At Night the Crickets Creepy*

Well. After a 10-hour day at work (ugh), I realize that although I wrote this well before I left for school, I never hit the final publish button. I do that now. Tired. Yup. But still gonna aim to draw. Even badly. Bad drawing is better than no drawing.

I’m sitting here trying to get enough tea in me to be functional (let’s be real…semi-functional)…the cold/viral thing is starting to wane, although I mostly collapsed after work yesterday for about an hour. And I’m texting my kids back and forth until they start having a discussion of how to write about torture (ah college…the things you have to write about)…and then I’m really out, because I don’t know that I could ever be pro torture. And honestly I don’t know much about it. Sure, there’s torturing pedophiles and crazy dictators and maybe even the current president (although you know he wouldn’t last long, the big baby)…and since the kids are obviously having this discussion because someone has an assignment due, I’m OK just watching them converse 3000 miles away. I miss them. Lots sometimes. Although I have nothing to add to this discussion but that torture is mean and we shouldn’t do it.

So where am I today? I finished ironing all the fabrics down for the little quilt last night. It’s really not THAT little, but compared to the last one…it’s small. I’m not going to keep going on it right now. I really really really need to start drawing the next one tonight. Somewhere I need to find the brain power for it. So expect a lot of bad starts and flailings on paper with Sharpie tonight. Woo! It’ll be great. Seriously. Maybe it will just spill out of me. Sometimes it does.

More stuff on the right, filling in spaces…

The parental dog is nervous about the new cat…

Satchemo is not scared of Katie.

I started ironing late…had paperwork, school stuff, other crap to deal with…but I didn’t have much left to iron, so I was pretty sure I could finish.

Here’s all the fabrics I used. I really did think it was gonna all be bright colors. It’s hard to know what it will actually look like from this though, because it doesn’t show the mix…there’s a lot of blue in this. The purples take up a lot of space. The browns are all in one section. Same with the yellows really.

There’s the pile…let’s see how long before I actually cut them out.

I did pick up my most recent quilt from the photographer…first one ever with a gun in it? I think? First one on a beige background, that’s for sure. If that’s important…

I’m glad she’s done.

It was difficult to draw it, to make it, to quilt it. Sigh.

Probably not picking this one for my profile picture any time soon.

Although those are my kids, my students. Even the annoying ones. We’d protect all of them.

Still gotta write a coherent statement on that one. Tonight. I’ll do that tonight. After teaching all day, meeting with admin, duty before and after school in 103-degree temperatures, tutorial, and protesting at a school board meeting. Yeah. It’ll be fine. Really. It will.

I guess it’s good I had another project that was at a good place for occupying my brain for a week or so. It didn’t seem ready to move on right away.

So this was my crew last night.

I told them it was bedtime. Some were more ready for it than others. I get it. I was ready. I’m ready again right now, but it’s morning again, so I can’t really go back to bed. Yet. (growth mindset…that’s a teacher joke.)

Art. Tonight we draw. We draw even if we don’t feel like it. We draw to get to the drawing we need to draw.

*Squeeze, Pulling Mussels from the Shell

I Recognize the Walls Inside*

Still sick…although functional. We’ll see how functional after I have to talk all day, right? And stand up for hours. Sick days are a joke. We had 3 teachers out on Friday and only one sub showed up. That’s our reality…and teaching science means even less of a chance they’ll show. I can let it be chaos in the classroom and have the kids get nothing done, or I can push on through. I think I’m better anyway…not well, just better. That’s a plus.

More stitching on the right side…realizing in two months, it will be done, so what shape do I want? I don’t think it will be square, filling the whole thing. That’s a consideration.

Sleepy tired puppy.

I made it into the studio for a little while yesterday, just over an hour. My parents’ dog Katie was in there too. Or is it Katey? I’m never sure. With dog names, you can never tell…my daughter’s dog is Calli, not Cali, because it’s short for Calliope, not California.

Too much information. Here’s the fabrics I’ve used so far…

Not as colorful as I originally planned…it will be lots of blue in the end. Blue on blue with a hint of blue.

Here’s the pile so far.

I’m actually almost done…could easily finish tonight…so I probably will, depending on how I feel. I did get the OK to change my focus for the next quilt, so drawing that is on my list for the week…gotta get going on that one. I have a fairly free week coming up, although grading is a priority. I did a lot of that over the weekend too, although never enough. Gotta get my focus on. It helps to be well, doesn’t it? I think it might. I think I’ll try that later this week…

*Natalie Merchant, I May Know the Word

I Can Do No More

Well. So. Some days you just write off. I did get some of this…

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And honestly, that’s a good thing. I tried grading (almost fell asleep doing it), I tried reading the book I’m supposed to be reading for school (more almost falling asleep), I hung out, I went to book club, but mostly just to hang out. I’m tired and stressed and cranky and overwhelmed and worried about getting the next drawing done and a whole bunch of other shit.

