Karma Police, Arrest This Man*

I didn’t write about the school shooting in Florida yesterday because I couldn’t deal with it. When I first saw the news, it was calling the 17 people injured, which changed later to dead. I had to read the headline 5 times until it sunk in, because before they were injured…now they were dead. Nothing has changed up top though. No one is listening. If you have a gun and you’re not using it to keep bears off your property or some other similar problem (no, that doesn’t count for immigrants or people of color, assholes…you don’t get to use them on people unless you’re a cop AND you have a really good reason that will hold up in court and it doesn’t have anything to do with shit you imagined was there or happening), then please give it up so we can send YOU our thoughts and prayers about how you will possibly be able to exist without your weapon, rather than how those 17 families will possibly be able to exist without their child or father or mother or whatever.

I didn’t read any articles or watch any videos about it until last night (when I wrote this), when I had finished grading, because honestly, it’s the one thing that might make me leave teaching, the thought that some idiot might come on campus and kill a bunch of kids, even that the one idiot might be one of my ex-students, still irritated that they earned an F for doing no work. It’s not fear for me (although that is there), but fear that their anger would reach out to other people on campus, that other kids or adults would die because the kid was angry at me. It’s not just the dead bodies…it’s those you left behind filled with fear as well, fear to come to school, fear about the people around you.

At my first teaching job, 9 days in, that’s what happened. A kid brought a gun to school to kill the teacher who “gave” him an F. We don’t give Fs. You earn them. Just like some kids earn As, Bs, etc. And no, I don’t think the grades themselves are the problem. I think the problem is that often kids don’t see themselves as producers of anything. At some point, they will need to work. They need all the skills and practice they can get, but they need to put time into that. Right now, as I’m grading a major project that they had 9 days to complete, I’m seeing a lot of that inability to complete. The lack of connection from work product to grade. It’s frustrating. We need to teach them to think, but they also need to believe that thinking is important. And yes, it’s incredibly difficult sometimes to get a 12-year-old to care about that product if their own life has a significant amount of suckage or drama or if support is lacking.

So yeah, I guess if I’m going down in a blaze of gunfire, it will be either protecting my students from some dick with a gun or because I “gave” someone an F. That’s a motivator to inflate grades, I guess. Anyone ever think that one through? And then you have more kids applying to college who can’t read, write, or do math of any sort. Doesn’t look good on the job front. Honestly, they need to be able to problem solve more than any of that, and that’s where the kids seem to lose their brains sometimes. Sigh.

I hate my government and the politicians who are refusing to solve this problem. I don’t hate a lot of things. Well, I hate chocolate because it makes me throw up. I hate asshole drivers, although maybe if they’re not in their bigass vehicles trying to shove their shiny metal grill up your ass, maybe just maybe they are kind and gentle people who don’t throw their cigarettes out the window. It’s possible. But I really really hate every single politician out there who is refusing to listen to that kid from Florida who was on campus during the shooting: You’re the adults. We’re just kids. Why can’t you solve this?

Short Answer: We can. If we don’t want all these mass shootings, we have to look at the gun control laws in place in ALMOST EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Yeah. That.

Sigh. Such a big sigh. I guess I can’t ignore the bad and ugly for long.

Anyway, so I graded stuff last night…this project requires me to watch a 3- to 5-minute-long video for every kid (that might have been a mistake)…but it’s OK, because 50 kids didn’t even do the video and of the other 80, about half did less than 3 minutes. I can’t say it’s the most exciting thing in the world to grade, but I multitask and grade other things while I’m watching. I finished one period yesterday and had grades ranging from a perfect score to an 11/65. It is what it is. I have on my calendar to do one period a day (well, I put 4th and 6th together, because 6th is tiny). I’ll be done Sunday hopefully. Grades are due in a few weeks, so I have to get control of this. Because my core job is teaching kids…not protecting them from political insanity.

Unfortunately, just making a quilt doesn’t stop that shit.

I did iron a bit yesterday…wait, before I did that, I did some binding sewing on the piece that’s been lying around…I ate dinner (alone). Yesterday I ate lunch alone, had my prep period alone and came home and hung out alone and there was a lot of alone, except for all the shooting crap in my head. It was not a good thing.

I still have a lot of binding to do. This weekend? Maybe.

As you can see, I am not allowed in my own chair. Oh. And I’m still managing to keep a weekly journal of the shit I need to do, the shit I got done, and the shit I keep moving to the next day on the off chance that it might get done. I do get to use color pens to do it though, so it’s totally worth it.

