Spiderweb in scrappy browns and a consistent red, currently on my design wall. Photo: Me
It’s the strangest thing.
I teach patchwork techniques. I speak about quilts to audiences large and small. I write about quilts at least twice a month in my column; I even wrote a whole book about quilts and edited a magazine about them for several years. And then, at the end of the day, when I drop my suitcase or I turn in this or that, record for the podcast, or take care of this or that piece of quilt-related business, I want to sew. How can it be?
It must be the power of making. Creation can never be boring and is rarely something to which a person has to drag themselves. The temptation of adventure through creativity is hard to resist. That pile of fabric scraps, that template, that cutting mat. What will come from it? What colors will come together? What shapes?
It’s the same with writing for me. Playing with words came before playing with fabric in my life; before I was absorbed into the world of quilts I couldn’t stay away from the word thing and I still can’t. The only reason I miss days posting on PaperGirl is because the night comes and I am too tired (or am otherwise engaged) and I can’t plunk myself down and get it done. I don’t like those days.
There was a poster at the Atlanta show that asked, “What will you create today?” It feels a little poster-ish to repeat here, so I’ll rephrase the question:
What act of making is irresistible today? And what are you going to do about it?
Not yet available on iTunes, sadly. Image: Wikipedia
Being in Atlanta reminds me how much I love the southern part of this country. Women from all over this region came to the show; I met Tennessee ladies, girls from Alabama, and a South Carolina lady who stole my heart. You know how you just zap with a person, sometimes? It’s the face, the smile, or the laugh — it could be the accent — and you recognize it, somehow, and maybe you can’t say why, but you’re just happy to be there. I had that feeling with this lady. We’ll call her Sue. Here’s how the conversation went:
“Mary. Ah was so excited to get the chance to meet you. Ah just luve your show. Ah watch it ev’ry week. You and your momma are just so sweet together.”
“Sue, you’re too kind — thank you. Thank you for watching the show. I like working with my mom, so it’s not too bad of a job. Where are you from?”
“Ah’m from Ninety Six, South Carolina.” She gave me a warm smile as I cocked my head, which is what every person who does not live in Ninety Six, South Carolina has ever done to Sue when she tells them where she’s from. “That’s raahht,” she said. “The town ah’m from is called Ninety Six. Now, isn’t that funny?”
Utterly charmed and curious as everyone else, I asked her why her town was named after a number. Sue told me that as legend has it, a young Native American woman had a boyfriend in the British Army. I interrupted and said that did not sound like a good idea.
“Oh, you’ve got thaht raaht,” Sue said. “Mary, it’s just a legund, but ah lahk to think it’s true. Anyway, she rode nahnty-six miles to tell her little boyfriend the British were coming. And that’s how Nahnty-Six got its name.” Sue was quite proud of her town and its peculiar name. I’d be proud, too — especially because my town’s high school football team would wipe the floor with the team from Ninety Five.
We chatted. Sue told me she was a breast cancer survivor. I gave her a high-five and asked if she was staying on top of check-ups and things. Sue patted my arm and said quietly, “Well, ah’m afraid it’s back, honey. It’s in mah lung this tahm.”
My eyes burned. Dammit. She was just so awesome. Dealing with cancer at all, let alone again — the pointless, “Why?” lodged itself into my brain and nearly eclipsed the moment we were having. Sue said she came to the show to enjoy classes and exhibits, to spend time with friends and to meet me, too. “It’s been a wonderful tahm,” she said. “Ah told mah husband, ‘Ah’m going to that quilt show and if mah doctor says I can’t, you tell him ah’m goin’ anyway!”
Sue, it was a pleasure. Now you go wipe the floor with Ninety Five.
Would that it were pink. Photo: Thomas R Machnitzki, courtesy Wikipedia.
I touched down in Atlanta this morning and had to find a way to get across town — way across. Here’s a travel riddle for you: There are 25 miles between an airport and a gig and getting a lift from a pal is not an option. What do you do? Do you rent a car? Take a taxi? A shuttle service? A limo service, hm? Nope, in 2016, you order an Uber.
Uber is a company that has created the perfect way to order a taxi. You tap a button on your smartphone that pings where you are, then you tap out where you want to go. You hit, “Request Uber” and a bubble pops up that tells you exactly how long it will be before your taxi picks you up (usually it’s two to four minutes.) You can watch on the map where your car is in real time. Your ride arrives to your exact spot on the globe, you verify each other by name — riders should check the license plate numbers, too — and you’re on your way. Oh, and there’s no cash; the Uber app keeps your credit/debit card number and the ride is charged after you get out of the car. I love this service.
You can order a regular taxi, a fancy black SUV — maybe even a limo — or you can order an UberX. UberX cars are driven by anyone with a car and the ability to meet Uber’s strict requirements for signing on as a driver. When you order an UberX, you don’t get an actual taxi: you’re getting picked up in Dan’s Ford Taurus, say, or Shonna’s Toyota Camry. UberX is cheaper than a taxi and way cheaper than a limo. Here’s the solution to the riddle: a “real” taxi to the convention center today would’ve cost me $100; shuttle service, $80. An UberX ride? Thirty-six bucks. I placed my order.
As my driver drove up, I waved. He stopped the car and got out and I was about to say, “Hey, I’m your Uber” when Glenn — his name was Glenn — who was already helping me with his suitcase, said under his breath, “We work together. Don’t get in the backseat, get in the front.”
This was unusual. As in Sketch Town, USA unusual. And hey, man. I’m from Chicago. You can’t hustle me. “Woah, woah,” I said, putting my hand on Glenn’s arm so he couldn’t get my suitcase further into his trunk. “What is this? I’m looking for my Uber.” Glenn said, just moving one corner of his mouth, that UberX cars weren’t allowed to pick up at the airport and the cops were looking at him.
Great. Thirty minutes in Georgia and I’m breaking laws. But I rolled the dice; I got in. Most of the time in life, you’re not going to get kidnapped and tossed in the Chattahooche. Besides, I needed to get to work.
On the way over, Glenn asked me if it would be okay if he stopped to pee (he said “pee”) and get fuel. Sure, Glenn. Besides being repelled by his hacking cough there in the front seat, I actually enjoyed the ride. We got to talking; Glenn was a world-traveler. He’d been to Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan, many others. I just asked him about his big trips while I was on this small one.
