Going Just to Be Sane*

Every new month, I read back through previous years of the blog for that month, looking for the clue to how to survive it better, to how it makes me feel, because so many things are cyclical. I guess it’s good to review that, because three years ago, I still was going to multiple night soccer games, freezing my ass off, and then dealing with feeding kids and all that fun stuff. Although they are coming back in a week or so. It helps me to have a space in my head to prepare for the next few weeks…knowing that the holidays are coming, but that makes school that much more crazy for the weeks leading up to it. Knowing that I have some free time coming up to finish this quilt, even if I have to really push to get through any of it right now.

Even yesterday, a wide-open day…I copyedited (I’m almost done!), I worked, I managed a bunch of stupid tiny tasks, but I did finish some stuff and start the ironing, and that was my goal. I’m totally braindead today (which is funny, because I really do have to work today and be incredibly efficient and I just don’t have it in me). One of the reasons I write this almost every day is because it clears my brain and lets me prioritize what I gotta do. It helps.

So after copyediting, I took about 18 minutes to finish cutting everything out, for a total of 17 hours and 38 minutes of cutting…no small feat.

Down to a small box full of 1360 pieces or so.

Then I sorted them. Here’s the before picture. I forgot to take an after picture, but imagine them all sorted by hundreds.

And then headed in to start ironing. I cleaned up the space a little first…

You can see the cat under the ironing board. It’s a popular spot.

That’s all I got done…because I had a show to be at, and the call was earlier than I originally thought. It’s OK. I was ready for a break…

Although I didn’t realize there would be an actual elk there. Am I the only one who thinks they sort of desecrated the elk by putting party decorations on it? Seriously. I feel sorry for all the elks I saw there.

It was someone’s birthday party. Not someone I know, of course…

I’m there for the band. I’m the groupie. Well, there are other groupies, but I’m the weird one who sits in the corner and draws.

As proven here. I spilled my first glass of wine…I wasn’t in the mood to dance (sometimes I do). I was tired. But it was an amusing people-watching event.

Yeah, the elk stuff got in there. And the American flag…because I am most definitely American. Born on an Air Force base in Alaska. You can’t deny my citizenship. But sometimes this country makes some of us feel alienated…well, an awful lot of us, honestly…for a variety of stupid reasons: sexuality, race, religion, even just for existing.

Here she is without the weird lighting…

And the wine spilling drawing.

Came home and waited for the musician to come home…with his cat batting at my face…”pet me bitch” is his stance. So I did.

Then did two nights on this, still on the right…just keep putting those big flowers in all the way down. They’re fun to stitch.

And that’s where I was last night. I did about 4 1/2 hours of job stuff: copyediting job and art job, mostly. Today will be teacher job and the other two. Yikes. Well I should get on with that, even though I feel fuzzy and brainless. I’ll get there. The ironing is already calling to me. I can be pretty damn efficient when I hear that art call.

*The Black Keys, Tighten Up

Wouldn’t Turn Around and Break It*

Friday, I’m so glad to see you. Even though today will be another exhausting challenge of moving 12-year-olds from here to there, managing their stuff while trying to deal with guests on campus, at least (a) I get to take two days off as of 3:30…well, no, maybe 4:30…have to deal with field trip, and (b) it’s pajama day, so I get to wear pajamas to school. Really, that makes it about 100 times better right there. I think the only thing that got me through yesterday was the donuts that someone brought for our 8 AM meeting. It’s the little things, people. Actually, that’s something I’ve been trying to remember as I have a couple of students who I would like to have disappear from my world…but I know one has significant challenges at home, so I’m trying to figure out how to break through the teenage girl drama she throws at me. The other kid? Honestly, at the moment, I’m not dealing with him…but I will eventually. Yelling profanity at a teacher never appears from nowhere…you know there’s other shit going on, and it’s probably not because of me. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with at the end of the day, but the logical teacher brain sees it not as an attack on me, but as some pushback against his world. Which unfortunately, I am part of…

I’m good with that. As long as I don’t have to see him today.

So yesterday, we did a sieve analysis of construction aggregate. Yeah, sounds crazy exciting, except it WAS. So there. I didn’t even have any crazy stupid behavior really, although the tendency of 7th graders to do stuff you didn’t ask them to do drives me bonkers during labs sometimes. The chemistry unit is gonna be whack this year. We might have to duct tape some kids to the walls to keep them from blowing the place up with hydrogen peroxide and vinegar (could happen…).

