Do I Sit on the Egg?

I hiked this morning with the kids, so no early post. I don’t even have the energy to post about the hike yet…I’ll get to it tomorrow, I think. It was hot, too hot really. Out in desert world, chaparral, the sun beats mercilessly down on you out there. There was an ocean breeze that wandered in through most of it, but when it didn’t, then it felt like dying. So yeah. We’ve decided no more day hikes this summer unless it gets down into the 70s or we’re at the beach. We’ll stick to evenings I think.

Yesterday was a chaotic day. I had to go to two different doctors, and the comparison between my blood pressure between Doctor 1 and Doctor 2 was noticeable. Then again, I already knew what Doctor 1 would say and Doctor 2 was the one I’ve been waiting for since late March, the “What Do We Do with My Uterus?” doctor, plus I went to school in between the two. I guess we have a partial answer for the uterus question. We go to two more appointments, one with yet another doctor. And maybe then I will stop bleeding every two weeks. Sigh. She was good, though…she answered every single question I had, asked me a bunch of questions, and then we (together) came up with the best option for me. What a concept. She admitted her NP didn’t know what she was talking about. OK, she wouldn’t outright say that, but yeah.

Moving on. Guess there are more uterus drawings in my future. I still haven’t made it to the copy place (or the pet food place, which worries Kitten no end…she saw me use the last can today). It’s on my list for today, but today is running out (I’m supposed to be going to an art meeting tonight and presenting about blog writing: Step 1: blather. Step 2: ramble. Step 3: post some pictures. I got this.). This morning I lost 45 minutes to college financial aid again, as the service where you upload all your documents continues to do a half-assed job. I will get better at this. They are trying to scare me off actually applying for financial aid. They will not succeed.

Grandma made girlchild a graduation quilt…

This is not a great picture of it. I will have to take another one.

Then I finished tracing Wonder Under last night…

I think it took about 5 1/2 hours total. I was fast. The pieces were small. I dreamed I might cut them all out this afternoon, but that is before the hysterical laughter took over.

Kitten doesn’t laugh. She just sleeps.

The ducks in the back yard left me a gift…

I don’t know whether I’m supposed to eat it or sit on it. I left it there. My students wanted me to get a classroom duck and name it Spaghetti. Maybe this is it (I’m not doing a great job of raising it at the moment…I don’t even know how long it’s been out there.). Apparently they will lay eggs over a number of days and then sit on them. But with a dog in the yard? Not sure that’s gonna happen. I’ll wait and see if more eggs show up. Because I need ducklings? Do not answer that.

Still sewing bindings onto the other piece. Trying to decide what task to take with me tonight. What can I get done? Cutting out Wonder Under or finishing the binding? I could do either. I suspect the WU is not a good choice. There might be a fan there, because it’s hot. But I might not have enough binding for two hours. AARGH. And you wonder how I get so much done. I’m taking both. Really. I am.

And right now, I’m taking my post-hike dehydrated headache to the pet food store. And maybe the fan store. I’d like a nap. Yeah. What the hell am I supposed to do about the egg? Shaking my head. I am not a good duck parent.

Swallowed by Details…

Meditation. Lots of it. School issues. Kid issues. Insurance issues (everything costs too much and all the bills are due during the only time of year when I don’t get a paycheck.). College issues. Too many little tiny fussy details and it’s HOT here. Brain turns to mush.

All I want to do is make art and everything else keeps getting in the way. Today will be that, over and over again. Even school…I have to go to school today. That’s just wrong.

So yesterday, I traced a lot, like over 3 hours of tracing…

Kitten was absolutely no help at all. When she’d try to lie on the paper or the Wonder Under, the plus of the light table is that the glass is really slippery, so I’d just slide her over, out of my way. And sometimes she’d stand right back up and plop right back down. Bitch. No really. I love my cat. And yes, the glass is cool. I use LEDs so there’s no heat off that sucker, or I’d be dying right now of heat exhaustion. You can’t see the fan pointed at me. Actually, for some part of the time, girlchild had the fan and I was sweating. Sigh. Need another fan. I did break the one in the studio, so it’s on my list.

It was nicer to trace at night. Nice and cool. View of my neighbor’s drone over the driveway (I’m hoping he doesn’t have a camera on that thing…because I flashed it last night).

