This afternoon I did a handful of demos at the Iowa Quilt Museum. The museum is housed in a gorgeous, late 19th century building on the town square of my hometown of Winterset, IA. I’m so proud to be from Winterset, proud that the state quilt museum is about 1.5 blocks from my mom’s house.
The building that houses the IQM used to be a JCPenny department store. I remember going in there as a kid. I remember the sweatpants on racks, the baby clothes hung on the back wall, the menswear department, the housewares — all of it. It’s where you went to get clothes and sheets and a lot more if you were a Wintersetian back in the day. Our small-town JCPenny department store looked a lot different from how a big city or suburban department store looks today, it’s true; but our JCPenny was one shop with many sections, so it was a department store to us.
The renovated, retro-fitted mezzanine where I did my demos today was one of the more interesting places I’ve worked. This is because I realized that I got my first training bra on that very mezzanine.
Seriously. I was talking to people about the American quilt, stitching on a Singer Featherweight owned by my grandmother and I remembered that I got my first bra in the same exact spot where I was sewing. Saying “I got my first bra” is to say that when I was beside myself with grief for one, Mom purchased for me a cotton slingshot. That’s what training bras are, of course: cotton slingshots. Question: What were we training for, by the way? Did we have a choice?
Life is weird. I remember I got a pastel yellow bra and a pastel pink bra. The yellow, interestingly, was my favorite of the two. Each bra was literally two triangles and a piece of string. Like I cared how it was made. When I put on the bra (especially the buttercream yellow one) I felt so beautiful, so grown-up. I remember looking in the mirror and feeling like a force of nature. I felt like a woman, finally. I felt like a person.
Today — and tonight, doing a lecture on the ground floor of the old JCPenny’s — I thought, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
Newspaper ad for the 1917 propaganda film, “Who’s Your Neighbor.” When you’re done here, google it: pretty interesting stuff! Image: Wikipedia.
While I was away last year, singing in the pool at my rawther glamorous residence and getting pooped on by birds, a not-high-rise-but-higher-than-my-mid-rise condo building was going up kitty-corner from my building here in the South Loop. It was in the last stages of construction when I moved home; I would see the crane and the workers, the construction cones out in front of the main entrypoint.
Over the summer it was completed. You know how in Ghostbusters, when Zuul blasts away that chunk of the apartment building in Manhattan where Sigourney Weaver lives? There’s a chunk carved out of this building kind of like that, except that it’s on purpose and paid for by developers and they’ve put a garden in there! Or is it a park? It’s what cityfolk call “greenspace” and I have a great view of it from my windows! Way cool. Gardens come to me, baby.
There’s also a pool on the other side of this new building and I can see just a slice of it from my perch on the sixteenth floor. It looks like a great pool. I should try to make friends with someone over there so I can scope out what my windows look like while swimming.
What’s really fascinating is that for some months I looked over at a tall, dark, glass thing…and now there are people living there. I can see their glowing TV screens. Someone has a bright red couch and in the daytime, I can see it. I mean, it’s right over there, right there across the sky.
Who are they? Are they excited? No matter who they are or where they came from, they all have one thing in common: They just moved in.
The flyer passed ’round the state (and beyond!) Image courtesy Iowa Quilt Museum. Visit www.iowaquiltmuseum.org for more info than you see here!
This week, between classes and going to press for the third print issue of the year for the school paper, I’ll be making a quick trip to Iowa to help raise funds and excitement for the absolutely, positively, most-beautifullest hometown quilt museum in the world: The Iowa Quilt Museum.
The Iowa Quilt Museum is in Winterset, IA, where I was born and raised. In fact, the Museum is about a two-minute walk from my house! Where my mom and stepdad still live! (No, I will not tell you which house.) The Iowa Quilt Museum opened earlier this year and it’s gotten great reviews, lots of visitors, and is two doors down from Pieceworks Quilt Shop! Pieceworks took over the old Fons & Porter quilt shop space and is expanded, fully stocked, and fancy, fancy, fancy. You can get all of my Small Wonders fabrics there and so much more. Special guests are doing extraordinary talks and demos all week. Sandy Gervais will be there!! I love Sandy Gervais!!!!
If you’re within sane driving distance (sane = less than 400) or you have so many frequent flyer miles you just need to get rid of them for heaven’s sake, why not take a trip over to Winterset this week? You can see the new John Wayne Museum, which also just opened. You can see the covered bridges of Madison County, as Winterset = Madison County. You can take a peek at the movie theater Mom bought and is rehabbing and renovating with my brilliant younger sister Rebecca. You can eat at the Northside Cafe opposite the Quilt Museum where they filmed scenes for the movie “The Bridges of Madison County” and where I had my very first job in life as a waitress at age fourteen. Betty and Vicki taught me how to smoke cigarettes and make a good pot of coffee at Northside. It’s the real deal. It’s Americana, straight up. Also, great beer and great pie.
There’s more!!
If you come on Thursday, you can hang out with me all day at the Museum while I do demos, sign stuff, and get to know you; I would love this. Then, that night, when you’re full of Northside Cafe biscuits n’ gravy from, roll yourself back on over across the square to the show that night at the Quilt Museum! I’ll be giving my “10 Things I Know About Quilting & Life” lecture, which is really funny and also inspiring. I made a lady name Gretchen cry in VA this weekend during this lecture and it was before 10am! Just think how teary-eyed you’ll get after dinner and a beer! That’s such a good feeling. This is reason to take a trip to Iowa. The gorgeous leaves changing are 1000 trillion other reasons. (Note to self: How many leaves are there in Iowa?)
“Mary,” you say, hesitant. “I really want to go.”
“Yes,” I say, nodding my head so vigorously you are slightly concerned about my neck. “You do want to go. You should. Why are you hesitant?”
“Well, it sound wonderful. But I wish I would’ve known about it sooner. I mean, I could still come. But it would’ve been good if you had told us about this earlier.”
I take your hand. I pat it. Then I do something strange and I actually start patting my own head using your hand. Because I need you to pat me.
“You’re right,” I say, enjoying your sweet, gentle, loving patting, how you’re smoothing my hair and calming my very soul. “I should’ve told you before. But I am drowning in things. I should set a reminder on my phone for next time. Please. Don’t stop patting my head.” Now I’ve sort of slumped into you and you have no choice but to put your other arm around me and say something like, “There, there. It’s okay.”
I suddenly realize what’s happening. “I’m sorry!” I say, jerking away, embarrassed. “I apologize for not letting you know about it before!” I begin to gather all nine of my totebags and head for the door to my next meeting, apologizing on the way out the door.
You are wide-eyed as you reach for you phone and dial your husband. “Honey?” you say, when he picks up. “Do we have anything going on on Thursday? No? How about a drive to Iowa?”
Sampler Friendship Quilt. Maker unknown. Pennsylvania, c. 1860-1880. Image: Wikipedia.
I had a marvelous day in Ashburn, VA today at Sew Magarbo. We learned how to make the Sweetpea Star block, a partial-seam block that is the coolest block in the land. We drank wine. (Just a little; later in the afternoon.) I connected with two ladies that I already knew or knew of: the brilliant Carol, who sent me pencils in the mail last year and the always effervescent Meredith, whom I met in Beaver Dam this spring when I had a revelation about my career.
Though everyone I spent the day with is officially a pal at this point — it’s automatic — special shouting-out must go to Marj and Jim.
The couple came in this morning but only Marj was taking my class; Jim just wanted to pop in and say hi because he’s a PaperGirl fan. I’ve encountered this before; some quilter laughs at my trials with my printer and the day I squeezed the avocados and the spouse finally goes, “Well for crying out loud — what’s so funny?” and suddenly she’s forking over her iPad. For a blogger, there can be no better compliment than two people fighting over a tablet that has your latest post on it. (One lady I met awhile back told me her husband reads two things every day: The Wall Street Journal and the ol’ PG. Fabulous!) Jim was an absolute sweetheart, as evidenced by his love for Marj and his cap.
