the legs. Obviously not done. This isn’t fast. But it is enjoyable. This was a good choice for working on during the end of school. Although I need to go faster. As always.

Last night, I found and ironed one of the spare arms (another thing we all need) and a snat (snake/rat, also from Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood).

Deciding what animals to combine is one of the interesting things in that series. I’m not sure the snat makes sense at all. But that was part of the point. Humans make a lot of shitty choices. I can easily see our current society in Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. They are way too close to reality.

Yesterday, I was inside this during my last two periods…

It was an interesting change. I sent half my kids to another classroom because they’d already done this, and I took the other half through with my co-teacher’s kids. The first group was a little rowdy…as time went on. The second group seemed better. Or maybe I was so exhausted by then that I couldn’t tell. Cool experience for them though. Maybe they never see the world from the inside.

Anyway. So I am not ready for all the things. I need a whole ‘nother cup of tea before I even consider going to school (don’t have time for that…I can make it, but I’ll have to drink it on the way). I have a ton of work outside of teaching to do today, so that is weighing on me, but it will happen. Somehow. And there’s reading and art on the other side of it. All good. Overthink THAT.

More Work…

Yo! April is almost over. That was fast. May is coming…one of the longest months of the school year. A vast expanse of days with testing and kids’ brains already on summer, plus grades, hurtling toward the end of the year, which alternately comes too fast (not enough time to get everything done) and not fast enough (please make it stop). Much like my weekends.

I did start ironing the quilt together…fun stuff. I did some Friday night and a goodly chunk on Saturday, which made up for only 32 minutes on Sunday. Long day there. Friday night in the dirt…

Saturday started in the green…

Got the rakunk done…

Reference to Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood…here she is with the whole dirt area…

So that was Saturday afternoon, followed by Saturday night, when I did a few of the DNA bugs I drew…

Sunday I finished those and added a few more bugs and one of the skull flowers.

Definitely progress.

We also hiked on Saturday…we hadn’t been to one of our regular hiking spots since December, and the rains had definitely affected it…lots of flowers, for one…

The path being covered by water, also a thing…

Ducks in there as well. So we wandered around to find the crossing.

And then wandered through the rest of the overgrowth…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tarantula at the reserve. I’m sure they’ve been there…just not so obviously.

Lots of flowers…I said that…

And caterpillars…

All in the middle of the path for some reason.

And as we were coming back, there must have been some moisture reflecting rainbows in the clouds…

Hard to get photos of rainbows with an old phone camera. But it was there. Just a piece of it though.

Last week, there was an artist talk at the FIG Climate Reckoning show. I couldn’t go because it was during my school day. But my work got in the photos from the talk. There’s You Pollute Me, next to Cindy Zimmerman talking about her work.

And Beyond the Concrete near Jennifer Spencer discussing her piece.

That show comes down next week, so if you want to see it, you should go this week.

Kitten trying to see the dog next door…

Back in her cave.

This describes school and life all too well.

I didn’t sleep well last night. Couldn’t fall asleep. Couldn’t stay asleep. Every Sunday at the moment.

Yeah, I’m a little like this.

Maybe more than a little. Ugh. Gonna go crawl in a hole with my book. My book that is due in two days, so I need to finish it.

This is just damn disturbing.

I don’t know what the fuck we’re thinking at the moment.

Followed by this.

Too many attempts to control women, but not guns. I know what the bigger problem is. Unless the plan is to make women have more babies so we can shoot them? Is that it? Seems silly.

OK. It’s Monday, y’all. Monday with the week stretching out in front of me. Lots of work. Lots of meetings…one art meeting yesterday. It’s where I finished grading all the week’s homework (a plus). I panicked about school a lot over the weekend, mostly lesson planning 8th grade. After Tuesday night, I’ll probably be panicking about 7th grade too, thanks to the idiotic school board members. Dumbassery. Yesterday, I went to the art meeting, which was about 45 minutes away, so drive time and sit time. It’s a good group of artists though, so it’s nice to have that in-person connection again. Then came home and worked on school stuff, took a break to make lunches for the week, more work, then made dinner, more work. Was going to go iron and remembered one thing I hadn’t done for school that I needed for this morning. Damn. More work. Then a bit of ironing.