A picture of Diana Vreeland in my “Why Don’t You?” book. Photo and fingers: Me
One of my heroes is Diana Vreeland who is counted among the most influential magazine editors of all time. Diana edited the most important fashion magazines in the world: Harper’s Bazaar from 1936-1962, Vogue from 1963-1971. She was fabulous the entire time, and there are many witnesses.
I love the way this woman spoke, walked, behaved. Throughout her time at Harper’s, Vreeland wrote and ran a list called “Why Don’t You?” in every issue. The “Why Don’t You?” list was full of ideas that Vreeland had about how you should approach your closet, your dresser, your very attitude toward life, vis a vis fashion and home decor. The “Why Don’t You” ideas are frequently absurd and it’s kind of hard to tell if Diana was putting these suggestions out in an ironic way or if she was entirely serious about every last one. (See: ermine bathrobe.)
Tonight, a few of my favorite “Why Don’t You” ideas, taken from a short biography called Diana Vreeland: Bazaar Years, by John Esten. I take this book down when I need some air.
Why Don’t You…
turn your old ermine coat into a bathrobe?
wear loose velvet gloves in wonderful colors — the right hand in violet velvet, the left in burgundy? These gloves at the theatre emerging from a beautiful fur cape would be very effective.
waft a big bouquet about like a fairy wand?
wear fruit hats? (currants? cherries?)
use Battersea enamel saltcellers as ashtrays?
have boxes copied after Russian Easter eggs in dull enamel and jewels to keep on your afterdinner coffee tray for saccharine for all those who do not take sugar?
use a gigantic shell instead of a bucket to ice your champagne?
*Readers of Quilty magazine may recognize that I put a “Why Don’t You” list in early issues of the magazine.
It could be an ad for silk pajamas. It could be an ad for something…else. Either way, image courtesy Wikipedia.
This coming week has me heading over to Atlanta to teach and speak at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo. This is one of my favorite gigs to do because I get to see Marlene. Marlene is the brains behind the Atlanta operation among other, similar operations and has been a friend and mentor to me for years. She was most publicly my friend when I went down in flames in Atlanta a number of years ago; without her help, I might still be casting about in the halls of a hospital in Georgia, filling out endless forms in triplicate and not getting the good kind of pain medicine.
Whenever I go to Atlanta, I am reminded of the first time I went to Atlanta. I was traveling with Bari; like Marlene, Bari is the sort of person you want around when the zombie apocalypse comes. It was awhile ago, but I remember Bari needed to drive to St. Louis to deliver something to her grandmother. That sounds like a cover for something, but I think it was legit. Bari grew up in the Atlanta area and her parents still lived there; for some reason, it made sense for her to drive to Atlanta and then go on to grandma’s house. Bari and I were living together that summer and she asked me if I wanted to go. I had no plans and I loved Bari. We got in her SUV and got on the road.
Bari’s family home was the finest house I had ever been in up to that point. The architecture, the interior, the grounds — these people had impeccable taste in every area in which impeccable taste matters (e.g., food, art, dogs, etc.) And they were all so nice! Within an hour of being welcomed inside, I got used to the fact that there was a grand staircase in the front of the house and a back staircase in the back of the house. I wanted to live in the kitchen and could have, perhaps with ten or eleven other people.
Bari showed me to my own guestroom where I had my own bathroom and my own balcony, I think. There were silk sheets on the bed and I had packed silk pajamas. When I got into bed that night, I really slid around.
All the comfort of that home was thrown into sharp relief the week after: I went to visit my boyfriend Dan in New York City and we heard a dog get shot. Dan lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a decade before Bushwick began to be remotely cool or safe. I didn’t like being there, but I really liked Dan. One night, we were going nuts listening to this dog bark and bark and bark and bark and bark and then we heard a gunshot and the dog didn’t bark anymore.
In life, as in patchwork, contrast is what makes things interesting.
I’ve been asked, “How do you come up with something to write every day?”
There are two parts to the answer. The first is that I want to be a decent writer and the only way to get decent at something is to practice. It’s true for a violinist. It’s true for a bridge player. I’ll never be a great writer, and I know that. Earnest Hemingway was a great writer. Virginia Woolf was a great writer. Both of those writers committed suicide, though, so maybe I don’t want to be a great writer.
“Now, now, Mary. Plenty of great writers did not commit suicide.” I’ll say yes, that’s true, and why are you speaking to me like a governess? The point is that even though I’ll never be great, I can be better than I was last year, hopefully. That’s the goal.
The second part of the answer is that I’m a naturally observant person and things that I see frequently make me intensely sad, excited, or confused. Frequently I see comedy, or at least what I perceive as comedic. I find those things worth examining more closely, even if they are otherwise insignificant things and they usually are. Writing stuff down is my preferred method of more closely examining things. I’m a terrible oil painter.
I suppose there’s a third reason: I like writing PaperGirl so much that if I miss a day, I’m grumpy. There was a spell this past holiday season when I was really lax and it was uncomfortable, like having a poke-y tag on my shirt. So sometimes I just plain make myself write about something because I don’t sleep as well if I don’t.
This morning was strange. I drew a blank. My aborted or curtailed travel plans were off the table. I didn’t want to write about my body. I couldn’t think of something funny that happened to me. I did see a shooting star the other night but I didn’t feel like being woo-woo. So I did something I’ve never done, which was to google, “non-fiction writing prompts.” It turned out to be a very good idea, because none of the prompts inspired me, but the act of looking up writing prompts was a writing prompt in itself. It also prompted me to create my own prompts. You have my permission to use them.
What is your personal credo? Closely examine your feelings on olive loaf. What stops you in your tracks? How do you feel about adults who take tango lessons? Explain. What the heck is wrong with you and what are you going to do about it?
Wanged the back of my leg so hard I whined about it for 30 minutes
The to-go coffee I got was lukewarm
Someone stole my cell phone
I can’t talk about that last thing. There was weeping. When anything goes wrong with my mobile phone, I am reminded how much I resent them for having to exist, to be on my person, and to function perfectly at all times. It’s just a cell phone. But still.
The last thing zeroes out any woe I might’ve had about modern technology because modern technology is to be thanked for the whole podcast thing. If you don’t know by now, my mom and I have started a call-in advice show for quilters. You don’t have to be a quilter to enjoy it, but if you are a quilter, you will freak out.