For her part, Marj helped me perfect a very important “line” I say a lot. I put quotes around “line” because while I don’t work with a script in class or onstage, there are certain things I say over and over again that take on a kind of shape. This is what I said at one point today and what have been saying lately because it’s true:
“I’m not interested in making perfect objects. I make quilts. I make quilts for people to use and love. My quilting is not amazing. My piecing is pretty good at this point, but it’s not perfect. I don’t want to be perfect. If I wanted to make perfect objects, I don’t know… I’d be working at NASA or something.”
The sentiment is right on, but it needs a little editing, a little revision to really get to the point, which was eluding me. So I say all that today and then Marj, in a quiet, non-interrupty, matter-of-fact way:
“If you wanted to make perfect objects, you wouldn’t be using fabric.”
I gaped at her. Then I smacked my forehead. Yes! Marj! That’s it!
If I wanted to make perfect objects, I wouldn’t use fabric. That is exactly right. Because fabric is woogy and mutable and stretches and gets wet and shrinks. Threads are different, dyes are different. Material gets torn. Fabric is not perfect. Neither am I. Neither is Marj, though I’m suspicious.
Marj, thank you. The credit is yours. You helped me craft a line, sure, but you helped me discover a truth about myself as a quilt maker — as a person, even. If I wanted to make perfect objects, I wouldn’t be using fabric. Incredible.
At the end of the day, Jim came back to pick Marj up and we all shot the breeze for awhile. I’m proud to report I completed two partial seam blocks while chatting with four people between sips of red wine. I only had to un-sew one seam twice.
I got the deck of cards this summer from the gift shop of The School of Life. I’ve mentioned The School of Life before; Mariano and I got to know each other using one of their conversation decks.* It was a different deck than the one I have pulled off the window sill just now, though; this deck is called “Know Yourself,” and it’s really meant to be used alone.
Each card has a question on it that prompts you to think about who you are, what you really, really believe about and want from the world and yourself.
Maybe you’ll take out a piece of paper and jot down some thoughts. Or maybe you could copy and paste the questions into an email and answer them that way — then you could email it to yourself to read later. Whatever you do, dig deep. Go for it. Dig deep in your heart and your mind and be honest. You don’t have to type or write anything, though writing things down is incredibly helpful to me. I can’t make sense of anything without writing it down. (I write about writing from time to time.)
Okay, here are five really good ones, hand-selected, just for you. I care for you so much. Words fail.
If someone likes me a lot, I start to feel…
List the (now guilt-inducing) occasions when you were especially mean to people.
List five things that are important to you in your life. How much of your time do you give to each of these?
What did you learn about relationships from your parents?
What are you currently lying to certain people around you about?
Don’t think, “Ugh, that would take my entire life, trying to ‘go there.’ No thanks, Mar.” You could set a timer for ten minutes and move through them quick. You don’t have to spend hours and hours getting to know yourself — unless you want to, of course.
*The School of Life didn’t pay me to write this post, nor did they give me any free stuff. Yet!
I forget the name of this painting… And who’s it by, again? Image: Wikipedia.
There are male quilters.
But the overwhelming majority of American quilters are female, so in my line of work I spend a lot of time with a lot of women. Today, I feel like going on record to say that I love them. All of them, like sisters, because they are my sisters.
Just let me get this out.
Everywhere I meet these women — in Seattle, Richmond, Omaha, Phoenix, Orlando — I see beauty, grace, brains, compassion, passion, and strength. I love their stories. I love seeing girls of every age not know how to do something then figure it out. I love to see them bring out their favorite colors: This one has a dozen shades of blue from deep navy to snowflake; the lady sitting next to her has a collection of batiks so deep she could open a pop-up shop.
The women I meet and spend time with are kind. Dorie presses a seam ripper into my hand because I have to try it, it’s the best kind. Sarah makes cookies for everyone and laughs because she forgot to put egg in them but really, they’re pretty good, aren’t they? I see friends helping friends with sewing machines and iron settings and emotions too big to shoulder alone; I watch younger members aid older ones and vice versa; daughters and mothers sewing together, or maybe it’s aunts, nieces, granddaughters at the card tables. These are the women I sew with, who I work for. They are all ethnicities. They are 12 or 53 or 76 years old.
Dignified. Talented. Beautiful. Hilarious. Sometimes I look at these classrooms of women and I just shake my head and think, “We hold up the whole world.”
This image is attempting to communicate “etiquette.” Photo of “Catherine’s Palace” via Wikipedia.
I’ve been dashing around taking selfies, praising Colleens and celebrating art and beauty and quilts, but I thought it would be good to remind everyone that I can be grumpy. I don’t get publicly grumpy very often because a lot of the time it turns out I was wrong about the thing I was super self-righteous and grumpy about and that’s unbecoming. Besides, I tend to change my mind a fair amount, so it’s just confusing for everyone if I’m tutting or squawking and then cooing five seconds later.
But, from time to time I fail in my zip-lip approach and air a grievance. Remember how I said no one should ever ask anyone: “Aren’t you hot in that??” This is like that.
It hasn’t happened recently, so no one who knows me or who has met me in the past week or month needs to worry that this is a super passive-aggressive way to talk to you about how you made me feel bad. No, no one has said to me in many months:
“Hi, Mary! You look tired.”
This statement is problematic. I gently suggest that you refrain from using it in the future. Here’s why.
Ideally, when I’m tired, I’m in my fluffy bed, reading something amazing or perhaps writing in my journal. If you see me looking tired outside of my ideal “I’m tired” environment — mere moments from sweet sleep — it means that conditions for me at this particular moment in my life are suboptimal. Let’s not bring it up.
Then, what does it mean to look tired? I think the three words, “You look tired,” are really communicating four: “You look like crap.”
Tired people do not look their best. No one disputes this. No one meets the love of their life and says, “When I met you…you looked so tired. I knew in that moment I’d be with you for the rest of my life.”
When I’m tired I have have circles under my eyes. This is partially due to low baseline iron levels, but when I’m super tired it’s more noticeable. When I’m tired I squint and am dehydrated, probably — another normal state for me that gets worse when I have been traveling and studying and reading and writing and having stress. Saying, “You look tired” to me means I do not look well. I would only say, “You do not look well” to someone I thought was physically impaired or ailing in the extreme. In that case, those words would actually mean, “You look like you need the ER.”
Is there any good time to say “Mary, you look tired”? I’m not convinced there is.
Say you are in bed with a heavy-lidded me and see me there reading happily in my favorite pajamas, snug in my bed (lucky you!) Saying, “You look tired” would be like saying, “It’s nighttime,” or “We are in bed,” or “We will sleep soon.” I would look up from my book, look at you and say, “Yeah, what’s your point?” It would behoove you to say something else instead, like, “Mary, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” or “I can’t keep a secret: I bought you jewels today and they’re under the bed,” or “You’re the queen of America. It’s headline news. Look: my iPad.”
I know some of you are saying, “But I say that out of concern!” and that is true because you are all good people. (Yes, all of you, so you’d better be acting like it.) After stating my case, I think it’s better to chat with the tired person first and then, once a rapport has been established, say something like, “Hey, how are you? Things going okay?”
I promise: The tired person will jump at the chance to say, “I’m okay. I’m just tired.”
Combing Hair by Hashiguchi Goyo, Japan, 1920, Woodblock print, Honolulu Museum of Art. Image: Wikipedia
Jefferson City was phenomenal.
Thank you to all my new friends. What fun it was to be with you, to dig quilts with you; what fun it was for me to wear Cookie Monster onesie pajamas while serving as your keynote speaker. I fear the Facebook photos of last night’s event, as a Cookie Monster onesie from Target is not what you might consider flattering, exactly, and that thing is gonna be all over Missouri quilter Facebook pages, I suspect — but I’ve only got myself to blame. And heck, I’d do it again. There was a velcro cookie in the pocket!
I’m home in Chicago in my favorite chair. I’ve got a pile of work in front of me and an early morning. Therefore, I direct you to a post from this spring in which my dear friend Claus — I miss you terribly tonight, dear Claus, terribly, terribly, horribly — brushed my hair. Small gestures like that, they can take us into outer space.
Gooey butter cake! (This one is actually pumpkin-flavored.) Photo: Wikipedia.
If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I like to learn things about the places I visit and share them with you.