I actually had to write a proposal statement for one art show, and then I got into another art show, so I had to organize my calendar for that. I honestly keep losing a week of February (isn’t it over yet???). I guess that’s a good thing. Because I have a week I think I didn’t have? I guess.

So I did finally get to ironing. It was late. And then I was tired. I did some hair and some other thing and then got stymied by eye color. So I’m waiting on an email from the mom about eye color, but honestly, I could have kept going on the ironing. I was just too tired to do it. It’ll get done. Hopefully tonight.

The pile that needs to be cut out…

Seriously, there’s so little left to iron…although there’s more under the box to the left. I was too tired even to unearth those for the photo. It’s not a lot. It was just too many decisions on color. Hard to do that when you’re really tired.

Here’s the other piece that will be in a show in March through May: We Won’t Go Back…

It’s a local show down in San Ysidro, Dia de la Mujer. Cool stuff. I have about a million openings coming up in March and April. This is not a bad problem to have, surely.

So I’m going to go to school now and wonder about the sanity of some of my failing students, whether they would be the one to come to school and shoot up the classroom. I’m going to look at some of the kids who I just referred for counseling (actually, I’m not…because they don’t worry me…it’s the angry ones who worry me…). I’m going to keep on teaching them to think, best I can. I’m going to hold them accountable for their work, best I can. I’m going to continue to care about their minds, their hearts, their corporeal presence on this earth, best I can. Even the assholes. And some of them are assholes…but they’re kids, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they will grow up to be less than assholes. And I’m going to keep voting. And telling others to vote. Seriously, you need to vote the assholes out. All of them. Every single one.

*Radiohead, Karma Police

Settle Down, It’ll All Be Clear*

I am currently being harassed by a puppy. He doesn’t understand mom’s morning routine. He doesn’t know I’m running a lab today, I have a parent meeting before school, I still have duty before and after school, and there’s a union meeting after school. Ugh. Long day. Oh yeah, and a pre-observation meeting. I typed up my lesson plan, but realized yesterday that I have a hard time getting my head around the constructs administrators like to use to observe whether we’re teaching correctly. I do it automatically…it’s harder to pull out the pieces and say, oh yeah, here I do this and here I do that. I just do it. But this should be the last observation for another 5 years unless I piss off another principal. That’s the reality of it sometimes…who did you poke too many times. Frustrating job. And people wonder why we need unions. But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.

Oh yeah, and it’s V-day. Happy Valentine’s Day to y’all. If you like that stuff. Too much chocolate for the likes of me.

Puppy went outside with his big sister. Can’t send him out alone. Too many coyotes.

Yesterday was also a long day, but I currently have a very heavy piece of James E. Watts’ art residing in the boychild’s bedroom, waiting for the exhibit that will open mid-March. I’m glad he trusted me to drive off with one of his kokeshi. More about that later…when I actually have details.

I have to admit that I finished my book before I ironed last night…mostly because it was due to the library today, and because it’s electronic, they just take it. I can’t hold onto it and just pay the fine. I had about 60 pages left. It was good. The next one in the series is on hold, but I’m about number 5 on the list. I’m reading the James S. A. Corey series that was used for the Expanse TV show; just finished book 2. I actually think the books are way better. But now I don’t know what I’m reading next…whatever I can find in the pile, I guess.

Then I ironed. So it was a late start. I have a little over 7 hours into the ironing so far and it’s going to be a while…the flesh parts are next and they are time-consuming.

This is all I have of this yellow fabric. I started with a half yard many many years ago. Seriously, I started buying quilting cottons 27 years ago. This one is useful, although you are looking at the back of it.

I do have my favorites. Not much left of this one.

Here are the two metallics Julie bought for me on sale, from some store going out of business. I was considering metallics for the screws and posts in the spine of the lefthand figure. A different kind of bling…

The question was whether they’d hold Wonder Under and if the heat of the iron would destroy them.

Well…I did use a pressing cloth, just in case. The bright silver one is fussier than the darker leathery one (which is a great texture), but I think they iron fine. Stitching them might be a pain, but what’s new? I’ve used satin and sequin stuff before, and it was the same issue with them…permanent holes.

I’ll probably test out the stitching tonight, just to make sure I want to use them. Well, I want to use them…but how much of a pain will they be? Gotta test that shit out.

Here’s the pile of fabrics so far…yes, there’s the sun on top. It was actually in the 700s, but I finished all of the 300s that weren’t flesh colored, and I wasn’t ready to pick flesh tones (it was almost midnight), so I did the sun early.

