Mary Fons - PaperGirl

26 Nov 2014

The Thanksgiving Bowl.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Sicky, Travel | 0

A cheerful greeting from the Apple Valley Lanes website.

Thanksgiving is on WiWi this year, and I am presently nestled in a nook.

The nook is the cozy, upstairs reading room at our island cottage; the nestling is due to me sitting in an over-stuffed chair (replete with ottoman), a well-worn quilt wrapped around me so that I am a quilt burrito. It would be great to have armholes in this quilt burrito but it’s bad for my reputation to go around cutting armholes into quilts. I adjust.

We couldn’t get from Chicago to the last ferry boat last night, so we had to stay on the mainland; “we” is me, my younger sister Rebecca, and her fiance (and my friend), Jack. We have a favorite little motel in Sturgeon Bay but it was too early when we got there to turn in for the night. The options for movies were lackluster at best, and I have no idea what possessed me, but when my sister said, “Well, what should we do tonight?” I blurted out, “Let’s go bowling!”

Rebecca and I both took bowling in high school. At Winterset Senior High, bowling, square-dancing, line-dancing, and tinikling for some incomprehensible reason. I remember being pretty good at bowling and liking it, but I have not kept my game up since.

We found a wonderful bowling alley very close to our hotel. The Apple Valley Lanes in Sturgeon Bay gets two thumbs way up. The proprietor was friendly, the onion rings were scalding hot, the shoes were sufficiently deodorized and Lysol-ed, and best of all, there was room for the three of us to have our own lane, our own computer to keep score, and a table for our drinks.

Jack was excellent; Rebecca was quite good, once she warmed up. I was excellent to begin with but in the second of three games, an evil spirit entered my bowling ball. My last game, I bowled a twenty-seven. Twenty-seven! I can hardly admit it.

My body has been absolutely in agony the past week. The stress of the move, the upheaval, the changes in work — the ol’ girl’s run ragged, I’m afraid. Terrible nights turn into excruciating mornings and I beg for sleep only to wake again, run to the bathroom, weep, bathe, and do it all again 30 minutes later. I say this because a) writing it out here it makes it not feel like a nightmare that only I see; and b) it makes three hours at a Sturgeon Bay bowling alley not just fun but fundamental.

Twenty-seven?!

25 Nov 2014

Quilt Now: A Day In the Life of Mary Fons (Feature)

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life | 0

A screenshot of the article because I have not the skills to post the piece as a PDF.

As editor of Quilty, I schedule, select, and edit a great number of features about the quilters of today. But this summer, friend and colleague Katy Jones, editor of the UK magazine Quilt Now, featured me. I was flattered and wrote a “Day In the Life” piece for her. Here is the text from that piece. It’s great until the part where I talk about how great it is to be in love. I forgot I wrote that part.

Anyhow, thank you, Katy! And everyone, if you can get your hands on a copy of an issue of Quilt Now, do it. It’s a great magazine and I’m honored to have been able to write for it.

A Day In The Life of Mary Fons
by Mary Fons

“Whether I’m traveling or at home, I wake early. Usually very early. Pre-dawn. When I was a kid, it was so hard get out of bed. I remember thinking how weird it was — weird and enviable — the way adults like my mom just naturally got up in the morning with minimal fuss. Of course, I would learn that plenty of adults would like to sleep in, but for most of us, getting up in the morning does get easier as we get older. This is likely due to the fear of responding in an at least somewhat timely manner to the crushing pressure of daily living.

If I’m home, I rise and immediately made a large pot of tea. If I’m on the road, I rise and immediately make hotel room coffee. Either way, there is lots of milk and sugar involved. I can do exactly nothing until I’ve got hot tea or coffee in my hand in the morning, and that’s that. The morning tea or coffee time is for me to write in my journal or read. Sometimes, when I’ve got a big event coming up or I’m under deadline, I’ll use that tea time to work. But I prefer to have my tea or coffee for an hour with just personal pursuits that involve both reading and writing.

Then it’s time to produce. I edit Quilty magazine, and plan and host the Quilty show online. I speak and teach across the land, host a webinar each month, I’m working on a new book, and I do numerous other projects at any given time, so there is always slightly too much to do. I do not, at press time, have an assistant. That would be amazing.** So I’m on my own to write copy, tweak copy, book travel, send bios and teaching plans, stitch, and otherwise coordinate All The Things. I also blog (nearly) every day and I see my blog, PaperGirl, as an integral part of the Mary Fons “thing,” so that is most certainly a priority, even though it makes me zero income.

I’m a freelancer, a contractor. It’s kind of an odd set-up, since I do the vast majority of my work for one company (F+W) but I’ve been a freelancer since ‘05 and I’m stayin’ alive. I like the freedom that comes with it, even though there are frequently invoicing headaches, checks to track down, and of course I have no employee benefits and have to do my own taxes. Still, for a creative person such as myself, I can see no other way to live. I can work at 6am or 6pm, on the road or at home, and there are no clocks to punch. (I would probably actually punch a clock if I had to “check in” for work at this point.)

There is a downside to working this way: I work almost constantly. It’s not the working I mind, but there are times when I wish a janitor would like, shut the lights off in the office and tell me to go home. There is no janitor. I do have a partner now, which is very good; he can tell me to stop working or not take on another project. When I was just a single gal, living for the city, there was no reason to not take another road gig. No one needed me at home to make dinner or, you know, just be home because that feels good. I’m not suggesting my existence was bleak — I rather enjoy being a career gal — but it’s been wonderful to have someone sort of put their hand on my shoulder and tell me to chill out for two seconds and sleep in once in awhile.

I do have my fun. I’m a Bikram yogini, so I go sweat it out in the hot yoga room. I just moved to Manhattan from Chicago, so now I have NYC as a playground and I do intend to start playing asap. I like to dance. I love to read and write. And I really, really love to design and make big scrap quilts. So that’s fun for me. And I mentioned the partner thing: I am wildly in love with someone who fascinates and delights me and teaches me all kinds of new and wonderful things. That’s my fun, too, just being with Yuri.

I think a lot about how short life is and how I, Mary Fons, have to do something extraordinary with my time here. I don’t have a choice. I don’t know when I go to bed. When I’m tired, I lay down. I suppose it’s usually around midnight. And I dream, dream, dream. And then I do it all again.”

23 Nov 2014

Electric Memory: Electric Youth Perfume

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Luv, Story | 0

Trudging through Kmart yesterday, my sister and I both had the same disorienting experience at the exact same time: we both caught a whiff of Electric Youth perfume. Here’s what that moment looked like:

MARY: “Dude. I just smelled Electric Youth.”

NAN: “Dude. Me too.”

Electric Youth was a perfume (never a “parfum”) unleashed on the marketplace in 1989. The target demographic was the tween, though that term had not yet been coined. Back then, it was the mighty “teeny-bopper” dollar that the fragrance was trying to capture, and capture it it did. Those out to profit were the record executives who ran the career of pop sensation Debbie Gibson. Electric Youth was the first in a long, long line of celebrity-inspired fragrances and I, for one, had to have it. I loved Debbie Gibson and had a cassette of her album. I believe that album was called “Electric Youth.”

There were two dueling pop stars when I was in fourth grade: Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, whose last name was withheld in hopes Barbara and Judy would more quickly recognize her as one of their own. I was on the fence as to who I liked more and my neutrality came at great peril: it was expected by one’s elementary school peers in those days to choose sides. Debbie Gibson was the good girl. She was blonde, blue-eyed; kind of a white-tube-socks-with-white-Ked’s girl. She wore scrunchies and boxy vests printed with geometric shapes. Tiffany, on the other hand, was understood to have weaker moral fiber. Tiffany was a redhead, for one thing. Nothing but trouble there. And her first (only?) hit was a cover of the Shondell’s “I Think We’re Alone Now,” which contained the lyrics:

“We’re runnin’ just as fast as we can/holdin’ on to one another’s hands/tryin’ to get away/into the night/and then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say: “I think we’re alone now…”

Tiffany had a little curl to her lip when she sang her song and she put a little stank on the “into the niiiiight” part, which clearly meant she was having sex. She also wore acid washed denim jackets, so… Mothers did not like Tiffany.