So today is going to be better. I’m going to hang out and do some hobby sewing and then come back and maybe grade a little and then work on the ironing of this small quilt to fabric so I can start drawing on Saturday or Sunday. Don’t look at the calendar for the next week, because it’s ugly. I’m gonna do what I can do. I can do no more.

You Paid Me Well in Memories*

Everything takes too long. Everything you don’t feel like doing or don’t want to do, it takes forever. It actively gets in the way of the stuff you wanna do. It’s like a large man in a smelly suit standing in front of the dessert menu. Seriously. Move it, dude.

I worked last night…grading stuff. I have to. It needs to get done.

But I couldn’t do it forever. I still don’t have the mental space to draw. I don’t know when I will. Soon I hope. Time is dribbling away in days. Watching the countdown on my phone. Crap! Holding onto 17 daily tasks that pop up on the phone and then I still forget to do them, slot them into the calendar for the next day. Hope I remember them eventually. I start ignoring the reminders. Not good.

So I guess my yearbook alter ego for this year isn’t quite right. Oh well.

This is blurry. It’s not your eyes. I did some stitching under (on top of?) the eyeball.

This is the only exercise this thing is getting right now. Me too. It doesn’t help when it’s 100 degrees out.

So I gave up and started ironing this at 10:30 last night. I couldn’t do anything else. I figure I can iron it to fabric and then it can sit around for a while again.

Hopefully when I get done with ironing, I’ll have a drawing brain.

I didn’t get a lot done…remembered I had to put all the other fabrics away, and then got lost in trying to make the blues work.

It’s something though…and that’s good.

It’s where my brain goes when school is too stressful. I’m not even sure why it’s so bad at the moment…too much stuff to do? Pressure of being observed by someone you don’t even know (that part sucks)? Who knows.

Midnight doesn’t. But she’s inhabiting the blue drawer.

She waited until I found all the blues I needed before she plopped her fat butt in there. Good thing.

OK…meeting before school…maybe too many meetings is the problem? Could be.

*A Fine Frenzy, Think of You

I’m a God-Dang Rolling Stone*

Monday mornings. You know already what most of the day looks like. It’s gonna be hot. There’s a cool thing you’re doing in science, but then kids have to turn a major assignment in, and that’s always a hassle. “Did you mean TODAY? I’m not ready.” So where I worked over the weekend to make sure stuff was graded and done for YOU, you chose to do nothing, the same kids I caught trying to do their homework in class on Friday. We don’t work at home? I do. Maybe that’s a mistake (I don’t think it is), but certainly it’s something you should know how to do. Being successful in college doesn’t mean getting it all done in class…the same with many jobs. You make time for fun stuff too, true. I do that. Not as well as some of my students, ironically. Ending the day with my favorite past time…a staff meeting. Oh yeah baby.

So in good news, I finished the quilt. My photographer’s not answering email (minor issue)…but it’s ready for photography. It took almost 100 hours. Seriously, like 7 minutes short of 100 hours. I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday and Sunday sewing down binding and sleeves. Big is not fast in this instance…

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Saturday night was out and about…this had no name…but I loved it.

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Plus this sign…

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And these lights…

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Home relatively early, so I did three nights of catchup on this…

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Finishing the eyeball. Still not as free and loose as I’d like, but maybe that’s just me.

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Last night, I inked the quilt…just some additional shading and detail. Sometimes I feel like they need it…sometimes they don’t.

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And then I piled it up on the ironing board, ready for ironing and dehairing for the photographer.

It’s hard when you finish one (late, like 9:30 at night) and you have the next one ready, but you’re not ready to start it…mentally. I often don’t have a lot of down time between pieces, and the next one is a drawing that’s enlarged and ready for all the rest of it. But I needed some space from this last one. I graded for a while…was really efficient for once. But I’d been on Facebook and Instagram, and the #MeToo stuff was getting to me. For one thing, I don’t like following a lot of trendy/fad stuff online. But this was legit, in that I think most men don’t have a clue that every woman or female-identifying person around them has dealt with this…and not just once…many, many times, some violently, some so vague that you didn’t know it happened until you were processing the day in your head. Some annoying, some creepy, some downright scary. It’s harder having a daughter, because you know she’ll deal with it too, and you’re fairly sure you didn’t prepare her for it, especially because she comes home and tells you about some incident where her friend behaved the way you would have, shut it down, but your own kids thought you were just paranoid, when in reality, you’d just tried to impart years of bad experiences, and obviously didn’t say it right. Or because of that mom/daughter thing, she doesn’t listen. She has to make her own experiences, and you hope that it’s more of the mild instances and not the scary ones. The irritating, annoying, is that all you think I’m here for? instances. Instead of the ones where you’ve got your keys in between your fingers and your heart is racing and you’re evaluating all the ways out and how fast you can run. Or even worse, it’s your boss and the way out means losing your job and benefits and you can’t really afford to do that.