Honestly, I’m about halfway, and the rest of it is all the two bodies in the quilt…so mostly flesh. I’m hoping to pick those tonight, and then maybe Thursday get all the innards done. Like bones (so many bones) and metal bits and hearts and trees…because yes, one of the figures has a tree. Why not? Exactly.

It’s actually a metaphor for the metal that’s helping her spine stay straight…the trunk of a tree? Yeah? OK. Just nod your head. I’m not good at the explaining part of my quilts.

Here’s the pile of pieces ready for cutting…

And the group photo…

It looks so chaotic at the moment. It will all come together and make sense. I used some of my favorite fabrics in the sky…space is a cool place for purples and blues. For a while, a lot of my quilts had layers of earth at the bottom (I don’t know why I say “for a while”…like I’m going to stop doing that. I still like it)…now I’m branching out into space. Anyway…I’m enjoying this part of the quilt. It makes the long days doing work stuff worthwhile. I also spent some time last night trying to map out some exhibit entries…there’s a bunch of stuff in the next few weeks that needed decisions…I think I made them, although now I’m wavering in the morning light. I’ll let it sit for the day and then decide for real.

*Phillip Phillips, Home

Like a Leper Messiah*

The girlchild is currently observing lemurs in the middle of cellular nowhere. I might hear from her on Thursday. I’m kinda glad she’s far away, because there are apparently no showers. I am looking forward to lemur pictures though.

Meanwhile back here, I managed to walk the dogs yesterday on my day off…this does in fact feel like a great achievement. It’s hard to get those walks in when I’m dealing with meetings etc. after work and the sun goes down so early. This is one of the few walks where we haven’t seen coyotes yet…

Oh, I know they’re there…they’re just not in my face, so I’m reasonably OK with it. I try to avoid sundown, best I can.

The green popped up from the little bit of rain we got two weeks or so ago.

There’s still water in the stream…

And there’s more and more of the weird cones protecting some plant that’s supposed to grow here. Makes for a strange landscape sometimes.

But it tired the assholes out, so that’s good. No barking at night. Some cranky snapping at the cat. He misses Midnight.

We all do…

I finished a quilt…this is BirdFoot. It’s ancient, like 2007. We watched Hidden Figures (good!) and I sewed the sleeves on. I’ll get it photographed the next time I go in to the photographer.

I probably kept track of how many hours were in it up until it became a quilt top, but who knows where…in a calendar I tossed years ago? Yeah, probably. Oh well. I can estimate based on stuff similar to it, luckily.

I started ironing late…

I did a lot of things in the sky. Not all of them. I still need to pick some more purplish fabrics for the last little bit.

I did get into the 300s though…not quite halfway, but close. Next up is flesh, and that’s time consuming.

Here’s everything used so far…and the pile to be cut out.

Today’s gonna be a really long day, but it’s all good…I’m going to have work in another show and I need to go get a piece from another artist. Long story. Maybe later. There’s no rest for the already busy, apparently.

*David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust

The Strong Are Few*

I did better yesterday with the to-do list. I got 3 1/2 hours of ironing in, graded most of one assignment (just one period left), managed the grocery shopping and a bunch of other tiny stuff. I still feel like I’m behind, of course. There’s no solving that problem, because it’s in my head. The art opportunities are exploding all over the place. I have to stop and take a breath to figure out what I can actually enter. That’s not a particularly bad problem to have.

Still, doesn’t this look like the life to have?

Cats always do relaxation in an enviable way.

That’s my chair, cat. She likes to sit there while I iron or sew. She also likes to sit there when I’m on the computer, which is slightly more problematic. I’m sitting in it now, and she’s on the floor staring at me, wondering when I’ll move. Soon, Kitten…soon.

So yeah, I ironed…I’m in the 200s at the moment, up in space, in the sky.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far…there will be many more.

Certainly all that blue/green focus will change when I get into the bodies…but for now, this is what’s on fabric…

Hopefully there’ll be more tonight. I have the dentist, hanging out with school friends, then I need to finish grading some stuff. But hopefully at the end of the night, I’ll be ironing again. My goal is to be done with all the ironing this week, ready to start cutting pieces out. We’ll see how that goes. It’s a plan anyway.