I’m getting closer to done. I think I just have the head to do…maybe one arm. I quit when I was too tired to stand any more.

Then I decided I wanted to finish watching the season finale of Orphan Black, so I sewed bindings for a while…

I got about halfway around before I was really tired. Then I went to bed and didn’t sleep. I don’t really know why. Too many of those details racing around in my head, bumping into each other. Time really gets away from me sometimes. I have a huge long list of things to do today, and so many of them are just BLAH. And I keep fighting the kids over the damn dishes. Seriously. It’s Not Mine, put your shit away. And jobs and their anxiety and stress, which doesn’t help with mine.

I should wake up and meditate. And then I should do it again right before bed.

But I don’t have time! Amusing that.

I am trying to straighten up the house and organize it and get rid of stuff too…although I tossed a bunch of papers yesterday and then had to make more to try and get all these insurance quotes straightened out. Waiting on one more, and then I can toss the whole pile.

But I finally hung the last three year’s of SAQA auction purchases…

They’ve had hanging slats for about a year now I think…the one on the right is one of my older pieces, pre-divorce, believe it or not (so fucking ancient). It’s one of my favorite pieces…Caught in the Headlights (2002). And yes, my kitchen is a disaster. I’m working on it.

Here’s Lorie McKown’s My Three Sisters II, Susan Lenz’s Death of Desire, and Helen Conway’s Transition: Brick Lane II.

I have 4 others in my bedroom, so that’s 7 years of donations to the cause. I don’t make auction quilts (they’re way too small and always due in the last trimester of school, not a good time for me), I don’t have hours to donate, and I don’t have a ton of money, but I do try to buy a small one of these every year. Last year was going to be a no-buy-year for me, and then I sold a bunch of the bird quilts and made enough to be able to breathe last summer.

Same with this Jette Clover piece, Interjection 1, purchased as part of the FFAC 100 artists donation to cancer…I donated one and bought one.

This year…this year, none of that is on the table. Deep breaths. Sighs as well.

Today? Doctor’s appointments, school shit, lots of details (apparently that cat up there on the light table? She wants food. Demanding beast.). Hopefully some more tracing will get slotted in there, so I can get that part of the project over with and move on to the next piece. I’m also trying to get my freelance copyediting business up and running, and to exercise in there as well and maybe even sleep more than 5 hours a night. Really. I feel like I should be able to sleep on vacation! Stupid brain.

Make art, support artists, buy art. Meditate regularly. Don’t get swallowed by details…

Two Peaks, Some Art, and Two Books…

No matter how much screaming and arguing seems to be happening here, we have now managed a second “family” hike. This time, they ditched me (it’s OK…I’m out of shape…and they waited at the tops of mountains, which is all I asked) and walked and talked together. I’m OK with that…

We hiked up the back way to Cowles Mountain with the million people who always do that (there actually weren’t that many last night)…

Where they beat me up by 10 minutes, but missed the rattlesnake (I didn’t stop to take a picture of it)…but then girlchild spotted a California Horned Toad (not a toad at all)…

They’re so adorable and so hard to photograph. This is on the trail past Cowles down to Pyles Peak, because we don’t do easy. We climb mountains. OK. Not big mountains…there’s a view of Cowles looking back from the saddle between the two peaks. You can see the trail we’ll have to take back UP.

Sometimes I don’t think through the suffering part of these until I’m doing them.

I’m amazed that with little rain and drought conditions, there are still flowers everywhere…

This is from the base of Pyles…with Cowles in the far distance.

And looking up at the “peak.” It’s kind of a lame peak…more of a rounded thing. But you do have to climb to get up there. Trust me.

We saw maybe 5 other people on this part of the trail…here’s the top, overlooking most of San Diego County…

We tried to time it so we would hit sunset when we got back to Cowles, so hopefully we wouldn’t need to use the headlamps. The marine layer always makes for interesting pictures into the distance.

And Cowles to the south…

Another interesting flower…

I was behind the kidlets again (they walk fast…youth plus lack of injury), so the sun started setting as I was heading back up that long trail.