Today is concrete and admixtures. More concrete next week. It’s all good. Then we get to do volcanoes and earthquakes…way more fun.

Then I had quilt class, spent two hours cutting shit out.

Then I came home and Satchemo wanted lap time. Lots of purring and pets and cat hair left on me.

Seems everyone wanted attention. My tea got cold because of all the pets. They wouldn’t let me sit up to drink it.

Both on my lap…

Eventually I shifted them slightly and did more flowers on the right side. I’m officially in the last month of this. Then decisions about what next…

The plus is that I’m really close to the end of cutting stuff out. There’s maybe 100 pieces in that top box, maybe fewer, because the flesh ones are mostly pretty big.

That’s 15 hours of cutting in that bottom box.

This view might be a little easier to see…trash in the bag, top box has everything that’s cut out, bottom box is all that’s left.

PROGRESS. Almost done. I wanted to be done by now, but I’m doing pretty well.

And I was right…I didn’t do any copyediting last night. I won’t do any tonight either. I’ll get up tomorrow after a decent night’s sleep and finish the copyediting with a clear brain and then finish the cutting and sort the pieces and start ironing. That’s the plan anyway.

Yes, I probably need to grade stuff too, but I’ll look at that on Sunday…not Saturday. I have all day Saturday mapped out for (mostly) art. I’m not budging on that. Saturday night is booked, but that’s fine…I get a little too much in my head when I’m at this stage of a quilt, especially when I know it’s gotta be done and photographed by the first of January. It’s gonna be tight, but I’m pretty sure I can do it. But I do need to go out and be a non-hermit on Saturday night.

But first, I’m taking my pajama-clad butt to school.

*Cowboy Junkies, Sweet Jane

Don’t Pay No Mind to the Demons*

Copyediting is almost done (yay!)…it seems like I will never be done with cutting pieces out though. I’m sure that’s not really true, but some nights, it seems like I don’t really get much done. Tonight should be better…quilt class will give me a bigger chunk of time. Of course, I could come home any night and blow off all other responsibilities and just make art…wait, I do that already some nights. Certainly I haven’t brought any schoolwork home this week, unless you count printing new rosters. I had to add one kid and delete two. It was very time-consuming.

Anyway, the copyediting will hopefully be out of my hair sometime in the next four days. I potentially have another project coming up, but I’m still debating that one, and she may balk at price. We’ll see.

I’m waiting for this flower stalk to just burst out…it’s been getting taller and taller (no middle-school jokes here guys…I get those all day long)…

I did more flower-type things on the right side…

I may just do those all the way down. OR! I should do a flower stalk from an agave in here maybe. That would be cool…

This dog. Seriously. She sleeps in the weirdest positions…

And this one. He was not happy that I was copyediting instead of throwing the ball for him (no worries…my co-dog-minder took care of that later)…

I only did a few hours of copyediting…I’m on the second readthrough. And I’ll do a third, because I’m finding some mistakes in the second read. I hate that. But I worked for this guy before and he seems to like what I do to his stuff, so we’re good. But if I do it too late, I know I’m missing stuff.

Then I started cutting…this is a pile of fleshy pieces for the little heads and arms on the top of the larger head…

I don’t cut the super tiny ones out until I’m ironing, because I lose them too easily. But here’s a pile of all the stuff I cut out before I started in on the bigger flesh pieces, the ones from the larger figure.

At some point, Simba threw himself on my lap and refused to just lie next to me.

So it’s hard to see progress…but you can see I did get into the larger flesh pieces. What’s left to cut out is on the right…

I think once I get through the big fleshy pieces, I probably only have a couple hundred pieces to do. So hopefully tonight we’ll see some significant progress. I’m unlikely to be able to mentally copyedit (well) after 10 PM…and I have quilt class until 8, then dogs and dinner, so I suspect I might try to do one section (but that’s how I miss the mistakes). So I’m thinking 3 or 4 hours of cutting instead. We’ll see.

Yeah, even Simba thinks Calli sleeps weird.

I have to laugh. I’m expecting some art notifications in the next few weeks, and one came a day early, a rejection. I wasn’t expecting anything but a rejection from that one, but I keep trying. It’s an art gallery, but they have taken fiber art in the past…just not mine. The one I was supposed to hear about yesterday hasn’t sent anything, which sometimes is a rejection, right? I hate when they do that…but I suspect it’s just that they didn’t get done, based on previous interactions with them. There’s another one this month that I really want, but I won’t die if I don’t get it. I never do. Rejection is reality. But I did have two friends send me a link to the same entry notice…one they both thought my work was good for. And it probably is…and because I got the one rejection, I definitely have work I can enter! See…one door closes and another one opens. Sometimes it takes a while…but that’s OK. I keep making and the world takes some of them and not the others.

