slowly she turned

Saturday morning coffee pot post

February 26, 2022

This week has been better on a personal level – war in the Ukraine is a world nightmare and producing still more WTF moments in US politics. Can’t wait to get out of here! Maybe I will tell people in Europe that I am a Canadian. Most can’t tell the difference in North American accents – at least they couldn’t in Ireland and the UK. But an Irish person can tell if someone is from Cork or Limerick or Donegal, for sure!

We got out a little this week. The weather outside was beautiful on Wednesday so we went to Oden Brewing and sat outside and watched the first part of Ghostbusters. Wednesdays are their outdoor movie nights. It made me realize that either I don’t remember Ghostbusters or I didn’t see it. I remember Ghostbusters II. It is likely that I didn’t see it. Sandy and I were working at night a lot during that time and couldn’t afford to go to the movies anyway. I’m surprised I didn’t rent it, though. Oden has a good stout right now called Bee’s Knees. This version was “vanilla latte” so I had a taste first. I don’t want a stout that tasted like a milkshake or a floofy coffee drink. It didn’t – it was damn near perfect so I had two and brought home a four-pack. Because I’ve cut back on my drinking so much those two pints put me straight to sleep. I looked it up later and they were 7% ABV – higher than what it showed on Untapped.

^From the women’s room at the City Arts Center last night

Then last night Sandy took me out to dinner at Cafe Europa because we thought it would be nice on the patio. After we sat down and ordered the wind picked up and we ended up eating inside, which I’ve refused to do in the past four months or so. However, we found a spot at the end of the bar farthest away from everyone with a space between us and the next couple so I think it was okay. I guess we’ll see. We are friends with the owner and he likes to play big board games. Sandy (and maybe I) might play a game with him at the restaurant soon on one of their slow nights. I don’t worry about being around Jakub because he has to be very careful about not getting infected too. This was one of our regular haunts at one time so it was good to be back.

Still, I am not eager to go out into public indoor spaces. I need a specific reason, like being out of coffee or onions.

I think that I feel less anxious because there is nothing left to plan about our trip. I have no control over whatever comes next, and that is curiously calming. Every now and then I look at Google Maps and read articles about fun things to do or public transit or Portuguese food, but I’m not obsessed like I was.

My goals for this week: Make doctor appointments. God how I hate this but I can’t keep putting it off. I’m getting low on anti-depressants, and I’ll need a steroid shot in my heel soon, and I need a pap smear and mammogram. I need a chiropractic adjustment. I’ve kept up my dental appointments, thank God. What I hate most is having to see a new GP. My old GP retired at the end of the year. Having to explain all the stuff as you get older takes a lot of time and concentration. Not everyone feels the same about prescribing meds for mental health and that makes me anxious by itself. At least this time I can tell the doctor that I see a therapist regularly.

Other than that – weave and clean up the studio so that I have some workspace! Same as last week, I guess. Clean up the front yard. The daffodils are blooming and some of the other spring flowers will do so soon. I generally leave it alone over the winter so that the birds have some food under the leaves and on the seed stalks. I will have to remember to get on my knees and not squat down – that is killer on my achilles tendinitis. Hopefully I can get yard help again this year. My guy from last year was great – when he showed up.

On the critter front, Diego has been much better but he has been sitting behind me making strange grunting breathing noises. When he went to sleep he stopped, so I wonder if he is doing it on purpose. I switched him over to taking loratidine every night and it seems to work better than the Apoquel did, and it is much cheaper. I think that I forgot to dose him last night so it looks like I’d best not skip a dose.

I suppose that I should check the news now. I’ll try to write tomorrow with some artwork photos.
Sunday afternoon coffee pot post

February 20, 2022

Normally I do not drink caffeine after noon since I became a certain age. There was a time when I drank coffee, really cheap bad coffee, all day and night. I think about my past with coffee sometimes as I walk to work at my local university. Just as I walked to classes from the opposite direction forty years ago, I bear a mug of coffee. The past trip would have included a stop at Friar’s Cellar for a refill, a pack of cigarettes, and a toasted bagel. Friar’s Cellar is long gone now, replaced by a coffee house that serves much better coffee and pastries, without the shelves of dusty wine bottles.