Here’s hoping you find some things in your day that are so good (e.g., good falafel, good hair, good heavens, etc.) they cancel out any bad things (e.g., bad apple, bad dog, bad company, etc.) That podcast will make you smile, so there’s that.
Yesterday’s story about quitting a restaurant job in the name of making no money in the name of art reminded me of other tales, all from my early twenties. I did not sleep well. Thinking back on my early days in Chicago, I am filled with a 2:1 ratio of compassion and chagrin: I love the girl who moved to a major city alone, knowing no one, having only a vague idea of what she was going to do once she arrived; I wince when I think of what bar she thought was cool and which lampshade she chose to wear on her head while she hung out there. Youth is wasted on the young — and youth was wasted last night, too.
I moved to Chicago before smartphones. In black and white, here, right now, I am officially “dating myself,” which is something that until this moment, other people older than me did. Well, here we go: I’m dating myself, but I remember what it was like to move to a new city and not have a magical electronic map in my pocket that talked to me. I had a foldout thing I got for graduation, a wing, and a prayer. Just one wing? When has one wing ever worked?
I did not know my way around the city. At all. And I didn’t know anyone, either. I got off the Brown Line train at Wellington a couple days after I had gotten my apartment. The Wellington Brown Line station is on Wellington Street of course. But my apartment was twenty-six blocks west of that station. All I knew was that I lived on Wellington St., so I was like, “Oh. Okay. Well, I don’t know where I am but I live on Wellington, so I’ll just call this one good.” I got off the train. And I walked twenty-six blocks. I realized I was really far away from where I needed to be, but I was on Wellington and the numbers were going up, so I just kept going. I couldn’t spend money on a cab. I didn’t know the bus lines. If I had had a smartphone, that never would’ve happened. Because GPS is watching.
I’d like to say, “And I’m glad I didn’t have a smartphone! That was good for me, that horrible, hot, summer day in Chicago, walking miles and miles.” But it wasn’t good for me. It was bad. I was sad, lost, and alone. There’s no other way to say it. It took so long.
The image above conveys perfectly my disorientation that day. The word “Wellington” always reminds me of “Paddington,” as in Paddington Bear. After seeing WikiCommons’ offerings for the Wellington El stop, I searched for images of Paddington Bear. Nothing good there either, so I went for “Wellington boots.” This image of a Japanese theme park came up on that page. That is actual Japanese in the caption. I have no idea what it says.
My point is that thirty-six is is better than twenty-two; thirty-six with a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is better still. I will try not to be twenty-two in tomorrow’s post.
When I was new in Chicago — this is fifteen years ago, now — a friend of mine helped me get a job as a hostess at a downtown restaurant. The restaurant was a citywide chain so popular, Saturday night at the host stand felt straight-up dangerous. Elbows were thrown. Twenty-dollar bills were passed to the maitre-d’ for special treatment (woe betide the tipper if the guy from out of town waiting three hours already spied the exchange.) Wine was sloshed. It was loud. And it was an hour commute on the train from my tiny apartment in the middle of nowhere.
I had learned to eat well in college. I worked as a waitress at a cafe there in Iowa City and got my culinary education — and dating the head chef for most of that time meant I got, you know, tutoring help and stuff. By the time I got to Chicago, I actually knew a little about wine. I could make a pan sauce all by myself. This small-town girl not only knew what sweetbreads were, she would order them if she found them on a menu. Aside from the occupational hazards, being a hostess just felt wrong. I was in a restaurant but not doing what I could do. I knew a restaurant job was what I would have for awhile, but the role and the restaurant had to change.
There was an ad in the Chicago Reader for a waiter at a two-star (Michelin stars, that is) restaurant on Taylor Street. Let’s call it The Fancy Napkin. This place was gorgeous: an upscale French bistro owned by a Moroccan man who looked like a swarthy James Bond. The cafe sat sixty, tops, outfitted in impeccable white linen; the waiters wore impeccable white bistro aprons. Each wine glass was spotless and the lights from the chandeliers glinted off them all. Steaming bowls of boulliabaisse. Crusty baguettes. And if you wanted to spend north of a grand on a bottle of wine, the restaurant would be happy to help you do that.
I applied. There were no female waiters, just three dudes, one of whom had been there over ten years. I had to take a wine test. I had to answer serious menu questions. I forget what the owner asked me, but it would’ve been things like, “What is canard? What is mille-feuille? Pair wine with the caviar plate for me.” I got an hour with the menu and then had a quiz. I did very well on everything and the owner offered me the job. But I had a problem.
The theater company I was a part of was producing our first show. I had a small part in the second act. There was zero money. And I had rehearsals at night. As a hostess at the chain restaurant, I could be in the play: I’d just work the lunch shifts. But not at The Fancy Napkin — there was only dinner six nights a week. I told James Bond I would be thrilled to take the job and then gently broached the little matter of needing Wednesdays and Thursdays off for awhile, then swapping those out for the Friday and Saturday nights I’d need for the play. But not for long! Just four weeks or so? Sir?
This did not go well. After expressing his extreme displeasure over taking so much time to vet me, he told me something I will never forget: “Marie, you can be a poor artist. Or you can make a lot of money at this restaurant. But you can’t do both. Decide now. Do you want to be poor and in a little play? Or do you want to live?” I was speechless. I needed money. But the play. Theater was the reason I came to Chicago. But money. But art. But rent. But love. Oh, no, no, no. I was twenty-two years old.
So you know what I did? I took a walk around the block. Someone had told me once that if you have to make a big decision, take a walk around the block and say to yourself firmly, “By the time I get back to where I started, I will have my decision.” It works. You speed up the decision-making process. You get closer to the end of your loop and you’re still in a quandary and then bam! The solution presents itself. The whole way around the block, walking slowly, I didn’t know what to do. But when I got to the door, I did.
The first time I come to the Seattle area and it rains all weekend. What are the chances?!
After a phenomenal experience at the big Puyallup show — thank you to the event hosts and the hundreds of great quilters I met — I’ve come here to the Sea-Tac airport. My flight is in about an hour-and-a-half, but I am at my gate and have been at my gate for a little while. Here are three rules I live by:
1. Never eat Taco Bell, ever.
2. Do not buy deodorant at the drugstore because baking soda is much better.
3. When you’re flying someplace, arrive at the airport as early as you can without camping out overnight, which makes you look like you’re homeless and require aid.