Here’s a post about the Florida panhandle, for example. This dispatch came from from Sioux City, IA; and this one I wrote about Buffalo, NY from Buffalo, NY and in it I discuss the local specialty — sponge candy! — and confess to making myself sick eating a bunch of it.*
Well, greetings from Jefferson City, MO, state capitol — and home of the gooey butter. Sponge candy, you may have met your match. (I clearly like to learn about places that are known for delicious desserts.)
A gooey butter is a cake, but don’t call it “gooey butter cake” unless you’re from out of town. To locals, it’s just “gooey butter” and it’s legendary in Missouri. As the story goes, a St. Louis baker mixed up the proportion of butter while making up some coffee cake. Rather than throw out what couldn’t be that bad, the cake still being a combination of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, he baked it anyway. The cake was sugary and sticky; he sliced it up and sold out in short order. Gooey butter was born.
I’m teaching two classes here at the big Missouri State Quilter’s Guild 2016 Retreat and then I’m doing the banquet talk tomorrow night, so I can’t get out to hunt down some gooey butter, but my new pal Terri said she might be able to find some. I told her she’d better not go to any trouble; Terri said, “Hey, if it happens, it happens.”
Terri was the gracious lady who picked me up at the airport and drove us two hours over to Jefferson City. We bonded because we shopped for pajamas together at Target.
The Missouri retreat has a theme each year, and this year it’s “Welcome To My Dream World.” Attendees are encouraged to wear pajamas to the banquet tomorrow night; I have also been encouraged to do this. I thought it sounded sort of silly at first but then I decided it sounded completely awesome. The trouble was that when I was packing yesterday, I realized my nightclothes were not gonna work. Either they were too — how to put this — “wispy,” or they were too old and comfy to become a keynote speaker.
When we got in the car, I asked Terri if there was a Target on the way. She said there was and that hey, she could get some pajamas, too! (She had the same problem as I did re: appropriate public pajamas.)
What I’m getting at is that tomorrow night I may be eating gooey butter in my pajamas — at work. These students loans ain’t gonna pay themselves, people!
*If you go to the right side of the screen and click “Travel” in the list of categories, you’ll see all the PaperGirl posts that have to do with traveling. But note that the “Work” category has a lot of travel writing too, since I’m usually traveling for work. Enjoy!
Me and Whistler’s Mother in Oshkosh. Selfie by me and Ms. Colleen.
Something amazing happened in Oshkosh the week before last but this is the first moment I’ve had to really write out the incredible story. PaperGirl is lengthy today but you’ll see: It’s so worth it.
Many of you are familiar with Carmen, my beautiful, capable, lovely assistant in Colorado who came onboard this summer to help with gigs while I’m at school (and forever after, I hope.) Without her making my dossier and communicating with my hosts about details (bios, supply lists, etc.) I simply could not be making this work. I’ve proposed marriage to her at least three times. She’s already married, so it’s not gonna work.
Carmen’s dossier for the Oshkosh gig was perfect. But I read it wrong.
I didn’t see that the location of the workshop that day was different from the location of the lecture that night. It was there in black and white, but I didn’t register that. So, bright and early at 8:25 a.m. — plenty of time to spare before 9 a.m. class because that’s how I roll — I show up at the venue for the lecture…and the comedy of errors began.
“Hi!” I said, brightly, to the desk person at the community center. “I’m teaching quilting today. Can you tell me where I need to go?”
The woman looked at her schedule. “Oh, sure,” she said. “Just follow this walkway through to the back.”
Great, I thought. Let’s go to work.
When I got to the classroom, I was surprised to find just one lady there. She was basting a quilt and only half the lights were on. I hope the numbers for the class are okay today, I thought. If a class has low enrollment it’s like, the worst. Every teacher has experienced it and it doesn’t mean people hate you; sometimes, for whatever reason, you have a small class. What can you do? I greeted the lady with a warm smile and, thinking she was my host because she was the first to arrive, I said:
“Hi! You must be Janice!”
The lady looked up at me and said, “No. I’m Colleen.”
“Oh,” I said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you! I’m Mary!” I stuck out my hand to shake hers. She shook my hand but did not make any gesture of, “Welcome! It’s so nice to meet you! I watch your show!” or “Welcome to Oshkosh!” She just kinda…looked at me. Though it feels weird to say it, that’s kinda what happens when I get to my gigs. I mean, I’m the guest teacher and everything and usually people are happy to see me, you know? That was not what was happening.
I looked around. “Colleen, I have to say: It’s funny there aren’t more people here, yet. Do you know if the class is full?”
“I have no idea,” Colleen said, still looking at me funny. “I didn’t know we had a different teacher today. Where are you from?”
Oh, no. Something was wrong. I felt my stomach drop. Anyone who works on the road knows it: that first, horrible wave of anxiety when you get to a gig and something doesn’t look right. I was in Wisconsin, right? Yes, I drove there the night before. Was it September 21st? I literally took out my phone to look. Yes, it was the 21st of September. Plus, I have Carmen, now. She is my angel. Carmen wouldn’t let me drive to Oshkosh on the wrong day.
“Well,” I said, trying to breathe, “I’m concerned… I haven’t talked to Janice this morning and I know I’m in the right place…”
“I’m not sure who Janice is,” Colleen said. I felt sick.
“Janice P.,” I said, “asked me to come and teach for you ladies. I’m teaching you the Thousand Pyramid.I’m Mary Fons and —”
“No you’re not.”
“What?”
Colleen looked like she had seen a ghost. “You are not.”
I thought she was kidding, of course. I chuckled a little. “W-well, yes. I… I’m Mary Fons.” I hated how that sounded, like, “Eeeeeewwww, yeeeessss, I’m MaryFaaaaaahhns,” like I eat cucumber sandwiches all day.
She stared at me. “No, you’re not.” Colleen squinted through her glasses. “I mean, you look like her but…”
I had to laugh, though the clock was ticking and I was not feeling good at all. “Yes, I’m Mary. And, uh, I’m really worried, actually, that I’m in the wrong —”
Colleen gasped and clapped both her hands over her mouth. “Oh, my God! It’s YOU! It’s YOU! Oh! It really is you! Oh my…! It really is! Y-y-you’re here! What on Earth??? You’re…here?!”
What was happening? I mean, this lady was awesome and I felt flattered that she was so excited to see me, but the prickly heat had begun. The woman at the counter of the community center told me where to go to find the quilters, right?? Yes, she had! And I read the address on the dossier that morning and put it into Google maps. And this woman is a quilter with a quilt on a table. I was in a very bad dream. Tick-tock. Everyone waiting, somewhere, for me. Pendennis, help me!
Colleen looked at me like I had a halo or wings or something. “I watch you all the time. I love your show! Well, I don’t like it when you’re not on. The best episodes in over a decade of that show are the ones with you and your mother! How on Earth did they get you to come here???” Colleen trailed off, staring at me, shaking her head. “I just can’t believe they got you to come here! You must cost an arm and a leg!”
I went around to hug her, partly, I think, because I needed a hug at that moment, though I also was really liking this lady through my fear.
“Colleen, you are so sweet. Thank you. But Colleen, um, something is very wrong, though. I was invited by Janice. Do you know her? The guild? I am very confused. I don’t cost too much, I guess, I mean, I was asked to come, so…” I had my phone out, frantically flicking through emails and the dossier and text messages, looking for whatever piece of crucial information I had missed. With my other hand, I searched my totebag for the dossier, my contract, a treasure map — anything that could help me.
I texted Carmen. While I waited to hear back, Colleen solved the mystery.
“Wait!’ she said. “You’re here for the Lakeside Quilters.”
“Yes, yes!” I cried, and pulled out my papers. “Look! I have this address on my schedule!”
“Ohhhkay,” she said, scratching her chin. “That’s the problem. This is a quilting class offered by the Fox Valley Community College. We’re not a guild. We’re just a class. We meet on Wednesdays.”
That same moment, Carmen texted me back: “Mar, the workshop venue is 14 minutes from where you are — I think you’re in the lecture venue! Two different places!”
