Furiously…

I worked for 12 hours yesterday. I really wish I could say that I worked on ART for 12 hours yesterday, but I would have had to blow off my real job completely to do that. But wow, think of that. Getting up in the morning, having a cup of tea, then settling in for 3 or 4 hours of work, maybe go for a walk, have some lunch, another 4 or 5 hours…you can see how this day might go. Reality is that even when I have spring or summer break, I’m not that efficient most days. Some days I’ll pull 10 hours of artmaking, but never like I do with teaching. And it was stuff I needed to do. Yes, some was grading, but I have a project coming up for my students, and even though it’s probably the last year I’ll teach it because the standards are changing, I still felt a need to completely rewrite it. And I don’t know if that will help at all. It will probably still drive me crazy. It’s the nature of the beast.

But grades are due Tuesday, so there’s some of that stuff that just has to be done. I actually think I’m a little ahead of the game though. I have two more assignments that really NEED to be graded, and then a handful of makeup work, and then I’m done. Well. I still need to input all that crap. And take my show down at Grossmont. And deliver a quilt to another show. And pack up one for yet another show. So it’s not looking REALLY good over the next few days, but it’s certainly not as impossible as it seemed last week. At least I’m pretty damn efficient. Most days.

So I didn’t start tracing until late. In fact, I had a really hard time getting up off the couch. I didn’t even grade on the couch. I was just tired. I ran a lab in class yesterday with a ton of water, and the kids did really well with not spilling TOO badly. I had 20 towels in there and they were all significantly damp by the end of the day, but that’s normal. Last year was a lot worse. I should thank them for that…for not being as bad as last year.

But in an hour, I did manage to trace about 350 pieces, so I’m still going faster than I normally would. Because those pieces are tiny. Seriously tiny. Aargh.

This part is never very exciting to photograph. But that’s what 350 tiny little pieces look like on Wonder Under. I’m about halfway up the second torso, having finished the first one, which was only her butt and up. I don’t think the girlchild is thrilled that she’s naked in another quilt of mine. The second one is a full torso, so it will take a little longer. I’m almost at the halfway mark. So if I figure another half hour to halfway, that’s about 3 hours…so 6 hours total? That’s not bad. I might be able to finish by the end of the weekend…because this weekend is kind of a mess. I might try to start cutting them out on Friday at my meeting, although they’re pretty tiny and I don’t usually like to trim Wonder Under away from the house. It’s too hard not to lose pieces.

I’ll have to think about it. Speaking of thinking about it, I’m deep in my head at the moment. Reflective I guess. Trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be, where I want to be. How.

I stare at this every day…

The computer screen and then that crazy raccoon behind it from The Bloggess. Furiously Happy is Jenny Lawson’s new book (Lawson being The Bloggess) and no, I haven’t read it yet, because I don’t own it yet and maybe I should see if my library has it, because they bloody well should. They DO have it…and holy crap, it has 75 holds on it. OK. I can handle that. I requested it. I might be reading it over the summer. But I can read her blog while I wait. The real point is that phrase “furiously happy” because I really do think I don’t do happy the normal way, that I’m just not one of those happy perky people who can just BE happy with things, but I also think that’s what makes me good at the art and teaching and crap, because I’m never satisfied with what’s done or what’s out there. I need it to be better, to make more, to try this, to draw that, and if I were just normally happy, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. So I’m gonna get FURIOUSLY happy about some things, like mailing two quilts out in a week for shows that are a long way away and getting an article published and almost getting on top of my grading. And then Ima gonna (like my students say) get some of that furiousness (way better than furiousity) and channel it into making stuff. And maybe even cleaning the house and doing yardwork, but honestly, that’s more furiously irritable than furiously happy.

So if you live near me and you see me out in the driveway yelling like a banshee, it’s OK. I’m being furiously happy. About the dead leaves piling up. It happens.