They dug Debbie, though. Debbie’s first single was the docile, sweet “Only In My Dreams,” which pleased these mothers. With Debbie, their daughters’ sexual fantasies were happening exactly where and when they should be happening: while they were fast asleep, alone, locked in the house.

If Tiffany had had a perfume, it would’ve smelled musky, with notes of Aqua Net and a car dashboard. But Tiffany never had a fragrance; only Debbie signed that deal. Electric Youth perfume was a deeply synthetic, fruity floral with no “notes” of anything, no “low end” of wood or caille lily or moss. This was candy in a spritzer. The fluid itself was colored pink — an easy decision for the executives, I suspect. And inside the clear bottle was a pink plastic spring, clearly showing the exuberance — nay, the electricity — of youth. And we loved it. We sprayed it on with wild abandon and our parents’ headaches meant nothing. Nothing!

Electric Youth is not made anymore. You can find it on eBay and Amazon, but these are bottles of old perfume; as you can see by the picture above, the pink has faded and reviews are mixed as to whether the scent is still any good (or there at all, for that matter.) But in its prime, Electric Youth left its pink, sticky fingerprints all over the limbic systems of young American girls across the nation and when Nan and I smelled whatever we smelled in Kmart yesterday, it transported us back to a simpler, cheaper time.

21 Nov 2014

Statistical Interlude, With Tea.

by Mary | posted in: Story | 0

I have learned this evening that the Jean Luc Picard character from Star Trek drank Earl Grey Tea a lot, too. — I have learned this evening that the Jean Luc Picard character from Star Trek enjoyed Earl Grey Tea, also.

Today, my sister Nan and I moved boxes of my belongings to her place about four blocks away. It was cold and it was not what either of us would call fun, but we love each other and we got to feel that special closeness two people feel when the dolly full of boxes you’re pushing dumps over on Avenue A. Twice.

We took our last load over this evening, stopping the Trail of Tears long enough for me to stop into my go-to coffee shop for an Earl Grey tea. Nan waited outside with the dolly and my suitcase and I went in with my carpetbag.** I briefly waited in line. The gal in front of me paid and stepped to the side for her drink.

“Earl Grey tea, please,” I said to the bearded coffee guy working the counter. “Large.”

“Sure,” he said, then he half-turned to the other guy working with him (also bearded) and said, “That’s always kinda weird, when two people, like, totally independent of each other, order the same, somewhat less-usual thing.”

“Oh,” I said, turning to the girl who had gone before me. “Did you get a large Earl Grey tea, too?” She said that she had. “Yeah, that’s cool,” I said to the bearded men.

“Yeah, but what’s really weird is that this exact thing happened earlier today, too,” said Bearded Guy No. 1. “We had two girls order large Earl Grey teas, both in line by each other, but not together.” His eyes got big and so did mine.

“That’s like, statistically crazy,” I said. Everyone nodded. “I mean, it’s not magic. It’s not woo-woo. It’s just statistically nuts! If it happens again tonight, you guys should get a Lotto ticket.”

“If it happens again,” Bearded Guy No. 2 says, “I’ll just shut down the shop. That would be too weird.”

20 Nov 2014

On Models In New York City.

by Mary | posted in: Fashion, New York City | 1

If a fashion magazine raises a barn in the woods and no one is there to photograph it, does it still shelter livestock?

High-fashion runway models are strange-looking creatures, indeed.

I am not criticizing these women. They came out looking how they look and no one should be made to feel bad for how they look, even if some of us get taunted in school and some of us end up with Ford Modeling contracts worth millions, all by luck of the draw. No, I don’t wish to make anyone feel bad, but I see models around this town, frequently around Union Square (there must be an agency over there, the area is so thick with tall, bony women in platform boots and stocking caps) and I’m here to tell you: they are a kind of physical oddity. Spotting one is like spotting a cat with six toes or a parakeet with a second tail; you look, you look again, and as you walk away, you think, “Woah! Weird!”

My mailbox plops out Vogue to me each month. I don’t know why. I have never subscribed to Vogue. I like to think they send it to me because there’s some roster in the sky listing All The Editors In America and down in the “Q’s,” I’m there. Probably I accidentally clicked a “Gift With Purchase” when I made a dinner reservation or something and that’s why I get it. My feelings toward fashion magazines these days could best be described as cold, but sometimes I flip through Vogue, anyway. There on the pages are the women I see around town. (I’m not saying I run into Joan Smalls or Karlie Kloss at the store; I see who I think are probably models. They all buy bananas and sparkling water, by the way.)

To look dewy, lithe, and fierce in a picture means to be gangly, stick-like, and strikingly angular in real life. In order to have a leg that is deemed worthy of plastering on a billboard a half-mile wide in Soho, you need to have a leg that is about as big around as your six-year-old niece’s wrist, assuming your niece is small-boned and physically active. My point is that to look even somewhat normal in fashion pictures, you have to look abnormal in person. More than abnormal. What is more than abnormal? Hypoabnormal. Hyperabnormalis.

They look like aliens, okay?? I’ve been trying to avoid saying that, but they look like bizarre, insect-like aliens who wear mostly black and have expensive cell phones. Don’t believe the lies!

Take heart, ladies. I know the fashion spread voodoo. I, too, have looked at fashion spreads and thought, “Wow, she looks so good in that outfit; I must lose weight.” But you are not (and I am not) an insect alien. If either of us were, we would know it. And we would be working as models in New York. They have a secret society, I think, so we would’ve been contacted by now.

Just be happy you’re healthy, if you’re healthy. If you’re not, see a doctor. Make those biscuits from yesterday either way and then eat them.

**Note: The picture in today’s post is from Vogue Italia. They used the Amish people as inspiration for their shoot. I found this so ridiculous when I saw it, the rotation of the Earth slowed for a moment.

19 Nov 2014

You Got Me.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Luv | 0

These are clouds, but they could be ice floes; it could be winter, it might be fall. Photo: Ave Maria Moistlik.

On Monday morning, Yuri and I will board a plane and sail through freezing cold air above New York into the freezing cold air above Chicago. We’ll hold hands. It will be our last plane ride together for a while. When we land, he will make a connection and get on a second plane; I will go down an escalator, pull my luggage off the carousel, get into a taxi, and head into the city to meet with my sister so we can drive up to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving.

When my ex-husband and I separated, I remember not crying for awhile. I was intensely sad, of course, but I was also numb. Marriage counseling had not helped. Hours and hours and hours of conversation, fights, reconciliations, fights, and more conversation had not helped. We were both drained and angry; a bad combo on its own, made worse when doubled. The one-bedroom apartment I had secured across town was sparse, but I set up shop as best I could. My bed was an air mattress for awhile, but it was peaceful there. I could have my tea in the morning and think, which is what I needed to do.

It was when I went to the grocery store for the first time by myself that the new pain, the “this is really happening now” pain hit me in the chest. I went with my basket to the shelves and suddenly felt disoriented. I didn’t need grape Gatorade anymore; it was my husband’s favorite. I didn’t need to get a loaf of bread, now; only he ate bread in our house. I could buy soy milk without anyone making a face because the soy milk would be living in my refrigerator. My refrigerator, not our refrigerator. Though I was in a building that held anything a person could possibly want to eat or cook, my appetite vanished. I couldn’t actually make food for a long time. It was too painful to cook for just myself. So I ate cheese. I ate stuff someone else cooked. Anytime I saw grape Gatorade, I had to literally turn my head away so it wasn’t in my field of vision. The power of purple water.