OK, visitors AND a lab in class today. Prepare for chaos. Tomorrow too. Don’t even ask me about next week. I might over-react.

*Phillip Phillips, Home

Born in a Brain That He Don’t Use*

Feeling much much better about the copyediting job this morning. A friend with way more experience than I have with this system told me about one box I could uncheck. And that solved most of it right there. ONE BOX. I made it through the first readthrough (finally!) and the Bibliography. I’m now almost done. Such a relief. I was freaking out, thinking I would have to start over. I’m still not done…but I’m significantly further along than I was Monday night.

Trying to copyedit on the side while teaching is not easy, as my left twitching eyeball will attest. We have volunteers coming on campus Thursday and Friday to run a lab and an outside experience with concrete, then a field trip next week that science is apparently in charge of, plus official observations on a unit we haven’t quite finished planning (but are already mentally revising for next year). And grades are due again in a week or so.

So I spent 3 hours copyediting after tutoring yesterday…and then another 2 hours cutting stuff out. I’m getting closer to the end…which is good. I have a goal to be ironing this thing together for a good chunk of Saturday and Sunday. To do that, I have to be done cutting out tiny pieces…

I added flower centers on the right side…need to add another flower in there too.

Then I started cutting, this time with the little dog.

It’s been cold here at night. Dogs like to cuddle in the cold. Cats too…I had one on each side most of the night.

You can see the box on the top is getting more full with the trimmed pieces, and I can actually see the big box getting emptier…I kept cutting after this…

More sleeping. Everyone in the house sleeps more than I do…

At the end of the night, I’ve started cutting out all the flesh pieces…which is the majority of the quilt really. I won’t be done tonight, but I’m getting closer…

I can feel it now. Getting excited about putting it all together.

So you know how you get all the shopping catalogs this time of year? Every year, I see all these cool fun animal slippers, but they’re only for kids. Sheesh. My feet are too big for these, but I want a pair…or all of them. Seriously.

I saw the news this morning about Matt Lauer getting fired. On the one hand, it’s so depressing to see people you thought were decent folks getting called on their shit. On the other hand, it’s about fucking time. I can’t tell you how many males in power have been inappropriate in the past, and honestly, I think I scare the crap out of most guys, so that’s saying something. If this is the only good thing that comes out of the Trump era (and may it be a bloody short one), then I’m good with that. As long as it STOPS it. I’m OK with every guy out there being terrified of saying or doing something inappropriate if it keeps them from doing the shit they were doing. And all the decent guys who get it will just continue being decent. That would be good. Unfortunately, one of the biggest offenders is still running our country. And some men are just stupid, so they’ll keep doing whatever they’re doing.

OK. School. Copyediting. Art. I wanted to go to the gym…maybe? We’ll see. Need time.

*Max Frost, Suspended Animation

Come as You Are, as You Were*

147 fabrics. Over 19 hours. 1350 or so pieces. Finally completely ironed down to fabrics. At around 12:20 AM. As always, I made an attempt to use fabrics I hadn’t used ever, or at least in a while. I do have my favorites…they’re easy. I need a challenge sometimes to branch out and use up all the crazy stuff I buy.

Here’s all the second cat pieces, except for the eyeballs…

Kitten is fun to put in quilts because she has lots of colors…

And here’s all 147 fabrics I used…

I won’t put them away until the whole quilt is ironed together. Just in case I missed something or need to recut something. It happens.

I’m a little wigged out by my schedule at the moment. I’m losing today and tomorrow to family stuff, I still haven’t finished the copyediting, not even one readthrough (Microsoft Word is being a cranky bitch), and I haven’t finished grading the big project (should be able to finish that on the drive today). Last year, I had a quilt that had to be done by January 1 (and photographed), and today last year, I was already ironing it together. Probably because I blew off the grading and didn’t go to another family event and didn’t copyedit anything. But I was significantly ahead of where I’m at this year.

Then again, it was only an 800-piece quilt, I finished it by December 6, and it was way smaller too. I will get this one done. Somehow. I’m actually way more efficient when I’m in school. Seriously twisted that. Because I don’t have time to waste, I guess.

I did two nights’ worth on here…on the chain stitch at the top.