Today is work then meeting then Zoom book club. I liked the book, so that’s good. Plus more work in there somewhere, because there’s always more work. Plus I need to finish reading that other book. It’s big and I’m only at 78%. A challenge! I like those.

Fastly Better…

Whoaaa. Yeah. Morning feels. I tried to catch up on some sleep this weekend. I’ve had to take some allergy meds to try to deal with the reaction I had to adhesive tape on my knee, and the ones that aren’t supposed to make one drowsy do apparently make a small percentage of people drowsy. You know whenever you read that a small percentage of people will have a certain reaction? It’s me. Often. It really is. I’m the one in a million on many meds, and it is truly annoying. I finally went to urgent care on Saturday afternoon, because the next doctor’s appointment I could get was March 9 and she wouldn’t do anything without seeing the rash. My doc is popular? Yeah or medical clinics are short-staffed. Everyone is short-staffed. Where are all the people who used to work those jobs? If they’re all in Tahiti on a beach, I’m jealous. Hopefully they are pursuing their dream of a teahouse in the mountains somewhere or hiking the Andes or counting penguins in Chile or something. If they’re just sitting at home watching Netflix, sigh. Whatever. I can’t control all that. I can’t even always control my irritation with trying to make a doctor’s appointment for something that’s keeping me up at night.

Ironically, even after urgent care (which was helpful: new allergy med that has not been making me drowsy but isn’t as strong), the cream I needed for the rash would not be available until today. Of course. So I’ve made it through two more nights of not-quite sleep, trying not to rip the skin of my leg. It’s fine. It is slowly better. I would like it to be fastly better.

This weekend went by too fast. My right eyelid is twitching like crazy still. Maybe worse. I did get in about 4 hours of ironing though…more would’ve been nice, but I needed to grade stuff…and grade stuff I did. Head above water, but only barely.

I ironed Friday night…

After going to Liberty Station for a closing reception. I ironed arteries and a rakunk, I think. A rakunk is a hybrid skunk-raccoon invented by Margaret Atwood.

Then Saturday night, it was a bunch of bugs…

DNA bugs, a cyber/robotic bug, and a regular bug. Because there will probably still be some regular bugs in the future. They seem to have a staying power that we can’t beat.

Then last night’s ironing…

More bugs and some slime things grown in a lab and some skull flowers. I like inventing things. I’m still deep down in the dirt though…getting close to ironing flesh, but not quite. I think I’m in the 300s still…no wait, nope, still in the 300s. This is gonna take a while. I’m OK with that. I enjoy this part. It’s fun. I average just under 10 hours a week on whatever art thing I’m working on. Most nights, it’s just an hour, but I did an hour and 20 minutes last night. I had less this weekend than I wanted because I started doing my taxes…out of fear, honestly. I need to know now if I will owe money. Ironically, I made more money on copyediting and selling quilts last year than I normally do, and there may not be enough deductions to help me. So I’m panicking a bit. I’m not done though. So there’s more stuff to do. Time-consuming for sure.

Friday night’s closing reception was for this show…

They’ll be up until the 24th…and then hopefully my two will be going to Grossmont’s Hyde Gallery. We’ll see.

We stopped by Visions Museum of Textile Art for the new shows hanging there. I didn’t make it to the opening day, but this was nice. There are four different exhibits…one with Alex Gano’s fascinating work…

It’s paper and fabric…very cool.

Then Jeanie Kashima’s work about the Topaz Internment Camp, where she was born.

Ree Nancarrow’s environmental work…

This shows the changes in the environment at this tundra pond from left to right: lower water level, more sediment, supporting different plants and animals than before.

And then part of the Full Deck of quilt artists, which has been shown before, but is always enjoyable. Especially this one by Katherine Brainerd…

I also went to my quilt guild meeting and stitched a thumb and three fingers…

Finished up one science unit last week and already graded it. Finishing the other one tomorrow and will need to grade 18 roller coasters as well as the packets and academic stuff. Plus a makeup quiz that I finally got around to writing. Need to finish writing sound labs and get set up for magnets and chemistry labs this week. Exhausting trying to keep it all in my head. The car needs oil, I need the cream for the knee crap, that’s all after a 2-hour staff meeting today. I could do without that. Anyway, the taxes get done a little at a time; same with the art. I’m glad to have the art to keep me going. Wish I could do more of it.