The momentum of the upcoming adventure in Washington, the confession of disliking New York — while true and relevant, they are distractions. It’s impossible for me, right now, especially while Yuri and I are still under the same roof this last week, to understand love. I have been trying every day as I walk through New York City or travel for a gig or put my head on a pillow. I know how to express love. I know love when I feel it or see it.

After that, I got nothin’.

18 Nov 2014

Mary’s Cheesy Biscuits: A Recipe For All

by Mary | posted in: Food | 0

Pyrex mixing bowl, circa my 4th grade year. — From one bowl, many tasty but shapeless foods have come.

The Thanksgiving holiday is nearly upon us. I wonder if I might contribute an idea as you plan your meal. If someone coming to dinner has Crohn’s or Colitis, you might already have special (read: expensive and time-consuming) foods on your menu, but I’ll offer my suggestion anyway in hopes you don’t know anyone with either disease and you can just take my recipe as amusing and possibly worth making and serving.

I make these cheesy biscuits. They taste so good and they do not destroy me. They will taste good to you and will not destroy you, either. And now:

Mary’s Non-Destroying Cheesy Biscuits

Big portion of farmer’s cheese
Bunch of blanched almond meal (also called almond flour, but only get the blanched kind)
A whole lot of grated, quality parmesan cheese (not that Kraft stuff in the green can! For shame!)
Couple eggs
Salt + pepper

Serves: A lot, I’m not sure. What’s a serving?

Mix farmer’s cheese (also called dry-curd cottage cheese; hard to find but findable and not the same as regular cottage cheese for lord’s sake) and the eggs in a big mixing bowl. A wooden spoon is fine for stirring, but if you have a big mixer, great. Pour in some of the almond meal. Then some of the parmesan. Throw in some salt. Little pepper. Keep putting in almond meal and cheese into the bowl and mix it real good so that deep within your soul, you feel like everything is distributed. Add a touch more salt. Just make it look like biscuit batter, kinda lumpy and thick, not runny. (You couldn’t make this stuff runny if you tried because you’re dealing with nuts and cheese. If your batter is runny, you have done something I do not understand.) Spoon lumps of batter onto a non-stick cooky sheet. They should be the size of gooey hockey pucks.

Remember that you forgot to turn on the oven. Turn it on to about 350-degrees. When it’s probably hot enough but who knows for lord’s sake, put the be-biscuited sheet into the oven for like 12 minutes? Set the timer or you will forget. When the timer beeps, check on your biscuits. They will need more time in the oven. I usually turn the sheet around at this point (using hot pads) because our oven in NYC is old and crotchety. Bake the biscuits a little longer. Five minutes? Six? I can’t help you with everything! You’ll have to figure it out. You can smell them when they’re done and when you see that they’re just beginning to brown, they’re for sure done. Take them out of the oven. Attempt to wait for them to cool; fail. Slather your chosen biscuit with butter; keep transferring hot buttered biscuit from one hand to other; blow on biscuit; burn lips; enjoy.

Clearly, I created these on my own and I have no exact amounts of ingredients or time to offer you. I wing ’em every time, but they always turn out fantastic. Just keep adding cheese, and if it gets too dry, add another egg. You’ll be okay.

If you’re interested in gluten-free foods, they are that. If you’re a paleo-person, they are that, also. They are totally non-carb, as well, if you care. All I know is that they taste like cheese, you can put butter on them and most importantly, they actually taste like real biscuits but they do not destroy me.

Good luck!

16 Nov 2014

My Book, Signed + On Sale (A Christmas Special, Extended!)

by Mary | posted in: Luv, Quilting, Tips, Work | 1

It would look so nice with a big, fat bow, don't you think? — It would look so nice with a big, fat bow on it, don’t you think?

Happy Holidays!

‘Tis the season for sales and promotions and I’m getting into the game. I’m offering my book on sale for $20 dollars*, signed and personalized by me, from now until December 31st!

“Personalized” means that if your name is Fido, I will write, “Dear Fido: Thank you! Best, Mary Fons” along with my Heart Plus logo and the year. That’s my standard inscription, but if you’d like a little something extra, like “Merry Christmas!” or “You cray-cray!” or “From the team at Acme Co. — let’s have a great 2015,” you let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

This book is my first and it has quite a bit of my writing inside, as well as beautiful photography and twelve (12) original scrap quilt patterns for bed-sized quilts. I have seen photographs of quilts folks have made from my book and they look fantastic. There’s a lot of how-to, tips, and extras in the book and the Amazon reviews are great, so don’t take my word for it!

Here’s all you have to do: Click on the Make + Love Book tab on my website. Scroll down and you’ll find a PayPal button there. You don’t need a PayPal account to use it to buy the book! PayPal will give me your shipping address. Please let me know who to make the book out to! I will get books out as soon as I can; my goal is within two (2) days of ordering, but with my travel schedule, be kind. Books will be sent media mail.

The price of the book ranges from $17.68 (Amazon) to $22.95 (bookstores) so you’re getting a great price and something you can’t get from Amazon or a bookshop: a personalized book with an autograph. I love bookshops and Amazon, but this is Christmas! It’s all about the sparkly extras.

Happy shopping this season. I know it’s overwhelming.

*Plus shipping. One book ships for about $5 bucks; any order of three books or more gets free shipping. Whee!

15 Nov 2014

Miss Fons Goes To Washington.

by Mary | posted in: D.C., Day In The Life, Travel | 3

My apartment is on Capitol Hill.

It has a fireplace, bookshelves, a stove, tall leaded windows, and, from what I can see from the pictures, a fluffy bed ready to be outfitted with a quilt. I have done the math. I have signed the lease. I won’t break even living in Washington, D.C. for the next few months, but it’s not going to be too bad; being a freelancer all these years has taught me something about saving. I have moved things mentally, financially, and physically and I am ready.

Austin was a good guess; Portland, too. I liked my friend Lance’s suggestion of Philly and I considered Pittsburgh after being pleasantly surprised by it while there for Spring Quilt Market. But early on in the troubles, I knew I’d go to our nation’s capital, a city I have long had great feeling for. In 2010, I spent a month performing with the Neos at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in D.C. I remember walking home from the theater so many frosty nights, stars twinkling, the light on the Washington Monument slicing the black glass sky. Being with friends was the best part of the trip; living in the seat of our democracy came a close second. What can I say? I’m a patriot.

In April, I have a Quilty shoot in Chicago and leave immediately after to film TV in Iowa. May brings my sister’s wedding up at the lake house. Depending on just how much I love or dislike D.C., I’ll be there for sure four months, possibly six. I doubt I would want to be away from my beloved Chicago any longer than I have to, but as I have come to learn, un-learn, and re-learn lately, anything’s possible.

The breakup has been awful. Awful because our emotions go through the spin cycle on a daily basis. I love you, it’s over, it’s not over, you’re selfish, you’re selfish, this is crazy, this hurts, we’re making a mistake, I’m leaving, leave, fine, fine, fine. No breakup is fun, but I have experienced only a couple of real gullywashers and this would be one of the two. (I do take a certain pride in the fact that an actual dish was broken during all this, and I assure you it was not because someone dropped it on the floor.)

Someone I told about my move was surprised. She said, “What?! Like Washington D.C. is less crowded or cheap than New York??” I was surprised right back. The National Mall is wide and clear as Lincoln’s Reflecting Pool and the apartment I found is far prettier and roomier than anything here for the price. It will be cold there, but I’m from Iowa. I can take it. D.C. exceeds all my criteria; I can bundle up for that.

Washington will be a pause. I plan to watch snow.

14 Nov 2014

Relocation Options: Option Three, “Variety Pack”

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Travel | 0

I wanted a picture that communicated "variety pack" and all I got was this terrifying picture of donuts emerging from cups of flavored coffee. — I wanted a picture that communicated “variety pack” and all I got was this terrifying picture of donuts emerging like Swamp Things from cups of flavored coffee. Also, nothing in this picture is anything you should accept into your mouth.