*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Nothing But the Water

You Got to Take a Little Dirt*

One of the hardest parts of doing a commission is keeping the hypercritical voice out of the back of my head. I know I’m good at picking fabrics and colors without even thinking about it, but I have to shove that other voice down when I’m making something for someone else. Even if all they said was “make it purple” and they’re totally happy with everything I do (one owl I think?), I still try to think too hard about it. I can’t stare at every fabric and wonder if it’s OK…I have to turn off the thinking part of the brain and let the art voice take over. OK, it sounds crazy when I put it like that…but seriously, I really do have multiple (apparently nutsy cuckoo) voices in my head that speak up constantly. I entertain the supercritic with whatever’s playing on the computer. It leaves art brain plenty of room to meditate about the range of turquoise fabrics (and wonder why I have so many blues that are NOT turquoise dammit).

So last night, I sorted all the Wonder Under pieces. I could have sworn I took a picture of that, but no. It’s not there. So now I’m taking pictures in my head and not in real life. Not surprising really. I’m totally waiting for the brain upgrade that connects my phone and my brain. ANY DAY NOW.

Then I cleaned the office/studio…put all those fabrics away. That was pretty easy. I cleared the table and the ironing board, and then tried to find the other towel I use for ironing. Huh. Well. Some kid actually used it when they were home…because I stored the clean towel in their bathroom. Logical. For me (it’s closer to the studio). I guess it looked like a normal towel to them…not an art-ironing towel. It does actually have some over-ironed bits on it (um, we call that burnt, right?). So I had a choice…wash it and wait for it to be dry (an hour and a half?) or say fuck it and use it.

Well I think you know me well enough to know what I did. It’ll be fine. I started by finding all the pieces that were ocean in the world at the bottom of the drawing…there were quite a few, all spread out in the first 200 pieces.

My setup…drawing hanging where I can see all the numbered pieces, ironing board, table behind me with all the Wonder Under pieces laid out, usually 100 at a time, but 200 last night because I needed all the ocean pieces. There’s fabric all around…you can only see the closet and one wall. There’s fabric behind me and next to me. There’s fabric everywhere! Well. No. That’s not true. There’s small areas with no fabric. They’re called bookshelves. Also I try to keep fabric away from the computer. It doesn’t like that much insulation.

The first batch of pieces ironed and ready for trimming…there’s going to be a lot more.

And a lot more colors too. The dark spotted fabric I bought twice…so that means I have to use it. It’s fate! Plus it’s an awesome fabric. I might use the more purplish section of it in the sky even.

Odds are I won’t get much done tonight. I’m hiking after school. It might be crazy, but I miss hiking more than I am at the moment. It should be cool enough, because it’s gonna be dark. But it’s not a short hike. I know yesterday I hit 10,000 steps sometime during the school day…today is not a lab day, so it should be a little less taxing, but it does push me to try to hike during the school week after walking that much during the day.

I guess I like to push myself. Funny, though, I only remembered doing this trail once, but we’ve done it twice…once up the front way and down Fry-Koegel, and once the other way around. Once in January 2016 and once in June 2016 (way too hot, kicked my butt…that’s the one I remember). So we’ll see how I do tonight. At least I’m not hiking with the kids this time…they go FAAASTTT. I don’t think I have fast in me right now.

*Tonic, If You Could Only See

It’s a Small World Full of Light*

Last night, a bunch of stuff happened. I felt sick, so I went to bed a bit early without posting a picture of anything on Instagram (not the end of the world). I drew a bit, leftovers from the loooong staff meeting I survived. I finished cutting out all the Wonder Under for the commission quilt. I tried to clean up in the studio. I was going to sort Wonder Under pieces too, but my stomach did not agree. I love it when random bodily organs decide to sabotage the night. I’m arguing with it, please why can’t you just get along? We don’t have to do this. Ugh. Nausea sucks. Always.

Whatever it was, it’s still with me this morning. Fun stuff. Plus a parent meeting and duty again. Mornings are never my strong point. Wait. I said at the staff meeting yesterday that afternoons were never my strong point. Also true. I really am a night owl. I can function in the morning, but usually by myself and not talking for a goodly portion of it. Until some part of the first cup of tea gets in me.

I tried grading stuff yesterday evening, but it was making me fall asleep, so I quit. I made dinner and then this guy joined me on the couch for a while…

I started a drawing during the staff meeting because drawing helps me focus on stuff that’s kinda boring. Although I’m still not sure what the point of the meeting was…for us to do something we already do? And the video…I don’t know what it had to do with what we were doing? Sigh. Whatever. Last night I got a work email chastising a group of us for not going to a training on Wednesday for stuff we’ve already been trained on. I’m annoyed by that. I don’t need someone to explain the new standards to me right now. Thanks.