What being early to the airport does is make it impossible for you to be running late to the airport. Running late to the airport is the worst. If you like prickly heat up and down your back for an hour — or more, depending on your proximity to the airport — this is not true for you. For most of us, though, prickly heat is suboptimal. If you straight up miss your flight (e.g., oversleeping, miscalculated departure time) you’ll experience shock and denial. But to just be running late means you might be okay and it’s that “We could make it… We may actually do this…” feeling that is its own special kind of hell. Traffic, ticket counter, security lines — they’re all blocks to your goal. So I avoid all that and get to the airport two hours early. Besides, I get work done at airports because I can’t go clean the kitchen in the middle of writing emails. I can’t decide that I want to work on the couch for awhile and then fall asleep. I must stay alert.
There’s a famous food item on offer at the Puyallup State Fairgrounds. It’s the Fisher scone and there’s only one kind, and it is only sold at the Fair. You can try to make the scones yourself from the mix Fisher sells on their website, but if you want the real, warm, raspberry jam-filled deal, you need to go to Puyallup and get into the fairgrounds. The Fischer flour company started selling these scones over a hundred years ago. Everyone I met in the first hour of being at the show was like, “Didja get a scone?” and “Have ya heard about the scones?” and “Oh, you gotta get a scone while you’re here.”
Obviously, I got one. Now, I stay pretty far from gluten (this goes back a long time, now) but from time to time, I remind myself that inflammation in my janky abdomen is bad, two bites of a scone is not going to put me in the hospital. So I took that modest-sized, warm, jammy scone from the wax bag and bit into it. Wow. I took another bite. Still good. I put the half-eaten scone on the bag, took this picture, then put the leftover in my tote bag for later.
“Later” was five seconds later. Thanks for a great time, Washington state. Time to board.
David Neville, the guy in the foreground up there, is an American sprinter who specializes in the 400-meter dash. He’s a gold and bronze medalist, and in a race in 2004, he clocked 9.8 meters per second. Almost ten meters asecond. Basically, he bends time and space and practices a lot. That’s what we know about David.
The picture above was taken at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. It looks like David’s falling, but that’s actually him diving for the finish line. He came in third on this one which, whatever, David. Clearly, you didn’t want it enough. Five-thirty a.m., tomorrow. All-day practice and I’m bringing two stopwatches.
Yesterday at the airport to beautiful Puyallup, WA to headline the big Sewing & Stitchery Expo event tomorrow night (I’m also doing signings and a demo and basically hanging out and having fun, so check the program and come see me), I saw not one but two people trip and almost fall. Neither case was a serious one; these were able-bodied people who would not have sustained serious injuries if they had gone down. One lady was stepping onto the moving walkway and kinda gave her hair a toss as she did. Well, her inner ear didn’t like that too much and she pitched forward and barely caught herself. “Waa!” she cried, and then she was okay.
The other guy, he was wearing shoes with grippy rubber, I guess, because he was just walking and tripped on the airport floor. “Gak!” he cried, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. It goes without saying that both of these people did the embarrassed look-around after they tripped to see if anyone had seen them. Usually, someone does, but it’s really no big deal.
But if they do see, if you biff hard in front of a lot of people and you really do fall, you just say, “Haha, oh, no. I didn’t fall. I was diving for the finish line.” People will look at you like you’re not well in the head and that’s good: they will forget about the falling entirely. Instead of telling their friends later, “Oh, man. It was so hilarious. I saw this woman turf out at the airport today,” they’ll say, “Today at the airport I met the craziest woman I have ever met in my life.”
Michigan Avenue AT&T store not pictured. Photo: Wikipedia
It’s been a tough few days. Battling anacondas. Liquidating a Fortune 500 company. Quashing a pandemic seconds before it’s unleashed on the Earth by a villain. Seriously, though: it’s been a tough few days.
Canada has been cancelled. Peru has been cancelled. Let’s call it health reasons and leave it at that. Bon soir, Montreal. Adios, Cuzco. (Balls, I say, and that’s plain English.) But life is consistently weird and often lousy and what can you do? Well, fun things. You can do fun things and try to not be as lame as you were yesterday. That’s all you can do — and that’s advanced stuff.
I walked up to a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and got done early. Feelin’ blue, I did what any red-blooded American would do in my situation: I went into the AT&T store to see if I could get a new phone. It turned out that I could, provided that I promised my firstborn child to the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell. Sure, dude. Do I sign with my finger or the stylus? Doesn’t matter? Right on.
The upside of getting a new phone at the phone store is that you don’t do any of the data transferring. You punch in your password and the tiny magic doo-dads are synched by someone who won’t ruin everything. The downside is that it takes a very long time. If you amble into the phone store and think you’re going to amble on out with a new phone in twenty minutes, you are incorrect. I learned today that “getting a new phone” may be something I procrastinate about when time comes to do it again. It’s not a “Let’s play hooky and go get a new phone!” proposition; it’s an errand.
That is, unless someone groovy helps you. Then it’s a blast. Bekie, an extremely pretty Hispanic girl with hair that I will never, ever have and could never even fake, greeted me at the door. I told her what I was after and she walked me through my options. I could have a dinner plate-sized phone or a turkey platter-sized phone. I went with the dinner plate, but it was tough choice.
While we waited for Samsung to transfer all the information it has on me from one X-ray spy machine — sorry, phone — to another, me n’ Bekie got to talking. We talked about men. Boys, really. We moved through relationship drama, jobs, other jobs, past lives, patterns, dreams, annoyances. We covered territory like we hadn’t seen each other since college, but I was just a customer, she was on her shift..
The tables at the AT&T store on Michigan Avenue are high-tops, so when you’re sitting down you have the feeling you’re in a bar. Several times over the course of my two-hour relationship with Bekie, I had to get over the uncomfortable feeling that our waiter was really slow bringing our drinks. It was just that friendly there in the AT&T store. Bekie told me her eight-year-old daughter recently turned eight.
“Oh, that’s great. I’ll bet she had a princess party. Is Frozen still cool?”
“Yeah,” Bekie said. “It’s still cool, but she didn’t want a party like that. She wanted to go to this adventure place, like an activity place. I took her. It was really fun.”
When my phone was done, I gathered up all my things and gave Bekie a big hug.
On Saturday at QuiltCon in L.A., I gave my favorite lecture on The Great American Quilt Revival. I rehearsed the talk twice that morning though I’ve given the lecture many times; I’m a Girl Scout at heart and try to always be prepared. Usually, mostly, I am.