Art Is My Superpower

I have this pool vacuum that sometimes tries to climb out of the pool. I’m listening to it now, realizing it sounds like a wild animal devouring burgers in the backyard (sorry, neighbors…I don’t know how to make it stop doing that). It doesn’t seem to bother the ducks…they avoid it, but they don’t stay away because of that. Nor do they stay away because of the Golden Retriever who swims in the pool and barks at them. Halfheartedly. Like, “get outta my pool bitches…eh…stay awhile. I don’t really care.”

I’m barely awake, despite the shower and a reasonable (for me) amount of sleep. My sleep app tells me 4 AM was troubled sleep. I don’t doubt it. I already know I have to be up early on Saturday, my normal morning of rest. Oh well. Sleep is wasted artmaking time. Might as well rejoice in what little I get.

The plus is that the tracing is going well…

I traced over 150 pieces last night in less than an hour…because they’re small pieces, so they don’t take as long to draw. Duh. That’s a plus. So there’s only 600 pieces to go. Too bad grading is competing for my time. I did grade papers last night. I might sort of get caught up (maybe). Don’t hold your breath. I don’t think teachers are ever really caught up. Even in the summer, we are prepping for the next year, how are we gonna change things or fix things, or in the summers that follow for the next THREE years, how do we transition to new science standards with no curriculum. No problem! say the districts. There’s the INTERNET. It’s like magic. Curriculum just appears. Well, it appears after hours of searching and tweaking and messing and collaborating. It’s a giant time suck. I know because we started doing that kind of stuff this year.

So why do I do this job? Well, it is creative and requires most of my brain. I don’t like to be bored at work. It’s also cool when kids get stuff, like holy moley, so that’s what a heart looks like. And they can see the muscle. And middle-school kids can be funny and loving and all that. But it is an incredibly stressful and demanding job, like no other job I’ve had, and sometimes I just need to talk about it. That’s always been an issue with non-teachers. There’s a difference between complaining and venting. I vent and it’s out. I don’t have to think about it any more. Frustration released. Moving on to the next daily challenge.

Maybe that’s why I’m still in counseling. Because I just need someone who listens and lets me get it out without taking it on themselves. You can’t fix my students. You can’t fix my school (and next year, based on the plan we’ve heard about, is gonna be hell on wheels with no teams). You can’t fix what’s wrong with public schools. Seriously. It’s unfixable as long as parents don’t care and politicians are involved. Or parents care too much and are ignorant of how a school or classroom actually run, and politicians are involved. I can handle my job…most days…I just need someone to say uh huh, that sucks, have a hug. Or a glass of wine. Or both.

My joy in life doesn’t come from my job. It comes from my art. And I wish I could make more of it.

Today I’m running a lab that requires 17 towels. That should be interesting. Labs are exhausting, especially with water or chemicals or dissectable things, but the kids get a lot out of this one, so I do it. I’m still trying to prep for next week’s project, so I’m a little behind. Hoping to get caught up by the end of the weekend. Might not be socializing much between grading and that. Ugh.

All this is why I make so much art, people. The job sucks my brain out and spits it on the ground. The rest of life is somewhat stressful and often lonely. Art makes it all OK. It’s my superpower. Certainly doing taxes and financial aid apps and going to the store and cleaning out the litter tray and trying to analyze the tire pressure light in my car all just make me crazy. I need something to tip the balance in the other direction.

I was interviewed for San Diego CityBeat. You can see the article here. I think he did a good job of capturing me and my art. And he didn’t mention my grandmother’s quilts, so that’s a win.

Quiet Meditative Tiny Little Fucking Pieces

Some nights I think I’m going to get all this artmaking done, no constraints, and then that just falls apart. Sometimes it’s for a good reason, like your kid face-timing you from college or taking the dog for a walk, or both…like last night. Sometimes it’s your brain…it’s tired and can’t deal with even getting off the couch. It’s easier to stare at distractions on the TV or the phone. It’s too hard to stand up. You know you have to clean up first before you can start. Most people have already gone to bed. What is wrong with you? Don’t you know lack of sleep is unhealthy?

