What I'd like to be doing

Sometimes I feel like I've walked into a restaurant that looks really great from the street, but when I sit down and see the menu, I think....gee, do you have one with better choices? I know I walked in here under my own power, but now that I'm here, nothing looks too appetizing.
Here's what's on my menu:

1. revising an article that's due on 8/15, when I feel pretty sure that the revisions "suggested" by the editor will turn my essay into something much less interesting (to me)
   
2. grading more papers
3. cleaning the house
4. cleaning the house
5. cleaning the house
6. mowing the lawn and weeding

Here's the menu I wish I had:

1. sewing the six pairs of "around the house" shorts I cut out on Monday night
2. finishing the two sets of pillow tops I'm embroidering (a pair of pigs and a pair of camels; I've done the first of each set)
3. sewing a comfortable, belly-positive swimsuit with the Kwik-Sew swimsuits and activewear master pattern book I bought two weeks ago
4. finally finishing my big healthcare collage
5. taking a nap
6. putting together the Broken Dishes and Four-Patch quilt blocks I've finished
7. taking a nap
   
8. going to the pool by myself in the very attractive, belly-positive swimsuit I just finished (see #3)

Tonight when we were at a picnic with the other families from Elliot's baseball team, we heard the cicadas for the first time this summer. Every year I promise myself that I won't get melancholy when I hear them, but it never works, and this time was no exception. Unlike other years, though, I was with a bunch of other women who had the same looks on their faces as I must have. It was nice to know that I'm not the only one who mourns the passing of summer when it's really not quite half over.

Du plane, du plane!

I spent three hours this morning writing a kickass chapter proposal for a collection of essays on undergraduate General Education reform--I get mighty excited about this stuff, and I was very happy with my work. I shut down my computer to go home from the coffee shop, as the lunch crowd was coming in and I didn't want to keep anyone from sitting down to eat. When I got home and tried to email the file to the editors.....well, let's just say it was not there. I searched my computer, and later my husband searched the whole thing, too, and folks, it was not there.

Tomorrow morning I'll be trying to remember what I wrote so that I can reconstruct it. I couldn't face it today. I've lost big chunks of writing before--twelve years ago, I lost a third of a textbook I was helping to write!--but for some reason, losing those 1200 words hit me really hard. I've been out of it all day. I finally started doing some aggressive clutter reduction in the dining room and then in my "work room"--an unheated tandem bedroom that's more of a dumping ground than a workspace. I made only the tiniest dent in the overwhelming mess, but I have to say that it helped me feel better.

Going through a very tall pile of Astrid's artwork (she's *prolific*), deciding what to save and what to toss, was fun. I came across a picture that she made just a couple of weeks ago at one of Elliot's baseball games. Astrid generally brings her sketch book with her; when she's not playing with other younger siblings or begging me to take her to the playground, she sits by herself and draws. I do my best to let her work without interruption, and then I invite her to tell me something about what she's done. Here's what she told me about this picture: It's Egypt, as we can see from the pyramids and the Sphinx and hippo in the middle. Now, flying overhead is a pilot who believes that the Sphinx is alive, and that s/he and the hippo must be very thirsty there in the Egyptian desert. As the caption at the bottom of the picture explains, "Du plane jopt joosis" ("The plane dropped juices"). According to Astrid, the plane also dropped a case of Diet Coke, which the hippo is excited to drink; he doesn't know, however, that the bottles have been badly shaken and will make a big mess when they are opened.

Just looking at this picture makes me feel good.

Finally getting to type

Over the past two weeks, I have composed many, many blog entries in my head, but have gotten not a one typed into my machine. On my long drive to work, I cheer myself with the thought of stealing time away from my duties to get that blog entry typed up (and the pictures uploaded--always the dealbreaker when I'm working at home....). Then I get to my office and I either get so caught up doing (and, OK, enjoying) what I get paid to do that the day slips by without the materialization of the already-imagined blog entry. (I know--what a terrible problem to have--liking one's job.....)