I noticed the sparkle in my bedroom windows and thought I’d share a photo. That is bubble wrap on the outside of the windows for insulation. These are really old windows and one of them is cracked. The bubble wrap is a great idea for upcycling – it provides insulation all year long and privacy while letting the light shine through. Our houses here are very close together, so the house next door is about ten feet away. At some point I’ll spend the money to get some of these Craftsman double hung windows repaired, and if I end up living here a lot longer get a better grade of glass.

Yesterday I enjoyed my day at home. I wove on Cathedral and did laundry off and on all day. I finished “The Cruelest Month” by Louise Penny. I had mixed feelings about this at first. Everybody seems to be crazy about Louise Penny but I guess I’m not a big fan of the cozy murder mystery genre. Agatha Christie never appealed to me either. I was put off about the disparaging descriptions of various disheveled or out-of-fashion or cheaply dressed characters, since they pretty much described me to a T. But once I got over that, I was caught up in the story and enjoyed it. I’ve read the first three of the Armand Gamache series and will probably find the fourth one somewhere. I have the fifth one on my shelf, and I like to read and watch series in order. These came from one of my local little free libraries, so they will go back. For now I’ve picked up “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” by Fredrik Backman, also picked up from a little free library.

This past week I didn’t shop for the Doc Martens, although I’m still considering them. I cleaned out about half of the clothes from my closet and chest of drawers and they are in the car ready to be donated or in the trash. Some are in a box to be repurposed as fiber art, but I don’t want to do much of that since part of the problem is that I have too much fabric. One of my favorite tunics from Gudrun Sjoden had holes in it so I cut it into strips to be woven into a rag rug at some point. I mended a couple of favorite pants. I still have a lot of cleaning out to do in this closet and a chest of drawers that contains all kinds of crazy stuff, mostly art related.

I finalized the final piece of the puzzle of the Portugal trip – the trip to Boston to catch the flight to Lisbon. As much as I wanted to be done with Southwest Airlines, I had points with them and there was no reason to let them have them, so we booked a one way late night flight with just points. Then the flight was changed to get there earlier, and in this case it was a very good thing. I’m glad we chose the cheapest flight. We’ll still get to the hotel in Boston late at night, but hopefully before midnight. Now we can only hope that the circumstances out of our control will be kind to our fate, but my anxiety has lessened since I got this taken care of.

Also, I brought home the rest of my supplies from the print studio at the Arts Center and put my membership on hold for now. That means that I need to clear them off my work table to make space for my upcoming online art classes. Jude has begun another phase of her teaching journey and Leighanna is teaching her Vintage Metal Deck class on Zoom in March. I took this class in person way back in 2010, but I had a migraine that day. Even so, I came away with some work that I loved and I’ve always wanted to take it again.

I need to do some house cleaning and clutter clearing today, but for the most part I’m going to weave and since the new season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” has dropped, that is definitely on the agenda.
Happy birfday to me

February 17, 2022

One of the grad students that used to be here always said “happy birfday.” I’m glad that it is not happy barfday. I’m working today, as this is my busy time of year, but a co-worker and I went to Trader Joe’s over lunchtime, which is about as fun as anything else I could do right now! I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing that Trader Joe’s is not closer to my house. Sandy is getting us Thai take-out tonight.

We used to have certain favorite restaurants that we always went to for special occasions. Bianca’s, our favorite Italian place for a very long time, closed years ago. During the past few years it was Full Moon Oyster Bar. Last year Sandy had shingles on top of his undiagnosed polymyositis during February and we were still waiting for a vaccine. It was a very bad month and I didn’t handle turning 60 well. Posting this from my 59th birthday in February 2020 to remind myself that good times will be back. Seafood is better than birfday cake to me!
Saturday morning coffee pot post

February 12, 2022

Honestly, this is my happiest time. Late Saturday morning, after a restful night’s or morning’s sleep, surrounded by the cats, who are hopefully not misbehaving. This morning the sun is shining and the high temperature is expected to be around 70 F. Tomorrow winter returns and rain and snow is in the forecast, but it will be the sloppy kind of winter weather.