I guess that’s the part I’m pretty good at: getting up and starting, no matter what. I have grades due in a week, so I can’t really take a break and blow off grading, because I need to get caught up, best I can. So I’ve spent the last two weeks basically making myself try to grade a thing a night, although sometimes “a thing” is one class’ worth because it’s a time-consuming assignment, or more common, their answers are so off the mark that if I grade more than one period, I become so incredibly frustration and convinced I’m the worst teacher in the world, until I come to one where the kid did it right, and it’s not the smartest kid in the class, and I say to myself, “Well if JOEY got it (there is no Joey, just to be clear), then everyone could have understood me.”

Yeah. Those are not the best nights. Except it means it will only get better. If I do something else afterwards.

Last night’s grading session wasn’t hard, but there were head-banging-on-the-desk moments where I thought the cats might call 911, because I was a little frustrated. Talk about ignoring simple instructions. Anyway. It’s done. I’m getting down to a reasonable number of assignments left to grade, if I don’t think too hard about the last unit that’s piled up at school.

So after a 3-mile dog walk/hike hybrid, cooking dinner from scratch, face-timing the girlchild, and grading homework about hiccups, I almost just went to bed. It was late enough. I was tired enough. But it really feels like shit to go to bed, wake up the next morning, and realize I did no art stuff at all the day before. Especially when I’m working to a deadline.

So I spent about half an hour doing art stuff…because even a half hour a day counts. Some days that’s all I can do, but it’s better than nothing. And it got me started on the next task for this project, so that’s a good thing. I cleaned off the cover on the light table and then moved that off the top and got started with the tracing.

I am a whopping 50 pieces in. Of 819. Yeah. It’s gonna take me a while. But I got my butt off the couch and did it, so yeah, I feel better this morning than if I hadn’t. I actually find the tracing process very meditative. I look forward to it. Some of the artmaking tasks are more heinous, like trimming Wonder Under, but this part is nice. It’s just following the line and deciding what overlaps and drawing that in. Finding the next piece. Doing the same thing over and over again. I know it sounds like it would be boring, but it’s not.

So that’s what’s in my future for probably the next 8 hours of artmaking…quiet, meditative, tiny little fucking pieces. Yup.

White-Out Is My Friend

I have this crazy-ass dog (it’s my daughter’s dog) who likes to go in the pool. She just wades in up to her belly and wiggles around a bit, but then wants to come straight back in the house, which means a 5-minute struggle with a dripping Golden Retriever and a towel. Most days she just goes in once, but some days, it’s 3 or 4 times and all the towels are wet and I’m going a bit bonkers, because she’s like a big smelly 2-year-old.

I have this wacky cat who started out by finding all my hair scrunchies (yeah criticize all you like…I’m not and never will be a fashion maven) and dropping them all over the house. Once every couple of days, I find all of them, pick them up, and deposit them in the bathroom so she can start over. She’s recently started doing the same thing with pairs of socks and apparently with one flipflop (would have liked to see that in action).

The other cat, also the girlchild’s, has recently become overly needy, wanting to knead your belly into submission, which would be fine if the claws were not part of the process. She’s very pushy about her needs, biting you if you don’t continue the never-ending petting. She’s also a fat beast of a cat, so that doesn’t help.

Some nights I come home and feel like I am needed more here than at school…and after a long day of whiny stuff at school (from the parents, no less), it’s nice to sometimes have a break from the three furry creatures. Last night was not one of those nights. It’s OK. They love me (most of the time) and need me (way too much). Right now, I only have two of them in here with me, so I’m doing OK.

I graded for a while last night…I’m trying to do a bit every night so I don’t get too frustrated, but last night, about halfway through one minor assignment with only one period, I was about to chuck the computer through the wall. I’ve taught what organ systems are…multiple times. I even showed a short reminder video before we started the assignment, so they would know what the systems were…again…because I’ve taught them multiple times, but I realized I was having to repeat my instructions over and over. “Organs work together in a system. Name one of the systems? Yes. Cardiovascular is a system. Digestive is a system.” And this is my highest-level class, so it should be fine, right? Oh holy heaven, some teacher goddess must be out there for us, because I needed support. There were multiple kids that were so far off that I wanted to bang my head on the desk…so far off, I don’t even know how they found the answers they did (because they will say, that’s what the internet SAID! And I will scream at the top of my lungs and run flailing out of the classroom into the street some day when a kid tells me that…because I’m not allowed to simply say…”Bullshit. Show me where you found that.”). I bullied through though, because honestly, if a kid can’t figure out (after I modeled the first one even) what I’m asking for, and doesn’t have the guts to ask me (OK, I might have gone off if he had, because like I said, already TAUGHT you this multiple times, why aren’t you freakin’ listening, is it because you have a hearing problem or I’m not speaking clearly or what the fuck?), then they deserve the F they just earned for not doing what I asked them to do.