Looking back towards Pyles…

Beautiful sky…

Definitely worth the pain…

When we got back to Cowles, we actually ran into someone I knew, so she came back with us. We pulled the headlamps out for the last 10 minutes (we’re blind old ladies…the kids were fine) and had a great conversation about life, art, and hiking.

I’m smart about these hikes…I made dinner (casserole) and stuck it in the fridge so it needed about 20 minutes when we got home…just long enough for a shower to wash off the worst of the sweat. Of course, then it takes me an hour to get my butt off the couch. Ah, old age. And a good workout. There’s conflicting reports on the mileage. I call it 6 miles, but it might have been more.

I eventually got up. It took a lot of willpower. I haven’t finished sewing the binding on yet, but girlchild was going to bed, and I wanted to watch Elementary, which has to be on the television in the living room…so I started tracing the next one. My ex-Cousin-in-Law (I think that’s what she is) requested a cat with a heart, so I drew an extra piece for her…

Very anatomically correct, of course. And I kept going, although standing was exhausting.

Kitten was no help (as usual). I managed about 100 of the 500+ pieces, and then I looked at the clock…

It’s a good thing it’s vacation…that was a late night. I’m feeling it this morning, because I didn’t sleep well. Trash trucks and birds chirping and sunlight and cats hurdling me and dogs whining. Ugh. I don’t do mornings well.

I finished three books in the last week…I need to write a separate post about one of them, but the other two…Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie…

which I read for book club, but then didn’t make it to the meeting (grades were due). This is actually a common occurrence for me. I don’t mind, but in this case, really wanted to discuss the whole confusing gender thing in the book. I didn’t think it added to the story at all, and although I finished the book and gave it an average rating, I don’t want to read the rest of the series because of the gender confusion. It was never really explained satisfactorily and just annoyed me. I don’t mind gender commentary. Just explain it before I’m 150 pages into the book.

The second book was recommended by a friend, The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston…

This one I liked…a current-day dragon-slayer. This is a YA novel, but I think easily reads as an adult novel. I love the connection to historical stuff and the environment. Definitely a good retelling of the dragon story. I’m reading the sequel to this one.

Yes, summer is about reading and hiking and art. Surely there’s other shit I need to do (and I will), but I’m still in recovery mode.

Snore…

It’s late in the day. I’ve gotten some stuff done, including getting the boychild interview-wear and donating (not really) 7 vials of blood to my doctor for her review. My car is in the shop and the kids just drove off in their beastmobile, so I’m trapped here, which isn’t all so bad. It’s not like I didn’t have 18 errands to run (well, actually, I did, but whatever). I finished a book today, which was nice. Having time to read and pee whenever I need to and work on things I actually care about…that’s nice. There does seem to be an awful lot of chores and errands that need doing, and there was some squawking about jobs for teens and that stuff, but whatever. I don’t think that’s going to go away until sometime around August 23. To be specific.

I was tired yesterday, and it took a long time to get a bunch of stupid stuff done, including the grocery shopping (bottomless pits they are), but eventually I started working on the binding…

It’s on. Yup. I chose green. It might be the first time ever that I’ve done a green binding. Random facts about Kathy…she doesn’t do green bindings. Well now I do. In fact, yellow might be the color I’ve never used now…so watch for that. Because now I feel like I have to use it. So now I need to sew it all down by hand, but if I sit on the couch now and try to do that, odds are I’ll fall asleep, because I still haven’t caught up on all the sleep I missed over the last 10 months minus a week at Thanksgiving, three weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Spring Break (and honestly, I don’t get a ton of sleep then either…just more than I do when I’m teaching). So sitting down is an issue. Even sitting here and typing like this, my eyes are drooping and I’m considering just putting my head back and…snore.

So standing and tracing stuff might be a better choice. I have also considered jumping jacks and a quick swim in the pool, except the pool guy is supposed to show up today and I’m worried that he’ll die if he sees me swimming. So maybe a nap it is. A short, timed, 20-minute snooze. Seriously. I’m exhausted. My sleep app says I barely slept last night, lots of tossing and turning that I don’t remember doing.

Losing all that blood couldn’t have been good. Especially if I’m already anemic. I sense more drawings of blood cells in my future. Plus probably more drawing of my blood by a phlebotomist (it can’t be good when they remember your veins).