So I started the drawing, but then we had planning time, so we used it…and I finished the drawing at home…on the couch…

I guess you know how I feel about staff meetings now. That big mouth is kinda scary. I kind of want to do a larger drawing with more and more mouths getting bigger and trying to swallow the smaller ones.

I finished the Wonder Under cutting…just under 5 hours (pretty damn good guess, eh?).

I need to sort them. I was going to do it last night, but that stomach thing. It’ll take less than an hour to sort them, and then I can start ironing to fabric! Yay! I love that part! Although it’s more standing…and it will take longer, probably more like the 9 hours or so that it took me to trace the quilt…maybe a little more than that. So I’ll be doing that hopefully starting tonight…then I have a hike, a meeting, and gaming (3 nights of activities)…so not very much of that until the weekend, I think. So probably I’ll finish ironing to fabric sometime next week. ALTHOUGH…I have Monday off from work. I’ll have to grade some and probably walk some dogs (like this one sleeping with her ball)…

And I’d like to plant some stuff and there’s floors and bathrooms to clean (oooh exciting) and could I Please Please Please remember to go sit on the deck and draw? Yeah? Totally. I should do that.

This was part of the cleaning last night…I was looking for bins to sort Wonder Under into, and all the fabrics from the last quilt are still there (I leave them there until I hit this stage on the next quilt), plus a few I bought since then, plus the ones the boychild gave me for Christmas. All sorted by color. So they need to be put away before I can start. Not hard.

Just takes a bit of time.

The girlchild left last night (which was actually this morning) on an overnight into the rainforest. They drove for a while and then hiked an hour and a half into the campsite with tents and sleeping bags (now you can see why her packing was such a pain! Imagine hauling all your camping stuff 11,000 miles). I haven’t heard from her for a while, so I suspect even the limited contact we had is unavailable where she is now. She’s there for one night and then home the next evening, which means I won’t hear from her until Thursday morning at the earliest. Yeah that part is hard. Funny, though. I always keep her and her brother in the back of my mind when they’re away at school. It’s hard not to, but I don’t worry. I know they’re OK. But that’s harder when she’s this far away. I’m sure I’ll get used to it (will I? In just 3 1/2 months?). She’s talking about doing a rural independent study project, which could mean 3 weeks or more of no contact. So I guess I’m glad I’ve had some contact with her at the beginning, because I’m pretty sure it won’t stay that way. It’s interesting what the internet has done for us in terms of keeping track of people you care about…it’s too easy to always be in contact, I guess. There’s pros and cons to that.

Anyway, parent meeting, the last day of labs (oh hallelujah, because I might kill someone soon), hopefully an improved stomach, and fabric waiting at the end of the day. Plus I don’t have to cook tonight. Always a plus.

*Laurie Anderson, Dark Angel

Pick Me Up and Shake the Doubt*

All the tireds. Too much dog barking at invisible things outside and cats invading space with loud meows and aargh. I think it’s cruel that sleep is so easy for little kids when we obviously need it more. Then again, I wasn’t that good at sleep when I was a kid either. I’d read my book under the covers because I couldn’t fall asleep easily (and also because books good, sleep boring…that’s still true, I guess.). It’s a rough start to a stressful week, though. Although really, the stress is what we take on sometimes. I dealt with 55 emails about late work yesterday, plus got one other assignment graded. Not the best weekend achievement, but it was something.

Being a teacher definitely is stressful. Too many demands on our time and patience, usually not enough of either. I have duty before and after school for the next two weeks. Morning duty is easy…I stand by the bike rack and nod at kids and make sure parents don’t drive into other students. Afternoon duty, though, is the crosswalk of death. Mostly because adult drivers don’t stop and all I have to stop them is my hand. Seriously. I need some sort of electrical thing that stops their car and fries all the wiring if they’re dicks. Because a lot of them are. It’s hot, tiring, and annoying. There’s a lot of yelling, mostly mine. I hate crosswalk duty. They’re supposed to rotate duty every year, but this is my second year doing it. Someone dropped the rotation ball. Whatever. So today, though, I have crosswalk duty, and THEN…then I have a 2-hour staff meeting focusing on a chapter of a book that I haven’t read (because they didn’t even mention it until Friday afternoon and then I forgot the book at school, plus I need more warning than that to read a pedagogical screed), where they want us to incorporate what’s in Chapter 6 into upcoming lessons. This is where I want to slap the principal and say, “Hey dude, you know most of us plan way further out than that (seriously, we usually do) and we also have formal observations coming up so leave us the fuck alone.” But generally that sort of behavior is frowned upon. Sometimes I think principals need to be required to be teachers for at least 20 years before they can be principals.