This year has been so frustrating so far…we are almost 2/3s of the through and I don’t know how I am going to survive the last trimester.

This is why I stop the working part at some point in the night and move on to less crazy-making shit, although last night, even that was an issue. So I had an idea for what I wanted for the next piece, which isn’t very big, so I have to watch how crazy I draw…nothing too tiny (I think I’ve already blown that). But I started…the main figure was fine, but then I tried to decide how to add the secondary figures, and that’s where it went all to hell…

That is so not working.

It happens…especially when I haven’t been drawing regularly for a while. And yeah, people are like, look you crazy woman…you’re drawing with Sharpie, not pencil…what do you expect? I get this flow with the Sharpie that I never get with a pencil. I like it. And my drawings aren’t the final product, so I don’t care if I mess up and have to use white-out. And I rarely DO have to use white-out.

The bottom arm on the left was fixed…but the rest of the body just wasn’t working. At all. So I got rid of the whole body.

And then I drew a face.

Now you can see the body under her arms is gone (but that one boob is giant-looking in this photo)…I’m actually going to go copy this to size and try to draw the rest. I might even use pencil to start. It happens. But I’m much closer than where I was before, so that’s a good thing, because this whole coming home and NOT having a project in progress, where I can just pick it up and do the next step or continue what I was doing…well, I’m not liking that. I’ve been pretty much booked solid on projects for months now. And it’s not like I don’t still have a deadline. I do. I just don’t have the next step ready to go yet. When school is this frustrating, I need a nice outlet in the evenings. Really. I do. Every night.

So I’ll copy this one and another one that I think will make a good quilt if I enlarge it and draw the rest. And another smaller one, so I should find that sketchbook too. Letting my art brain lie fallow is not a good plan. Especially if the only other thing I have is incredibly frustrating student work that makes me want to throw my computer into the pool. After the dog. Yeah. Bad plan.

Art…It’s What’s for Dinner…

The part that sucks about finishing a really time-consuming piece, even early, is that all the stuff you blew off in order to get it done is still waiting there, sometimes not very patiently, like a Rottweiler behind the door, slavering, ready to attack.

I spent all weekend working pretty much. Lots and lots of hours of grading and lesson prep and trying to do taxes and FAFSA. Trying to just find all the paperwork to do those things and make sense of the federal government’s wording and questions. Even the help box doesn’t clear it up. Luckily, there’s Google. I’ll be glad when the kids are done and I don’t have to do this any more…I just will be paying it off. It’s ironic that my scrambling to make more money so that I can pay college bills will probably result in their qualifying for less aid. Frustrating! Cornell seems to understand how much money I have available. Too bad Brandeis is less helpful.

Four weeks until Spring Break though. I’m alternately looking forward to having some time off (already!) and worried that it will be too many hours with just me. Inevitably, I will have plenty to do. At least one art quilt, hopefully two in process by then. Plus the yard. The yard is a disaster. So is the house. I keep considering getting a roommate, although they’d have to move out for the summer, but I can’t behave well enough for a roomie. They’d have to tolerate my late nights, sometimes sewing on the machine with music blasting, my inability to clean. The crazy-ass cooking I sometimes do late at night. I made to-die-for blueberry oat bars last night. They’re a knock-off of the Starbucks ones, and they’re not the healthiest things in the world, but holy hell, are they good. I’m gonna have to freeze them so I don’t eat all of them.