So I drew. It’s not an awesome drawing. It’s just a drawing. I’m a visual person. So there it is.

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And I’m lucky to have one of those men in my life who’s sitting there shocked at all the women in his FB feed who are typing out that hashtag, and who comes in and hugs me, says he’s sorry, sorry for all those assholes who don’t get it, who think they’re entitled, who may not even realize what they’re doing, because they don’t think before they act, or worse, those who have thought about it and can’t see why not. Does this hashtag rebellion reduce the impact of what Harvey Weinstein did? Fuck no…because he’s in a position of power, but even those who aren’t think this behavior is OK, and we need all those men who do NOT think it’s OK to yell about it too…because we women already know it’s all too easy to tune our voices out.

On that cheery note, happy Monday. May y’all survive the start of the work week, and maybe the catcalls and abuse will abate slightly today because of everyone putting it out there.

*The Roots, The Seed (2.0)

She’s a Bad Mama Jama*

Well. Some days one’s plans do not follow one’s plan. It is what it is. I’m grateful that I’m not in the middle of hurricane wreckage or fire danger. Although I keep looking at the sky for some evidence of fire…must be training after the last two big fires down here. There are so many disasters at the moment that it’s hard to know what to support, where to send whatever it is one can send. I did just add wildfires to the next quilt list of ideas. Certainly the amount of plant growth we had in the last year because of all the rain might have been a factor in how out of control these fires were. Although if these were human-set fires, that’s a whole ‘nother level of crazy with which I can’t deal. Humans are pretty fucked-up creatures.

So with all the fuckedupedness swirling around in my brain (that IS a word), I left school yesterday to buy binding fabric for this quilt. It didn’t take long to find one that worked…and a few others, because I like fabric. You might have noticed.

The bottom one is the binding. The top one is sloths. I have no need for sloth fabric. Except sloths. Yes. So that explains a small portion of my stash. And now that I have the orange fabrics home, I think I already have the top one. Sigh.

So I was supposed to come home, eat, and go to the gym, and that all fell to hell at some point. So I graded shit for about 3 hours…well, and dealt with union stuff. I’m pretty sure there was something else I was supposed to do, but whatever. Sometimes that’s just the way shit works out. I think I figured I’d rather grade all that stuff LAST night than tonight. Although I will probably still grade tonight. The never-ending spew of assignments that need attention. The plus is that when I personally counsel kids, they turn shit in. The minus is the spew of emails and stuff that needs 7 clicks to access instead of 1 because it was late.

Anyway, this happened around 10 PM…I hate trimming quilts. It’s a pain in the ass. Some part of me just wants to hack haphazardly at the edges and come what may. And then the ordered part of my brain that wants the focus on the image, not the edges, comes in with the rotary cutter, kneels down on the floor at 10 PM, and carefully cuts, straightens, and measures until it’s square. Not square in shape, but sides perpendicular and square edges.

She’s about 62 x 67″ I think now, finished. The plan tonight is to get the binding on. And email the photographer? I know I want to ink this one too. We’ll see how far I get tonight…I might have another plan that keeps me from getting far on this.

So this year at school…we did a lot of planning last year. This year, we’re tweaking stuff. That means supplementing some of last year’s stuff so we can make sure kids understand the concepts. We were lucky to get a big chunk of money last year for materials and equipment…and we’re making sure we use it. So today, we’ll be doing a demo with some elements, showing the kids some of the physical and chemical changes that can happen to certain types of elements.

And we made a video (well, my coteacher is putting all the clips together into a video) so the kids who were absent can watch what happened…so the workload is still pretty hefty at the moment. In fact, the next unit barely exists, because we didn’t need to teach it to last year’s kids…they got it in 6th grade. So we need to make that happen somehow. I can’t say it’s easier than last year…well, maybe it is, but it’s still pretty time-consuming. I can tell you that dropping acid on metal is fun and so is hitting charcoal with a hammer. I do have a strange job some days. From personal counseling of about 50 kids to hammering elements.