After eliminating Iowa and Wisconsin from my list of relocation options, and knowing without question that I cannot stay in New York or return to Chicago before mid-June, I face a selection of further possibilities. For a woman with boundless curiosity, no children, and work she can do wherever there is an Internet connection, this list of options might be overwhelming. But I am not overwhelmed because I have very real limitations to consider:

1. I don’t have a car and really don’t want to get one. This rules out a number of extremely cool places, I realize. I’m sure there are folks who live in these places with no car, but for me, looking at this six-month chunk of time before me, I am desirous of a decent public transportation system. Without a metro pass in my wallet, I feel kinda naked.

2. I am a gimp. Several people have — wildly, imaginatively, fabulously — suggested Paris! Dublin! Rome! and these would be fantastic places to go for six months, but I can’t play fast and loose (or foreign) with my health situation. Trying to explain to a Parisian ER doctor that I don’t have a colon and that I might be dying would be difficult, as I do not speak French. It would also be frowned upon, I think, if I asked to Skype into my upcoming teaching gigs and lectures here in the States. Why aren’t people into that?

3. I do like a city. One offer came through for a cabin in Kansas that was so darling and serene-looking that I nearly wavered from my plan. (You do know that I have known for some time what I’m going to do and that I’m unspooling it day by day to torture you, right? Excellent.) But not only do conditions No. 1 & 2 prevent anything too remote, I need the action of a city, the hum of it. I am a person who writes things and likes the opportunity to occasionally read those things onstage. I like a selection of libraries and natural food stores. I like cracked pavement and a skyline. Yes, I could go full Annie Dillard or Thoreau and tap into the hum of nature (probably louder than any city, I realize) but I need to save Walden for my fifties.

So what do these restrictions cancel out? Places icluding, but not limited to:

Anywhere not in the continental U.S.
Most of California*
Walden Pond
Asheville
Nashville
Butte

Let’s recap. For the next six months, I need a U.S. city with a great public transportation system, good hospitals, a vibrant lit scene (including, for example: live lit events, book things, readings, lectures, libraries, etc.) cool architecture, interesting people to observe, and more space than New York City so that I do not bite anyone.

Can you guess where I’m going next month?

*San Francisco fits the criteria but its cost of living is equal to NYC. It pains me to eliminate it, but that’s out.

13 Nov 2014

Relocation Options: Option Two, Wisconsin

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Travel | 2

Me, showing off my quilt from the upper level of the Arnie J. Richter ferry boat, Washington Island, WI. It was about 10 degrees that day.

Picture me in barrister’s robes and one of those funny wigs, pacing back and forth on the wood floor as I offer for your review, ladies and gentlemen, a quick look at the facts:

1. Yuri and I have agreed that living together is not what we should do right now.
2. My condo in Chicago is unavailable, as I have tenants in the unit through mid-June.
3. I do not wish to stay in New York.

If you’d like to consider with me Option One, you’ll need to read the full post here. Now, in your mind, please take this wig off me and get me out of those barrister robes and into something sensible as I proceed with what, as I see it, is my second option:

Option No. 2: Sunrise Cottage — Washington Island, WI
My family has blood ties to an extraordinary place called Washington Island, a 23-square-mile island seven miles off the tip of Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. My grandparents are buried there. My great-grandparents are buried there. My aunt and six cousins live there. My mother taught quilting at the fiber arts school up there; two summers ago, I taught quilting there, too. As children, my sisters and I would spend weeks of our summer vacation, splashing in the lake waters and lazing around watching VHS videos, trying to get MTV on some old TV set. Even through the divorce and on through all four years of college, every summer we were (and are) playing and relaxing and communing with WiWi. (W.I. = Washington Island, W.I. = Wisconsin, ergo, “WiWi.”)

About six years ago, my family finally made a home up there. We had been cabin renters through the years, but now we have a cottage — a cozy, beautiful, light-filled, perfect cottage on the lake. Because of this happy event, we can now have Thanksgivings, Christmases, and winter escapes up there, too. There’s a fireplace, a boathouse, and lots of board games and if heaven is real, it probably looks a lot like a snowy afternoon on WiWi while a pie bakes in the oven and you’re smack in the middle of an amazing book. Sounds brilliant, right? Why not go there, sink into the comfort and joy of this magical island?

What are you, nuts?!

I can’t be on an island in the middle of winter! I travel for work a good 40% of my time! It’s a good thing I love airports because I’m in them a lot. Getting to and from the airport, to and from a gig, to and from a shoot, etc. is always a bit of a schlep. Adding an icy ferry boat ride, a 2-hour drive to the nearest airport (Green Bay) and Wisconsin weather from October through about May is not my idea of a wise plan.

The other problem with WiWI is that it is a remote place in psychic terms as well as geographical ones. Just 660 people live there year-round. I wrote most of my book up there during a two-week stretch in the winter of ’13 and I got a little squirrelly. The frosty, starry sky is beautiful at night, but the land is plunged into pitch black starting around 5pm until the sun rises around 6am. Staring into a roaring fire is super over a four-day weekend up there; staring into the fire night after night and you start becoming the one-woman sequel to Altered States. Mom and Mark aren’t there year-round for this very reason. Six months on WiWi and I might end up curled up on the couch, listening to the all-Catholic talk radio station, eating jumbo marshmallows out of a wicker basket.

New York out. Chicago out. Iowa out. Wisconsin out. Tomorrow, Option Three.

*Note: I cannot believe all of the gracious offers I have had since yesterday from people offering me to stay in their home or come to their city. Thank you.

12 Nov 2014

Relocation Options: Option One, Iowa

by Mary | posted in: Tips, Travel | 4

Postcard. — You can see Robert James Waller’s face in the side of this covered bridge if the light’s just right.

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people who care about each other to terminate the living situation which has connected them with another and to assume among the powers of real estate, the separate and hopefully equal apartments to which the Leases and Landlords and/or Management Companies grant them, a decent respect to the considerations of mankind suggests that they should declare the options before them as to where exactly in Sam Hill they plan to go.”

Of course, I can only speak for myself. Here are facts:

Fact One on its own is manageable enough: find separate apartments. Unfortunately, Fact Three renders this possibility D.O.A. I don’t want to find another apartment in New York, especially one that I would be able to afford on my own. Sharing a one-bedroom is great in this city (or any other) because two can afford something together that one couldn’t possibly swing. I did the research. The furnished apartments I found that were within my budget made me extremely depressed. Did I look in every nook and cranny of the city? Did I look in Queens? No, I didn’t, because I don’t want to live in Queens. No offense to Queens, I just don’t want to live there.

All right, then just go back to Chicago. A fine idea, but for Fact Two. Sure, I could tempt my adorable med students with a free month’s rent and some cash to vacate early — everyone has their price and second-year med students are probably happy to let you know what that number might be — but I don’t like this plan. It’s disruptive to them and it would be painful for me. My relationship has failed and my move to New York has failed. Returning to Chicago before the one-year-gone anniversary would be too painful. I picture myself with a little hobo stick, riding into town on a broken-down palomino.

I could get a little apartment in Chicago and wait out my tenants till June, but that would maybe be more depressing. “I can see my house from here!” I’d cry, holding my hobo stick.

So no New York, no Chicago till June. Six months. Six months to go. Over these painful weeks, I have been weighing options and crunching numbers and going over and back over what my best course of action is, here. And now:

Option No. 1: Mom’s House — Winterset, Iowa
Winterset is my hometown. I was born there. My sisters were born there. I know all the bank tellers and the bank tellers’ kids. Lots of people move back home. A large number of people never leave in the first place.

There are many upsides to Option No. 1., including but not limited to; cost of living (essentially nil), being able to hang out with Mom and Mark a lot, a big kitchen, access to cars, Des Moines is a short 35 minutes away and Des Moines is alright, I would get to be with Scrabble (Mom’s dog who I love), I could say hi to the bank tellers, their kids, etc.