Anyway. So the weekend was a clusterfuck for art…except I finished the binding on the quilt in progress and will be delivering it to the photographer today, a full week early. Whoo! And I went to an opening Saturday night. But that was a plus and a minus…

There’s this new place in town called La Bodega Gallery and it’s in this huge old building with soaring ceilings that are a little ragged. And they throw a LOT of shows. I don’t know how much traffic they get during the week, but they’re open 9-5 M-F. Or 12-5…it’s hard to say. Anyway, the thing I love about this gallery is that they get a LOT of traffic, they get a ton of people coming in to see the art. Part of this is because it’s changing up its exhibits every two weeks or so, and they tend to be popular themes, like the Frida Kahlo exhibit last year and the Star Wars one in December. The exhibits sometimes are invite-only and sometimes they put out a call, although honestly, they don’t give a lot of heads up on some of them. The show I saw Saturday was a Pin-Up exhibit and the call went out in mid-January. I couldn’t have done something for that (honestly, I don’t really do pin-ups anyway). But the biggest issue with them is that there doesn’t seem to be a curating process…there’s no culling of the bad stuff. And this time there was some seriously amateurish stuff. But then you see mom taking a picture of her kids in front of the piece dad painted and you think, eh, there’s the future art community maybe. It’s definitely more low-brow than some of the exhibits I go to…in fact, if you go later than 7 PM, odds are you can’t even get photos of the art because it’s so crowded.

So. There’s that. But we went and I got pictures of some good pieces, although I didn’t get them all resized today…running late! I don’t know why. Some perfect trifecta of work, laundry, and dishwasher. Or something. They all need assistance.

They don’t usually have a lot of fiber in these shows, so this one really stood out…even if it’s biologically inaccurate…

By DeAnna Munoz

And this right next to it…which had no name or number I could find.

Everything is for sale…that crotch is a little terrifying.

There were lots of guns in with the pin-ups. Somewhat disturbing as well.

This by Raz Holly. I’ve liked his stuff before. I’ll post more over the next few days. There’s always some interesting stuff and sometimes some stuff that you’d consider dropping $50 on. And they bring art to the masses…I just wish they’d edit sometimes. See…even when I don’t MAKE art, there’s still art.

My next step is a drawing. Gotta make time for that. Maybe I can start tonight…we’ll see. Still battling the FAFSA and taxes for now. Also grades. But I want to get started on the next quilt soon. I don’t like not having something to pick up when I’m having a bad day.

Lemonade Afternoon

You know that quote, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Well yesterday I had CPR/First Aid training. And it was boring. It could have been worse, but I’m easily amused by bad video. Like when the worker goes “Hi, little buddy” to the small furry animal you can’t see and gets bit. I laugh. Because my lord. Seriously. The trainer promises there will be a better set of videos in two years when we have to take this again.

The plus was that we were so quiet and asked so few questions that we got out way early. And I came home and quilted. When life gives you a free afternoon because you did CPR training so you could take your students on a field trip next month, use it to make art. I should have graded all afternoon, and to my credit, I did try to grade at the gym, but first the wifi wasn’t working and then the damn app wasn’t functioning correctly. So I gave up. And then came home and kept quilting. Because I have a deadline and my photographer is flexible, but hell, I have to get started on the next quilt too.

And grading. Sucks. Yeah. I did monitor my students on their computers all day. That was fun. We can see what tabs they have open and send them messages, like “Get off Facebook and get to work.” A couple kids just didn’t get it. I kept shutting them down and finally shut down every tab they had open as soon as they opened it. It didn’t take more than about 5 minutes of monitoring per class before they were all in the folder they were supposed to be in. Ha! Bastards. Big Teacher is watching you. My co-teacher in crime (also in CPR) was doing the same thing, so I think by the end of the day, the kids all knew they had two teachers watching everything they were doing. Sometimes being a teacher means being an evil villain character.

So I quilted for 5 hours yesterday. I know. Wow. Cool.

There’s lots of eyeballs in this quilt. Twelve to be exact. Well. There’s two on the cat, but they’re closed. And the little figures, there’s four there too. So 18 eyes. No snake on this quilt though. My imagery is shifting maybe? No Christmas lights, no bird…no bird is weird. Most of my quilts have a bird.