Dang it. My whole body felt hot. If I left that second, I could get to class by 8:58 a.m., which is not good but is a lot better from being in the wrong state or the wrong galaxy, which is where I thought I was.
“Colleen! Okay! I got it! Oh, thank you so much — I’m so sorry, you must think I’m such a dummy!”
Colleen was so helpful and sweet and tried to give me directions, but I was already plugging the correct venue into my phone. She was saying how no one would believe that she met Mary Fons this morning.
“No one’s gonna believe me!” she said. “I lie a lot.”
I laughed and pulled the handle up on my suitcase, about to literally run to my car. But I was kind of in love with this lady. She was wily. There was something special about her; I could feel it even though my stress. What was one more minute?
“Do you have a phone, Colleen? Wanna take a quick selfie? But we gotta do it super, super quick,” I said. She said she didn’t have one and wasn’t that just her luck. I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket again. “Okay, I’ll take it an email it to you, okay? Let’s do this!”
We took our selfie. I emailed it to her right away. This woman was still in total shock. It was kind of amazing. She was just shaking her head the whole time, still kinda not believing that Mary Fons (!) had walked into her Wednesday morning quilting class at the community college. After the email sent, I flew to the classroom venue and we had an awesome day.
But it was stressful. This stuff happens. And when you meet someone like Colleen and funny things like that happen, it makes it okay. She was so adorable and sweet and she made the Oshkosh mix-up story a good one, not a bad, stressful, day-in-the-life-on-the-road one.
Colleen, you are the best. What a funny situation we were in, my friend. I’m going to paste in the thank-you email you sent me last week because it is priceless — priceless — just like you. (“Whistler’s mother”?? A mickey in your Geritol?? I am speechless with admiration.)
I shall never forget you, CoCo. Stay in touch — I mean that.
Dear Ms. Mary, Thank you so much for the selfie. I just love it, your so cute and I have a bit of Whistler mother about me so its all good.
I couldn’t wait till lunch to tell my story. I had to wait till lunch because everyone would be there and they couldn’t interrupt me because their mouth would be full. Well it went over like a lead balloon, no one believed me and someone asked me if Iwas drunk. Being a tea total-er I said no unless someone slipped a mickey into my Geritol. It really hurts to be telling the Truth once in your life and no one believes you.
Then some one walk in and said Mary Fons was going to be at the gild meeting tonight. Every one certainly changed then and I just said Well I know she would be there and when they ask how I knew I told the truth. She told me, her and I go way back (at least 29 min) but I left that part out.
I watch you on PBS and I like you But in person I LOVE you, your so warm and friendly and your hugs are your crowning glory.
Im going to get so much millage out of my selfie I might have and 8 by 10 made and have it bronzed . Thanks Mary for just being you. You made my day. Correction you made my year.
“Dovetail” foundation paper and test block. Pattern and photo: Me
One of the serious, who-does-that?? advantages of getting my MFA in Writing at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) — aside from the fact there’s a longarm in the textile department and they want me to use it — is that I have not one but two advisors and I meet with one of them every other week.
Week 1, I meet with Jesse Ball, who is A Very Big Deal. Guggenheim Fellowship, awards coming out his ears, OMG-level reviews in the New York Times, Atlantic, Paris Review, etc., etc. Sometimes I’m intimidated by him because he’s this rockstar type, but aside from one awkward meeting where I felt like a big dummy and didn’t have one intelligent thing to say, we’re peas n’ carrots.
Week 2, I meet with Sara Levine, also A Very Big Deal. Essayist in a bazillion “Best Of” anthologies, professor at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, reviewed by Oprah…it goes on and on. The truth is, all of the faculty at SAIC is this way and, as Claus told me this spring, it’s practically unheard of that a grad student gets an advisor appointment on a weekly basis.
“This is what you’re paying for,” he said. “And it’s worth every dollar.”
Sara is working with me on my book. Did I tell you I’m writing one? I have been poking at it here and there for over a year, but now it’s happening for real and that’s one part of the reason I’m doing this school stuff. It’s a book of essays about my life in quilting — and so, so much more — and the best way to describe it is to say that if PaperGirl is a snack, Piecing [working title]is a meal. A meal I’m prepping in the kitchen right now. You are gonna freak out when you see what I made you for dinner, you guys — in a good way, as long as I can pull it off.
Sara helped me so much the other day when she read a portion of a chapter and said, “This. This part right here when you talk about pre-washing and then you jump directly into moving to New York — that’s it. That dovetail. I want to see more of these moments. Where else can you dovetail two disparate things in the same way? Think like a woodworker dovetailing two pieces of wood. Does that make sense?”
Yes.
Ever since she said that, I’ve been writing like an absolute maniac. Most of it is garbage. But it’s important garbage and at least a few chunks are keepable. And everywhere I look, I see potential dovetails; places where two things come together and they just fit, even if they’re not “supposed to” or I didn’t think they ever would.
And then the other night, I closed my laptop and went to the sewing machine. Because there was another dovetail I kept seeing. A fabric one.
I sketched out the paper foundation a couple times. The one up there, that’s the one I like the best. It’s an abstract shape and I’m a pretty traditional quilter, so it’s a departure, style-wise, for me. Do you see it? It’s a dovetail. And I made a few sample units with some sashing in between and I felt happy in a way that I haven’t ever before, not quite like this.
It’s happening. Writing and quilting and art. It’s coming together in this new way.
Close enough. Image: My bitmoji avatar made by using Bitmoji app on my phone.
Someone said to me recently, “You’re all over social media!” and I was surprised to hear that because it’s really not the case.
I’ve seen legit social media masters and that ain’t me. Believe me, I see the benefits of being all up in the social media game, posting this video and re-tweeting that, but the only way I can increase my social media reach is to do more social media and I just don’t have it in me.
Being a blogger isn’t the same as being a social media whiz. When I write a blog post, I always let folks know by posting to Facebook and to Google+. And yes, I do enjoy Instagram, but I go in spurts: I’ll be stuck in a coffee line and post a few shots before I get to the register. But I resigned from Twitter because I don’t want to send text messages to the world. I have taken in some light Snapchatting, but I must be too old for Periscope — and I never made a single Vine. I don’t even play games on my phone! By the way, I know Pokemon Go is a game, but is it a social media gamey thing? Like, do you follow people’s games? Probably. I doubt I shall never know.
Using bitmojis is definitely not using a social media platform, but if I socialize with it via text messages, does that count?
In case you don’t know — you probably do — Bitmoji is an app for your phone that allows you to create a cartoon of yourself and then gives you hundreds of “bitmoji” illustrations to choose from to express hundreds of different emotions in your text messages, from “I love you” to “It’s red wine night!” to “Busted!!” to… Many other strange things, e.g., you, as a unicorn, blasting off a rainbow that kind of looks like a fart. It’s so much fun! I’m amazed at how much my bitmoji looks like me and how much my sisters’ bitmojis look like them. Sophie’s got a good one, too.
But yesterday I had a rather awkward text conversation with a friend of mine who is in his early fifties and made his bitmoji.
My friend’s bitmoji did not look like him. Actually, that’s not true: My friend’s bitmoji looked like him about 30 years ago. There were no lines on his face. He put himself in a polka dot shirt for crying out loud — he’s a t-shirt n’ sweater vest kind of fellow — and the body shape he chose for his bitmoji was rather…optimistic. All of these things I tried to tell him super diplomatically when he asked what I thought, but I when he texted me that he was depressed after hearing the feedback but followed up immediately with an “LOL, jk!!!” I knew we had a problem.
When Sigmund Freud was 63, he wrote about being horrified on the train one day when he realized the elderly gentleman he was observing was his own reflection. When I waited tables at Tweet, I worked for dear Michelle, who told me once, “It’s amazing to me when I give a man a wink and then I remember, “Oh yeah: I’m old. How about that.” My friend’s off-the-mark bitmoji showed me that we stay on intimate terms with younger versions of ourselves. Every once in awhile I see a picture of myself and I think, “How about that.” It’s not that I’m one foot in the grave; it’s that I’m not twenty — even if I feel like it. (I often do.)