At rehearsal, there on my bed, wrapped in my robe, wet hair, stopwatch running on my phone, I realized I was finished with the talk with ten minutes to spare, which surprised me; I usually take about an hour with that one. Maybe I was excited and clipping along faster than usual, I don’t know. But there I was with the luxury of extra time. I thought to myself. I chewed my lip. I looked in the mirror. And I decided to use that leftover time to make a statement. As I say in the clip above, everything I think I know is up for revision, except in a case where someone I care about is getting beat up. Then I do know something, which is that I want to help. The road to hell, yeah, but there are times being neutral is as unhelpful as feeding flames.
Most of the kerfuffle about my friend has taken place online, which is not surprising and also disastrous, because no one is accountable. Not being accountable for character assassination seems wrong, but there’s a lot on the Internet that’s wrong (e.g., 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc.)
I’ve been guilty of online snark, but I can say with sincerity I’m cured of it. Last summer, I said something unkind about someone on this blog. It got back to her and it was awful. That day, I knew that can never be something I do. This little impromptu, impassioned speech is indeed an argument and shows ire toward those I disagree with on the issue at hand. The difference is that instead of writing a blog post or responding to comments online, I took a place onstage. You can see my face. There is no avatar. I’m not hiding behind a computer. I’m speaking to you, and you, and you, ready to take it on the nose.
You can disagree with me — I hope some do, for the sake of moving forward with an important conversation — but it seems that to be taken seriously, you must be informed and be willing to identifyyourself as a whole person. Otherwise, your content is as good as my backhanded comment this summer, which is to say that it is no good at all.
Who’s got spirit? Me, but I can’t jump that high. Photo: Wikipedia
I realized late in college that running regularly on a treadmill made me slim and chipper. It was because I had these jeans. They were tight. And white. They were tight, white jeans. I wanted to wear them so bad. After a month of working out, I tried them on and they didn’t just fit: they looked killer. I’ve been keen on exercise ever since.
But the gym is smelly. Shortly after moving to Chicago, I abandoned the gym and became a Serious Yoga Person and enjoyed my Serious Yoga for many years. But yoga is expensive. So not long ago, I found myself a rudderless ship. I needed a captain. Who would stretch my hammies? What mode of exercise would I find that would make it possible for me to still eat the frosting off of donuts and have bacon?
Well, a few months ago, a new day dawned for my hammies because I found love. I found a woman named Anna Renderer and I love her in my living room, all alone.
Anna Renderer is the lead fitness instructor-slash-host of PopSugar Fitness, a division of the PopSugar lifestyle brand. (Like you, I barely know what that term means.) There are hundreds of exercise videos on PopSugar Fitness’s YouTube channel, all around 10-60 minutes. Bikini body workouts, circuit training, ballet, weight-training, pilates, yoga, cardio “blast”, dance — any workout you want to do, it’s likely PopSugar has one for you and Anna is going to be there when you click over. Sometimes she’s the lead trainer, sometimes she’s one of the students taking the class from a guest instructor. Either way, Anna is there, smiling with those endearing dimples, calling out, “Yeah, guys! You’re rockin’ it! Wow, this is really gettin’ at those abs, right? I’m feelin’ that! Oh, my goodness! Come on, just one more, guys, I know you can do it! Awesome!”
My favorite thing is when Anna’s leading the workout and she turns to the other two girls in the room and uses her conspiratorial voice. During a tricep kickback she’ll say, voice a little quieter than usual, “Do you guys feel that? In the tricep? Isn’t that awesome?”
Never in my life have I enjoyed death by squat jumps so completely. Anna is tireless. She is cracking with energy the entire time and you don’t hate her. It’s not fake. She is actually cheerful and she actually wants you to succeed in your exercise today. How do I know? Oh, I know. I’ve hosted hundreds of video tutorials. Hundreds. I know what level of energy it takes to do that sort of work and I never taught jumping jacks in my how-to videos. The girl is legit — and when you’re doing knees-and-toes, you need legit. You don’t want to know what knees-and-toes are because they are very hard.
PopSugar isn’t paying me to write this. (The videos are free and I don’t advertise on PaperGirl so I don’t know how they’d pay me if they offered.*) I just want Anna Renderer to know that she’s doing a good job because her job involves a black hole and that can really feel lousy. The black hole is the unblinking eye of the camera and I know it well. There’s no way for Anna to know what/how people are really doing at home when she tapes an episode. There’s no real-time audience feedback. When you tape a class for the Internet, it’s just you, the red “Record” button, and what you hope is happening in the void. Anna, it’s happening. You torched my quads, girl. You’re doing a great job and you make me want to work out. Use that conspiratorial voice more. It’s the best.
*If there is PopSugar promo merch, I would absolutely love a hoodie. Just in case you have some of those things in boxes someplace, I would wear that thing everywhere.
It’s been a long few days, so today we’ve got an archive pick. I met some lovely quilters from Kansas City at QuiltCon and they reminded me that I love Kansas City and I really love eating pork there.
I’m going on a 3-week backpacking trip to Peru. I leave tomorrow.
Just kidding. I can’t leave tomorrow because I’m still at QuiltCon in Los Angeles. I go home to Chicago tomorrow. Next week, I’m the keynote at the big Sewing & Stitchery Expo in Washington state; the week after that I go to Canada; I’m at OSQE in Atlanta the week after that and then I’m going on a 3-week backpacking trip to Peru. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I do not have any children, pets, or plants. I only have shoes.
My world-travel portfolio is slim. It’s been years since I needed my passport and this trip will be unlike any I’ve ever taken; I’ve only been to Europe and the Balkans. I’m going to need some good world-traveler advice and, lucky for me, I have a trusted source.
My sister Rebecca and my brother-in-law Jack are world travelers. For the past five years or so, they’ve celebrated the New Year in a place far from home. One year, they rode Icelandic ponies in Iceland; another year had them eating haggis in Scotland. They hung out with the kids running around the grounds of the Taj Mahal year before last; they drank warn, sugary, mystery drinks from vending machines in Tokyo last year and this year, Jack and Rebecca went to Vietnam. I’m in awe of their sense of adventure and their photographs. Rebecca and I had lunch the other day and I told her I was going to Peru.
“Get a pee-pocket,” Rebecca said, and gave our ticket number to the stir-fry guy.
“A what?”
