Just let me go home

(That title is to be sung to the tune of Sloop John B by The Beach Boys...Lyrics here if you want to sing along.

I spend all day in Santa Fe for school on Thursdays. No, the classes I take aren't offered in ABQ. The more time I spend up here, the more I can't stand this town. Everything is old and run down. All the buildings look the same (brown adobe--even Micky-Ds) and the streets wind to and fro and take you in directions you didn't mean to go. Traffic was awful all the way to SF, in SF and home from SF.

I decided to kill some time and see a movie, but the close theater has crappy movies. The good ones are across town. So I got directions and naturally ended up LEAVING town accidentally. Twice. Uh-oh. Mrs. Cranky Pants is back.

Then there's the weird people. Like the lady at JoAnn Fabrics who was in her 50s and wearing a glittery pink eye mask like it's Mardi Gras or something. Only it's not. It's JoAnn Fabrics and she's walking around like it's totally normal. I won't even discuss her hat.

School was rough. The beginnings of these classes are tough and technical. Everything has to be so precise, and since you build off of it, you can't half-ass it and move on.

My first class is Flat Pattern II. This is a method of constructing garments from paper. It's all about measurements -- and precise ones at that. Think 1/16 of an inch is negligible? Well, it's not. It's a big deal if you're off by that. Say you're off by 1/8" somewhere. Well, since you're working off half a pattern, multiply that by 4 and you can be off by 1/2" all the way around, and that will mess everything up.

This is from flat pattern so far. My "sloper" (I know some patternmakers hate that term) came out way too big. I'm making adjustments. All the rough edges must be trued eventually:



This is my draping class, so far. It differs from flat pattern in that we start with this block of muslin:


And pin and mark and end up with this:


I know it's hard to see. Anyway, I'm just worn out and need to go relax. Santa Fe, I apologize. Better luck next week.

Don't hate me just because poems suck

First things first: I think I just made a blog discovery. Apparently when you make a blog and then save it as a draft to publish later, it publishes under the date on which it was written. I was featuring Etsy.com sellers this week and I wrote them up the other day and was posting them one by one. Well, I noticed some of the later ones got buried because I guess they posted for the date I actually wrote them and not for the date I hit "publish." Sorry to the sellers for not getting the top of the page!

Anyway, today was the first day of school. It was mostly short classes -- no real work. I worked till midnight last night and then watched "American Idol," of course. Then I couldn't sleep worth a damn and tossed and turned until it was time to get up at the crack of dawn (7:30!). I drove the hour to Santa Fe, attended an abbreviated first class from 10-10:30. Then my next class was at 5:30. Not wanting to drive home and back, I went to see "Dreamgirls." I think my expectations were set too high with all the Academy Award talk. Don't get me wrong, it was good, the singing was amazing and Beyonce is to-die-for beautiful, but I wasn't blown away. It was a semi-musical. I only occasionally like musicals because it's just annoying when they have to break into song every 5 minutes. You get 5 minutes of movie and then 5 minutes of song, etc. I just feel like, "Get ON with the story."

That's kind of how I feel about poems. They are just a way to beat around the bush about what you're feeling. Just SAY what you're feeling plain and simple. Don't make me guess through a bunch of metaphors and fancy-pants words. I'm sure I'm the only person on Earth who actually admits they hate poetry. Fine, I said it. I don't like poems.

Back to school!

School starts tomorrow! It means long, long Thursdays. I have to work late on Wednesdays (till midnightish) and then get up at 7:30 (yeah, yeah, well it's hard for ME) and drive to Santa Fe. I have class from 10-12:30 and then again from 5:30-8. Then I drive home. I have a horrible gap in there, but I think I can keep occupied with homework, my freelance work and attempted knitting. I can also read! Tomorrow, though, I figure there won't be any homework yet, so I will take the opportunity to see "Dreamgirls."

I can thank David for that. At last year's Gala, I was being photographed on the red carpet (see below) when I was informed that I had won movie tickets.

I haven't had much time for movies, so I still haven't used them. The time has come!