That’s about 330 days of stitching on there. I won’t do this again, I think, but I’m seriously considering piecing a small crazy quilt in black and doing some stitching on that, with this as the center. I miss all the stitching I used to do. It doesn’t fit the art I do now…or there aren’t enough hours in the day to do it anyway.

OK, need to be in a car in 38 minutes. Or less. Long day. But worth it, I hope. Seeing some people I haven’t seen for a while. Ideally I’ll finish grading this monster project (in the car) and get started on cutting out the 1350 or so pieces that need trimming now. Realistically, that will probably take me all next week, and maybe December 2 I’ll be able to start ironing this beast together. Do that for the next week? That gets me to the 9th. Stitch down and quilting and binding. Yikes. I think I’ll be OK. It’ll be tight. But in previous experience, when it’s tight like this, I rise to the occasion.

Still avoiding the shopping though.

*Nirvana, Come As You Are

I Couldn’t Get Away*

Happy Day after Thanksgiving, the day that splits your friend/family groups in two: either you avoid shopping like the plague or you’ve been doing it since midnight last night. I am the former. I need cat food, though, so I might venture out for that. Maybe. And people food. Although I currently have a turkey in my oven. That’s because I will get no leftovers from the two Thanksgivings I went to, and that’s fine, but I want turkey sandwiches for the next two weeks, and there’s only one way to get that: cook it yourself. It’s easy enough. She brined for a day or so and I tossed her in the oven this morning. I need to make biscuits for tomorrow as well (to go with the poop emoji rolls). But that’s easy to do.

Still on my list: the entire vacation has been all about grading, copyediting, and ironing. I should have been able to finish the ironing last night, but my brain was fuzz…I graded for about 3 hours after Thanksgiving dinner…and then tried to finish the ironing. More about that later.

So my monsters (the ones I birthed) met in Ithaca, NY, for the Day of Food, and I asked for good photos, but didn’t get any of them together (sigh), but got this…

And this…

Well. I guess that’s something. They did a great job of making a Thanksgiving feast, although the girlchild used to make pies from scratch (something about a 6-hour drive each way and an essay being due)…

Here was mine…

It was good.

Then, like I said, 3 hours of grading. With this guy. No I’m not freakin’ done. Sigh. This one project is taking hours to grade. I’m going to do more tonight. Or at some point today. Who knows when. It needs to be done by Monday.

So this is all I have left to iron, less than 100 pieces, but it was late and I was tired (it was after midnight by then), so I gave up. Today. I swear. Sometime.

This box keeps getting fuller and fuller. More and more full. And yet I’m not ready to cut them out. I’m starting to panic on timing.

I will do what I can…it will hopefully get done. Along with everything else. Maybe I should just stop sleeping. Or hanging out with people. Or both!

Huh. Puppy.

He’s such a dork.

I keep forgetting to put this link in…this is the blogpost about the show I’m in at the Rose Gallery. I have to write it there, and I don’t want to write it twice…sorry. You will have to go to the link.

Anyway. Today I bust my butt to finish all the things, realizing fully that this will not happen.

*Flock of Seagulls, I Ran (So Far Away)

Whole Days Turn into Holes in My Mind*

Happy Thanksgiving y’all. I’m cranky as shit, didn’t get enough sleep, and have way too much to do, so I have to tell myself to slow down, calm down, let it go (don’t sing that damn song right now), and take a moment. I have too much to do as always and it’s messing with my equilibrium…not that I ever really have a good handle on that anyway.

I’m plodding along on all three holiday tasks: copyediting, grading shit, and making art. Usually in that order. I didn’t sleep well last night, so that’s not helping my current mood. Girlchild did make it to the boychild, which is why I have a few photos of him. We’ll see if they manage photos of the two of them. Together.

Last year, at this time, I was cutting out pieces to a quilt…I finished ironing a few days earlier. I thought I’d be at the cutting stage on this one by now, but no.

Sometimes these two get along…

Two more nights’ on this…a weird looped chain stitch below the eye and then a pistil stitch and cross stitch to fill in space on the right.

I usually do this after eating dinner, while I’m watching the rest of whatever 42-minute-long show is on for dinner.

Then to the ironing board (yes, this is at night…during the day, I brined a turkey, made rolls that look like poop emojis, copyedited, went to the store like a crazy person, and graded one assignment)…

These are condom wrappers. You know, like you put in all your art. (Access to birth control, ALL kinds)

Words. I use words a lot.