OK. Thinking good (although mostly useless) thoughts about Northern California…and Puerto Rico (because the president won’t)…and everyone who is losing health insurance and Las Vegas, damn the gun people, and anyone else who is staring at their news feed like I am and wondering why. At least it’s Friday. Peace out my loves. But first, this might help…

*Carl Carlton, She’s a Bad Mama Jama

I’ll Just Be Myself*

Apparently at some point during the quilting, it gets faster and more mindless and I guess even easier because you’re not tracing around things…you’re just filling in space. I don’t really like quilting the backgrounds. It’s boring. It goes on forever. But for some reason, last night it didn’t. It was fast and easy. It was hard to make myself stop and go to bed (although I did). I kept thinking I could go until I finished (that would have been a mistake). Sometimes being an adult with a grownup job just sucks. I’m jealous of friends who can do art all the time (although they don’t…they do other stuff…like sleep and read and raise kids). Kidding. I did quilt for 3 hours last night though.

I did this first though…still working on that crazy eyeball.

Speaking of crazy…the dinner break required much furry beast interaction…

And this happened.

That’s some serious ear cleaning. At least he knows his job. And she doesn’t mind. He tried the other cat too, but he wasn’t having it.

The days I do an hour of tutoring after school, I really don’t feel like coming home and working. So I don’t. Usually. I went straight to quilting after dinner. I finished the little bit of outlining I had left…

And then started quilting the space around everything.

I remembered to keep it big and loose instead of tight and time-consuming.

That was a good plan, because I made it more than halfway around…

I have about a quarter of the bottom, the left side, and a bit on the top, plus a few inner spaces between arms and armpits. Then trimming it and binding it (that will take a while). But it means I can shop for binding tomorrow. That’s good. That’s more on schedule. Deep breaths…this asshole is almost done. It’s not that I don’t like the quilt…I do (and I really wasn’t sure in the beginning)…I’m just tired of the subject. It hurts to quilt this one. I have a hard time even looking at it.

So. Yeah. There’s that. But now I have to get to school early for a parent meeting. Hopefully one that will go somewhere. Ha.

*The Puppini Sisters, Jilted

My Back Is Broad but It’s a Hurting*

A little over 6 hours of quilting this weekend…I did more than that of grading and school stuff, unfortunately. It’s not as far as I wanted to be, but it will do. It has to do. It’s what I did.

My niece posted on Instagram yesterday about making Sunday an art day but it’s never enough, and I told her she had to do it every day. She’s young. I didn’t make art every day for a very long time…life gets in the way and then kids. But now it’s a mostly daily practice (unless I fall asleep or have some nighttime activity)…and I think that’s best for me. It helps me process stuff…calms me, helps me be less of the crazy I would be otherwise. My brain goes in circles sometimes, but art helps me reign it in.

This cat is strange. He likes running water.

This puppy is pitiful.

And this plug. The extra light I have for my sewing machine hasn’t been working since before the last quilt. I knew I had the old one, so I went and found it, but then tried to pull the plug out. Well I know now why it wasn’t working…that sucker was melted into the surge protector.

Nothing else was, so it seems like it was the plug’s issue, not a bolt of lightning that I didn’t notice.

I went back to quilting after grading some in the morning. I wasn’t going to, but there’s a lot of late work piling up and I wanted it out of that folder. So I did it.

Then quilted…

And quilted…still outlining…

I don’t have a fancy setup…just a big table where I manhandle the big massive fabrickyness of all that. This one is big and…well…big.

Here’s where I mostly got…the whole chalkboard is done and all of the female figure…

Except her other arm…I started working on that, and then it was after midnight and a school night.

Need to remember that shit.

More quilting tonight…maybe I’ll be doing binding next weekend instead of before that. We’ll see. I’m 6 hours in and I suspect there’s a bunch more in my future. Same with the grading.

*Rolling Stones, Beast of Burden

I’d ‘a Danced Like the Queen of the Eyesores*

I didn’t write yesterday because I fell asleep Friday night while grading and then got up Saturday and kept grading. No art. Just trying to catch up. Not doing a great job of it. I did finally get to quilting at some point last night…and into the morning. I’m planning on doing today slightly differently. For one thing, I can’t go to sleep at 1:30 AM on a school night.

I lie. I CAN. But I shouldn’t. In fact, for about a year, I did just that. It was bad.

Grading meant cats lying on my stuff. It was hot yesterday, close to 100 degrees. Southern California sucks at Fall weather.

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Then he moved to the notebook. Because I was obviously using it, so lying on it made sense. I picked up his head to put papers under it a few times…

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This one was polite and just laid upon the graded paper pile. Although then I had to extend the pile past her because she was already lying on it.