Anyway, I think it’s turning out well…

And at some point in the afternoon yesterday, I went and got two possible binding fabrics for it. Not sure which one is best. I was in a hurry. They’re in the dryer and when I get home from school tonight, I’m going to try to get the binding on, because I have quilt class tonight and I can do the hand-sewing there. I don’t want to lug the machine along and do the whole thing there though, so I have to quick! Come home, iron it, trim it, and bind it! No problem.

The animals were confused by my presence all afternoon…

I have five blurry-faced photos of the cat. She wouldn’t stay put. Same with the dog. Ten hours almost total quilting. Half of what I had estimated…although I knew my estimate was too high.

I feel much better about things today. I got taxes and FAFSA started, I got the quilting done, I got a quilt packed up and ready to ship. I still have a ton of stuff to get done, but it’s less looming and more manageable-looking. I will be so glad when the kids are done with college and I don’t have to deal with all the financial aid hoops any more. They are really stressful. Especially in a divorce situation. I’m really worried about how I’m going to pay for any of it next year. I don’t have any more cushions, no more college accounts to cover my portion of the fees. It’s scary.

But I’m going to try not to think about that right now. Because I’m finishing a quilt, and that’s a cool thing (although now she needs a name…aack!). And I can start thinking about the next one, which will be smallish. In fact, a difficult size for me…not super small, like 8-12″ squares really challenge me, but at least they don’t take long, but this is a size I never do…16×24 I think. Totally off for me. Remember not to do a lot of tiny pieces! Yeah. Like I listen to myself. Oh well…at least it will be a challenge.

Responsible Adult…

Adjustments made. Taxes started instead of quilting all night like I wanted. Have to be a responsible adult, dontcha know? Up early today to retrain on CPR and that heart device that I will hopefully never have to use. I had two students one year where we had to drag that thing with us on every field trip. I don’t envy my sub today…my kids are getting increasingly antsy and boisterous. We have one teacher out and the guest teacher is…eh. She’s eh. Four and a 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break. Then the math teacher will come back. I hopefully won’t kill them all in 4 1/2 weeks. Definitely in burnout. But it’s not just school. Life itself is wearing on me. Too many tasks. Want to run free in a meadow or something. But that would probably cost money I don’t have.

Really I’d be happy if I could remember to find the time to fold the towels and put them away. Plus whatever else has been living in that laundry basket for the last two months.

Quilting is so peaceful, so meditative, while I’m actually in front of the machine.

I don’t think about school or stress about people or money or college or taxes. I just quilt. Move the sandwich around and around. Listen to the music or the thing on Netflix. Don’t think too hard about it. Just draw the line, careful around the teeth and the eyes, draw around the tiny little words, thread breaks, tie it off, start up again. Bobbin runs out, fill it up. So simple. So linear. So peaceful. Don’t watch the clock. Don’t stop until you’re ready. Just go.

Sometimes I think I should just do this stuff every night and not be a grownup. But then reality kicks in. I graded. I did taxes. All very grownup. No one told me how much shit would end up on my plate though. I teach 12-year-olds. I spend all school year with kids who mostly have no idea how much work it is to be a grownup. They’re testing the boundaries of being a kid, growing up into teenagers, but not quite ready to take on the world. Last year’s failures just got lectured about not graduating. Some of them come to me and talk about their grades improving, but there they are, on the failing list. Some are just still failing, almost proud about it, beating their chests like it’s a plus.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the parent yesterday who said there were no consequences at home if he fails. None. No one taught her how to raise her child. He doesn’t have to be awesome. He just needs parents who give a shit about his future. Then he can too.

I think I need more walks on the beach and in the mountains. I need more hours on the elliptical. I need more time with my sketchbook. I need more time with needle and thread, fabric too. Having the kids gone gives me very little room for moods and stress. There’s nothing for them to bounce off of…they just reverberate in my own head.

Sigh. Off to learn how to save the world. Again. Damn hormones. They really fuck with you.