I was thinking about how I regret that I never took photos of my childhood home other than family rooms at holidays. That led me to take this photo of the view from my chair here. The walls need plaster repair and a lighter paint job. This is the color it was when we bought it in 2001. The foundation has been repaired but the plaster has not. One day we will get around to it, or not. It’s a cozy spot, where we eat our meals and watch Ozark and Mom and Doc Martin and Sandy watches his zombie shows.

The woman who plays Ruth on Ozark is just amazing. I hope that she wins an Emmy this year. She must have been exhausted after shooting this season.

Here’s the arty shot:

This week I finally got the return trip from Portugal changed to a much less stressful itinerary. It took me getting tearful on the phone to Orbitz, and a much more sympathetic customer service agent. I said on the record for Orbitz in case anyone ever listens to that monitored recording that I do not understand why Orbitz lists Aer Lingus flights if it is so difficult for them to communicate with them. Finally the customer service agent canceled my flight and rebooked it, so now we will travel back from Lisbon to Boston all in one day. It means that we will stay Wednesday night in Lisbon instead of flying to the Dublin airport at 1:35 a.m. and spend Thursday night near Boston, since I couldn’t find an affordable flight back home on Thursday night. All this was about the same price, and even with the extra hotel rooms cheaper than flying all the way home on Thursday. At least we will be better rested.

This week was the first week since winter break that I have worked all five days without having to take sick time for headaches or stress.

The plan today is to go to a local shoe store and shop for Doc Martens to wear in Lisbon. I’ve always wanted a pair and the women in my Portugal expat Facebook group recommend them. Lisbon is tough walking with the cobblestones and uneven pavement and steep hills. Apparently a lot of these women wear them everywhere in Lisbon, including restaurants. I hope that I can wear them because I have funny feet – very high arches, wide, and a bone spur on the back of my right heel. If not, I’ll go back to my men’s Merrills.

I’ll go by the studio at the arts center today or tomorrow and pick up the rest of my stuff. I canceled my membership this week but I have until Feb. 23. It was a good idea but the heat was too much. If it is not too hot in the room, I’ll lay out the panels for the shirt blanket and pin them together for sewing at home.

Tapestry weaving is on the agenda, of course. My loaned out Mirrix is back home so I may warp it up for something simple or for sampling. I want to finish warping the Macomber for a rag rug. I have too many unfinished projects, though. I also need to get the lake tapestry mounted and framed.

Sandy bought one of those meal services where they send you a box of groceries and some recipes and you prep and cook it. I should say, he preps and cooks it. This is his deal, and he is owning it. This week he cooked barramundi with a salad and roasted green beans and I have to admit that it was really good. It was thoughtful of him, too, because I love fish and he doesn’t.

I finished reading “A Fatal Grace” by Louise Penny and have started on the next one, “The Cruelest Month.” I understand why she is so popular. I enjoy them but murder mysteries aren’t really my thing. I would like to find another historical fiction or fantasy/sci fi novel to lose my self in that is not too depressing.

We’re considering changing our phone service from Credo (Sprint) to T-Mobile. If anyone has any feedback about T-Mobile, I’d appreciate hearing it.
Monday afternoon

February 7, 2022

The ice was lovely this morning because it wasn’t dangerous.

I am home from work, where I am in survival mode these days, trying very hard not to snap about the same issues that come up every semester but about which I have to push for answers that nobody agrees on every semester.

Time for a Smithwick’s!

I don’t have a tapestry photo from yesterday because my feet were really sore by the time I got home. I took a walk with a friend, then went to the print studio at the arts center with the shirt blanket project. It was really hot in there, although a few degrees less than the roaster that it was after Christmas. The supplies of one of the other members were gone, so I guess she decided it wasn’t for her or she couldn’t stand the heat.

She had been using the big cork board so I took advantage and pinned up my panels and tested different colors for the vertical bands to join them. Originally these were going to be more complex but I couldn’t find the other squares. I’m sure that I’ll find them eventually and I may add them on the ends. In the end, I decided on all pink for the vertical bands, two different shades. These bands were to be from Sandy’s khaki pants (I dyed some of the khaki pieces pink a long time ago) but since I decided on pink and didn’t have enough, I found a dusty rose denim shirt of his that works well.