Downsides? Numerous. There is no public transportation system to use, so I have to drive everywhere and I don’t particularly like driving in Iowa on account of all the deer. Add to that that I love my mom and stepdad so much but six months is a heckuva long time. I’m more worried they’d get annoyed with me than the other way around. Besides, all those bank tellers remember watching my car die in the Homecoming parade. Turns out you can go home again, but do you want to?

The main problem with Winterset is that I need to save it. See, if I’m going to be at Mom’s house for six whole months, I want to be suffering from a bonafide nervous breakdown. I want to save the “I’m Going Home For Awhile” card for full-on crazy. I want people to ask my mom, “Did I see Mary at the grocery store the other day?” so Mom can go, “Oh, yes. Mary’s… Mary’s home for a little while.” Then the person will say, “Oh, is she okay?” and Mom will say something like, “I think Mary just needs a little…rest.” And I’ll be at home on the couch watching 19 Kids and Counting in the fetal position, combing my hair with a fork. It sounds amazing. I don’t want to blow that opportunity now, when I feel sad but otherwise totally functional.

So Iowa is out. Tomorrow, the next sensible option explored.

11 Nov 2014

My Funny Valentine.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Luv, New York City | 5

On point, except that I'm not blonde. — That’s about right, except that I’m not blonde.

If I’ve ever had to handle anything delicately, it would be this.

With heavy hearts on both sides, Yuri and I are taking a break. I don’t know how long the break will be, I don’t know if the break will be a K.O. punch. It would be tacky (and weird) to go into specific details at this time as to why the split is occurring, so I’ll speak in general terms and hope that does it.

There’s not hostility between us. We’ve gone there, but neither of us are mean. We’re just sad, really. Lives sidle up next to each other and how sweet it is when they do. If those two lives start taking divergent paths, a decision must be made. Do you tie a cord to one another and charge one direction, tied, choosing which way seems best? Maybe you tie the cord and make it stretch, stretch, stretch to accommodate the two of you trekking in opposite directions. Or perhaps you cut it, figuring that’s the best way to head out into the world. Maybe it’s just pruning we’re doing. Maybe not.

I won’t go on about how marvelous this person is, how sweet he sleeps. I won’t dive deep into his singular style or how dearly I love him. If you read this blog with any regularity, you either know I do (love him) or have read that between the lines. Yuri loves me a lot, too, and he would tell you why, if you asked him. Going on and on about this mutual admiration would beg the question, “Well, what’s the problem, then?”

It’s that cord problem. It’s in the details.

The lump in my throat and this odd tightness in my chest and my eyes filling up with water dictate that I need to stop typing. I may need a doctor. Yuri and me, breaking. New York and me, never meant to be. What’s a girl to do?

Next up: The Options.

10 Nov 2014

No Dream, No Good: Why I’m Leaving New York

by Mary | posted in: New York City, Rant | 6

New York served 54.3 million tourists in 2013. Photo: Wikipedia. — New York served 54.3 million tourists in 2013. Some of these people live here, though. Photo: Wikipedia.

I have tried, but it is plain: I cannot live in New York City.

Instead of falling in love with this place — my plan from the start — I have grown to resent it and am itching to leave. The itching could be bedbugs, but I don’t think so.*

New York City doesn’t care what I think of it, of course. New York didn’t notice when I arrived and it has stayed utterly ambivalent toward me since. Anything I have to say about New York will fall on the millions of deaf ears here, which is part of my problem with this place: aren’t two deaf ears enough? Not for New York.

For the past few months, I have been doing research. I’ve been watching interviews and reading essays and op-ed pieces by people who say New York is dead. I realize this is not a good strategy if your goal is to fall in love with a place, but when I hit Month Four and began feeling outright hostility toward the city, I launched my gloomy search. I had to find out if other people didn’t get it, if other people here were walking around perpetually sour like me. The things I liked about New York when I would visit my sister over the past fourteen years were there, but the bottom dropped out entirely when I had my own mailing address. Why?

I had a feeling my problem had to do with the way New York is now, in 2014; perhaps I might’ve had a different experience with a different version of New York. Maybe it would’ve been perfect for me in the weird and dangerous 1970s, or the wild and dangerous Jazz Age. Maybe I would’ve done better as a New Amsterdam colonist, scouring my washtub. It’s a bad skier who blames the slopes, but I’m blaming the slopes on this one: I don’t think New York in 2014 is so fantastic. The research I did showed me I am not alone in feeling this way. I’m in a crowd, in fact, which is annoyingly appropriate.

If you adore New York or if you’ve already made up your mind that I’m a weenie who just couldn’t hack it, I hope you’ll stay with me. I agree that there are valid arguments supporting New York as awesome and I’m perfectly willing to grant you that I’m a weenie.

But first.

Fran Lebowitz (lifelong New Yorker, cultural Cassandra, personal hero) has plenty to say about 2014 New York being awful. For years, she’s been watching her city turn from the intellectual and artistic capitol of the world into a theme park. (I think Lebowitz was the first to make the New-York-as-Disney Park analogy and it’s a little worn, okay, but it fits too well to ignore.) Former mayor Bloomberg — a billionaire, remember — had a goal when he took office. He wanted to increase tourism and commerce in his city. To do that, he had to make it a kinder, gentler version of itself. The safer folks felt New York was, the more of them would come here, which would bring in money. Bloomberg served three terms (he changed the term-limit law to make that possible), and thus had years to work on his New York Beautification Project. And indeed, the place is Disney-fied. You must wait in lines for everything you want to do. Extras are never included in your ticket price. Grand, sparkly attractions replace smaller, older rides because they photograph way better and push ticket prices up. And it seems that, like the planters and fences at Disneyland, everything in New York these days is rounded, never sharp, for liability reasons.

And then there’s the matter of housing. If you tried to rent a one-bedroom apartment on Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland, in the shadow of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, I reckon it would probably cost you about $4000/month. They don’t rent apartments on Main Street in Disneyland, as far as I know, but if they did, that’s probably what they’d go for. And this is what it costs in New York for a one-bedroom, give or take several hundreds of dollars, depending on how good (read: sneaky) your broker is. If you want to live cheaper in Disneyland, you’ll need to find a room for rent way out in Toontown (a.k.a. Jersey City) or maybe further than that. Maybe just hit the parking lot and skip the broker and your silly visions of Main Street altogether.

But here’s the thing. All that can be fine. It is fine for millions of people (at least a few hundred thousand) because they have a dream. They have a dream of making it in New York or they simply want to be in New York to escape a life they couldn’t stand. That’s great — and that dream is the crucial. It is the key; it is precisely what allows the young man to squeeze into the subway at rush hour, what zeros out the rage of the woman who sees that the checkout line at Trader Joe’s begins at the door of the Trader Joe’s. You gotta want to be in New York real, real bad to put up with the bullsh-t and if you do, it can work for you. In summation: to live in step with New York, it would seem that you need either lots of money or a dream so dear you don’t care about living with four roommates in Toontown.

Well, I ain’t got Bloomberg money and I ain’t got no dream, New York. I’m gonna have to dip.

I came here for an adventure, and I’ve had one. But I can’t stay. It’s wrong for me. I never felt like I had to make it in New York City to Feel Whole. I feel more or less pleasant at least half the time in other places, but I grit my teeth and steel my face when I’m “home,” which, admittedly, isn’t that often. Perhaps I haven’t bonded with New York because I haven’t been in New York enough, but try telling that to the part of me who almost started yelling at someone on the street the other day. A woman was trying to open the door to her garden apartment on a really hairy section of St. Mark’s. There was garbage that had caught in the doorway and on the cement steps leading down. She had a baby in a stroller with her. I saw the baby and the woman and the trash and the crappy doorknob to the basement apartment that she couldn’t get into and I had to stop myself from screaming, “Have you lost your mind?? Get that child out of here! Are you insane? This place is filthy!”