Bitmoji did not pay me to write this post, unfortunately, but I do encourage everyone to go make one and enjoy it; but make it true to how you look. It’s more fun that way.
p.s. Were you just thinking, “Hey, I wish I could read a funny, extremely short play”? I gotcher’ play right here!
Go patella on the mountain. (Not my knee.) Image: Wikipedia.
I talk to my incredible mom frequently, but she does learn certain things about me via this blog. After all, I blog about five times a week; Mom and I talk once a week, on average, with texts and emails in there as needed. I got to spend quality time with her last weekend in Manhattan — and took a pretty terrific selfie with her and legendary quilters Paula Nadelstern and Mark Lipinski which can be found on my Instagram page right here — and we had dinner and saw Rebecca Fons in a show at Second City in Chicago on Monday, but I never got around to telling her that I have some bad news. Sorry, Mom. Knee-brace yourself.
My knees are in trouble. It’s both of them, and it’s serious.
Admitting this is a big step. Admitting you have a problem is the first step in dealing with the problem and I have not dealt with The Knee Thing for… I have put my head in the sand about my knees for probably two years. But I am making myself accountable tonight. I have to see a doctor. It is getting worse and worse.
Look, when you have Ulcerative Colitis and then you have organs taken out because of Ulcerative Colitis and then you weather infections and things, those events don’t happen in a vacuum. My GI doctor does bone density scans (they’re not fabulous) and we do blood work (hello, iron infusions that cost $750 each) because while no one is “normal,” some people are less normal than others. At least some people have less bone density and iron than others and have absorption issues because of high-maintenance or non-existant intestinal walls.
The constant throb of knee pain that I have may or may not be related to my illness. It could be that I have, along with my other fun body portfolio, plain old “bad knees.” But I’m not overweight, I’m not an athlete, and we don’t have “bad knees” in my family, so I’m inclined to think it’s got something to do with UC, not from an absorption issue but…
This is where the blogger who blogs about her personal life has a decision to make. Do I tell you why I think I have knee pain really? Or what is most certainly compounding it? How much information is too much? If it’s scary to tell you the truth, does that mean I should tell you or does it mean I shouldn’t? In this case, after staring at the computer screen for long minutes, I have decided to tell you the ugly truth out of empathy for other humans who might have the same issue or need to know they are not the only ones.
My knees are shot because of getting up and down off the toilet so much for nine years.
There you go. Sexy, right? So cool. So glamorous. How cute am I now? How together do I have it now? Are you impressed? Did my Facebook likes go up? It’s the truth, comrades, and there does come a point when the truth is the best thing because you’re just too tired for anything else. At my sickest, I went to the toilet 30 times a day. It hasn’t been that bad for a long time. But when I had an ostomy (three years total), I went a ton, just because I hated having anything in my bag. When I got sicker, I went a lot. And now, better but never normal, I go probably 10-12 times a day. When you don’t have a colon, that’s actually a pretty good number.
That’s a lot of up and down, you know? That’s a lot of knees.
When I realized this, when I heard horrible crunching, gritty sound of my knees without even putting my head near them — this started well over a year ago — I was getting up from using the commode. Have you ever laughed bitterly? I mean really bitterly? I have. I did that day. I thought, “My God. My knees are a casualty of this.”
But who wants to have bad knees in her thirties? Who wants to admit why? No one, and not me. I’d rather make quilts. I’d rather work on the book I’m writing. I’d rather make dinner for Mariano (he’s coming over in a little while!) and I’d rather be with you, talking about anything, anything other than this.
My life is so incredible. I love school. I love writing for Quilts, Inc. I love my friends and my family. I adore where I live. I’m embarrassed when I look around at all that I have, really. Knee surgery ain’t that bad. I just don’t know when I’ll do it. Maybe this summer.
Because it’s bad, Mom. They hurt all the time and they click and pop. And I’m really sad.
Croquet Scene, by Winslow Homer, 1866. Image: Wikipedia.
Last week, my “Literary Animal” workshop — can you tell that I really love this class? — left the classroom to take a field trip across the street to the museum. Our assignment: Wander through the hallowed halls and be inspired by an animal in a work of art. From there, we were to write something. Sounds easy enough, right? Sure, except that writing something good is hard, even if — especially if? — it includes some cute little monkey on a Chinese vase dated 610 B.C.
The class fanned out once we were inside. Where did I go? Straight downstairs to Decorative Arts, of course. I thought I might find a cool animal carved into an ash sideboard from 1802, or maybe some jade rabbit on a chair.
I found those and more. There are so many animals in the things we make and paint and carve. We live in a world with animals and they show up, let me tell you. It’s really neat when you go looking for something and realize it’s all around you all the time (e.g., love, generosity, cats, etc.) But though I found lots of animals, nothing stopped me in my tracks until I saw Winslow Homer’s “Croquet Scene,” painted in 1866.
And there’s no animal in it.
Why do we respond to art? Why is it that sometimes, something just clicks into place when we see a painting or hear a song or see a quilt at a show and sometimes, we get nothin’. When I turned my head and saw that painting, my heart and brain flooded with understanding, familiarity, and something close to kinship.
It’s the woman. Do you know what I thought when I saw her? I thought — and this is basically verbatim thought process, here — “She hates where she is. She loathes croquet. She wants to go home. She’s newly married and is alienated from the family she married into. She’s looking at a field mouse and she wishes she were him.”
The animal in the picture isn’t in the picture. But that little field mouse is real.
So I decided to write about that. I tried some prose but I hated it. I decided to do a poem. But what kind? My approach was to do research on the time period and see what sort of poems were popular in 1866 when this picture was painted. I’ll spare you details of the legwork, but I will tell you that Helen Hunt Jackson was a poet popular at that time and I found a one-verse poem by Jackson with a fascinating (read: hard) rhyme scheme: ABABBACBADDADAA.
I know, right?? The prose might’ve been easier in the end. But nope: I went for it, and I’m so glad I did. I really love this little poem, even though it will continue to be polished. I do feel that I captured my heroine’s black mood and her longing for a simpler life. Like, real simple. Field mouse simple. Don’t you feel that way, sometimes?
Ahem:
The Field Mouse Inspired by Winslow Homer’s Croquet Scene, 1866.
(c) 2016 by Mary Fons
I’ve seen him twice, now, run past the ball
Near wicket three on th’ flattened grass
Of this scorching lawn. As we shift and stall
And wait for Ben to make his pass,
That nimble field mouse, cool and fast,
Dips through shade, finds waterfall;
I’d give my life to trade with him.
The petticoats and primers, yet another looking glass,
— Ben’s mother’s high tea protocol! —
Oh, for a tail and four silent feet
To streak as lightning through golden wheat
And leave behind this game and all
The family I must rise to meet.
We kings of beasts are mannered, tall—
But field mouse is free, if small.
William Soutar is one of my favorite poets. I love him so much I wrote a poem about him once. (It’s not good enough to share, yet; maybe someday.) Soutar, who was born in Scotland in 1898, suffered from ankylosing spondylitis, a crippling form of chronic, inflammatory arthritis, and was bedridden for well over a decade as a result. But by all accounts — even in his sickbed he seemed to know everyone who was anyone in those days so there are many accounts — he was beguiling, charming, warm, and obviously an insanely gifted writer.
When Soutar was diagnosed, he didn’t freak out. When he realized that he would no longer be able to play football, or garden, or travel much at all, he said to himself, “Now I can be a poet.”
Who does that?
I also love Soutar because he was a dedicated journal keeper. Me too, Billy; me too. And leafing through a journal from 2013 the other day — I was looking for a picture that I still haven’t found — I came across a passage from Soutar’s journal that I had copied into mine. It’s about why a person should keep a journal.
Or a blog.
“If you ask me why I deem it worthwhile to fill up a page such as this, day by day — shall I not reply, ‘Worthwhileness hasn’t very much to do with it’? The most natural reply might be, ‘Because I cannot go out and chop a basket of firewood or take the weeds out of the garden path.’
Yet that wouldn’t be a wholly honest answer. We are all sustained at times by the thought that whatever we may be we are certainly a solitary manifestation of creation; not a single other creature in all the history of the world has been just as ourself — not another will be like us.