Oh yeah, this…

I do climb on counters to reach stuff. I also often use a stepladder. I hate kitchen cupboards. I can’t reach things.

Also this…

Not sure what Steve did, but there we are.

OK. School. Prep labs for today. Get ready for stressed-out roller-coaster builders. Use my time wisely. All that.

Not So Single-Minded…

Hello 2023. And Happy New Year to those who make a mental shift about now for that reason. We made a nice warm dinner, played a wordy game for a while (until someone got tired of losing), and then I mentally flailed while watching Serpent Queen until 11:57 PM, when we searched for a fake ball drop that happened 3 hours earlier, kissed, and went to bed. It rained all night.

The mental flail was more about what to work on…this is why I don’t like a lot of down time between art projects. It makes me uncomfortable to just SIT and not do anything. That said, I have a book I need to finish by Wednesday at 7:09 PM. I think I’m going to make it, but I had to stop reading the one I was almost done with and focus on this one, which I wasn’t expecting much of, but it is proving more interesting than I thought. I joined a new book club with my friends in the old one, this one focused on mysteries. Hoping for some more recommendations. Hoping to read more, actually. It’s been hard to fit that in once school is in. Too much visual stimulation, reading-like, for school. Not very interesting stuff most of the time. But I managed 55 (almost 56) books last year…not bad…could be better.

So I made a goal to do better in 2023. Things I care about right now: reading, art, travel, my family, my friends. My job is pushing it this year. I obviously care about it because I don’t blow it off. I just think it is taking more than it should from me. Yeah.

Anyway, what else has been going on? Well you know that drawing I started the other day? I rolled it up and put it away. I have two deadlines I’m looking at that are pretty far out, but I find both of them interesting, so I had picked one, the one I’ve been thinking about for months, but then when I got to the paper, I felt like I didn’t know enough to draw it yet. I do have a rough sketch on that paper and I’m not giving up on it; it’s just that the other one started talking to me. Mostly during this hike we did on New Year’s Eve (trying to avoid the rain and the people who like to hike on the first day of the year, by hiking on the last day of the year instead).

Hollenbeck Canyon out past Jamul…

It was nice and cool…well, actually cold and rainy at times…

Totally great for letting your brain wander around…

My knee behaved fine…I’ve been doing physical therapy and trying to exercise enough. I find it’s hard to get out of the pajamas right now. Easier when it’s cold and wet to just stay on the couch and not do anything.

But I feel worse after that. So this is better. I think today is officially the last day of break when I have nothing that I have to do on my calendar. Which sucks. Lots of work and medical stuff over the rest of the week, with a little art stuff sprinkled in. I guess I have to think about work. Don’t want to. As usual.

ANYWAY, back to the drawing, I had done some research (I like to research stuff) and came up with some things tickling my brain, mostly Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (my goodness, how DO you spell that…ah, one more capital letter). And some other stuff. Anyway, I cut out a piece of paper, walked away from it, and then started drawing.

So far, I’m all in pencil.

Yeah, I need to put the Xmas stuff away. Didn’t want to pull the boxes out yesterday with all the rain and wet. Maybe today.

So I will probably start some ink tonight, then some more pencil. Today is the boychild’s birthday. He is getting old enough that it makes ME feel old. Until it doesn’t. Because I’m not that old. Anyway, I don’t think any of that will stop me from drawing tonight, but I do want to get to a stage of this piece that is easier to do with less energy before school starts, because I know I will HAVE less energy when school starts, both mentally and physically. I’m having to full-on STEEL myself for going back (you can do it, one day at a time, you will get through it). Maybe that is always the case, but it seems worse right now. Certainly I feel in giant flail mode.

I have been slowly trying to stitch my way around this giant-ass quilt…

And I finished the April Homegrown blocks (Sue Spargo) finally…moving on to May now.

That sun in the lower right block took a goodly chunk of time on New Year’s Eve. And thread!

Oh yeah, more of the piñata show at the Mingei…

Not what you would expect from a piñata show…

Definitely worth going though…

Just think of it more as papier-mache sculpture. Plus the Mingei has other funky craft work all over the place…

Gotta love a giant Earth covered in beads.

Nova would. If she were allowed to.

Instead, she loved me.