Yesterday, after getting my spring grades turned in, I rewarded myself by using lunchtime to find the JoAnn Fabric store that Google Maps suggested was fairly close to my office. I've been looking for an iron-on transfer pencil, because I want to embroider some of Astrid's drawings, and the website said that JoAnn's carried them. (I had already checked my nearby Hancock Fabrics and Michael's stores, without any luck). I don't like to drive on the expressway, so I basically ignored Google's recommended route to JoAnn's, and, of course, I got a little lost. My lunch hour turned into 90 minutes away from my office--not a huge deal, as we're in the week between spring and summer classes--but I felt sheepish.

Especially, I should say, because I didn't really have much fun shopping. I searched high and low through the store to find the transfer pencil. When I'd completely given up, I found it--right where the cashier said it would be. (I *swear* it wasn't there the first three times I looked in that exact place.) I also thought their fabric prices were really high. Granted, I don't pay full price for many fabrics--I buy things on sale--but the regular price on the kind of denim I'd use to make pants for Elliot and me, for example, was $12.99. It was on a 50% sale, so $6.50---not what I'd call a deal. I could understand the price if it was an independent fabric store where customers can get good advice from the employees--but the store was understaffed and a lot of the fabrics were on high shelves. Some of them I couldn't even reach!

The happy part of this whiny little story is that I have a better appreciation of my local Hancock's store now. I've always kind of liked listening to the staff bicker with each other, or hoping that I can get my hands on the Butterick catalog when it's a 99 cent pattern day. (I *don't* like finding out that my size isn't in the metal drawer, though.) I don't think I'll go back to the JoAnn's store, not least because I now know it's too far to do in my lunch hour.....

Very close to home

I was getting ready to teach my Thursday evening class when I got email from my sister in Boston, mentioning the Northern Illinois University shooting, and checking to be sure that we were OK. Of course, DeKalb is an hour and a half away from us, but I completely understood her need to check in. I turned on NPR, since I didn't actually know anything about what was happening, and that's when the dread started to flood over me.

It's strange to me how a college classroom can simultaneously feel like the safest and least safe place in the world. I love and respect my students so much; once we get to know each other, I almost always feel like the hours I spend talking with them each week are some of my happiest, most intense, and most productive. When students pick up the loose ends of a conversation from the previous week, and use what they've been mulling over during that time in order to create new knowledge about a new set of problems, I feel how precious a simultaneously intimate and open place like a college classroom can be. I remember my own experiences as an undergraduate and graduate student, and I am so happy to be able to create similar spaces for my students. Many of them, I know, will remember their times the way I remember mine.

At the same time, I feel sometimes feel vulnerable--not just emotionally, but physically--when I'm sitting or standing in front of a group of students. I remember how shocked and frightened I was, back when I had my first teaching job in southwestern Oklahoma, to hear some of my students boast to me that they *always came to class armed*. I've had my share of students who blamed me or other teachers about low grades, or who had complicated problems that seemed to affect how they functioned when they were on campus or in my classes. I know that all workplaces, and all public spaces, sometimes feel like there's a bad wind swirling around, and that most of us feel scared at least once in a while. I feel quite scared lately.

After we spent the first five minutes of class discussing the afternoon's events at NIU, my students and I turned (with some relief) to our discussion of Alcott's Little Women--a novel in which family life is bittersweetly flavored by the uncertainty of war and the certainty of personal loss and disappointment. One student said that he had been inclined to find all of Alcott's domestic detail--the cooking, cleaning, knitting, and sewing--a bit boring, until he had tried, the morning before, to sew a button onto his jacket. "It took me an hour!" he said. "I have a lot more respect for those women now." I smiled as I looked down and remembered that my blouse, skirt, and jacket were all handmade (though not the way that Jo March and her sisters made their clothes!). I didn't point out what I had just noticed (partly because I wasn't happy with how the jacket fit, and I didn't want to draw attention to it!), but I asked students to raise their hands if they'd never sewn a button onto a shirt or jacket. More than a third of them sheepishly admitted that they didn't know how; a couple of them said that when they lose a button, they just throw the shirt away. "Here's some homework, then: sew a button on something this week--preferably on something you'd really like to wear again." Some of them giggled, and some of them groaned, and probably none of them will do it. But I don't think I was the only one who felt happy talking about the little tasks that help us keep our things together, especially when we see how easy it is for everyday worlds to fall apart.