Why not put on record something of the world as seen by this lonely ‘ego’: here and there perhaps a sentence may be born whose father is reality.”
Thanks, William. It’s good to know you think about this stuff, too.
But that’s my living room table-slash-sewing table-slash-second desk, a.k.a. Mission Control. I’ve got a presentation tomorrow (did a mini one today, too) and so many things due and last week I was in four states. I have decided the best way to keep things straight is to a) focus on one thing at a time and b) take pictures of everything and label them with numbers.
(Just kidding about the second thing except it’ll be fun to do it right now so let’s do it.)
Here’s what’s on my desk:
The “Heart Plus” cloth bucket my friend Theresa made for me when I went to Portland last year and saw her and the gang at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild and Fabric Depot. I use it every day, T. (My sewing machine is about two inches from the frame of this picture, by the way.)
My class readings for The Literary Animal class (orange notebook) and my “citizen scientist” fieldwork journal. We read Virginia Woolf’s “Flush” for this week’s discussion. Do you know that novel? It’s great! Woolf wrote it from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. What a woman!
My Tivoli radio. I have to bang on it to get it to work and that’s half the fun.
Pencil cup.
A printout of Winslow Homer’s “Croquet Scene,” 1866. I can’t tell you more at the moment, but just you wait. I’m gonna blow your mind later this week when I tell you about this picture! It’s part of an assignment. I’m freaking out!
I went to visit my friend Sophie’s School of the Art Institute (SAIC) studio today. While we were talking, she took an illustration of a girl reading books in a library off her wall and got out a spiral thingy and took out this thing that looked like a cross between a three-hole punch and a paper cutter and she made me a journal. While we were talking and eating generic M&Ms. She knows bookbinding and just like, made me a little spiral journal while I was complaining about needing just 2-3 more hours in the day. This is art school, I think.
To-do list. (Second one today.)
My latest poem: “The Field Mouse.” See No. 5 and stay tuned!!!
My day planner (yep, paper) and a handout that are the exact same color of banana yellow. I didn’t even plan it.
Log cabin blocks that I showed in class today. Yup: all-white. So many things to tell you, so much art to make, so little energy left in my fingers to type it…
High-contrast blocks I also showed in class today. Guess what? Everyone loves patchwork. Everyone melts when they see fabric in pretty shapes sewn together. Isn’t that what we do, quilting friends? We take soft fabric and we make pretty shapes and we sew them together. When you share patchwork in a class full of art people who are getting writing degrees, you inspire like 90 stories or poems or journal entries, etc., etc. I saw it happen. I was there. It was so awesome.
Dinner with my amazing, elder, Manhattan-dwelling sister and my mother. Mom and I are here for the Quilters Take Manhattan event this weekend; I’m emceeing the big event tomorrow and Mom’s a special guest.
That picture up there of my family is interesting. It was taken of my mom and dad, my paternal grandparents, and my two sisters and me in 1982 at the christening of my little sister Rebecca.
Pendennis is very busy commenting in a hotel room in Oshkosh, WI. Photo: Me.
The new coat of paint that the ol’ PG got a number of weeks ago (thanks, Sally!!) didn’t just make ‘er prettier; it also fixed several things.
You can comment on a post now, for example.
Comments never worked on the old platform. I don’t know why because that’s above my pay grade. (Pay grade = zero grades.) I would’ve liked to see reader comments on the posts themselves but bad things happen when Pendennis tries to change “widgets” on blog “dashboards.” (More on this below.) So my Facebook page was the place where beguiling, effervescent, almost wickedly attractive PaperGirl readers would leave comments. But as many of you have discovered, you can leave comments on posts now and I hope you will.
While we’re on the subject: PaperGirl readers are funny, insightful, compassionate, and have excellent grammar. I know this because of the comments, wherever they may be. I see few typos; I see critical thinking. I see thoughtful sentences. I am often moved to LOL.
I don’t comment back too much, however, because I simply can’t. I can’t! Writing this blog takes many hours a week; to reply to more than a meager few means to reply to everyone and that means adding many more hours to producing the blog. Right now, I can’t afford to do it. If there’s someone out there with buckets o’ money who wants to underwrite the ol’ PG, this will change immediately. You know where to find me.
The other fix that has been done has to do with the broken RSS/subscription button that had been giving me fits for awhile. Please re-subscribe if you haven’t been getting your email when I post a new post! I love you. I’m sorry.
The button was broken a month or so ago when Pendennis tried to be cute and re-write the “Mary Fons: New Post” subject line. He broke it, not me. I would totally know how to not do that. Totally.
So, friend, subscribe and comment and underwrite. Or two out of three.
I was walking with my pal Stephen a few weeks ago. We were both sweating because it was 87 degrees outside. We fantasized about the day when we could once again describe the air as “fresh” and “crisp” instead of “sorta like a wet gym sock.”
“Speaking of gym socks,” Stephen said, “I’ve got tickets to the first Bears home game on the 20th. You wanna go??”
Football is another reason Stephen likes when summer gives way to fall. He was never a sports fan growing up but fell in love with football a few years ago and now he’s really hooked.
Having never set a toe inside Soldier Field (I know — ridiculous!) and also being fond of spending time with Stephen, who is just a cool person, I said yes! I don’t have much time for diversions these days, but how could I say no to a Bears game? My first ever!
It was an incredible experience that I’d like to write about but not in this post. This post is about how I lost my wallet on the way home from the Bears game…and someone found it and returned it to me.
Here’s the thing about going to a big sporting event at Soldier Field: no purses or bags allowed. Well, that’s not entirely true: You are allowed to carry a purse/bag if it is a NFL-sanctioned, clear plastic bag that I’m sure costs $100. The only thing I’m less interested in doing than purchasing a $100 plastic bag is carrying the thing. With these cute shoes?? Are you crazy?? I decided I would leave everything at home and I put my license, debit card, and a $20 bill in this slim little black wallet and put it in my back pocket.
Exactly.
It was so weird to be out in the world with no purse. It almost ruined everything for me. A woman’s purse is her brain and I have lots of things in my purse. Eventually, I relaxed into the experience and watched big, beefy dudes kick a little ball around fake grass and I really enjoyed it. Until I got home last night and realized: no wallet.
Oh, I wept. I wept and gnashed my teeth. How could I have been so dumb? Did it fall out in the stadium? Or in the pedicab on the way back to drop off Stephen? Did it fall out on the street before I went into my building? I was really sunk because in less than 24 hours, I was set to rent a car to drive to Oshkosh to teach and lecture! I would have to go to the DOT and get a new license. Needless to say, I did not sleep well.
This morning, I opened my laptop with a heavy heart to check the hours of the DOT and of course clicked open my email to see if anyone had given me some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award overnight. And there, better than any Lifetime Achievement Award, was an email from Ryan B:
“Hello, Mary: I believe I have your wallet. I found it last night on the sidewalk outside of Shedd Aquarium. Please contact me at 123-456-7890. Thank you, Ryan.”
Ryan and his wife were riding bikes out at the Museum Campus where Soldier Field, the Shedd, the Field, the Planetarium, etc., are located. They spotted a little black square on the sidewalk — amidst a sea of people! — and they picked it up.
I made strange sounds of joy and gratitude. I wept. I called Ryan. I babbled thank you, thank you at him and praised his True Goodness and possibly weirded him out when I said, “Mister, you’d better tuck those angel wings into your jacket before you go to work!” and then he told me he’d give my wallet to his receptionist and I could come by anytime today and get it. His office is downtown; it was a 10 minute bike ride from my Literary Animal class at school. I had my wallet back — debit card, $20 bucks, and license intact — before 1:00 p.m.
When I spoke to Ryan, I asked him if he had any food allergies because I’d really like to give him a treat, a reward for returning my wallet. He protested:
“No, no. No reward needed. What goes around comes around, you know?”
He’s right — but no way was I not gonna do something nice for this guy. Rather than treats, I decided on a Starbucks card. If I had buckets o’ money, I would’ve gone in for $100 and really wowed him; instead, I put $20 on the card, the exact amount I thought I’d lost forever.
Thank you, Ryan. You did a Very Good Thing and I thank you. We all do!