I cut out the cloth strips, took everything down, made two trips with stuff to the car, and this will be my last month at the co-op, at least for a while. Maybe I will rejoin this June after my big trip when the heat will not be on. I’ve only got a few more things to pick up, but I need to take a box because they are little. I might go back for an hour to use the big table and cork board again, but really, if they don’t want to see me naked, the heat problem needs to be fixed.

I’m almost finished with “A Fatal Grace” by Louise Penny. I’m not a big mystery reader, but she is a good writer and I like the place and characters she has created. It really comes to life. Purged more books to the little free library and gave away a couple of my favorites to friends.
Saturday morning coffee pot post

February 5, 2022

The paragraph and list below it showed up in my Facebook memories from exactly five years ago. Good to know that some things haven’t changed.

In the interest of self care, I’ve thought a lot about what I truly enjoying doing the most as opposed to what I think I should enjoy the most. Here they are, in no particular order:

-Sleeping late and drinking coffee while watching my cats play in the morning

-Weaving strips of cloth together

-Good beer with friends at a local bar

-Creating art in the same space with friends

-Related: Art retreats where I can totally focus on doing what’s in front of me

-TRAVEL to new and beautiful places, preferably natural beauty

-Ice cream

-Dark chocolate with sea salt

-Twisted humor

-Mixing yarn colors together to interpret tapestry design

-Watching seeds sprout

-Recurring dreams about weaving and fantastical looms

-Solving puzzles and playing games based mostly on logic and a bit of luck thrown in for fun

-Seafood

-Leaf prints on new cement, as well as on cloth!

-Connecting with artists and friends on Facebook who share my passions

-La Croix orange water

Anyway, on Wednesday, I got up with one thing in mind – to finish up at least one work-in-progress. I chose a good one. The fabric that I wove last winter was intended to be curtains, but I didn’t have enough of it to make four panels of the length needed for our tall Craftsman windows. I had put the fabric away for months. In the latest issue of Handwoven there were lots of towels, including bath towels. Of course! Bath towels don’t have to be terrycloth. These are woven of unmercerized cotton and have lots of texture. I fired up the sewing machine and lo and behold it performed like a dream all day. At the end of it, I had two big bath towels and two smaller towels.

On Thursday, I pulled all the drawers out of my clothes dresser and purged two drawers worth of old clothes. Most of these went into the garbage because they were old socks and underwear and ratty clothes with holes or significant wear. I picked out a few to cut up for rags and to save for another t-shirt quilt. Today I am pulling books off the shelf and I intend to go through my closet and do those clothes and shoes.

And weaving. I am weaving again, thank God. I’ll post a tapestry photo tomorrow.

I bought plane tickets for myself and two friends to go to Focus on Book Arts in Forest Grove, Oregon in mid-July. This might be my last FOBA, so I will mask up and be as careful as possible and go. I want to go to the West Coast one more time before I head to Europe for good.

If you aren’t interested in my personal and work life, you may want to skip the part below.

This has been a particularly rough week for me because I totally lost my temper at work on Tuesday and then had a meltdown in front of the department head. It was suggested that I take a few days off.. Fortunately I had a therapy appointment on the first day off, and I had planned to go in the following day but she suggested that I take another day off. So I stayed home on Wednesday and Thursday to get my anxiety and anger under control. As a result, I had a ton of work to do on Friday and that pretty much kept my brain busy all day. Nobody said anything to trigger me, thank God.

At the heart of the issue here was sexism and a lack of respect for the work that staff does. A male professor explained to me for the second time how I had misinterpreted a policy that I have been working with as a baseline for one of the main areas of my job for 18 years. It was a textbook example of mansplaining and when I again told him what the policy meant (it was clear as day), he began ignoring me and directed the rest of the email thread to the male faculty member responsible for this area. Someone who I trained, and who leaves all the details and process to me. When the man in charge supported what I said, the professor backed down. Then I demanded that the professor acknowledge the work that I do and that I did extra work to accommodate his last minute requests. Of course there was no response, and then nobody understood why I lost my mind afterwards. Even I couldn’t articulate it. I figured all this out later with the help of my therapist.