“A pee-pocket. It’s a little pouch you wear and then when you have to pee and all there is is like, a hole in the ground, you’re fine. It’s like a little funnel.” Our bowls were put up on the counter and Rebecca took the tray. “Pee-pockets are like two bucks apiece on Amazon. I’ll show you. Can you grab chopsticks?” She wears her world-traveler mien well.
“So why are you going to Peru?” Rebecca asked, biting into a sugar snap pea.
I told her that Claus has time in mid-March before he goes back to Germany and was thinking of going on a trip someplace cool. He asked me if I’d like to go with him and I said that I would have to a) check my schedule and b) learn what “cool” means. To my surprise, my calendar was open. When we discussed “cool” places to go, we came back again and again to Peru. After much thought, research, and deliberation, we purchased plane tickets to Lima which, I’ll have you know, were $500 roundtrip. Hotels will be about $30/night total, and the buses and trains are cheap, too. This is not a luxury trip, but it’s amazing how far your money goes in Peru; we’ve confirmed this with people who have been there.
“Peru sounds good,” Rebecca said. “Have you gotten your shots?”
“No, not yet. I have to do that today. Do you have someone?”
She pulled out her phone and gave me her travel doctor’s office number, which was in her list of contacts. “I’ve gotten all the juice I’ll need for awhile,” she said. “Hep A, Hep B. I’m all hepped up. Listen, don’t wait to get your shots; some of the immunizations you have to start up to four weeks before your trip.”
It’s many weeks before the trip and I’ve got my travel doctor appointment set up. I’ll share more about where we’re going, what we’ll see (Machu Picchu, of course), as well as my impressions while I’m there. As Claus told me recently, “Mary, if you can’t take three weeks — three weeks — out of your busy life to go do something wonderful like see Peru, your priorities are out of order.”
Mom and I have launched a podcast. It’s called “Quilt Your Heart Out: Pithy Advice for Patchwork & Relationships” and it’s a weekly call-in advice show for quilters. Quilt Your Heart Out is now available at QuiltYourHeartOut.com and on iTunes.
We will take your calls on the air. Yes, we are waiting for your problems! It could be a problem with your borders, it could be a problem with your boyfriend. We take all comers.
There will be a celebrity guest each show — sometimes we’ll just chat about life, sometimes we’ll focus on a new project they’ve got going, sometimes they’ll take a whack at a listener question — maybe yours. There’s a trivia question each month, too; if you answer right and your name is drawn, you get a prize from one of our advertisers. There’s a recipe each week, too; not all quilters like to cook, but all humans like to eat, so we feel a featured recipe will be well-received.
There’s also a feature called the “Social Media-Shout Out.” This is a nod on the show (and in the blog) to someone doing notable work in the quilt world online. The Internet was good for a lot of communities (Trekkies!) but it’s been especially good for people who want to share their begging-to-be-photographed, colorful, meaningful, functional art with as many people as possible.
You should call in with a question right now. Call 773-273-9120. Or you could email your question: questions @ quiltyourheartout.com. Visit the website to get all the instructions, though: there are instructions!
CRUCIAL NOTE: We’re new at this. The only way we could be newer is if we didn’t know what a podcast was, but we do know that. The team is me, Mom, and Heather, our intrepid producer. But we are starting at zero. Mom and I lecture together and we do TV together, but radio is surprisingly different. And learning how to record and mix sound, well, turns out there are colleges that take four years to teach you how to do all that. But we jumped in, because that’s how we are. We’ll iron everything out (hey-o!) and we so want you to jump in with us and enjoy Quilt Your Heart Out each week.
Please be super-fans and do the Facebook thing, click the “share” button. Tell your friends. Subscribe on iTunes. Leave comments, follow, all those things that make or break a project in 2016.. We are having so much fun already; the more momentum, the more fun you’ll have listening to QYHO for many, many happy hours in the sewing room.
Optometrist appointment reminder postcard, c. 1935. Image: Wikipedia.
I got to go to the optometrist today. I love going to the optometrist. I always have — and I mean that in two ways: I have always loved going to the optometrist and I have always gone to the optometrist because since I was in second grade or so, I have required vision correction. Whenever I see a shorty with glasses, I get a pang. Kids under six look adorable in glasses but most of them don’t think so (I didn’t.)
The optometrist is great because there are so many interesting tools used to examine you but none of them are sharp or contain fluid. You sit down in a comfortable chair. You put your chin in a cup. The doctor comes close and shines a tiny light directly in your eye but for some reason this is not a problem. You look at letters on the wall and try to read them. Whether or not you read the letters correctly, the optometrist gives you praise: “Okay, great. Let’s look at the next one.” You don’t know if you’re right or wrong about the letters and you don’t care that much. You’re just in a quiet place with someone who cares about your eyes.
You’ll think I’m kidding, but I’m not: the sound of test lenses dropping into place as the doctor goes, “Is 1 better? Or 2? Is 3 better? Or 4? 5 better? or 4?” — that entire sequence is my favorite sound in the world. There’s something calming and drowsy about it, but it’s impossible to explain. (Probably an ASMR thing, if you’re familiar with that.) If you’ve never been to an eye doctor, you have no idea what I’m talking about. If you have been to the eye doctor, you do know, and I’ll bet you love that, too.
It took some time to tweak my slightly-changed prescription, so my optometrist and I got to chatting as I swapped out this and that contact. Did you know optometry school takes four years? It take four years after an undergrad degree. I don’t know why I was surprised; a person who works exclusively with the health of freaking eyeballs should probably study for awhile before they do that.
My right eye has felt tired, lately. I was hoping it was because I was straining to see out of it, that I needed a stronger prescription. As that is not the case, I am still mildly concerned about this. But it only happens when I wear my contacts; when I wear my glasses, I’m fine. I’m not excited about wearing my glasses all the time, so I hope this tiredness goes away. I’d like to have options, which is precisely how I felt when I was six.
Me and Mom, goofin’ on the mic. What can it mean? Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux, Chicago, IL.
My mother and I are embarking on a New Endeavor. It’s big. It’s bold. It launches this week.
Mom doesn’t need another project. I don’t either, but at least I’m not renovating a movie theater. But we can’t help adding another worthwhile project to a stack of others because we’re people who love to do stuff that sounds exciting and we love to make things that feel good to make. We find room.