Finding an image for this post in Wikipedia was a tough one. I think the red of the robe and the look of defeat work nicely, though! The Remorse of the Emperor Nero After the Murder of his Mother, by John William Waterhouse, 1878. Image: Wikipedia.
After a spectacular day at the Pine Needle Quilt Shop today — wow, wow, wow — I got to the airport with time to get something to eat.
Oh, Geri, Jim, and the amazing folks at the Pine Needle tried to feed me. The event was catered, even, with tasty boxes for the attendees that contained mini-quiches, scones with lemon curd, fruit, and a sugar cookie in the shape of my logo. But when you’re signing books, smiling for photos, chatting with quilters, and telling stories about stuff, even if you can get food into your mouth, you’re not gonna have time to chew it. It’s best to wait.
Once I found my gate, I decided to get some pizza at the make-a-pizza place. It’s great. You can put whatever you want on your pie, no extra charge, load it up, go for it, baby, we’re Portland! As my margherita pizza was baking in the wood-fired oven, the gentle hipster asked me if there would be anything else — wine or beer, perhaps?
Now there was an idea. At 3 p.m. it was a little early in the day, but I had more than delivered at two different jobs, I was no longer on the clock, I love red wine with pizza, and I’m a grown woman with an electric bill and student loans.
“I’d love a red wine,” I said to the kid. He actually said: “Right on!”
He hands me my wine — which, true to that groovy Portland vibe came in a plastic cup with the pizza place logo on it — and I pay. I turn to walk to the counter to get napkins and red pepper. I take two steps…and slip and fall.
The floor was slick. My sandals are slick on the bottom. Gravity is weird. Portland has invisible moss all over it. I could try and figure out why I slipped, but it matters not: I went down. Everything happened in .03 seconds but I remember much of it: the spluttering in shock, the way the wine in my glass shot up in a column of red, the gasp of the crowd — oh, there was a huge crowd of people around, naturally — as they saw me turf out.
Later, the girl nearest to me would say with admiration, “You really stuck the landing.”
She was right! I only went down as far as one knee and I kept my wine cup in hand the whole time. Nothing spilled out of my purse or totebag. But the wine had gone everywhere: the counter, the floor, all over my right arm. My first thought was not, “Have I broken a bone?” but “Great — I am going to spend the rest of the day smelling like the janitor’s closet at a Napa Valley winery.”
The gentle hipster was at my side right away. When it was established that I was okay and I had turned to the crowd — the crowd! — to announce this, my guy offered to pour me another cup of wine. This time, I did not deliberate. He gave it to me along with my pizza, which was now done, and I turned, gravely, to return to the task of getting my napkins.
The other kid working the place was cleaning up the wine spill on the counter. He turned to me and asked, “Do you want the rest of this?” gesturing to my nearly empty original cup. I laughed and said “Sure,” trying to be sort of insouciant about all this, casual, giving off a “Hey, I fall all the time, this is what I do for fun!” kind of easy-going attitude. I put my napkins in my purse and when the kid gave me my original cup, he had filled it back up.
“Oh!” I said. “You’re so sweet. But your buddy already refilled me.” I did not need two cups of wine.
The kid looked at me and back at the wine and over at the other cup of wine near my pizza box. He shrugged. “You can have this, too, it’s okay.”
Walking carefully, now with a small pizza box, a purse, a totebag, and two plastic cups of wine, I made my way to a table in the foot court area in Terminal C. I sat down. I enjoyed my pizza. And I had just a couple sips of wine, but I didn’t linger. Because all I could think of was some family that had seen me fall looking at me from across the expanse of tables, the mother shaking her head and saying:
“You see that woman? That pathetic, pathetic woman who fell? She’s drinking two cups of wine, kids. Two cups of wine all by herself in the middle of the day. I’ll bet that’s not the first time she’s embarrassed herself in public. I’ll bet she goes back for more when she’s done. Okay, Braden, let’s text Grandma and let her know our flight’s on time.”
Book-signin’ and quilt-rappin’ in Portland today. Photo: Amber at EE Schenck.
I’ve been around quilters all day and I’m full of love and a strange sadness. My sadness comes from wanting to be everywhere at once.
When you gather enough momentum as a quilt teacher, you can practically live on the road. PaperGirl readers have seen me come close to that at times; the last time I was in Portland, gigging at Fabric Depot and the Portland Modern Quilt Guild about a year ago, the trip was sandwiched between two other trips, which were themselves part of a travel schedule that I think involved Phoenix, Denver, and Houston — in a single month.
And while it is not an easy life — running for a taxi in the rain in a dress dragging two huge suitcases of quilts is bad no matter who you are or how much you love quilts — it is a life that puts a quilt teacher where she thrives: in rooms with quilters. The more gigs you do, the more rooms you’re in. The more jobs you take, the better you get at making these things. The more contracts you accept, the more gorgeous fabric you get to pet.
And then there are the quilters.
Today, I talked to a person who makes quilts for a battered women’s shelter. She does this because she escaped a violent husband after 30 years of suffering and, as she put it:
“There’s nothing like a quilt when you don’t have much. I make them and I take them over there. It feels good, you know?”
I talked to a grandmother whose pride for her sewing-obsessed granddaughter was so great, she tripped over her words trying to tell me about all the wonderful things Ilyana was making these days, how she’s begun to design.
There was the pair of women who came all the way from California just to hear my talk because, as one of them said:
“You and your mother are my friends. You’re in my sewing room every week! I had to come give you a hug, sweetie.”
My decision to pursue my master’s is the right one. I feel it in my bones, in my sewing machine pedal foot. Synthesizing my writing, quiltmaking, skills as a presenter — this and so much more is what I can do at the Art Institute. But out there with all the quilters today, from 8 a.m. till 7 p.m., I thought, “What if I’m wrong, if I’m being ridiculous? What if I should’ve stayed put? What if people think I’m abandoning them? If I’m not hugging hundreds of quilters every month, does anything I do toward this real-but-nebulous larger vision really matter?”
It’s not about me. I know it. Just one foot in front of the other.
Ms. Cramm and her quilt. Make sure to read to the end of the post and you’ll get more on the story of the quilt and Susan, too. Screenshot: Me.
My friend Susan asked me to go to The Moth with her on Tuesday night. It was an easy sell.
For one thing, I enjoy the popular storytelling event. (If you aren’t familiar with The Moth, you absolutely should be; make a note to google it when you go.) In addition to taking in some quality entertainment, by seeing The Moth I’d be doing research for the storytelling class I’m teaching in a couple weeks at the University of Chicago. But the best reason to say yes to hanging out with Susan is Susan and her wonderful laugh. So I said yes.
Susan is kind, smart, pretty. She’s brave and great at storytelling (she has won The Moth many times as a result.) She’s generous, she’s loyal — all that Good Person stuff. But it’s her laugh that wins. Suze’s laugh is one of the best things about her.
Do you know someone with an incredible laugh? A laugh that makes you laugh with pleasure? Susan’s got one of those. Her laugh is life-affirming. It is round, generous. Susan’s laughter bubbles up from her core then launches into space, fully-formed, in a sonic celebration of everything that is good in the world. Susan’s laugh calls to mind rose bushes and robins’ breasts: full, lusty things.
This is not normal. Most people just laugh. I decided, sitting next to Susan at The Moth the other night, clapping my hands with glee every time she found something to be funny, which is often, that I would have to further investigate. What follows is an email interview I did with the one and only Ms. Susan Cramm, who I am now dubbing, “The Queen of Mirth.”
PaperGirl: When did you become aware of the uniqueness of your laugh, Suze?
Susan Cramm: I think I’ve always been a full-out laugher. I think it was finally commented upon in college. I would go see friends and classmates in shows and they would say that they knew I was in the audience. The first time I was called out by a performer was in 2003 while watching a Punch and Judy show at the Whiteside County fair. The puppeteer had Mr. Punch say, “Hey lady in the back, will you come to all my shows?”
PG: What makes you laugh?
SC: Oh, most anything. I’m easy. Regular funny stuff, bad jokes, good jokes, puns, pet videos, everything. The absurdity of life.