Loopy dispatch

I'm sitting in my downtown Chicago office, watching it snow like a sonofagun outside. In a couple of hours I have my first class meeting for the semester--it's a class called "Gender and the Artist in American Fiction," one I've taught every few years since 1996 (eek! All of a sudden that seems like a long time). I haven't been able to get pictures to load from my home laptop, so I am happy to have an excuse to take a break from work to get some pictures and ideas tapped out.

I've finally got a picture--not a full-length one, though--of one of the dresses I made for Astrid over the winter break. How's this for twisted: the pattern (McCall's M5510) is very obviously for a nightgown and/or pajamas. The envelope back and instructions, however, include this legalistic jewel: "NOTE: The garments in this pack are not intended for Sleep Apparel." I understand, I think, why they say this--these are loose-fitting designs, and if they weren't made in flame-retardant fabrics (which I wouldn't use....sorry), they might be dangerous if there was a fire during the night. But come on! Are they trying to convince purchasers that these clothes are pajama costumes--in other words, outfits that kids might dress up in before they go to bed, but then change into "real" PJs before they get into bed?

Happily for me, I had no intention of sewing this design for nighttime wear (ooops....I mean "Sleep Apparel"). I was looking for a dress without buttons, snaps, or facings, and I wanted something with a nice ruffle at the sleeves. So far I've made it in the peachy Japanese-inspired tree print shown in the photo, a pair of coordinating chocolate-and-blue prints, and some cool "rainbowy" home dec fabric I found at IKEA. (If you're looking at the IKEA page, the two fabrics I used are the second from the left [big rainbows] and the one on the far right [the small multicolored emblems])The IKEA dresses are sleeveless; Astrid has one, as does her neighbor-friend Lily (or, as Astrid calls her, "Lily the Lion"--she had a lion costume for Halloween when they were both 3, I think). The dresses are good for twirling (*so* important!) and it's easy to make the bodice in a different fabric (like I did with the brown/blue and IKEA versions). What I can't show here, but what I'm most happy about, is the closure for all of the dresses: after cutting a small ponytail elastic (the kind Goody makes in a zillion different colors) in half, I turned each half into a loop and sewed it about two inches to the left of the center back (close to the neck and right above the skirt/bodice seamline). Then, two inches to the right of the center back, I sewed big vintage buttons. This arrangement gathers the fullness of the back of the dress so that it doesn't slip off Astrid's shoulders (as it appears to be doing in the McCalls envelope picture).

Gee, Astrid looks happy--no, ecstatic --in her dress, doesn't she? (Actually, maybe she's just receiving instructions from her mothership. Do I look like someone who knows what's going on in her daughter's mind? Perish the thought.)

Are *you* ready for the Creed?

I'm working on an artquilt for the American Literary Naturalism course I'm teaching this semester. The students are required to produce a creative project (visual, literary, dramatic, musical, etc....), and I hinted to them that I hoped to do the same (you know, talking the talk/walking the walk....we have no hands-on arts courses where I do most of my teaching, so I try to create opportunities for students to work with their hands....).

In the process of gathering images for my quilt, I came across a very cool website for an exhibit called What Was Home Economics? From Domesticity to Modernity. The whole site is interesting, but I was strangely attracted to "The Home Bureau Creed" (in the "Educational Techniques" area of the exhibit. It's visually beautiful, and feels surprisingly contemporary (to me, anyway).

My favorite part of the creed is where it urges people "to lose self in generous enthusiasms." There are lots of ways to interpret this idea, but I think it's a nice way to think about the relationship building that happens when people share/teach other people handwork and useful arts. I confess that lately I've been getting tired of "project-ing" (though there are lots of sensible reasons why....); at the same time, this description of what I spend so much time doing and thinking about makes me feel pretty sunny, even on a gloomy gray Chicago day.