Right up there in your face.

OK. I dreamed (nightmared?) about not having a shower last night. I’m not sure why, but it made me really want one this morning. I have a quilt to quilt, a drawing to draw, and a lot of work to work. I’m hoping to do some of all of it. Also need to pack up a fabric donation box or two, plus cut up more blocks for a donation quilt. I’m liking deadlines that are a long ways out so I don’t have to be so single-minded about making, although it freaks me out when I don’t have something to be single-minded about. I also need to read another third of my book so I finish it before it’s due (I figured a third a day would work). And enjoy the last day of break before the have-tos really kick in. Seems doable.

“We Lived, as Usual, by Ignoring.”*

So I was trying to pick a place for dinner this week, a celebration dinner, and I was cruising through Yelp…one of the restaurants that I was considering (and now am not) was Bo Beau, one of the Cohn Restaurants here in San Diego. They have great food and interesting restaurant environments, but on their menu is a statement, a political one for sure, that I just don’t agree with…so I won’t be eating there. Ever. It’s that statement that they will be including a 2% surcharge to cover increased minimum wage and health costs for their employees. You know, most grownups who run a business realize that this is a good thing for the people they employ, that even if you don’t personally want to pay for better wages, for wages that actually might support someone, you should keep your mouth shut to your customers. Because you just lost one…well, and since I influence a few others, a few others will also not go to your restaurants now. Any of them. Good job. I teach the children of some of those minimum-wage workers, Cohn Group, and your lack of respect for their needs and for the vote of the majority is telling. Telling me to go somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong…wrap that surcharge into increased prices without making it sound like you object to paying your lowest-paid employees more? I have absolutely no problem with that. I want them to be paid more. But stop whining about it. I’ll go somewhere more mature about people’s rights to a fair wage.

I’m in political brain mode at the moment, drawings slamming into my head. Wish I had time for that. Part of it is the next birthday, age 50. I’m OK with achieving cronedom in general (wish my uterus would get the hint), although in the specific, there are things I would change in my own life. But that’s a work in progress, always. But the daily wham of stupidity and disregard I see in my elected officials? Sheesh. Meanwhile, my book club is reading The Handmaid’s Tale, which I read when it came out or soon after…1985…the year I graduated high school.

Here’s my cover…it fell off this time I started rereading it…

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Now I just marched in January for women’s rights…because I’m tired of being told I’m not worth as much, I’m not as smart, I can’t make decisions, I’m too emotional or illogical, or whatever other bullshit you’ve come up with about my DNA that makes you think you can decide for me…

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The variety of covers for the book over the years is intriguing…how they decide to depict what the story is about. I’d forgotten about the personal part of Offred’s story. I remembered the main part. It’s been a while since I read it last…

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Pears. Pears?

I also marched for women who couldn’t march. I marched for more equality for ALL women. I realize being white makes a lot of things easier for me than if I were any of my students, women of color, women with disabilities, women of a variety of religions, immigrant and refugee women. It doesn’t make sense to just fix it for the rich white chicks. It’s been unfair for so long…even more so for others. I’m tired of it.

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Don’t tell me to smile, to laugh, to ignore. Don’t shut me up. Don’t tell me to be nice. Don’t apologize for me.

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Some women having more rights than others for any reason doesn’t make sense. A bunch of rich white men making that decision doesn’t make sense. Why would we want to go backwards?

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This cover completely creeps me out. It’s from the first edition hardback released in Canada in 1985, artist Gail Geltner…a collage artist and feminist.

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I watched 10 Cloverfield Lane last night and there was a creepy moment in the movie when the male character couldn’t come up with the word “woman” with regard to the main female character. Although she was obviously an adult, he used “girl” and “princess”. As creepy as the movie was across the board, that moment sticks in my head. Like YIKES.

No video for you though…sorry.

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Yeah, I enjoyed my foray into the Prisma app.

This is a nice cover…except why flowers? Because she’s fertile?

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And they’re calling the 1980s vintage again.

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This cover…there’s pills and syringes and umbrellas and gloves and nooses? With your umbrella? The bleeding heart flowers…those are from the book.

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I actually think this is the best cover of all of them.

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If you haven’t read this book, you should. It’s relatively short. And Atwood is an amazingly eloquent and psychic writer.

