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.

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: Oryx and Crake

Overthinking It…

More Work…

Genetics Followed by a Bit of Quilting

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