There’s more to the story. More reasons why I have to leave. Where shall I go? Ah, now that is a very good question. But I think I’ve said enough for now.

*I do not have bedbugs. Yet.

9 Nov 2014

I Shot A Gun Today, Oh Boy.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life | 0

A friend of mine who lives in Chicago picked me up after we wrapped the Quilty taping. Neither of us had much time, but a few hours was better than nothing. I was expecting a cup of coffee and a snack, but instead, we shot guns.

There’s a huge, down-to-the-studs remodeling project going on in the warehouse that is part of my friend’s business. And there’s a giant wall of insulation that is going to be torn out tomorrow. On Sunday, not a soul is in the warehouse and that wall of insulation is smack in the middle of that absolutely enormous, raw, space, and if a person had a Colt 45 and some wax bullets, why, it would be really fun to shoot a few of ’em through that big insulation wall, now wouldn’t it?

It’s just what we did.

My friend was in the armed forces years ago and respects every firearm safety measure there ever was or ever will be. He made sure the wax was placed correctly, that the chambers were loaded just so (there are six chambers but you only load five) and he had me stand far away so he could take the first few shots and ensure everything was okay to let me try.

The combination “BANG!” of the pistol and the essentially instantaneous “PAP!” of the wax slug as it shot through the insulation board was intoxicating. I cocked again: “BANG!” And again: “BANG!” and the holes appeared in that towering piece of two-inch thick pink insulation board. I was shooting a little high and brought the gun down, or so I thought. My shots kept hitting higher than I thought they would; it made me want to get the whole bag of wax and practice till I got good. Practice till it got dark. Practice till I didn’t feel like shooting anymore.

I have no comment on the rightness or wrongness of guns. I can only comment on how good it was to see my friend, how thrilling it was to make a loud sound.

8 Nov 2014

A Poem For Chicago.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, Poetry | 1

Aerial view of Chicago, close to the lake.

At Heather’s house, I’ve been reading from a Dorothy Parker anthology and a book of Emily Dickinson poems. I don’t have much time before we have to leave for the second day of the Quilty shoot (which is going well) but I made a poem in the time I had.

Being in Chicago is hard. I miss this place very much. New York is not taking, I’m afraid. More on that later. For now, a poem about the day I left.

June 1st, 2014
by Mary Fons

We sped down Lakeshore Drive that day —
The train giving way to a taxi drive —
Me and my luggage were whisked away,
Around a quarter to five.

Through grimy windows my eyes did see
Steel and glass buildings standing so sure;
Chicago’s a hard and imposing city,
But its heart is pure.

What have I done to my favoritest lover;
Leaving like this, my purse grabbed in haste;
Off to new visions and a new city’s cover,
What a waste.

For mercy and grace, I shall grovel and beg,
Come June, when weather is fair;
Chicago, lash at at the back of my leg
It proves you care.

6 Nov 2014

A Tale of Three Fur Coats.

by Mary | posted in: Story | 1

Mink Coat, Ritter. Vintage photograph, origin unknown.

One day I woke up in the morning and I had zero fur coats. When I went to bed that night, I had three. True story.

Last year, my very good friend Jonathan gave me a beautiful gift of a mink coat. I know. He really did give me a mink coat. I loved him very much.

He also gave me a shearling coat. Both of these coats, he did not have a use for. He also loved me very much.

Later that day, after the fur coats (we were up to two, now) were put into the back of his car, nicely wrapped in garment bags, we went to a flea market. And what did I find but a very inexpensive (and totally unique) fur coat! This one was gently used, white, short, and about a hundred bucks. Since I was now the proud owner of two fur coats that were gifts, I felt owed it to the Fur Coat Gods to pay a tithe. Then I would have three fur coats, which seemed ridiculous and fun. So I bought the coat and then I went home and tried them all on. I recommend this as an afternoon activity to anyone.

Months later, I gave the mink back. It wasn’t mine to keep by then. And besides, though it was absolutely gorgeous, a mink coat on me is conspicuous. If I were a season ticket-holder at the Met, if I went to charity functions at Kennedy Center with frequency, if I had a driver, etc., these would all be good reasons to wear a coat as thick and rich and fine as that mink. But I do none of those things (yet) and so the coat was doomed to languish in my closet. It seemed a shame.

The shearling, I kept. It’svvery warm, which is good if you’re in Chicago or New York or, say, Washington D.C. And the other little one? Well, I had it cleaned because it smelled like cigarettes and I put it in my storage locker here in Chicago until earlier today, when I had to fetch items for the Quilty shoot. I spied it and it was terribly cold outside, so I grabbed it and now have it with me. The coat I brought with me is insufficient, so I might just wear that fur while I’m here.

Zero fur coats, three fur coats, two fur coats. I’m lucky I have a story like that to tell and a coat at all in this world.

5 Nov 2014

The Confusion of Childhood, Starring Old Mother Hubbard.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, Poetry, Word Nerd | 4

Mother Hubbard and her dog; illustration in Traditional Nursery Songs of England, Ed. Felix Summerly (1843)

While I’m in Chicago, I’m staying at my friend Heather’s house. She shares the house with her terrific husband, Sam, and I have very recently discovered they have many terrific books.

For instance, they have a full set of the Childcraft “How & Why Library.” I didn’t have Childcraft books growing up, but I’d seen them before. The volumes have names like, “How We Get Things,” “What People Do,” and “About Dogs.” They’re a kid’s first encyclopedia, basically.

I wanted to read all of these books, but “Poems and Rhymes” came first in the set, so I went with that, and the first page I opened to was the tale of Old Mother Hubbard. Have you ever read the entire Old Mother Hubbard poem? It’s not good. It’s not just that it lacks substance — it does lack substance — but it is also is confusing in frustrating ways, as opposed to being confusing in delightful ways, e.g., the work of Lewis Carroll.

Let’s take a look at this thing. The first verse everyone knows and it’s fine, albeit a bummer (if you’re the old lady’s dog):

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she got there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

Okay, fair enough. But buckle up. Next verse:

She went to the baker’s
To buy him some bread,
But when she came back,
The poor dog was dead.

The dog died?? Her dog died while she was running errands? Perhaps your dog died, Mother, because you chose to neglect your pantry. Just when rigor mortis begins to set in, however, the dog suddenly feels much better, not that the author helps his audience prepare for that:

She went to the fruiterer’s
To buy him some fruit,
But when she came back,
He was playing the flute.

Ol’ Lazarus is playing the flute, eh? That is super, super creepy. And whose flute is it, anyway? The old lady can keep expensive woodwind instruments but no kibble? She should be ashamed of herself. The good news is that the word “fruiterer” is new to me and I like it.

She went to the fishmonger’s
To buy him some fish,
But when she came back,
He was licking the dish.

We have an issue here with the conjunction. The word “but” is used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned. For instance, “She went to the fishmonger’s/to buy him some fish/but when she came back/he had made himself tacos.” There is no contrasting idea in the verse as it is up there but the author uses “but” and it’s driving me bonkers.

She went to the barber’s
To buy him a wig,

A what?!

She went to the barber’s
To buy him a wig,
But when she came back
He was dancing a jig.

So … He couldn’t put the wig on. Because of the jig. Perhaps she couldn’t catch him in his jigging to affix the wig properly? See above problem with conjunction. I have a headache.

She went to the cobbler’s
To buy him some shoes,
But when she came back,
He was reading the news.

She went to the tailor’s
To buy him a coat,
But when she came back,
He was riding a goat.

Sloppy! These thoughts are not congruent in any way! I realize children’s poetry isn’t trying to be Yeats. But the minds of children are typically more fit than adults will appreciate or admit. Don’t you foist this goofy stuff on me, Childcraft. You’re lucky I’m staying in Heather’s guestroom and spied you on the shelf. It could be years before someone else comes along and gives you a fair shake. Okay, last verse:

The dame made a curtsy,
The dog made a bow;
The dame said, “Your servant,”
The dog said, “Bow-wow.”