Or not. Maybe a quick nap followed by a concerted effort to do something useful. Vacation is all about balancing. Wait a minute. The rest of my life is all about balancing too. That can’t be right. What the fuck? Isn’t there a time when I can just loll about doing whatever I want? I’m fairly sure that’s the definition of vacation.

While I’m trying to figure all that shit out, I’m just going to close my eyes for a bit (really, I’m setting the timer. I’ve read all the nap research.). Just a tiny bit. While yeah…

The First Official Blogpost of Summer 2015

This is the first official day of summer vacation. The first day when I don’t have to go to school or think about school (although people are still texting me about school) until August 1. At least, that’s what I always try to do…get it out of my head and don’t worry about it until August. And then in August, I’m usually desperately trying to finish some major quilt and I don’t want to go back but I have to (my first professional development is on August 11). It takes a while to get all that residual stress and have-to feeling out of your system (and it is quickly replaced with other have-to’s, let me tell you), but after a week or so, I’m usually doing much better.

I’m still seeing crazy in one art group though. I hesitate to call it an art group some days, since its focus is more on quilt than art, although there have been some positive changes in the last few years…maybe. We’ll see. I am concerned though that they are choosing to censor members or seemingly move out of the leadership positions those who don’t agree with the majority. I don’t think that’s healthy behavior for any group, although I’m seeing that happening at my day job as well. The message then is that if you disagree, there will be consequences. Any minor study of history will show that doesn’t work. I’m not in leadership in this art group…I don’t have any more volunteer hours in me. They got used up in the other two groups, which are much smaller and need all members participating in some way. But it makes me mistrust the current leadership, which is not a good thing. A good Executive Board will do its job and the membership will hear from them occasionally as they make the group better, as they check in with membership, as positive changes occur. There won’t be censorship and oustings. I didn’t pay much attention to what names were on the board until all this, and now I’m watching particularly closely and comparing it to the other large fiber group I’m in, where none of this happens. So a big sigh for all that.

I finally made it out of work yesterday at 11 AM (took longer than usual). Then I came home and cleaned the kitchen, because it was disgusting, and started throwing stuff away and recycling it. The last few months of school kick my butt (and everyone else’s) and what suffers is the house. There are piles everywhere and nothing is washed or put away. So I made a healthy start on all that and then took a nap! A NAP! I know. Exciting for us old people.

Then I started quilting…

It was 100 degrees here yesterday, so my motivation to get up and move was compromised. I also read a lot. Because I could. And then I quilted for a long time until I realized I would have to cook dinner, so I did that for a while. Talked to the boychild, because girlchild was at Grad Nite, and then forced him to apply for jobs by starting the applications myself. Last thing you want is your mom filling out your application, right? Well. Whatever. I understand his hesitance and some of it is laziness but a lot is social stuff that is an inherent part of his personality. So this shit is hard. And mom is hard too. I’ve spent the last 13 years doing behavioral training on him, and apparently I’m not done.

After all that torture, just as much for me as him…who decided personality assessments with 72 questions were the best way to hire people? I’d fail if I had to fill these out too. They’re just lame. If both statements are wrong, you have to pick the one that is LESS wrong. But they’re WRONG. Sigh. Anyway, if he didn’t set off all of their serial killer alarms, maybe he will be employed soon.

So after all that, then I finished quilting…but first I sewed the bottom to the top somehow…

Whoops. Late-night quilting in the heat. Not a good plan.

She’s got 12 hours of quilting in her. But she’s done. She just needs a binding…which really means I should get my ass off this chair and go buy some fabric for that, because no, I don’t have a piece big enough. I think. I might look first. But I don’t think I do.

Katie (my parents’ dog) showed up about 20 minutes ago and is now asleep on my floor…

She’s only here for a short visit. Then in a week, she comes for a longer one…we think. All the humans but me are still lolling about in bed (well, one came out when Ms. Barkypants arrived). It is Saturday morning, yes, but apparently if you nap on Friday, you can’t sleep in on Saturday morning. I think. I know I’m still tired and probably will be for another week, but at least vacation has started, and maybe if I stay away from the art group list, my blood pressure will come down and stay down.