I was told that even though I believe that I am on equal footing with faculty, that I am not and never will be, and no matter whether I am right or wrong, I have to do as I am told and accept it or be in danger of losing my job. That faculty don’t care about my feelings and that I need to suck it up and get over it. (The person who told me this is also staff.) It’s true, unfortunately. Not all faculty treat us this way, but the narcissists regularly leave us out of decision making and do not ask for our feedback although all three of us are valuable resources of information, having gone through the changes in administrative policy for over a decade. All three of us have trained faculty in department administrative positions. Then when problems arise, we are usually the ones who have to fix them. We are not supposed to show anger about this situation. This is our present reality, and not one that is likely to change before I leave this place. We are considered to be expendable.

I do believe that this place will break me if I don’t get out of here soon. I have a little over a year to go before I can get the Social Security to supplement my retirement pension and savings. Then I should be able to get by.
Sunday morning coffee pot post

January 27, 2022

Yesterday I spent weaving and cooking and I finished The Overstory by Richard Powers. I struggled through it, not because of its quality, but because I found it so depressing. The writing about the trees was magical and the character development was great. So I’m going to read Louise Penny mysteries next to give myself a change.

I filled in the place that I unwove last weekend and I’m much happier with it. I may even weave it up to the size I planned originally.

It snowed again Friday night. This time it did not stick around on the street outside our house, even though I don’t think that it got over freezing temps all day. This week is supposed to be warmer, but it might be too late for my big pot of aloe plants, which I’ve been trying to get through the winter outside on the front porch by putting it in a cardboard box and draping a curtain over it at night and on cold days. I brought it in last winter and thought that I had it where the cats wouldn’t mess with it. It’s toxic to cats and then of course I found a piece of aloe in some vomit, so it stays out this winter. I’m thinking of this as I listen to the sound of cat puking in the other room. So far the four other plants I brought it are fine, although I’ve caught Pablocito chewing on the lemon tree leaves.

I was looking at what I think are the fox tracks in the snow in the back yard, and my favorite neighborhood cat, Miss Penny, trotted right by me. She ignored my pleas to stop and visit, of course. Miss Penny doesn’t have much use for anyone but Miss Penny, but a few years ago she deigned to allow me to give her some scratches. I was surprised to see her running around in the snow, because she does have a home and a front porch to hang out on so she has a choice to be inside or out. Miss Penny is getting very old and I will be sad when she is no longer around for me to worship.

I’m so spoiled for North Carolina mild temperatures that I don’t think that I could move south or north! But if I have to choose, I would always go for the colder temperatures. I can’t stand heat – there are only so many clothes you can take off in public. Of course, the way things are nowadays you only have to wait a few days for an big weather change.

There’s not much else that I want to write about so I’ll go weave now. I’m feeling the mojo again and I need to take advantage of it.
Unweaving

January 23, 2022

After a good day of weaving and also lazing around yesterday, I woke up this morning with the realization that I needed to unweave a section of the tapestry. Fortunately, this section had fairly clean edges and didn’t intersect much with the areas on either side, or honestly, I would have let it go. I let another complicated section go that I grew unhappy with. I’m not telling which one.

The funny thing is that the entire time I was weaving it, I was patting myself on the back for making such subtle color changes so that the section, although simple, wasn’t entirely flat, but it still melted into the background and gave the eye a place to rest. And when I started weaving this section, I thought it would be much smaller because at that time I had decided to stop weaving at that pen line on the cartoon behind the weaving. I think the section would have been fine if I had stopped weaving at that point.

As the section of green grew larger I started thinking about that sharp line at the bottom of it and how it represented the edge of a branch in the background and how I really needed to indicate, even if it meant lazy lines or a very light color shift, the top edge of that branch. Once I got that in my head, I knew that I wouldn’t be happy with the finished tapestry unless I changed it.

I don’t think that anybody likes to undo work, but if it is something in a piece that you have dedicated many, many hours to, and you can do it without taking a huge area apart, I think that it is worth the time. This is a lesson that I learn over years of practice. Maybe no one else notices or can tell the difference, but if it bothers you, you’ll never unsee it.