Introduction of a new character. Totally out of left-field. Maybe this work needs another draft, Childcraft.

Goodnight, Chicago.

5 Nov 2014

Book Church: The Library of Congress

by Mary | posted in: Paean | 1

Not pictured: 29 million books. — Not pictured: 36 million books.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now — if you could zap yourself somewhere this instant — where would you put yourself? The zen answer is: “Why, I’d want to be exactly where I am!” and if this is how you answered the question, congratulations. You are an Enlightened One and may I say, the soft glow emanating from your head gives a lovely light.

For those of us who answered the question differently, I salute both your imagination and your discontent. I can only imagine the wonderful responses:

“I’d be at a racetrack!”
“I’d be at gramma’s house!”
“I’d be scuba diving in shark infested waters!”

Enlightenment sounds lousy, anyhow. What, you just sit around seeing the Nature of Things? Emerging from your nonage? Boooring. Bring a book. Speaking of books, if I could zap myself anyplace in the world, I would choose The Library of Congress.

I’ve never been inside but I have plans to visit soon. The Library of Congress, as many readers know, is located in Washington, D.C., in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It is the largest library in the world.** Contrary to popular belief, the library does not hold every book ever published ever in the universe, but the truth is so jaw-dropping there’s no need to dress up the stats: 158 million items can be found on the shelves of the LOC, shelves that measure a total of 838 miles. The LOC website tells us that the collections hold “more than 36 million books and other print materials, 3.5 million recordings, 13.7 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 6.7 million pieces of sheet music and 69 million manuscripts.” Also, the Gutenberg Bible is there. Also, a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. Also, my book!

It’s all contained in a Beaux-Arts building that looks like the enormous lovechild of a wedding cake, a sultan’s summer home, and The Coliseum.

When I find myself in D.C. next, I’ll take my journal and several books to the Main Reading Room in the Jefferson Building and sit myself down in the glory, glory. I’m sure I’ll have to get some special pass or I.D. sticker and I’m happy to do so. I am still a student, which should help.

So that’s where I’d zap myself. The LOC. There, the lights are low but focused. Like the light of Enlightenment, but available to us all.

**In the world!

3 Nov 2014

Fly, Point, Shoot, Cut, Print: Quilty, Season Five

by Mary | posted in: Work | 0

It's a great show. — Quiltyworld. It’s like Disneyworld with thread and no rides.

The only way to keep warm when I fly into Chicago on Wednesday is to come in hot, so that’s just what I plan to do. I’m finishing up preparations for the Quilty shoot and things look good from here.

We load into the raw space on Thursday. The shoot begins on Friday and will go three days. We’ll be taping the first half of Season Five for 2015. There is a new Quilty show every week online at QNNtv.com. We don’t take holidays off, so that’s a full 52 episodes a year. We tape 26 episodes at both shoots to fulfill that number.

I come up with all the content, I direct and oversee any demo materials that I don’t I personally sew myself; I select guests, write motion graphics copy, and host all 52 episodes, as well. (Guests are frequent, but they’re never on the show on their own — my goofy mug is there every time, for better or worse.) Every episode I plan has to coordinate with Quilty magazine, as well, and all of this is like herding cats, except that the cats are covered in grease and once you actually catch them, you have to give them eardrops.

Maybe it’s not quite that hard. But it’s tricky, is what I’m saying. It’s complex.

Listing all my duties and making teaching quilting on camera sound like the Human Genome Project is perhaps causing you to make a face at me. I don’t blame you, but wait, because I’m not finished.

All that I do is a drop in the bucket of all the things that must be done to make Quilty, both the show and the magazine. The man- and womanpower behind the shoots is epic. Not in terms of numbers — we have a core team totalling six, including me — but in terms of technical expertise and logistical slam-dunkery. Our unit is a machine at this point because we have made lots of mistakes over the years and this has made us better at our job. Quilty is antifragile.

The magazine has far more hands on deck than the show. A magazine, even a bi-monthly quilt enthusiast magazine, has its own nervous system. Limbic system. Subway system.

If you are a Quilty fan — especially if you’re a fan who has been with us from the beginning — you’re not really a fan of the show. You’re a fan of the work. And people do the work. So you’re a fan of the people. And that’s very sweet.

Thank you.

2 Nov 2014

If You Can, You Must.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Paean | 3

Feathered Star Quilt. No other information available. Blame Pinterest.

Earlier today, I posted a picture on Facebook of the Feathered Star block I’m working on. The Feathered Star is to quilt blocks as the triple salchow is to figure skaters: complicated, with potential for bloodshed. I’m going about the beast using a paper-piecing method. There are triangles that measure an inch finished. There are set-in seams. I worked hours on my block and it’s still not quilte done (or correct.) The first block of any new quilt is the one that takes longest, but in the case of the Feathered Star, I highly doubt I will hit a “stride.”

So why do it? Why do anything that is hard? Why move to New York City? Why consider career changes? Why take a risk on love? Why get highlights? Who cares?

Because if you can, you must.

I maneuver through the world all too aware of the clear and present danger of death. I am arguably obsessed with death, obsessed with human life’s stunted growth; angry, really, that one day the janitor will turn out the lights and lock up. I think of death every day, sometimes several times a day. My thoughts of death are so woven into my consciousness, I’m sure most of the time, I don’t realize I’m thinking of it at all — but I am. Constantly. Death informs most of my decisions.

Let me be perfectly clear: it’s not fear of the other side. That’s not my problem. It’s the end of this. The end of the grand pageant. All the color, the pain, the love and lovemaking, the children, the travel, the failures — all the muck, mire, and glory of a life, however long or short, gets me every time. Every human life is full of suffering; I know about that. I’ve had needles stuck in to my abdomen while I was awake and I still love it here. I miss Chicago every day and I don’t know what the next few months will bring for my health, my heart, or my hair. I mean, I change my hair all the time. Anything could happen.

The love of being alive is concomitant with my fear of death. They are two sides pulling the same rope; we have a sick equilibrium, here. Adoring life leads to rage; rage that the experience I happen to love has to end. I’m like an eight-year old at the best slumber party ever and my mom just called to say she’s coming to get me in 30 minutes. Why? Because she said so, that’s why. I throw wild, hysterical fits but it does nothing. Mom’s on her way. Get your coat on.

So I have to make the Feathered Star. If I can, I must. And I have to come to New York. Because if I can, I must. I must fall in love. I must try. I must say yes, because if I can… You get the picture.

A friend of mine said recently, “I’m out of the advice business.” I never got into it, but I’ll stick my neck out this one time: If you can, you must. There is not another go-round. This is not a warm-up. Grab it. Make the hard quilt block. Kiss the boy. Finish the job.

It’s never too late until it is.

31 Oct 2014

I Do Admire You.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life | 0

It's hard out here for a human being. — It’s hard out here for a human being.

[Placeholder.]

30 Oct 2014

Girls Who Chase Boys.

by Mary | posted in: School, Story | 0

Terrifying, isn't it? — Terrifying, isn’t it?

Today in the kitchen, out of the clear blue, I thought about chasing Bobby Benshoff. Which sounds like a made-for-TV movie.

“A friendship changes suddenly… Love finds a way to last forever… Chasing Bobby Benshoff, tonight at nine on Lifetime Television for Women.”

When I was in elementary school, all the girls in my fourth grade class decided that we “liked” Bobby Benshoff. To “like” a boy meant that you were in love with him. To be in love with Bobby Benshoff meant that you would join a horde of girls who also were in love with Bobby. And if you liked Bobby, you were gonna have to work for it. You were gonna have to chase him at recess.