On to the next quilt! Deadlines abound…

The Last Week

The end of the school year brings lots of extra tasks, like making awards certificates and finishing grades and cleaning out the classroom. The last week is usually kind of a survival situation, much like riding a luge on a track you’ve been on a long time ago. You sort of remember how you did it last year, but you’re not sure it was successful, and maybe they’ve changed the turns a bit, or your team is slightly different, so the luge itself might be off balance. Sometimes the last week sort of sneaks up on you…I don’t really know what happened to last week. It blew by me. So many tasks juggling at one time.

Friday and Saturday left me no time (or energy) for artmaking, and I only JUST made it up off the couch last night, much later than I thought. I knew this week was equally busy, and I really wanted to be done with this quilt this week, if that’s possible (and reality says that it may not be). So I quilted…

The thing is, most of this quilt is the image, so once the outlining is done, there’s very little else to do. I knew I wanted to put some white thread in the bathtub area, but more to anchor it and give it some texture. I don’t quilt the heck out of my pieces. The background might take a small amount of time, but it’s really a small amount of space, compared to some of my quilts.

So I looked at the clock and thought about whether I was tired enough to sleep yet, because that’s always the issue. I don’t go to bed until I am.

And at some point, I was…but by then, I was almost done with the outlining (yes, I outlined all the different blues in the water). So I finished.

Now all I have left to do is the background and the bathtub.

Meanwhile, I have 100 certificates to print out at school, in color; a crazy meeting at school; a hike planned with my kids (I made tonight’s dinner last night, just to make sure I could pull this off); grades that are pretty much done, until the 15 kids who were not in my class Friday hand me their last week’s work; a class to clean; and who knows what else will show up in my inbox before it’s time to quilt again tonight. I hope I’m super-efficient and get it done, but then there’s the issue of binding fabric, and who knows when I will be able to get that, since it’s doubtful I’ll have any here that’s big enough. Worst-case, I’ll start tracing the next quilt, the one I don’t even know if I’ll be allowed to show because of the nudity (I just didn’t ask). It needs to be made no matter what. I’m not asking because they might say no, but the rules as they stand don’t say that.

Yes, I do think these things through. Anyway. I’m in overdrive. I’m really tired too, despite trying to go to sleep earlier last night than normal. See, it will all get done no matter what. There is no other option. And whatever doesn’t get done probably doesn’t matter as much as people would like to think. Because it’s the last week of school…and not the last week for everything else. And in about 9 weeks, there will be a first week of school and this starts all over again.

Less Yelling

Already there are angry voices, upraised tempers, red flags flying. I’ve had a single sip of caffeinated savings (saving my brain from?) and I’m trying to deal with it’s my fault and why don’t I and anger anger anger. Why the anger? I don’t know. Because I had an eye doctor appointment instead of time to shop for heels and a dress. Sunday it will be anger because I have to finish grades (my job) and can’t go shopping. I’ve said this to myself so many times in the last 5 years…am I just doing it all wrong? Like there’s an easier path and I didn’t take it because I just didn’t know what were the right actions and the right words? Like I got the wrong life manual when they were handing that shit out, and I took the Tread on the Hot Coals manual for ninja warriors (do they do that?) instead of the suburban mom manual? OK, I’m not a suburban mom, it’s true, but I have a lot of the right ingredients for that. Soccer mom. Conventional job (that kicks my ass at the moment). I have a house and a Subaru and a dog and some cats (OK, I have half a dog…it goes back and forth between two houses). But somewhere in all of that, I couldn’t follow instructions. I couldn’t just do that, and some people do, but I couldn’t.

Is it the artist that screws everything up? Is it the divorce that makes it harder to manage the kids and the financial crap (well, yeah, duh)? Is it my fabric hoarder tendencies? My workaholic bent? What the fuck?

I slept in. There are four days left of school. I’m still tired. I stayed up late grading things (ALL the things actually) and packing up two quilts going up to an LA show opening in two weeks. Girlchild came in and vented. I let her. I listened. That’s all anyone needs when venting is happening…listening. Acknowledging that they’ve been heard. Then it’s out and dispersing and the mind is clear. I get that. So I vent here, quite a lot. You might have noticed.