The best way for me to do it is to unweave it first thing in the morning, then walk away for a few hours. Come back and see it with fresh eyes and understand that it is something new instead of a mistake undone. Right now I feel pretty eager to get back to it, but normally I would not feel that way.

Because my mind tends to see metaphors, I am considering the way that I am about to unweave my life here in the United States or at least in North Carolina. There are times that I think of this with great relief, and then I think of the enormous energy and patience it will take to do it, and I’m filled with anxiety. My hope is that my husband and I will agree on most of which will need to be done. Those who know us are probably laughing at that statement. I’ll probably want to get rid of everything except the art supplies and art and start over. My husband probably will want to ship all our hoard overseas. And honestly, some compromise of that will probably happen eventually, but not without a lot of arguing. It would be the easier option, and probably cost about the same as buying a lot of new furnishings.

The thought of starting over from scratch is so intriguing to me, though. I have watched a couple of friends do it. A near-total fresh start. That is so appealing to me. The thought of becoming an immigrant is daunting but the idea that it could lead to European citizenship is exhilarating. Not having to worry about being able to afford health care as we age. Travel to new places, new cultures. I have been in love with Europe ever since we went to Italy in 2006, but I never anticipated that I might actually be able to live there until recently.

It won’t be as easy for us as it might have been when we were younger, but we would not have been able to do it then. I just hope and pray that by the time I can retire Portugal does not raise the income requirement or change the immigration rules too much. I’m willing to look at other countries but Portugal has the climate, beauty, public transport, and large English-speaking communities that we would need to be happy.

Honestly, even though this is a very, very complicated section of my life, I think that I want to unweave it anyway. If I let it go, I think that I will always regret it.
Saturday morning snow post

January 22, 2022

Not much snow, the way I like it. REALLY cold for North Carolina, though. 24 degrees F at 10:50 a.m. What is notable about this snow is that this year I see many tracks that I suspect are fox tracks. Critters really love to live under that building, and in the space between the ceiling and the roof. Sandy and I are talking about cleaning it out to use for studio space again. I’m not sure that I have the energy for that, but it will need to be cleaned out before we move anyway. I’ll have to find the energy from somewhere!

Here’s what I plan to work on this weekend:

Anyway, not much has happened in my life other than work. It’s been really busy at work with several big areas of my job needing attention at once. That’s the way my job is – really busy then not much at all to do. I spread out the work as much as I can. The good thing is that I enjoy the work I am doing right now, which is mostly schedule planning and graduate student admissions. Later this semester it will be forms, forms, forms.

I complained (okay, ranted) on Facebook about people who do not read emails from me that are clearly marked URGENT and/or IMPORTANT. This is mostly a problem with students but faculty and instructors are sometimes guilty also. It has been bad for the last decade but the problem has quadrupled with the stress of covid brain. I work hard on these emails to make them as clear and detailed as they can possibly be. I keep templates of the ones that come up regularly and revise them as needed, so I know that people have understood them just fine in the past. Then to have three people ask me a week after they miss an important deadline that I do not set…that they don’t know what the date is…they seem to remember me sending something out…I mean, literally, all I do is copy and paste my answer from the email to their questions. Sometimes the answer is right below their question. And in this case, and most cases, it’s not hard stuff. “How do I do this?” “Click the link in the email that I sent where I wrote, click this link for instructions.” I don’t know how to help these students who ignore my help!

Then there are the students who need repeated confirmation. This seems to be a newish thing too. “Just to confirm, did you really mean this?” Yes, I did, just like I meant it when we also talked about it a week ago.

I’ve never had a lot of patience, but I do try very hard to swallow the irritation and be compassionate. My brain ain’t so great either these days. I will, however, search my computer, email, and the university website before I ask someone else for information I have lost. I hear a lot from the faculty who are struggling as well. What do you do when you are stressed to the limit but your students are too? I read articles online about how universities who are concerned about their budgets and student retention tend to ignore the stress of their employees, offering little other than online “how to cope” workshops, as if our stress does not affect the students. It’s a big problem on a national level, but in states like North Carolina where the ultra-conservative Republicans in charge dismiss us as either a drain on state funds or fomenters of dangerous liberal radicalism (especially in history), it is getting to a crisis point. As my therapist and others said, our bodies are not built to deal with this kind of sustained stress.