I’m sure it will all be fine. I’m annoyed by it now and I’m going to try my hardest not to be annoyed by it in reality. Mostly because it doesn’t change the stupidity.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time working. School working. I also managed a trip to the fabric store for some backgrounds. I was incredibly indecisive, mostly because there were too many people there and the one woman in the batik section was taking up too much space, some of it in my personal space, and I needed her gone. But I got these potential backings…

They’re all more blue in real life. Except the purplish one. I’ll decide later. I usually only get one or two…so yeah…majorly indecisive.

Then these were just because…

Although that purplish one would be good in the sky…maybe.

Eventually, after going to dinner at the parentals and making my lunches for the week (I love cooking…really…not)…I sat down and started cutting stuff out.

It’s actually going really fast. I only have one full yard and about a quarter of another one left. Notionally I could be done tonight and ready to sort. If I survive all that other shit.

A big pile of trash on the bottom; a big pile of pieces on the top. It’s good that I bought the background yesterday; the quilt store doesn’t stay open late any more. Besides, this week is a cluster at night…three nights booked. So that wouldn’t have happened anyway.

OK, gotta get outta here and go do the standing in front of the bike rack thing…plus getting ready for another lab day of kids not reading instructions and wasting materials. Fun stuff. I’m ready. Not.

*Yazoo, Situation

Well You Done Done Me In*

I’m sitting here staring at the television in my office, wondering why it’s still here when I never watch it. I used to all the time, before Netflix and Amazon Prime and everyone else putting shows on websites, like PBS. The only reason that the TV is still there is because it shows the time, and I’m pretty sure I could use that space better than I am. But that’s part of my larger plan for remodeling this room, a plan that is growing in my head, but will still cost more than I can deal with, I suspect. I can plan for years, though…so I’m good. Interestingly, the TV is not even currently showing the time (well, it’s the VCR below it), because dad turned the power off last week and I haven’t cycled everything on to put the time back on there. Ugh. It’s not even useful for that right now.

Yes, easily fixed. But every easy fix takes time. My to-do list for today is huge and deadly because I took time yesterday to go to the zoo for the first time in a long time WITHOUT 170-300 7th graders. It was much more relaxing. Although our field trip is coming up and I need to warn my team about baboon penises. The new Africa exhibit is awesome, especially the baboons and lemurs (the fossa was asleep), but those penises are gonna freak out my students no end. Lion balls too, although those are honestly less in your face.

There were lots of baby animals around…mom had her hand wrapped around this baby’s tail…

This guy is actually a dwarf…his teeth amused me.

Lots of penguin swimming capers…fun to watch them up close.

Bai Yun came out to say hi.

And this baby did the dance from Footloose right up against the glass until he settled down and waited for mom to catch up.

Polar bears have really big feet…

And they are definitely carnivores…that’s a meaty bone chained to the wall so we can see how freakin’ big they are.

Dromedary with a stick…saw an elephant with a stick too. Apparently that’s not just for dogs (OK, this guy is probably eating the stick or cleaning his teeth)…

We spent about 3 1/2 hours there and did 5 miles…not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Being members now means we can do this more often. I’m looking forward to going back with fewer people there, that’s for sure. Most annoying part about the zoo is the humans.

We went to a new place for dinner and were greeted with a Gloria Muriel mural (with some other guy, probably Alex Banach, since he’s done other murals with her). That dragon has hops in his scales. I was amused that the logo for the place was a dragon but there’s duck all over the menu. Maybe they should have chosen a different mascot.

Then came home and cut out two yards (ish) of Wonder Under. It went fast…more tonight, I think.

This week is busy at night, but I’m hoping to get the Wonder Under cut out and start picking fabrics, although that means I need a background. Crap! I totally forgot about that. Will have to see what I have in my stash, or add a trip to the fabric store to today’s to-do list. We’ll see. Teachers never get the whole weekend for fun without paying for it some other way…too much to get done in one day, that’s for sure.