PG: I have had the pleasure of sitting next to you at a number of performances. Sometimes I see you cover your mouth with both your hands to stifle your laugh. Have you been in situations where your laugh was not welcome?
SC: I do get looks every once in a while. I’m loud and sometimes people don’t like that.
PG: You and I have a friend in common: Bilal Dardai. He is someone I would pay to be an audience member if I put on a show because he has the best laugh. Well, the two of you tie, anyhow. Would you be interested in hiring yourself out for audience stunt work? Have you ever been paid to laugh?
SC: I love Bilal! I will gladly take a comp ticket. I believe it would be considered a conflict of interest with my job if I were to be a paid audience member for a play. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Do you not love Suze for taking this question 100% seriously??]
PG: A mellifluous laugh like yours makes me wonder about your singing ability. Do you sing?
SC: I do not sing for other people to listen to me. I sing at church with the congregation, along with the radio if it’s extra loud, and, like my mother, I sometimes sing what I’m doing — but I’m hopefully alone when that happens. I’ve been told I do hum a lot without realizing it.
PG: Do people want to talk to you all the time about your laugh? Are you giving any other interviews?
SC: I do have people come up to me after shows — talent and audience members — to say thanks and that it “opened up the room” to laugh with me. I’m not giving any other interviews about my laugh; PaperGirl has the exclusive on this story.
PG: Tell me anything else I need to know about your laugh and what it means to be you, Suze.
SC: I could not have as big a laugh as I do without also having had the experience of the body crumpling, snot inducing, wailing sob of an ugly cry. Not everything is funny. Also, you are the only person allowed to call me Suze.
You can get a little taste of Suze’s (!) laugh because… She guested on a 2012 episode of Quilty! Dig that short hair on me and the really, really cool polyester quilt we celebrate together. Times like this, I really miss that lil’ show.
I’ve dragged my feet getting survey results out because I am overwhelmed.
On Monday, I had my first seminar class. It’s not like regular class where you have textbooks and assignments. In a couple weeks, for example, I’ll be giving a presentation on the grammar of quilt patterns, my personal quiltmaking practice, and — because this is how I roll — a quick-but-comprehensive history of the American quilt. I can’t wait to share with my School of the Art Institute colleagues — except that I definitely, definitely can.
Because there’s a lot of other stuff going on. For example, this weekend I’m keynote-ing and doing several events at the big EE Schenck “TRENDS” conference in Portland. On Sunday, I’ll be zipping over to The Pine Needle Quilt Shop to lunch and teach, which is great, because the first event is not open to the public but the Pine Needle totally is. I’m not sure there are tickets left for the Pine Needle, but if there are and you can get there, come hang out with me! We can talk about all kinds of things and pet fabric together. I will answer any question. Any question.
With seminars to write and quilt shops to love, I realized I had better start releasing my survey data in chunks or I’ll never get it out at all. So let’s talk about this inkblot.
All y’all’s answers to the “What do you see?” inkblot question inspired many reactions in me, including but not limited to: delight, mild concern, deep concern, melancholy, mirth, and introspection. Good job! Below are the categories of what you told me you saw in the inkblot and some of the answers I received.
Animals (Or Animal Parts)
Seahorses, a cow, dragons, a deer, a steer, a skull, a bull, dueling shrimp [three people said “dueling shrimp”], fighting deer/stags/reindeer/wildebeests, kissing pigs, a bat, two turkeys, “Seahorses dancing in coral,” “crayfish, moose, and flowers,” “Elephants riding giant hamsters,” “deer escaping fire in a forest,” a giraffe, deer standing on clouds, “two moose coming out of the water in the fall,” an elk running up a mountain, a puppy, a praying mantis, koalas, “I see a moose, bunnies, and peaches,” “a cow’s head wearing an Elizabethan collar, smelling tulips.”*
Anatomy
a uterus/innards, a pelvis or pelvic bones/body parts/abdominal x-ray, an animal skull/bones, ovaries, “kidneys, pelvis, dislocated femurs,” a vagina [they actually wrote “va-jay-jay”], the pelvic x-ray of an alien
Love
two people kissing, kissing people, two lovers, people in love
Quilts
Two people said they saw the colors for their next quilt!
Wiseacres
A couple people said, “I see nothing, feel nothing” and another wrote, “I see an inkblot.” Very cute.
Let’s go with “Other”
a witch
a lady dancing on apples with fire for her hair
“two potbellied gargoyles…medical Mary Jane…”
“maidens dancing on chickens wearing Chinese dragon headdresses”
a nude back in a wine glass
a captionless image
poppies in front of a lake with a sunset
a demon
four hearts, two lungs, and a fiery gate
a messy glass of wine
two trolls arguing
“I was surfin’ and a tuna tried to eat me!”
One other quick thing: Many people thought the “How old did Mariano turn out to be?” was a trick question or a pop quiz. I didn’t mean it to sound that way; I never told you how old he is, actually. I wanted to know what you might have speculated. Most of you got it wrong. You guessed too high.
Airline meal ad detail, c. 1953. Image: Wikipedia.
The survey results are coming, I promise. Until then, I’ve been fascinated by some of the answers to the question, “Any PaperGirl entries stick out in your mind over the years?”
This one got several nods. In the interest of getting some sleep for heaven’s sakes, today’s post is archival. WARNING: This story involves “cute” little girls that aren’t, actually, a stern airline attendant, and farts. And if that doesn’t make you want to check it out, surely this will:
The Lady Clare, by John William Waterhouse , 1900. [Based on the poem “The Lady Clare” by Alfred Lord Tennyson.] Image: Wikipedia.
Is that a white deer in the Waterhouse painting up there? Do white deer exist? When I first looked at it, I thought it was a lamb, but I’m okay with the animal being a deer because I made braised lamb shank over the weekend and served it to Mariano over polenta with pan sauce and I’d feel just terrible if I had to look at a lamb after just cooking one up in a pot with vegetables and serving them to a hungry mailroom guy, you know?
Why are you looking at me like that? You have the most amazing look on your face right now. What in the world…?? Did I say something? Did I do something? What’s so interesting about lamb shank? You’d better take a deep breath and just calm down. I’ll tell you more about the lamb shank later if you really want me to, good grief.
Now, then, let me share about one of the marvelous classes I’m taking! The class is called “The Literary Animal.” Fantastic. Here’s an excerpt from the class description:
“This course concentrates on animal as character — either as narrator or designated subject — in nonfiction, fiction, poetry and hybrid forms… We do animal observations, create generative exercises, and take a field trip. We investigate: How does one’s identification of and curiosity about animals inform a text? What are the issues surrounding sentimentality and animals on and off the page?”
Wow! You should see the reading list.
If you are familiar with my fabric line you know I love fabric with animals on it — not animal print, mind you, which I do not like, but fabric with tiny animals printed on it. When I spy a little animal print in the patchwork of a quilt, the whole quilt feels warmer and more friendly to me, so I put lots of animals in Small Wonders fabric.
Ergo, there are plenty of animals in my quilts — but hardly any in my life. I live downtown. I have no pets. I have not managed to make friends with someone who owns a working ranch (or even a chicken farm.) In the city I see squirrels, pigeons, and the occasional rat, but this is my main connection to the animal kingdom and this is kind of sad. “The Literary Animal” is changing all of that.
My first assignment was to be a “citizen scientist” and observe an animal for 15 minutes, then write down my observations. Guess where I went? Guess what animal I observed? Well, I observed a turtle!! I rode my bike to the Shedd Aquarium and watched a turtle with a real bad attitude for 20 minutes and then I wrote down everything I saw and thought about in my special notebook. I could start a whole new blog about that turtle. I won’t. But I could. Also: Turtles make you think about things that have nothing to do with turtles.
“The Literary Animal” is a graduate-level class; there are only five of us in the room, plus professor Cross. Tomorrow morning, when we all share our experiences and the pieces we wrote, I get to go to the zoo. I mean that figuratively, but in two weeks, we’re actually going to meet at the zoo.
![The Lady Clare, by John William Waterhouse , 1900. [Based on the poem "The Lady Clare" by Alfred Lord Tennyson.] Image: Wikipedia.](https://www.papergirltoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/The_Lady_Clare.jpg)