I love my daughter, but she is hell on wheels sometimes. I’m sure my mom would say I deserved that, as I wasn’t easy either, but as an adult, I realized some of the things about my relationship with my mom that I wanted to try to avoid with the girlchild, so there were things I said I would not do, and for the most part, I have succeeded in that…and yet, I still have this opinionated spitfire (shocking, I know) who wants to kick authority in the nuts. And I GET that. I still have that in me. But I’m not the enemy.

So I’m sitting here crying because I am completely overwhelmed and scared about the future, especially financially, and I’m getting yelled at for not being psychic about food needs in the house and why no one will put dishes in the dishwasher but me. I’m about to go nuclear, I guess.

Deep breaths. Grades are close to done. I have to input everything, so I canceled my book club on Sunday (not done reading it anyway…hard read). I will go to the eye doctor (probably should have scheduled it later in the month), deliver the quilts, go out to lunch with the kids’ uncle from the UK, and then deal with some scary stuff that will hopefully stop being as scary. Then plan for the last four days of school, which are survival incarnate. And hopefully get some peace of mind in all of it.

The quilt sat last night, ignored, wrapped up and over the machine so no cat could besmirch it with their hairy bottom.

I would have liked to have quilted, but the other things were louder and more…not important…but desperate in terms of timing.

Two quilts ready for delivery.

I think I can hang in there this week. I don’t really have a choice, so the thinking part is moot. And that moody beast…hell, she’s going to college in just 10 weeks. I’m sure her stress levels are through the roof, so we will have to come to some uneasy truce about how to survive the summer in the same house. And then there will be less yelling here.

Quilting Peace

I got lost in the quilting place last night for about 2 1/2 hours, making up for the lameness of the night before. It’s not a bad place to hang out, as long as you keep an eye on the clock and remember you have to go to work the next day. At some point, I looked up and thought, “Holy crap, it’s after 11 PM. When did that happen?” That’s not entirely a bad thing. Thursday nights the kids aren’t here, so I don’t have their constant noise and verbal reminders to stop and look around or even get up. The cats hang out in here with me, and my bladder makes me stand up occasionally, but mostly I’m attached to the machine and only changing position when I need to replace an empty bobbin. It’s very meditative and calming. I should probably always plan to be quilting around the last two weeks of the school year to get that benefit.

It probably helps that I had counseling last night too…where we admitted that I might be in counseling for the rest of my life. Nice. Oh well. I also read a couple articles linking artistic creativity to mental illness, though the link is still a skinny thread and not a damning rope. What came first, the illness or the art? Or are they so intricately linked as to be unseparable? (Why does WordPress not like the spelling of unseparable? It’s a word, you asshole. I mean, there’s plenty of times when I use nonexistent words on here, but this isn’t one of those times. Don’t you love that WordPress annoys me? Yeah, it’s the end of the year.)

So this is where I am, making a shitload of art, trying to balance work with that, hoping to figure out the rest of my life at some point DURING the rest of my life. I did miss a bunch of counseling appointments recently, her fault and mine, so maybe that was part of the balance issue. We admitted that my life currently feels CALAMITOUS. Great word by the way. Actually, by yesterday, I had accepted calamitous and moved on to some internal acceptance that I was living day-to-day until after June 18. That’s not that far away. Don’t notice all the calendar items piling up on June 19. I’m cleaning up my entire life on that day. Ha! Like that’s possible.

So I quilted. I mentioned that. I had made it about 2/3 of the way around the bathtub on Tuesday night, so I kept going around, stitching around things when I ran into them, like this wire soapdish…

I keep drawing some version of these, which is funny, because we don’t own one. Our bathtub sucks, honestly. I dream of a nice big deep bathtub with a wire soapdish. Strange, I know.

Once I got all the way around, I started on the smaller figure…

I got her completely outlined…

And started doing other body parts and the water down the one side of the tub, picking up some of the hair and face until I realized it was well after midnight.

Whoops. Do need to work today. And this weekend is not clean and easy. And grades are due Tuesday. I think. Maybe Monday? I should probably figure that shit out.

