The Age of AIDS

I'll be teaching kids about AIDS in the next couple of weeks (along with some other reproductive stuff). I found myself getting angry at a parent who wanted their child spared from any images of homosexuals with regard to AIDS, because I had mentioned sexual transmission in the letter home. Just to clarify...I didn't get angry TO her...but just angry at the thought of her issues. I kept my feelings quiet...until I got home, that is. The video I am hoping to use in class is of an 11-year-old boy who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Now I will have to preview it for any imagery of homosexuals and call her to make sure she is OK with whatever I discover. And if she doesn't want him to see a homosexual (um, does she want to know that we have homosexual students?), then I will have to (1) find a special home for him in another class for a day and (2) provide him with something relevant and useful to do for that hour that does not mention homosexuality.

I wonder why Americans are so obsessed with labeling AIDS...STILL...a homosexual disease. I've been watching Frontline's 4-hour special The Age of AIDS, which is really good. It does a nice job of focusing on all the different pieces of who got sick and how, and how we've dealt with it politically and scientifically. I wish I could force the kids to sit through all 4 hours, although they'd tune it out. I'm just disturbed by this parent. Ignorance.

I think you'll be able to watch The Age of AIDS online Friday at 5 PM ET, if you're interested.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/

A picture of the AIDS quilt, to make this quilt-related.

My Life in Pictures

I don't know what month it is. And I'll only have 2 days of staring at the picture for May before I have to switch to June...although I'll probably just forget to switch it until sometime in July.



Found my purple bra. Next to the purple background fabric I used for my last quilt and on top of the blue background fabric I'm using for the one that's all cut out and lost somewhere in my studio, waiting to be ironed together. Why is my bra here? I do not know. I think it got tired of being with the other underthings and decided to make friends with the creative fabrics in the house.



This poor creature is lying dead in my hallway. I'm not sure what to do with her.



If I traveled more (with other people driving), I might get more quilts done. This is about 150 pieces of the next big quilt. I couldn't cut out all the little tiny rock pieces...the freeway is just too damn bumpy. All those uneven bits. What are my tax dollars paying for again?



Mom. Don't defrost meat on the counter. My tummy is wiggy 3 hours after dinner, and it wasn't the milk, the corn, or the strawberries. That leaves the chicken. Mom, I love you, but the Centers for Disease Control have deemed your meat defrosting method as deadly. The US Food and Drug Administration is apparently also concerned with meat defrostation. Read this...it's short and to the point: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-fdb11.html.

Obsessed

Nineteen days of school left. Don't write me and tell me you're done next week. I'll commit murder. Nineteen days though. Nineteen days until I can wake up later and stay up fondling fabric into the wee hours and SEW and make quilts and and and. Sigh. I should do some of that tonight. (not the stay up late part, but the fabric part).

Do you ever get an urge, an almost painful urge, to buy fabric? I hate being this money-challenged. It's been almost four years, and it sucks. I want to go splurge on some new bright piece for my stash, some new funky batik that's perfect for the new quilt in progress, some wonderful black and whites.
Oh yeah, like some of THIS...and THIS...and THIS. oooooh.




Fabric orgasm.

Sleepy Cranky Unproductive

But I'm NOT unproductive. That's what's scary. I draw (speaking of scary...I'd show you the rest, but a cat is sleeping on the sketchbook)...


And progress is made on the bird turd block, which SUCKS. Not because I think it will look bad in the end, but because it has a lot of teeny tiny fingerlike-projection pieces that make me want to pull my hair out, and I'm appliqueing navy blue onto other navy blue and I can't see it at all. Right now, it looks like NOTHING!


But this is how I feel...

I'm Trying to Draw

Matt Groening...bless you, man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell. There is a http://www.mattgroening.com/, but don't even go there.

I told you. But you didn't want to believe me. Again. What a disappointment. Maybe Matt has too much stress in his life too. Maybe the dust bunnies are taking over his living room and he can't get into the right mood to design a webpage.

It's been a crappy week. Too much work. Too much stress at work. Didn't feel well all week. Fought a migraine. Sinus pressure. GOT NO ART DONE AT ALL. And that sucked. So tonight, even though I'm not caught up on work stuff, even though I have a mountain of housecleaning to do, even though the world will probably end if I don't do something besides art (isn't that the truth?), I'm drawing. No really. I am.