Someone started a game where the girls who liked Bobby would chase him around the Winterset Elementary School playground. You could practically measure that playground in square miles, so this was no kitten chase. We had an enormous hill. We had the “Tornado Slide” with its attendant jungle gym, monkey bars, and sand pit. We had a basketball court, hopscotch zone, swings, a track — even, weirdly, pull up bars (because second-graders are so into chin ups) and a crazy-dangerous slalom bar thing that no one knew how to properly use. This was our battlefield. For the long weeks that Bobby Fever gripped us, we’d all head out to recess, a girl would yell, “Go!” and poor Bobby would take off running for his life.

Bobby was the fastest runner in our grade behind Joel Loomis, so the challenge of keeping up with him was part of the game. But the giddiness of “liking” him with the possibility of catching him was the main event because Bobby was also the cutest boy in the school. We all thought he looked like a movie star. Dark brown eyes, great smile.** If you looked out onto the playground during Bobby Fever, you’d see a terrified, lone boy just paces ahead of a long line of running girls, squealing and shouting.

The game ended one day, not for lack of interest. Someone had grabbed for Bobby, made contact, and ripped a button off his shirt. It was a red shirt with a black pattern on it, as I remember. Bobby was shocked.

“My mom’s gonna kill me,” he said, dazed. He made part of his shirt into a little wick and tried to poke it through the buttonhole to keep his shirt closed. Not only had he lost a button, his chest was slightly exposed to the hounds of love, all of us trying to get a closer look while inching away to escape implication in Buttongate.

I wasn’t the one who ripped the button off. As I remember it, I didn’t think I was cute enough for Bobby to “like” back. I was popular for two seconds in fourth grade, but it was only because my parents were getting divorced and I was the first one in class that happened to. I was like an exotic zoo animal for awhile until everyone’s parents started getting divorced and wasn’t fascinating anymore, just depressing.

Bobby Benshoff, I hope you’re out there, contented and thriving. If you know anything about Google Alerts, you’ll probably get a notice that I’ve blogged about you — hope you don’t mind. Did your mom get mad about the button? It wasn’t your fault, exactly, though I have to wonder: Didn’t you kind of want to be caught?

**He kinda looked like Yuri, come to think about it.

29 Oct 2014

“For Improving.”

by Mary | posted in: Story | 0

Well, it's something. — Well, it’s something.

I will be in New York City for the year, I think, but no more. I have yet to fall for this place. I’m waiting by the phone for New York to take me out, wine and dine me, leave me breathless, but apparently, New York is okay with me staying home to wash my hair. Fine, New York. But you don’t know what you’re missing. Besides, you smell.

So I will return to Chicago in time and reunite with all my stuff, not that I have a lot of it. I heard once that “every object in your home is a thought in your head.” There’s no room up there as it is, so I am ruthless in getting rid of things. Sometimes I cut a bit deep, e.g., the time I was up at the family cottage and sailed letters from my estranged father into the fire, one after the other. They were all from a particularly morose and self-drenched period in his life and there were just so many of them. Later, I thought, “One day he’ll be gone and you’ll regret that one, Fons.” But there’s nothing to be done about it now. Ashes to ashes and all.

For some bizarre reason, I have kept a chemistry award I got in high school. Oh, I was no chemistry whiz. As you can see by the scan of the award, my distinction was for “improving.” Not even “Most Improved,” just “improving.” I seem to recall that I improved from a D+ to a C-, by the way. I couldn’t have cared less about chemistry but I did care about a bad grade. My strategy in high school was to be so damned good at the things I was good at that no one would really care if I sucked at the rest of it. A+ after A+ in English, Speech, Reading. Those were all slam dunks. Algebra II? I’d rather not think about it.

What’s strangest about this award, though, is not that I’ve kept it, but that I brought it to New York. It wasn’t stuck in a book that I just found. No, I remember distinctly putting it into a box to bring here. The only reason I can imagine for doing this is that I planned to blog about it. That must be it.

That must be why.

27 Oct 2014

Poets Rejoice: Let’s All Vape

by Mary | posted in: Poetry, Tips | 1

Poets Rejoice: Vape! — E-cigarette by London manufacturer Vaepen.

For most of my life, I have had a relationship with poetry — the good, the bad, and most levels in between. In betwixt. Betwither? Anyway.

When we were little, my sisters and I memorized the Shel Silverstein catalogue. In junior high, I was unpopular; many days were spent alone, writing lyrics to Debbie Gibson songs. You might be thinking, “That’s not poetry!” and you are correct. But I was rhyming about love, so I’m counting it.

By high school I was writing angsty poems in study hall with titles like “ripped” and “truth”, always in lowercase everything because capitalization was “establishment.” I’d shove those poems deep into my jeans pockets with my pain. I read Nikki Giovanni and Dorothy Parker and listened to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos, so my poetic education, such as it was, continued apace. Plus, my sister and our friends would take Honky, my grandmother’s white station wagon (I named it) into Des Moines and a few of us would read at open mic nights at Java Joe’s, the only coffeehouse in a 200-mile radius. I had guts, I’ll give myself that much. My picture was even in the Des Moines Register once for sharing poems at the local Barnes & Noble open mic; this is probably because I had a full mouth of braces and a shirt that said “Marlboro” on it. Sorry, Mom.

Speed up. College. I made theater for four years, but isn’t theater just one big open mic? Also, my boyfriend Dan moved to New York City and got deep into the poetry slam scene. I saw him perform at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and thought, “I could do that.”

After college, I moved to Chicago and tried to keep being an actress but the bottom had dropped out. I didn’t actually like pretending to be someone else; I wanted to write and perform my own stuff. As it happens, Chicago is the birthplace of the poetry slam and the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge was the premier place for it, the place where it all started. For the next several years, I was there every Sunday night, listening, gagging, applauding, performing, laughing, crying, and above all, learning as much as I could about poetry. I also learned about gin and tonic.

Now that I’ve outlined this history, you’ll have context for what I consider to be the most significant moments in my poetical life thus far. And now, The Most Significant Moments In My Poetical Life Thus Far:

1. Getting a perfect score at the Mill (10-10-10)
2. Seeing my first poem published in a literary magazine that no one reads
3. Discovering Philip Larkin
4. The birth of the word “vape”

Let’s look at this most recent development. Poets — and I’m talking mostly to the slammers out there, but this works for everyone — do you realize what has happened? Do you understand what you’ve been given? The word “vape” has entered the lexicon! Earth’s metering, rhyme-scheming citizens will never be the same! Not only do poets have a new word to rhyme, we have a word that happens to rhyme with some of the most often used words in poetry: escape, agape, rape (and possibly crepe.) Just think of the possibilities:

Black hair like velvet
Her face: a heart shape
Her voice, my song:
“You wanna vape?”

We stood in the rain
Emotions escaping
Under the awning
Quietly vaping

This is big. Huge. Seismic. I’m just wondering if I’m the last to figure this out. It (almost) makes me want to go to a poetry slam and see what people are doing with the brand new word. It also makes me want to visit that hilariously named vape shop across from my sister and Jack’s condo in Chicago. It’s actually called “Let’s All Vape.” That’s the name of the store. I’d like to start any store and name it like that. “Let’s All Have Tacos” or “Let’s All Buy Shoes” or “Let’s All Get An MRI” — these are all viable shop names. Don’t wait for me, by any means — this is my gift to you. I fully support anyone who wants to name their shop “Let’s All [Insert Thing Here].” I will be your first customer, that’s how much I love that idea.**

New words, a basketful of retail possibilities — all of this, and I still have no desire to vape. Tough customer, I guess.

**I can’t stop: Let’s All Have Our Engines Examined, Let’s All At Least Have a Look at The Buffet, Let’s All Copy Something, Let’s All Get Gas, Let’s All Buy Things We Don’t Need, Let’s All Get Uncomfortable (sex shop), Let’s All Get a Headache (bath and body shop)

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