I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but I’ll tell you very soon. And when I do, you should have your phone in your hand. Most of us have our phone in our hands all the time, so that won’t be hard. “But wait,” you say, scratching your head with your phone, “Why would I need my phone for an announcement? Are you guys on American Idol?** Do I need to text my vote?” I think the only way to handle this until I can tell you is to play Mad Libs.
“This week, Mom and I are launching a [NOUN]. We’re sure that our [PLURAL NOUN] will love it and will [VERB] every week. We’ve been working very [ADJECTIVE] for many months on the [NOUN] and feel ready to announce it to the [NOUN] on Thursday. The best way to learn what the [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to [VERB] and [VERB] and [VERB]. See ya later, [ANIMAL]!”
Anything worth announcing to the public should be put through a Mad Libs process first. Not only does it get people actively involved in the event, there’s no way the actual announcement won’t be received well. If your work with the passage above looks like this, there’s no way you won’t be relieved when you learn the truth:
“This week, Mom and I are launching a FROG. We’re sure that our POTATO CHIPS will love it and will DROOL every week. We’ve been working very STUPID for many months on the UMBRELLA and feel ready to announce it to the BOARD OF TRADE on Thursday. The best way to learn what the STINKY BOOGER is? Read PaperGirl and check in on Mary’s Facebook page and get ready to CHOKE and WORK and SUFFER. See ya later, DUCK!”
*I’m sure this is a) not how American Idol works; b) hilarious because American Idol was canceled six years ago or something; or c) extremely offensive because American Idol is run by a fascist dictator. I assure you, I don’t know.
A picture of sprinkled donuts: the safest picture there is. I think. Photo: Wikipedia
I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a better example of a person putting her proverbial foot in her mouth than when I posted about Beyonce yesterday. It’s hilarious, except not.
Apparently, there is a big controversy surrounding Beyonce right now. It has something to do with her Superbowl performance. I had absolutely no idea about this. I’m serious: I had zero knowledge that Beyonce is all over the news and that indeed, that her team of lawyers is extremely busy right now. Perhaps you don’t believe it. Perhaps you think, “What are the odds? How could it be that you wrote about Beyonce and litigation and not know that at this very hour, there are angry mobs calling for her head?”
I didn’t know because I don’t have a television and I don’t watch the news. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Superbowl in my life. It’s fine if such broadcasts are your thing; it’s just not mine. I watch stuff on my computer when I sew (I like Hoarders) but as for network news, televised events like the Grammys or basketball championships, it’s dark around here. And I don’t read the newspaper much, either. Irresponsible? Idiotic? Maybe, though there’s a good argument that the more you watch the news, the less you know. Outside of ensuring you have enough information to make an informed choice when you go to vote, it’s been my experience that you don’t need to watch the news all that much to know what’s going on in the world. You just have to pay attention, talk to people, and keep your eyes and ears open.
Today, I wonder if this is the correct approach. To anyone who was horrified that I would support Beyonce after a ruinous concert, I assure you, I didn’t know a thing about it. Coincidences are weird. And hey, I might still support Beyonce after a ruinous concert — if there can be such a thing — but you know what? I’ll never know! Because even after I saw folks upset about the post, I still haven’t googled anything about Beyonce’s cultural dust up. I don’t want to know and I don’t have to. I assure you, in one week, Beyonce will slip from the front page and go back to the celebrity page. Sometimes, I can’t even tell the difference.
Beyonce performing in Barcelona, 2007. Photo: Wikipedia
I was walking along yesterday, looking down at my feet and the brick sidewalk underneath them when out of the clear blue, I thought: “Someone is Beyonce’s lawyer. That’s their job. When someone asks them, ‘So, what do you do?’ that person actually says, “I’m Beyonce’s lawyer.'”
This thought kept me occupied for at least forty-five minutes. I had to go to CVS. I decided to get a hamburger. I almost went in to the library to renew my library card but decided that was too much work. But all of these activities took place in the background of my brain as I thought about someone whose job it is to be Beyonce’s lawyer. It was bitterly cold, so I had my wool hat pushed down low and my big scarf wrapped around twice and pushed up high, so all I was was a walking puffy coat with two eyes blinking out, thinking about Beyonce’s legal team.
It’s a team for sure: there’s definitely more than one lawyer servicing Beyonce. I googled “how many people on Beyonce’s legal team” but nothing turned up. There’s got to be at least twelve: two senior attorneys are in charge of contracts, probably, and they both have at least two assistants. Another guy leads the team fielding all the lawsuits against Beyonce, Inc. from serious ones to wack-a-doo ones; another pursues lawsuits Beyonce, Inc. is filing against other people (probably legit) — and they’ve got their own assistants, too. And maybe there’s just one lawyer who serves as her advisor only; Beyonce’s consigliere, whispering in her ear.
The more people the better, I thought, because then there are more people on the planet who can say, “Oh, I’m Beyonce’s lawyer” as they take another cheese cube from the snack table. If I was the one who asked that person, “So, what do you do?” and they said, “Oh, I’m Beyonce’s lawyer,” then I would say:
“Wow! Seriously?? That’s amazing! Wow! Beyonce’s lawyer. How about that. Do you like it? I mean, that’s a really exciting job description!”
He (I don’t know why it’s a he, here, but it is) would shrug and say, “Well, it’s a job. I mean, long hours and the usual stuff like anybody else, I guess.”
My eyes would get big and I would say, “No.”
“No what?”
“You are Beyonce’s lawyer. Beyonce. You are her lawyer. That is amazing. You help Beyonce. You help her live. Beyonce is your boss. She pays youmoney. You have Beyonce as your boss. You’re a lawyer for her.”
The guy would stare at me and swallow his cheese cube before he was completely done chewing it. “Y-yeah, I mean… It’s definitely cool. Absolutely.” Then he would say it was nice to meet me and lift his glass as he took off. “Cheers, nice to meet you.” He would move quickly.
Then I would stab a strawberry with a toothpick and eat it, shaking my head. “Jerk,” I would think. And, just to be petulant, I’d use the same toothpick to stab another strawberry but I wouldn’t eat that one.
Carl Sandburg’s kitchen. National Carl Sandburg Historical Site. Photo by Billy Hathorn, 2012, courtesy Wikipedia.
I knew I wanted to write about my stove tonight. And since I often go to ol’ WikiCommons to find an image before I begin to write anything — it shapes the thing, you see — that’s precisely what I did: I went to the Commons and searched for “stove”.