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Here’s the whole picture of the wall (a WALL?!) that’s on my cover. A wall? Controlling women? Controlling immigration? Getting rid of the constitution? Protests? Oh sigh. It’s going to be a long presidency. At least I know there really was a conspiracy against those with uteri…I didn’t imagine it. It just wasn’t in my face all the time. Now it is. Thanks.

With that, I’m going to wear what I want to the grocery store and read the signs and buy what I want, even lotion if I like it, and I’m going to come back and make some political art with a uterus in it (oh wait, dammit, there’s no uterus in this one…just a vulva big enough to hide the world in). And you can’t stop me. Yet.

“We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Genetics Followed by a Bit of Quilting

I managed to get in two hours of quilting last night after going to listen to a science guy talk about genetic engineering. It always sounds so good when you talk about curing diseases or conditions, but scary when you think about modifying food, or the consequences of messing with the other stuff. For all we know, without my diabetes genes, I’d be someone totally different. I’m thinking of the study they did on the foxes in Russia, where they linked fur color to tameness (along with a lot of other crazy things, like floppy ears). So there’s a risk in fucking with DNA…no cancer, but everyone is a ginger? Probably not a bad thing. Or we all have floppy ears. Somewhat goofier looking.

This week is crazy for meetings out of the house…wish I could spread them out a bit more during the month instead of having three in a week, but it doesn’t work out that way. I haven’t finished my book club selection, but I read it when it first came out in 2003 or so…Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Read the whole Maddaddam series (more about fucking with genetics! A trend!). Definitely good stuff. Atwood has always been one of my favorite writers. I don’t remember what professor made me read (and then watch) The Handmaid’s Tale, but I thank them mightily. I’ve read everything she’s ever written since then.

It’s still warm here in San Diego…we were promised rain, but it’s been reduced to a tenth of an inch sometime today…much less than the half inch plus they said we’d get starting yesterday. It’s cool enough though that the animals are back in the office with me fulltime (it is one of the warmer rooms in the house). There’s a bit of competition for space, jockeying for position, although Calli is never on the desk or chair or table, so that’s a plus. Midnight likes to lie behind the machine though, even while I’m quilting.

You can see how close she is…you can even see when my machine was last serviced. I was looking for that label. Usually they put it on the inside so I can see it. Good to know I have some time before I need to take it in. Yup, I take it in once a year. I use this beast more than most people.

Calli inhabits the floor. If I’m lucky, she doesn’t lie right behind my chair, like she is right now. She was completely zonked out yesterday.

Too much excitement? Probably not from me.

I didn’t start quilting until 9:30, because I didn’t get home until 8:30 or so and then I had to eat.

Around an hour into it (while I was stitching down those tiny powerlines and electrical towers), I was yawning, tired, wanted to go to sleep. Nope. I need another hour. How about another half hour? See, my body does tell me to sleep. I just ignore it. And if I really had gone to bed then, odds are I would have been lying in bed for an hour, unable to fall asleep. That happened Sunday night and it was later when I went to bed. My brain really doesn’t get it.

Apparently bullying through makes you wake up (or the caffeine finally kicked in, hard to say), because I managed a second hour. While I’m sewing, I set goals…I’m going to get this part done…all of the left breast and the arm…

I did actually do that, but by then I was awake and it was more a matter of looking at the clock and reminding myself what mornings feel like with not enough sleep, and the fact that I teach 7th graders, which are more than a bit demanding of my energies…well, then I set a different kind of goal, like you are going to bed when you finish that left breast.

I just happened to sew a riveted heart and a bunch of nuclear plant towers as well.

I listen to myself about as well as my students do.

There’s a pin in the heart because I didn’t sew that keyhole down…missed it. So I’ll do it after I finish outline quilting probably. Sometimes I end up doing them at the end, assuming there’s more than one. I was going fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than one.

So the first figure is barely started, the bottom border is completely done, and the second kneeling figure is done except for her (very complicated) head, right arm, and right breast. I need to do some writing tonight as well, but should be able to get her done and start on the other figure…because this is just the outlining. It’s quilting the background that’s gonna kick my ass. Dark blue thread on dark blue fabric, sewing mostly at night. Yeah! That’s how we roll.

Tag: Margaret Atwood