Rainbow DNA! Yes!

I did not clean up that pile last night. I got tired. I went in to read (you know, relax on vacation) and fell asleep with only 40 pages left in my book. Got up and went to bed instead and then couldn’t sleep. Sigh.

The box is getting full…

I keep squishing it down. I’ve been ironing pieces down for over a week now, and I have 16 1/2 hours in. I have about 200 pieces to go, I think. Maybe just under that.

So that’s less than two hours. Hopefully I’ll have some brain power later today to do that. Unlikely. Turkey day sucks your brain out (carbs plus alcohol plus eating in the middle of the day…not a good combo for me). I do have about an hour now before we have to leave for festivities…I could start now, but my adult brain is telling me to go grade something. Ugh. Stupid adult brain. Well I think there’s a movie on for tonight…Netflix says…so maybe I can grade then? We’ll see. I do have all tomorrow as well…but I’m just not as efficient on break as I am when I’m working a million hours a day. Strange that.

Anyway, I’m grateful for the time off, even if I’m buried in stuff. I’m grateful for the texts and pictures from my kids. I’m grateful for the guy that peed the dogs this morning. I’m grateful for that one goofy bird outside my window that’s making that funny chirp noise. I’m grateful for the quiet of my neighbors (this morning). I’m grateful that someone else is cooking today. I’m grateful that Thanksgiving is not at MY house, because then I would have had to clean instead of make art. I’m thankful for the walk we did last night with the dogs. I’m thankful for that gorgeous blue California autumn sky.

Peace out, y’all.

*K. Flay, Giver

There’s Still Time to Change the Road You’re on*

So I spent a couple hours last night worrying about the girlchild, who was on lockdown in a dorm where a robbery took place at gunpoint. Because we need guns for protection, right? Because if anyone else in that dorm had possessed a gun, a whole lot of people would be injured or dead right now. As it is, everyone was fine, although I think both girlchild and I (and quite a few other parents and students) had the shakes for a while. But please don’t ever say to me that you have a right to carry a gun. Nope. You don’t. Not unless you’re a cop…and even then, I have misgivings because so many of our cops are racist and/or reactionary.

Anyway. That’s done.

I did some lazy daisies on the right that look like bull heads.

And then I ironed all those inner bits and pieces…here’s the layout for the heart and arteries…

And the pile of fabrics I went through last night…another 3 hours or so yesterday.

I’m up to 13 hours in the ironing…with about 400 pieces to go, I figure. It’s not been quick, that’s for sure. Here’s just one of the reds in the heart/arteries section…

Lots of pieces ready to be cut out.

And all the fabrics I’ve used so far…

I’ve been working to 1 AM and then falling into bed exhausted. The nighttime hours are better for this, I find. I did copyedit during the day yesterday…more of that today. I haven’t graded any assignments since Sunday, and I need to do some of that too. So I’m probably not going to finish the ironing today…can’t really blow off the moneymaking part of my week yet. I need to get significantly further along. I do have most of today (I’m hiking tonight), all of tomorrow, a few hours on Thanksgiving (mostly nighttime probably), and all of Friday. But I’m realizing it’s never enough. This quilt has to be done and photographed in less than 40 days. I can do that…but the copyediting has to be done in less time than that, and I have to deal with school. I can’t just push that off. Where do the hours go? Staring at fabric, I think. Mostly. And dealing with dogs. Stupid stuff like eating and peeing. I made lasagne from scratch yesterday…but that’s 3 more dinners on top of last night’s. So that was a good thing.

Sitting here watching a hummingbird on the flowers outside my office window…supposed to be in the 90s today. November, my ass.

OK, so shower, eat, copyedit. Consider venturing out for the chicken broth I should’ve bought on Sunday for the turkey I’m making for myself. Gotta make some rolls too. Should do that tomorrow…

Now get up and go.

*Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven

Now That We’re Here, It’s So Far Away

Today I have to work for real. I did grade yesterday, but today I need to start the copyediting project I took on. But first? Chiropractor and Costco. I might need assistance getting out of the latter. Shitty timing for that, after seeing the grocery store yesterday. I always forget about the crazy food shopping that happens before Thanksgiving, now that the girlchild isn’t here for the day. She’s the amazing cook, where we had to drive to like 4 different stores finding all the stuff she needed, plus some desperate Thursday morning shopping trips. Can’t say I miss that, but I do miss having her around and cooking.