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I realized I hadn’t touched this in days, so I did 4 nights’ worth…basically finishing the iris of the eye and starting on the white part…

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I keep trying to use a more sketch-like way of stitching, but I’m inherently ordered in how I stitch I guess.

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Then I made it into the quilting space around 10:30 PM…on a day when I had nothing but errands to do. Well. And grading. I was trying to get to a certain point. I did not. I gave up. Interestingly, here’s when I do all my work…after 9 PM.

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Still debating this app. It might work. If I can remember what each icon is for. Plus at some point I’ll probably have to pay to have enough tasks…we’ll see. I don’t think this is one of the ones that charges monthly. I don’t need that level of tracking. And the last one I paid for disappeared with the new iOS…I’m still salty about that.

I’m still outlining stuff…I’ll be doing that for a while.

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That’s a fun heart. I want to do one like that again…much more decorative than in the old days. My hearts really have changed over the years.

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The eyes haven’t changed much…there’s only so many ways to make an eye. That’s not true. That might be a challenge. Huh. I need drawing time. Seriously need it.

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I did her torso and the head, except for half of the hair. I still need to do the other arm, but I’ll do the chalkboard first. I meant to buy thread for the chalkboard when I got the background thread, but I forgot. I’m hoping there’s something in my pitiful stash so I don’t have to go back to JoAnns this close to Halloween. Damn.

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I could have gone to bed at midnight…that’s about when I started quilting the head. But I didn’t. I kept going. I wasn’t tired.

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It’s kind of boggling how much time some of this takes.

My plan for today is to finish up the school stuff that I have to do and then start quilting. I’d like to get the outlining done today. I don’t know if I can, but that’s my goal. Then I can do background quilting all week and hopefully make time somewhere to go buy binding fabric and get it bound early next week. It’s taking too long. It’s not really…I was drawing in mid-August…and basically I’ve worked on it solidly, almost every day, since then. While working full time. But it’s taking up a lot of space in my head. Certainly last night while quilting the path that bullets would take through the head…you can only think about that shit so much before your brain gets tied up in knots.

In other news, the girlchild has been accepted to a school program in Madagascar…you know, where the outbreak of plague is. Yeah. Exciting stuff, but a bit scary for all of us. She’ll have an awesome experience…just getting there will take her two full days. But very cool opportunity…

OK. Work briefly and then quilt until I have to stop…

*The Shins, New Slang

I Wanna Shut the Door and Open Up My Mind*

So the only way I know the kids are alive is when they text me. That’s fine…but I can tell the girlchild is buried in schoolwork because all I see of her are her Likes on Instagram. And the boychild will respond to pictures of potential coyote poop and junk mail. I guess the girlchild liked the cute ferret video. I think. I guess all that is good…they responded when I asked about flying them home. It’s just been a real quiet week…

My students are doing a superhero project…some are worried about the drawing part. I don’t know why. Here’s what I drew for them.

They’re obsessed with the perfect body superheroes. I’m like…why? Dorky kid superheroes!

I made apple crisp this week…because I knew I’d need it. Comfort food. Apple crisp for breakfast is perfectly acceptable. No it’s not. But it’s what’s for breakfast today.

I started quilting last night…late…I had my stitching meeting first. I didn’t get much done…head and tail tufts on the elephant, and then the start of turkey work (guided by Julie, I started making them much tighter) on these, which are apparently cattails. Or is it catails. No. That looks wrong.

I didn’t even photograph the head and tail tufts. It’s gonna be a rough day. Brain appears to be offline.

Midnight was incredibly interested in the quilting.

So interested that she left 5 minutes later. I didn’t quilt a lot…just the dirt. I was tired. It was late. Manhandling a quilt at 11 PM after a long day is not easy. Plus I had a tweaked spot in my right hand. Not sure from what…turkey work? Pulling the needle? The gym? It still hurts this morning, although not as much. Inside the hand…probably more stupid arthritis. I have arthritis in one of my feet. Sigh. Old age.

My weekend is kind of laid out for me: about 5 errands, not desperate mostly. Lots of quilting. Lots of grading.

Yup. Très exciting. This thing will not quilt fast, that’s for sure. I did already buy the thread for the background quilting. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like a bad weekend, except for all the grading. I expected to get more done in class this week with the kids working on an independent project, but they haven’t been very independent. That’s unfortunate. I will need to bust my butt a little bit this weekend instead.

But first I need to get through Friday at school. Ugh. I’m really not in the mood. More loud music needed.

*Linkin Park, Runaway