A Wash…

So Friday was a wash for artwork. See! I do take days off. But it was sort of a mental day off. I spent all day with kids working on group assignments and me laughing at their arguments. The table that voted for the background color…democracy in action! The table with the bossy Arabic boy who when the other two wouldn’t listen to him, he just deleted everything they typed while they yelled at him. The two high-level girls who stated loudly that they couldn’t work with these people. I just about lost it. The two tables who sat there and stared at each other, waiting for someone else to do all the work. It was like a tiny little microcosm of all the work situations I’ve ever been in during my entire life. The table where one girl took over, designed the whole thing, and pointed at the other kids: You do this, you do that. She had already made the boxes with the titles in them. And then she critiqued their font choices because they didn’t “go” with the rest of the doc. The table where one kid was reading the text aloud while another kid typed. And the one kid who has been begging for groupwork? He’s absent. Of course. The 6 kids who were absent on a Friday before a three-day weekend? We emailed them their assignment. The one who was on his Chromebook but not in my classroom because a parent signed him out early? Sent him a message on our system. Why aren’t you here? Here’s your assignment. Yeah, I can see what he’s working on even though he’s not here. Creepy stalker, eh?

But I walked away from it in a fairly good mood, because I dumped everything on them. You deal. This is your team. You have to work with them. Think about how you’re behaving. Why are they mad at you? Why do you think you get to choose who’s on your team? Fun stuff. Plus everyone in the class is dependent on your information to do well on the test. So get on with it. That’s real world right there. Ask me about it next year when we’re trying to design science curriculum from scratch because California doesn’t have any. Why pay for that shit when you can make your teachers do it for free?

Wish I could walk out every day with that much lightness in my head. So it was OK to go out and have fun instead of coming home to work. Even artmaking needs to take a break, although I did go shopping after work. I needed batting and thread.

In fact, right now, the batting is soaking in hot water so I can sandwich later today. Same bathtub my Christmas card photo came from. Still dirty. Might be permanently dirty.

Couldn’t turn down a twofer on scissors for $7. Plus 20% off the whole ticket.

And there she sits…waiting for me. In a minute sweetie. Getting there…

Forgot to put in the link for the article about my show…in case you aren’t on Facebook with me…

Quilt Artist Depicts Stories of Women’s Bodies and Lives

It’s our local paper, which I don’t actually get in real life. No mention of my grandmother, so that’s a good thing. The writer did interview me and read most of my blog, I think, so she did a good job.

OK, so I need to get on with it and do quilt stuff and other stuff and making art stuff (holy crap, I need another new piece by the end of March. Yikes!). Plus art openings tonight. So that’s cool.

Head in a Hole

I didn’t get any art done yesterday. It happens. I’m pretty good about doing something most days, but I didn’t have the energy to stand and iron at 10 last night. Strangely. And this morning…this morning, I’ve written out the weekend post-it note and it’s a bit ugly. Why oh why. And it’s supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow. A stark contrast to the girlchild’s photos from Friday morning…

Meanwhile, I’m considering putting my pale winter legs in shorts. I haven’t been outside yet. I’m in hermit mode. My post-it note sent my brain into an overwhelmed frenzy. And I have a 3-day weekend to deal with all of it. What does it mean that the only thing I really want to do is iron the damn quilt together? Oh yeah. It means I’m an artist and an overworked teacher. Fucking A.

We did decide that it’s my fault my co-teacher hasn’t given birth yet. I haven’t finished the binding. I got side-tracked and never finished. So that’s what I did when I got home late last night…worked on that.

But did I finish? No I did not. So she still can’t give birth. Bad Kathy.

And then I walk in the studio this morning and there’s the next batch of 100 pieces laid out with the bins on top that keep the cats from lying on the pieces and messing them up and walking off with piece number 117 stuck to their tail. This has happened. Most of the weird shit I do is because of experience.