I have 5 1/2 hours into the quilting. I’m still outlining. I’ve been sewing pretty slowly, I guess. I am more than halfway done with the outlining, and because of the image taking up most of the background, there’s not much quilting outside of the outlining. I am going to use white thread in the bathtub area to deal with the shadowed areas, but otherwise I’m leaving the big areas alone. I am outlining the shapes in the water, but it’s pretty subtle I think.

A friend’s mom died yesterday, finally done with feeding tubes and all the other detritus of two strokes. She was my second mom in middle and high school, good friends with my family, so when my mom and I weren’t seeing eye to eye (which was often), I could hide there and Sandi would just let me be, because she had four daughters and knew what that dynamic looks like, which is why I don’t get jealous over my daughter hanging with her friend’s mom. It’s a safe place and away from DNA-related drama. I got a bunch of Sandi’s fabrics a few weeks back when they cleaned out her sewing area in the mountains, where we had Thanksgiving dinners, comingling our families for years. Some of those fabrics are in this quilt, and it seems right that I am working on it this week, as I keep losing control of the tears for a woman who accepted my crazy without question, while remaining friends with my mom. She was a good person. Hope she’s OK with my appropriating her stash.

Yeah. She is. Peace out, Sandi.

I See Progress…

Even when nothing seems to get done…

I didn’t do anything quilt-related last night. I was too braindead to quilt. I’m likely to sew right through my hand if I try in that mindset. I had a union meeting, the last one of the school year (that’s when you start realizing you’re almost done…when everything is the LAST one of the year). I drew during the meeting, mostly to stay awake…

I’m not good with late afternoon meetings. Ever. And I’m still working on versions of this drawing for making small quilts this summer.

This one…I don’t know what this one was…

Nice eyeball though. I’m fairly sure the teacher sitting next to me was confused. I don’t really care, because like I said, I was listening to all that was said…I was just tired and drawing keeps me from falling asleep in long meetings.

I didn’t get home until almost 6 and then had to cook a meal I’d never cooked before, which actually turned out OK, and then I cleaned up and holy crap, I know I did a bunch of school stuff, like 17×4 certificates and analyzed a bunch of data for our fun awards and who knows what else.

I meant to post this earlier this week as one of my small successes, but Tuesday kinda kicked me in the balls, as it were…one of the art groups I’m in, California Fibers, is doing a recycled art show in Los Angeles at The Loft at Liz’s. It’s called Diverted Destruction 8, and it opens June 27 from 7-10. I will be at the opening, barring any crazy life happenings that I can’t control. Anyway, we had a bunch of upholstery samples and some of us used other stuff as well (I used Mariah’s leftovers for the second one) and made work, and Fiber Art Now published an article about us. I was concerned at first because both of mine are nudes, and Quilting Arts won’t do nudes, although Quilters Newsletter Magazine does show my work regularly enough, but the editor was aware of who I was (that in itself is a bit frightening), so one of my entries to DD8 made it in the magazine. The article is well-designed, and each of us sent in a paragraph about the process…

The show looks like it will be very interesting…although we made two pieces and she’s going to jury from those, so I don’t know whether this one or the other one will be in the actual exhibit…

There’s mine in the middle at the bottom. Anyway, if you’re in LA that night, stop by. So I got published…and that’s a good thing.

Another good thing is that boychild has been cleaning out his room. He dusted and vacuumed and is getting rid of old stuff and then started cleaning a pile that’s been in the hallway outside his sister’s room for probably a year, maybe longer, and he’s really fucking efficient (unlike me), but he forces me to deal with stuff…mostly by handing it to me as I walk in the door or leaving it in my office. He was looking around the garage again, and I think maybe the week after school gets out, I’m going to spend some time kicking the garage’s ass with his help. I think it’s hysterical that I got an organized neatnik for a son (OK, I’m organized, but not the other thing). Of course, he has more free time than I do.

That’s it. I’d be neater if I had more time (see comic from yesterday).