*Jason Mraz, I’m Yours

The Room Was Humming Harder*

How not to start your Saturday morning, the first day of the weekend: interacting with the DMV website. Just don’t do it. Don’t try to be efficient and get the new ID now, because you know your driver’s license is up for renewal and that way you won’t have to do it again before 2020. Because you’ll have to take a day off work to do it, if you’re a teacher. So renew online now (after fighting their stupid registration system) and then renew again in the summer! Because that’s not a waste of time and plastic and aargh resources. I hate this shit.

But the girlchild is messaging me from Madagascar, so that’s cool. And I’m going to the zoo today, so that’s nice. And I will have to work today and tomorrow, BUT! I finished tracing Wonder Under last night on the new quilt, so that’s awesome. Actually, tracing is pretty calming and meditative, so I only really mind it if my feet are tired.

I came home yesterday and walked the little dog. I think we both needed it. He was so excited. It’s been a while. School is just not conducive to stuff afterwards sometimes. I did stay a little late at school, because Monday is Day 2 of labs, and after having to deal with lame lab results all day, we tested our calcium chloride and realized the old unsealed stuff really wasn’t working. So I cleaned mine all out and then set up for Monday, so I wouldn’t have to stress as much…also because I have morning and afternoon duty every day starting Monday (oh what fun). All I have to do is pour out the new CaCl and everything will be ready. All good.

I am no longer anywhere near caught up with grading. I think we thought we’d get some time this last week to grade while kids did stuff, but after the first day of interest in the topic, those who are lazy as fuck and would really rather pick their noses than complete things were behavior issues and I spent a lot of time managing them. On these larger projects, even though we break them up into really user-friendly to-do lists and rubrics, there’s very little understanding of “I didn’t finish that yesterday, so I have to finish it today.”

It can be very frustrating. But more labs Monday. Hopefully reading instructions will go better as well. Also a difficult thing.

So I really needed this walk. I needed a longer one, but puppy isn’t good at those without Calli (who was at her dad’s house)…plus it was close to sunset. I’m still wary of the coyotes…as well I should be…they’re everywhere.

So I was in this exhibit for Martha Sielman’s art quilt book series, in the People and Portraits book, and the exhibit started at IQF in Houston back in 2013 and then traveled all over the place, but when it got to Grand Rapids, Michigan, all hell broke loose, some woman imagined a penis in my quilt (there wasn’t one), and both quilts got pulled from the rest of the exhibit run. As part of the exhibit, they asked us to make a small sample quilt (I think this is like 11″ square) for a book where people could touch the pieces and see construction. I made this uterus in the hand (of course) and it then disappeared…I wondered about it briefly and then wasn’t sure who to ask about it, until I got an email earlier this week asking if I wanted to pay to ship it back to me, or (what they really wanted us to do) if I could donate it to the Texas Quilt Museum. Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure the TQM wants nothing to do with my uterus quilt, so I offered to pay to ship it back, but Martha is awesome and has been very supportive during this invisible penis crap, so she shipped it back to me. (The show and this little uterus were actually at the TQM in early 2014.)

I was expecting it to be dirty and maybe even looking a bit ragged after 4 years of travel and touching, but either people are scared to touch uteri (a possibility), or it travels well. It’s in great shape. I’m going to take the interfacing sleeve off that they used to put it in the book and pop it on Etsy, I think…just to see if someone wants it. It’s got a little fetus in there as well…gotta take a better-lit picture of it first.

It’s nice to see my stuff wears well. I don’t make a lot of little pieces any more. I made some for a while, birds and cats, and sold a bunch to people I know, but the market was saturated. I like the speed at which I can make smaller pieces, but I also like the immersion of a big piece. It’s like reading a long book…I love being hooked for days on the story and the characters, completely sunk in the experience.

After dinner and some space-out time with a puppy in the crook of my knee (he was very happy there)…

I went back to this and traced the last 100 pieces. It’s just short of 5 yards of Wonder Under there…

It was close to midnight by then, so I didn’t start cutting yet. Maybe tonight. It was just over 9 hours of tracing…I suspect it’ll be about 5 hours of cutting, so that means I should be ironing to fabric hopefully sometime this week. It also means I have to clean up the studio and put away all the old fabrics from the last quilt…maybe I should do that today just to get a head start. I know this week coming up has way too much going on…meetings and gaming and tutoring and 2-hour staff meetings…fun stuff. The fabric part is fun though…

Meanwhile I’m waiting on a connection for this show where we pair up with a male artist to see what we have in common artistically, as part of opening a conversation about women in art. Some part of me gets irritated that we still have to do that, but then I think back to my professors at UCI…all the art professors but two were male. I got along with one of the females, but the other was either completely absent from our class and let the TA handle it (male TA) or she was a dismissive wench. I purposely did this painting of a giant penis to try and get her to respond (I’ve always had authority issues, what can I say?).