So I really just want to ignore the post-it. But I can’t. Too responsible. Maybe. Certainly some of the things on the post-it make me want to put my head in a hole. None of it is easy. It’s all a pain in the butt. I didn’t even put the standard stuff on there, like laundry or groceries. Or sleep. I did put grade stuff on there. Ugh. So tired of that. Taking a break this week from tutorial and detention at school. I’m burnt out. Funny because school admin was just talking about how my team goes above and beyond to deal with parents and support our kids, and I’m going to totally blow it off this week. Maybe the next as well. I’m going to blow it off until I can stand to do it again. Just to clarify, I don’t get paid to stay after school. And it’s not in my contract. So I’m just going to work to contract (sort of…because you know I’ll come home and work) until I can be a better teacher again.

I can’t even think straight this morning…can’t pick one of the things on the post-it and do it. Too much fluff in my head. Alphabetical order maybe. Or just crumple that bastard up and start ironing.

Not Going to Stop…

I don’t know how to explain to my students that even though I took all their tests home last night and was planning on grading them, the staff meeting that took up an hour an a half of my life and was mostly full of whiny adults sent me home with a school headache and forced me to go to the gym, and then when I got back and made dinner and my daughter called me and then I ate (really late, by the way), I didn’t have the mental energy to grade anything. Nor did I care about the grading at all, because the meeting was that irritating. And it wasn’t irritating because the thing we were discussing was so onerous…it was just because people are whiners and think if they whine loud enough and hard enough and demand shit that they will in fact get their way. Although it was the commentary on All I Have to Do Is Expect Work from my students and it will magically happen that kind of set me off as well. Because duh. I do that. And I chunk it. And I say, if you have done this, then I need you to do this. And still, there is a brainfart that happens between start-the-work and turn-it-in that I don’t understand. True that I’m not 12, but apparently parents allow the brainfart, because they think tutorial will help. Tutorial doesn’t help kids turn work in…most of them. And even with 10 kids in there, I can’t possibly help all 10 at the level they need, which sometimes means standing over them and saying “Keep working. Stop talking. Stop distracting yourself. Finish the work. Turn it in.” I usually leave tutorial with a monstrously bad mood, and that’s every Tuesday, which fucking sucks. Last year, at some point, we quit doing tutorial. Just plain quit. Because it was driving us nuts.

Let me be clear. I do not get paid to do tutorial. I do it out of a sense of duty to my students. So if I choose NOT to do it, I still don’t get paid. I’m a little irritated though that counselors and admin kind of expect us to do tutorial without pay. And detention. I don’t get paid for that time either. And it kinda punishes me too.

So that’s where my brain was when I got home and even after going to the gym, where there are still too many wannabes on the treadmills walking slower than I do going uphill on a hot day. Get off my machines people. I adjusted my workout. I listened to music and read my book. I came home and made dinner and talked to the girl. Miss her. Miss the boy. Miss all the things.

And then I sat down and did this instead of grading all those tests.

You know, those tests didn’t deserve the time of day. At least, they don’t deserve my free time at home after 10 PM. I’ll work on them today. I have my prep. I don’t have a lot of hands-on teaching today. And I still have a ton of grading to do. It doesn’t seem to go away.

I cut stuff out for about 2 hours. I’m 8 hours in. I figured out as I was cutting things that there are 5 sets of arms, so 10 arms total, so 10 hands, and each hand has 4 fingers and a thumb, so 40 fingers that have these tiny little stripes on them where the wrinkles are, and each finger has two of those wrinkles, so that’s 80 wrinkles I cut out yesterday. And then the 10 hands have 5 fingernails (including the thumb) each, plus two feet each with 5 toenails, so I cut out most of 60 nails yesterday as well. Some were really small so I left them ironed and uncut until I actually need them so I don’t lose them.

I’m down to I think the last two or three of the flesh fabrics, so mostly larger pieces of arms and breast and knee. So nearing the end. I had thought 9 hours…will be closer to 10 I think. I might finish tonight, but it is my opening and I’m hoping that’s successful. We’ll see. That’s a nerve-wracking thing in itself. But whatever. My art’s been out there long enough that I don’t need people’s approval to DO it, but it is nice to be in a 2-person show and hope that it gets positive press. I’m not going to stop making work if it doesn’t though.