One of the latest issues where I work is that the college has decided to reduce the number of semesters students have to take in foreign language without notifying or involving the department of languages in their decision. Now, I tend to be on the side of reducing the semesters because it is a lot compared to our peers, but not to confer with the department of languages is incredibly disrespectful.

It feels very cutthroat where I work right now, but at least I feel that my co-workers and I are safe from budget cuts at this time. The delay in telling us what exactly those cuts will be is bothersome. The communication between administration and academic departments is terrible.

“As a service to you, take this workshop that Human Resources bought from an outside vendor on how to do more with less. Here’s some required training about how you can provide mental health care to students. We’re sure that you can fix yourselves and your students through the magic of the Internet. Oh, your job doesn’t include counseling? You’re extremely depressed, yourself? You think you should be paid more for taking on more responsibility? Feel lucky that you are employed at all.”

It’s gotten where the satire on McSweeney’s is more and more on the mark.

Pablocito sez, “Get that camera away from me!”
Sunday morning snow post

January 16, 2022

I started to take a snow picture, but nah. It is pretty and now it has turned to sleet. Ice is what is usually on the menu in North Carolina.

Sandy and I went over to the art center and I brought back my paints and mediums and glues, but left some stuff behind. The heat was back to normal and Jay was there. I was ambiguous about whether I would stay in the print co-op, but I told him it was likely that I’d drop out and come back later. We went to Deep Roots and this time I did not see a single unmasked customer inside. I bought a lot of fresh produce and I hope that I won’t wiggle out of making soup and lasagne today.

I’ve noticed that I spend more time reorganizing my art supplies than I do making art. You know, maybe that’s okay. I’ve been trying to nail down what I actually enjoy doing rather than what I feel like I SHOULD enjoy doing. Anyway, I need to reduce this stash by at least half. What you see here is only about a fourth of what I have. The looms are on the opposite side of the room. I have other bookshelves and chests of drawers full of cloth, collage materials, yarns, tools, and supplies. It’s a pretty big hoard, and I live in a very small house.

The hunt for rectangular baskets and cigar and wooden boxes for my supplies is a lot of fun. I bought a lot of the wire baskets from Office Depot during the pandemic and most of them contain my cones of yarn. The big bag of rice is for weighing down collages that I glue to panels, especially ones with more textural and 3D parts glued to them. It’s a tip that I got from Crystal Neubauer.

My idea for collage packets on Etsy – maybe I should do some categories where people can mix and match? If you’re really into maps, you could get a packet with just travel related stuff and maps. If you love dictionaries, I have lots of dictionary pages. I have music pages. I have foreign languages. I have encyclopedias. I have children’s books. I have textbooks. I have LOADS of cloth and yarns.

What I need to figure out first is what the shipping cost will be for a standard manila envelope, then the many changes that have happened in the Etsy platform since I last used it. Or maybe I’ll just set up a sales page here with a Paypal button. That might work.

I set up the big chair in the living room today with a blanket and table and reading lamp. If we lose power, the wood is indoors now. I’m determined not to let myself retreat into my bedroom until it is time for me to go to sleep. This morning, I was amazed that I woke up fairly early feeling refreshed. That is rare, and I was up in the middle of the night.

I’m so glad that I have Monday off! My guess is that the university will probably open late on Tuesday if this storm continues as predicted. The problem with that is that we don’t get a choice whether to go into the office or work at home. So ridiculous that after a long period of successful remote work that they do this. Disrespectful too, as if they don’t really believe that we are getting our work done, because God forbid they judge their employees or departments on individual bases. Everything these days has to be homogenized and across the board treatment of wildly diverse situations. We joke a lot about our employee performance plans and evaluations, because we know that nobody ever looks at them beyond our department head (and maybe not him).

I see that Portugal’s elections are skewing toward the Socialist party again. YAY.

Time for another coffee pot and some tapestry weaving.