Not that. That's old. It was in the way of my camera. Did I say my blood sugar is too high too? Stress. Causes it. I need to exercise more. I need to stress less. I need more time. It's tentatively called Celery Girl. No, I don't know what it means. Don't even ask.

Do you have donuts? I want donuts.

Oh baby.

Ode to Teachers on Open House

If you are a parent going to a school Open House sometime in the next few weeks, pat the teacher on the arm and thank them. Because they stayed late yesterday for a staff meeting from hell, and they were at school this morning at 6:45 AM. Then they taught all day, which included supervising an assembly where no blood was spilled and no one was permanently injured. They cleaned their room, because even though the nice janitor lady cleaned last night, 120+ kids wandered through today and left footprints and pencil shavings and other trash. They put up your kids' stuff on bulletin boards and cleaned off their desk, which at this time of year is not an easy task. They ate their dinner at their desk, as the headache got bigger. They took some Motrin and drank a cup of tea. They did some grading. And then kids and parents started to file through, and they tried to recognize parents they hadn't seen since December or September in some cases. They smiled and shook hands and made small talk about your child's accomplishments, even if they had done absolutely nothing all year. After being at school over 12 hours, they drove home, exhausted, and went to school again the next day.

I think I'll bring my kids' teachers flowers (oh wait, I can't afford flowers). Sigh.



It's never to late to mutate. Ray Troll. Check it out.

Another Fabric Artist

Chris Roberts-Antieau (pronounce that last name five times fast...I dare you).



This is called Whale with Swallowed Woman.

My SIL saw this woman's art somewhere in Seattle, and she had me google her while we were on the phone...so we're both trolling the website while on the phone (http://chrisroberts-antieau.com/000_home.html), as small and medium-sized children screech and whine in our respective backgrounds (mothers' day, my ass). I like her stuff. My SIL says I should be able to do this, but although Chris is definitely a woman after my own heart, I don't have that folk art touch. My stuff's a little less whimsical. Sarcasm abounds. But I DO think y'all should check out her stuff and buy it. I'd buy it if I weren't poor.

This one reminds me of my SIL and her dog. It's called Bad Dog. She would probably prefer that I call Lucy my brother's dog.



OK, I'm off to glue the moccasins. Don't ask. It's better that you don't know.

Instead of Flowers

Hey, I still want flowers. I guess I should say that up front. I didn't get any, and at first, that upset me. But I got something really cool instead. My daughter gave me some handmade cards and a sweet note about how I'm always nice (I am not!). My son made me some small yarn things (he has a yarn fetish) that all look like cat toys, but he also wrote me a poem. An amazing poem. His teacher told the kids to come up with 12 ideas about their mom, and then to start with the idea of "The Important Thing About a Mom..." and go with that. What a kid.

The important thing
About a mom is that
She has limitless hugs

She may have kisses
She might teach or
Stay up late

She will scold
You, but
She loves you just the same

She will die eventually
But go on in your heart
Until you die

But then you will go on
In your children's hearts
And she will reside with you

But the important thing
About a mom is that
She has limitless hugs


Understand that this kid hugs me lots, all the time, every day. He can't tell me he loves me (you're warm, mommy, is his version of I love you), his hugs border on body slams, and he's almost as tall as I am right now, but he wrote me a poem. Cool.

On Mother's Day, I Clean

It's Mother's Day. Happy Day to all. I made my own breakfast. I'm spending the morning cleaning house, litter trays, the pool (if I can get the damn ducks to leave). My kids will come later and maybe I will feel less left out of the mothering process. Even Dogpile.com (my start page) had a Mother's Day dog on it. Trying to drag me down??? Where are my damn flowers? I've been wanting flowers around the house for weeks, but can't justify the cost. Better to let the ex pay for them.

So I've been tiptoeing around the backyard, not wanting to disturb the ducks as I clean cat litter trays. Am I nuts? It's my yard, my pool, and there are no ducklings. I hope they are in someone else's yard. Mom duck jumped out of the pool the first two times I went into the backyard, but by the third time, she had decided I was not a threat and she just quacked at me.

I did trace about 180 pieces on Wonder Under for the Earth Mother (tentative name) quilt. Only 450 to go :-). HA! I'm nuts. This Wonder Under is blessed. It is not releasing from the paper AT ALL. I am in bliss. Glee. Chortling happiness. OK, not really.