Art classes in college…I look back at those that were the most helpful…the professors who forced us to be creative even when we didn’t feel that way, who made us talk about our work, who talked about their own work in a real way, like how do I go home and do this every day, how do I find the space and time and balance? There wasn’t a lot of that. I remember getting into an argument with one professor who wanted me to show up during the day, but I was a double major, so I had overlapping classes across campus. I had picked Independent Study for that reason. She didn’t know I was showing up every night at 10 PM and staying until 2 AM, until she realized all the work I had sitting on the racks drying (ceramics class). She wanted me to interact with the other students though, so I had to try to do that. But I was very much in my own head even then. That’s been a useful skill, because honestly, I don’t have a lot of interaction with other artists living out here in East County and working in fabric. I get more of that interaction online. Like minds populating the world, but not my neighborhood.

And I’m OK with that. But I have a troubled response to the male/female artist inequality. I guess that makes this show useful. We’ll see. One on one, the relationship of a male and female artist, our art speaking to each other…that’s pretty easy. I don’t know if it solves the larger problem, though, because I don’t know that it’s the artists who are willing to show with us who are the issue…or society in general, the larger structure of the art world, the male artists who think we’re better at babymaking? Anyway. Something to think about…to ponder.

But for now, I’m going to ponder breakfast…a shower…and zoo animals.

*Annie Lennox, A Whiter Shade of Pale

Banging On the Off Beat*

When I write these, it helps me (a) keep on task every night, because I know I’ll have to admit my lame-i-tude the next morning, and (b) it’s a brain dump in the morning that lets me get on with my day. Unfortunately this morning, I’m so tired that I can’t even find the right door in my head to let the brain vomit out. Ahh…sleep…as the week goes on, I need more and more of you. But I also notice that certain art-quilt-making tasks seem to engage readers more, probably because they have color and look like stuff, so people are like OOOHH and AAAAHH instead of staring at yet another picture of Wonder Under that looks remarkably like the other 17 pictures of Wonder Under, to the point where you might wonder (under…ha!) why the hell I keep taking pictures of it, because I could just reuse them and only two of you would notice.

And yet I do this.

I really wanted to be done tracing last night. Unfortunately, after going to the chiropractor and being gently adjusted (the new guy is very subtle and sorta New Age-y, not sure how I feel about that, but my neck is much better this morning), then redoing all my seating charts for today’s labs (interesting which kids abdicated that decision to me rather than try to pick friends with which to work), then going to the gym (where I ran into one of my students…wth…I go there specifically NOT to run into them)…well, then I ate dinner and it was like 10:30 PM all of a sudden and I had done very little of note. Except for all the things I just noted. Most people would just give up and go to bed. Not me! OK, maybe I should have…I honestly only traced for 30 minutes…so I still have another 100 pieces to go. But that’s how I get done…at least 30 minutes a night.

I think it’s one hand, one head, and the sun…and then I’m done. That’s totally tonight…and then I can sit on the couch and watch bad television while cutting them out.

A quick look at my phone, which keeps track of my entire life, shows I have 53 more days to finish. I’m fine. No issues. All Good. Of course, I came up with a totally arbitrary length of time based on previous quilts. But I’m 8 hours in…as always, tracing takes about an hour per 100 pieces, rounding up, usually with an extra hour or so in there, depending on size, complexity, and general something or other. How many times I have to take the dog out to pee…pretty much.

I think I’m at 5 yards, but the last one is mostly blank. That’s a plus…

It means the cutting-out part will take less time.

This weekend looks like tracing and cutting and grading and cleaning floors and bathrooms and watering this strange furry plant…

Bizarre cat. And the aforementioned sleep. Always looking forward to some of that. And maybe sitting on the deck in the sun and drawing! I always say that and it never happens. Hours just fritter away on useless stuff like paying bills and grocery shopping. I should be more mindful of that. Of course, having more daylight helps with some of those things.

OK, it’s a lab day, I’m tired, and we’ve been dealing with full-moon behaviors…plus some of my really barely motivated students are gonna realize today that I paired them with similarly motivated students just to see what would happen…so someone is gonna have to read the instructions and do the work, or they’ll just be sitting there picking their noses all period. Which I’m sure they’re capable of doing.

*The Fratellis, Henrietta