And what do I find, searching “stove” on WikiCommons? A picture of poet Carl Sandburg’s kitchen. That kitchen up there, that’s how Carl Sandburg’s kitchen looked in 1950! No wonder he was such a prolific, successful poet. All that white cabinetry and a big tub of Crisco? His life was a poem. He just wrote it down, probably in that kitchen.
Anyhow, this post is about stoves because I have a problem I need to think about, which is that I hate my stove. This is hard to say because my mother told us girls that we could never tell someone to “shut up”, and that saying you “hate”something — definitely saying you hate someone — is to be avoided at all costs. So I’ve been resisting. I’ve been taking deep breaths. But it’s hopeless. I hate my stove.
My master bathroom and kitchen renovations were complete two years ago, but I didn’t have much time to be with it all before I did the One Year New York City Experiment. I was insane to leave my home after enduring those construction guys in my home for nine months; insane to leave the gorgeousness that was not cheap and was also sparkly new. But it seems that this is how I do things and yes, I’m as perplexed as you are.
Now I’m home. And I’m all up in my kitchen. And this stove is killing me.
There are a number of issues:
1. The oven takes forever to get to temperature. It’s so slow, I continue to think there must be something wrong with it.
2. It’s an electric range with a glass top. I do not like electric ranges, but my building doesn’t allow gas ranges. I can’t talk about it. Aside from being an inferior way to apply heat to pans, a glass top electric stove is impossible to keep clean. Am I missing something? Every drop of water shows up.
2.a. …and it’s not safe! Look, I’m a reasonably intelligent person but if I turn a stove off and come back to it ten minutes later and do not see fire, yeah, I am likely to put something on the stove. Because I need the space, okay? With my lame stove, I have no visual cue that there is still heat coming from the surface except for an anemic little dot of light that says “HOT”. So I’m in trouble, especially if I’m not paying attention and I am often not paying attention.
3. There’s a dial you have to turn to choose your oven setting. It’s a loose dial. If you go too fast, you blaze past BAKE to CONVECTION BAKE to WARMING OVEN to BROIL to CLEAN and all you want is to pre-heat for a batch of cinnamon rolls and now the thing is beeping at you to make a decision for heaven’s sake.
4. Too steamy.
5. If you press a button on the panel twice in a row before it resets or whatever, it goes “Beeeeeeeep. Beeeeeeeeep. Do you hear me beeeeeeeeep.” And it’s like, chill. Chill, oven. Except wait. I have a better idea. How about you don’t chill but actually allow me to get to 375-degrees sometime this decade? That’s a much better idea.
Gritting your teeth 70% of the time you engage with your stove not a tragedy. But there is a certain discontent that comes when you buy a big-ticket item and realize you may have made a mistake. I haven’t had a car since college, but I imagine discovering you hate the car you just bought is similarly rough. It’s buyer’s remorse of a legit kind: this isn’t a blue fox fur bolero you bought while vacationing in Sedona — this is one of the largest things you own and you actually need it. And you’ll probably own it for a long time. You’ll have to clean it for a long time. It looks at you. You look at it. For years.
I have not yet told my stove to shut up. There is bread in the oven as I write this. Bill Withers said, “We can make it if we try” and no one in the history of the world has ever had buyer’s remorse where Bill Withers is concerned.
No fooling, my bread kinda looks like that — but that is not my bread. Image: Wikipedia
I made bread. From flour.
I did this because I cannot stop watchingThe Great British Baking Show and, aside from being hopelessly in love with that Paul Hollywood, I find myself absorbing all this baking information and desire.
It’s absolutely clear to me why people become obsessed with baking things. It’s a fascinating, tasty form of entertainment. There are things about baking that make total sense to me: fermentation, moisture, steam, proving, etc. The more I bake, the more I will fail, so we’ll see just how much sense I have. But I didn’t look too closely at a recipe for bread and I got a darned good loaf of bread out of my oven around six-o-clock. My husband* has a great little video tutorial online; I watched that a bunch of times and then just sorta winged it.
What’s weird is that my system doesn’t handle bread very well. Here and there, I can eat a bite. Mostly, this bread-baking curiosity is simply that: curiosity about how bread is made. My bread-eating friends will benefit, and that’s a good reason to explore this.
I’ve said often that I don’t want to learn to knit because I cannot possibly have another thing I love to do as much as sewing. There’s already not enough time for making quilts; you want me to sit down and purl? No way. But now I have a problem.
Artist Jean-Marc Plumauzille’s rendering of Centre-ville, Montreal, 2010. Image: Wikipedia
Well, the announcement of a Canadian adventure was released and what do you know? The effervescent and shamefully gifted members of Montreal’s Loose Threads Quilt Guild contacted me about coming by to give a lecture when I’m in town. It’s like a pop-up shop for quilters — with a lecture!
And so, my Kute Kanadian Kwilting friends, if you’re in the area, you’re invited. The event will be the evening of March 2nd in the scenic village of St. Luc. The exact time and venue are being worked out, but the girls are on it. There will be an admission fee; again, check with the gals at the guild or watch my Facebook page for more details.
I know I have not given you a ton of information, but this is all I know for now. Mark the date if you’d like to hang out, and sit tight for details. I have an email address for the events coordinator who contacted me and I thought about posting that here, but I haven’t asked for permission and seeing as we don’t have an actual contract yet, I’d better not do that. I might find myself swiftly uninvited to give a lecture in Montreal. Again: if you want to join, just mark the calendar and I will update with info as soon as I can.
March 2nd is Claus’s birthday. He said, “It appears I spend my birthday among quilters.”
I told him he doesn’t know how good he’s got it. When a guild hosts a special evening, cake is de rigeur. Like, there will probably be cakeat the event already. Birthday cake is covered, I told Claus. Everyone in America knows that if you go somewhere on your birthday and there is cake there, that counts as birthday cake.
“Cake,” I said to Claus, with a slow nod of my head. “You’ll see.”
At certain kids’ pizza arcades, you can jump into a huge roomful of these. Image: Wikipedia
Creating the tags for these posts is enjoyable for me; tags on a blog post are strings of words that will help people google search for the post later. Like, if you liked my post about considering the moon landing hoax, you might type into your search box, “moon landing mary fons blog” and, because I wrote that tag into the post, you’d find it easily.
I have a lot of fun writing those tags, and I always (always) end my long list of tags with something having to do with chips. Have you ever read those tags and wondered why I do that?