I forgot this drawing…

This is definitely going to be one of the Cats of Summer, like last year we had the Birds of Summer? Except I think I want to do a different owl and that heart/hand thing as well, so it won’t just be cats, and I have one dog I want to do. I’m going to aim for 10 different ones, like last year, but I also have another quilt I have to finish before mid-July, so I really need to get started on that one too, because that’s just over a month away. I guess I’ve only been working on the Bathtub quilt since early May, so…except that’s still more time than I have for this one and I’m not done with the Bathtub yet…it’s probably got at least 10-15 hours left in it. SO. Yeah. Luckily there’s only 6 more days of school left, and then I will have (notionally) more free time. I didn’t sign up for workshops at all, because I just couldn’t deal with it, and honestly, there weren’t a lot that I would have found helpful. I hate sitting through useless professional development.

Anyway. I see progress, even though I got very little art stuff done yesterday. Tonight might be better. It might not. I can’t predict it at this point. I know I’d like to get some things done, but I have a lot on my plate up until about 6 PM (or later…might need to hit Home Depot as well, ugh). I really do need to go to work though. That damn job really gets in the way of my getting shit done.

I Just Can’t Seem to Manage It

I don’t know where my head is this morning. Turbulence. Headache already, and it’s not even 8 AM. I haven’t even left for school. Haven’t finished the first cup of tea either, so maybe that’s part of it. My to-do list is too long. My stress levels are too high. I need more help than I’m getting, but my stress levels increase when I have to start arguing for that. I’m close to crawling into bed and pulling that pillow over my head that drowns out the damn early morning birds and maybe staying there until July.

I think I wrote the same thing last year. Which is sad. Or…normal. Hard to say. Maybe my normal isn’t that healthy.

I posted this comic on FB…

I love Purje’s work…she seems to really get what it’s like to be an artist. And I’m not sure I do the center row well. I try to, but I feel like a mutant sometimes. I do shower regularly. I sleep less than a third of the day (I sleep a quarter of the day). Right now, last night, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and not be me for a while, maybe experience someone else’s life and see what that was like for a week or two. Give me some perspective, because I’m not sure I have any, and I’m living day by day at the moment, terrified that someone’s going to come ask me for more money than I have. Oh wait. They already have.

Any time I think I don’t need my counselor any more, life bitchslaps me back into realizing maybe I will never NOT have a counselor.

Suffice it to say that I did not curl up into that ball last night. I cried a lot; there are tears in almost every quilt I’ve made in the last two years. They open the floodgates, tap into emotion. They are my brain in fabric.

I pinbasted instead.

Because when you’re in a horrendously sad and depressive mood, crawling around on a tile floor closing a million safety pins seems like a good idea. I should probably apologize to my neighbors now for the music. Whoops. But hey, that makes up for that crazy pirate party you throw every year.

And then I started quilting, because that’s the next step, and even when I’m flailing and cursing and flopping around in a depressive place, my brain knows how to do this process…and it just does it. Because not doing it is worse. I see people who don’t do it at all, who succumb to inertia and express their unhappiness with that and don’t change it, and yes, depression kicks your ass on that, and maybe I was lucky because the process memory was in my brain before the depression, so it is just dragging me through, whether I like it or not (strange metaphor for parenting there).

And in quilting, there is that meditative space where your brain can inhabit the needle and the hands moving the fabric, prethinking only enough to realize where to push the needle next, to guide the fabric through. The rest of the brain settles down into a curled-up ball and tries not to think about life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, because honestly, it can’t handle all those questions and not-answers at the moment. It just feels broken and damaged and irreparable.

And maybe that’s what I am. Broken. Damaged. Irreparable. If that is the case, then I will have to live with that.

So I quilt.

And I find tiny bits of joy in outlining a cat’s face.

Or in these tennis shoes. They pop with the lines done. That’s what I wanted to see.

It’s not exactly how I want to live my life, but it’s where I’m at right this moment…looking at this one day and deciding what has to be done (which will only stick for a short period of time until someone else adds to my list). The sad part of the brain obviously cried most of the night, because my eyes feel it, my head feels it, and I just don’t want to feel any of it. And that’s not an option. You can’t turn the feeling part off. You can slough some of it off onto paper or the screen, send it out into the world where a bunch of people read it. But you can’t make it stop.

So yeah. Today I’m not funny. I don’t have pithy remarks about parenting teens. I don’t have answers. I don’t even have the energy to get out of this chair and go to work, which is lame, because I don’t have a physical excuse. My body functions. I don’t have a disease that physically inhibits me. I have no excuse.

I just can’t seem to manage it.