My son won two third places in the county science field day yesterday. He was happy. Goofy too.

Fabric Sketch

Some time later. It needs to hang up and with me for a while before I decide what it is and how it will continue.

I don't usually cut freehand, but on nights like tonight, when my brain is in need of some sort of release, of a place to go, then it works. I think I'll work on some other more "responsible" things for a while, and then I'll play with some more fabric.

My uterus leans to one side for real. A large animal is tromping outside my window (think elephant). Like wow...Ganesha!

Day Full

of kids who cut themselves
of kids who fight and hit and generally act like siblings
of discussions of training bras
of discussions of suicide (not me nor mine)
of dirt
of kids who can't follow directions

What it really needs now, at the end, is calm, quiet, a peaceful walk, a nice glass of wine, making art, sleeping in the next morning.

I might get the quiet, after kids go to bed. I have the glass of wine. My goal is to get to the art (because I didn't on Wednesday, when I said I would). The rest is not happening.

And I'm upset about the kids who cut themselves. I guess I should put that in the art too. It makes sense there.

Peace out...hope your Friday nights are full of more good thoughts than bad.



Fallen. An older one, started in a Wasilowski workshop. I think. Yeah. I don't do workshops any more. Can't afford them.

Bird Turd Block

I've been calling this the bird turd block, but now that I've finished all the white parts and photographed it, I guess they really do look like clouds. Damn. I liked the bird turd concept. An entire quilt, Baltimore Album style, of bird turds.

I put things on quilts in progress to keep cats off them. Unfortunately, the things on quilts are not always large enough to cover the whole quilt, so cat butts deposit fur upon quilts. I have heavily invested in large rolls of tape for removing cat butt fur, luckily.


Tonight I will find a way NOT to waste the entire evening spacing out and/or working. Art will be a part of my life tonight. After dinner. After scouts. After dropping $50 on gas to fill the tank. After buying chocolate syrup for tomorrow's ice cream party (which I won't be attending). After making tomorrow's lunch. After washing all the dishes and putting the other dishes away. After emptying the litter tray and feeding the cats. Yikes. I swear, if ANYONE says to me that they have nothing to do this evening, I will kill them.

Take the Rulers Away

After watching myself teaching on video for about 3 hours, I have one thing to say to future or new teachers. DO NOT LET 7TH GRADERS HAVE RULERS. This is science. They don't need to measure most of the time. When they do, give them paper rulers. Otherwise, you have sword fights and drumming and hitting and poking and a class management disaster. NO RULERS. NONE.

You think I'm kidding. I'm not. NO RULERS.

Brain Not Functioning Normally

Hey, these two pictures were why I was originally going to post today. Proof that my brain is currently on another planet...the theme is green. Green fabric from a friend of mine who is downsizing some stuff to me, because I am as good a cause at the moment as Goodwill.


And green shoes that I wear to school once a week to freak my students out. And because I LIKE them. That's why.

Sleep

I seem to need more of it. I'm getting nothing of note done artistically. A little applique here, a little shipping of quilts there. That's all. We're doing state testing, so I guess the change in routine and trying to keep track of what class is doing what is confusing my poor little brain. I have a bunch of ideas that I'd like to work on, but can't seem to find the time or energy to do so. Maybe when we finish testing, I will go back to normal. Whatever that is.

Until then, enjoy these pictures...from my more traditional days...someday maybe I'll finish Row 4. And put the whole thing together. And quilt it. Yeah. That's it. Sorry for the blurriness. These pictures really suck.

Dowel Robbery

Every time I go to Home Depot, I buy dowels on which to hang my quilts. I really only need them when I ship them, because I just switch dowels on the quilts hanging in the house as I rotate them. Despite my constant dowel purchasing, I currently have no dowel for the quilt that needs to ship this week. Why? It's not because I didn't buy them. It's because my kids steal them from me and mark them up and turn them into staffs and wands and swords and magical devices. This one is painted especially for the magic that it does. So I guess that means I can't cut it up and ship it off with a quilt, eh? Sigh.



And this? This is an exercise ball. This WAS an exercise ball. Guess why it looks like this? Those little robber barons must have claws too. Double sigh.