So when I get done with that, I’ll come home and read and correct until my eyes blur. Maybe I’ll stop before that. We’ll see. I’d like it done before I go back to school. But I also want to get done with the ironing…so balance. Speaking of balance, I took an art workshop yesterday…I did a lot of printmaking in college and soon after, but then I leaned into the fabric and fell in. But this was nice…I had an idea going in, so I did a rough sketch on paper, remembering to flip the word and letters…

Drew it on the rubber eraser stuff…this is way easier to carve than linoleum…

Carved and ready to ink…

Not bad…probably haven’t done this for 20 years…

Maybe these are my Xmas cards this year (although I need more)…

Then two nights’ worth on here, mostly doing more feather stitches on the right around the eye.

And finally in to the ironing. I had to find all the little-head pieces and iron them to the same flesh run as before…

Here’s all the pieces that were NOT flesh-colored but shoved in there…eyeballs, hearts, arteries, lungs, etc. I had to go up to piece 948 to get all the heads and arms picked.

But I don’t have 950 pieces ironed down…I gotta do all those inner pieces…

Here’s just the pile of arteries and heart parts.

At the parentals’ for dinner, I finished sewing down the wonky sun and started to do eyeballs and nostrils.

The wool stitchdown on this set of blocks seems to be taking forever. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I did the last one? I don’t remember.

These two slept on the back of the couch last night for quite a while together.

I did iron a ton of pieces last night…you can see the pile on the left…and the pile of fabrics on the right.

I still have all these innards to deal with…

I did some of the teeth and eyeballs and tongues, but not much else…just the hair on the little heads. So there are fewer piles than there were before.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

Calli this morning…glad to be in the house with a HooMan.

And her little brother, who wants to play…

I did actually start this post this morning, but then went to the chiropractor visit and a hell trip to Costco (should never go there near a holiday)…and then I started the sauce for the lasagne, ate lunch, and started copyediting before I remembered I’d never posted this. Whoops. Oh well. I’ll work for a while and then assemble lasagne and then maybe iron tonight. I love the ironing. The delving into color boxes to the deep back where there might be a fabric that hasn’t seen the light of day in a year, just to toss it into this quilt. Fun stuff.

*Staind, So Far Away

If I Kiss You Where It’s Sore*

Oh hallelujah dear Friday before Thanksgiving Break. Although today will be like managing wild and hungry chimpanzees while holding a chocolate birthday cake, I can see a big fat light at the end of the tunnel…at about 3:30 PM this afternoon, to be specific. Of course, I have 5 assignments to grade (not bad, actually), my author contacted me this morning and his manuscript is ready for copyediting (it’s OK…I asked for it over break…I need the money), and I just made a to-do list for all the shit around the house that needs doing, but hell…I just don’t care at the moment. I want to SLEEP…and most importantly…MAKE ART. Yes. That. With gay abandon. Throw confetti all over me. I wanna art myself into the ground.

Yes, I’m a little punchy and a lot exhausted.

Exhausted after doing this cool rock cycle lab all day, which started with teaching kids how to grate cheese (well, crayons) with a knife, in case they don’t have a cheese grater. Well, no, we were making sediment from a crayon rock.

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And then I missed photographing all the other steps in between because brain fart. Totally. But here it is after we compacted it and then melted it and then blended it and let it cool off.

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So lab days are always exhausting. But it was cool. I have no voice today, but that’s OK.

Then I went to the opening of California Fibers: Points of View at the Rose Gallery, Francis Parker School…there are my three pieces: Feeding Time, BirdWatch, and You Pollute Me. I look like I have a lot more energy than I really did.

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The show is really nice. I’ll post the whole thing sometime in the next few days. Not right now.

I came home after grabbing dinner and sat for a moment, trying to find the energy to do ANYTHING. I had Simba on one side of me and Satchemo on the other. My arms aren’t long enough to show both. No, I don’t need a selfie stick. It’s OK.

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And then, miracle of miracles, I came in the studio and put all the fabric away, cleaned up, and started ironing the new quilt. This thing is gonna be SO FUN.

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OK. Yeah. It’s huge. I get that. But I’m so excited about working on this. Really.

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I have my Nida Powers sign in here now. Although I really wanted it to be one word. I need to put it up on the wall, but I decided doing that on a rolling chair while tired would be a big fucking mistake.

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So I’ll wait. I will fully enjoy the 9 days off I have, even with all the shit I gotta do. It’s OK. I get to make lots of art in the middle of all that. Yay.

Regina Spektor, Better