There’s an error on this version of the cover. The ampersand should be a plus-sign; it should read: “Make + Love Quilts”. That makes this cover feel like an outtake, or a rare Czech/bootleg pressing of a Stones record.
My book has received a positive review from a reputable source!
It could all be downhill from here, so let’s enjoy this.
Though I have made my pledge and try my hardest to maintain its integrity, from time to time, we must jettison our rules and regulations to celebrate unpredictability and joy in life. Today, I link to the outside web because this nifty review is cause for celebration. If you’d like to see what the fancy critic said, you can click right over here.
Everyone likes shapes. That’s Grandma Moses, by the way.
I’m in Cleveland at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo show. I’ll be teaching today; tomorrow, I’ll teach again and then give a lecture. If you’re in the state of Ohio, you should do the following immediately:
1. Eat a buckeye
The candy, I mean! Not the sports fan, tree, chicken, or passenger train that also use the term “buckeye.” Eating a passenger train… What’s wrong with you??
2. Drive to the OSQE show.
It’s at the I-X Center. I don’t know what I-X is for, but is there any better place for us all to find out than in the actual I-X Center? Clearly, there is not.
3. Come find me!
I’m wearing pants, shoes, and a top. And earrings. And a necklace. And bra and underwear, naturally, and I’m deodorized and flossed. Can’t miss me. Shouldn’t miss me, really. We can rap about the tip sheet up there. It’s full of good information for beginner quilters of all ages and stages.
4. Gimme one of those buckeyes.
I smell peanut butter on you. You’re holding out. C’mon, man, hurry up… No, just do it quick! Just be cool! Aright, aright. Now we’re talkin’… Mmmm…
My name is Squeak, and I am make out of what appears to be a dingy sock. In reality, I am made out of a used-but-laundered sock, and this photograph of me is terrible. I have two buttons for eyes and I am generally in a good mood. Mary wanted an image of a puppet in this post but didn’t want to use a photo for which she’d need permission. She found me on Wiki Commons, so there you go.
I’ve been employed by Mary — she’s paying me in compliments — for what she says is, “a terrible, terrible situation, Squeaks.” She was shaking her head and looking at her taxes when she said that.
What are taxes?
Anyway, Mary wants me to tell you to “hang in there, comrades.” Mary told me to make sure to tell you she is not a communist, but she likes calling a group of people she loves “comrades” because it’s ironic.
What’s irony?
Anyway, I was sent to tell you that she’s not neglecting PaperGirl, she just totally in the weeds and can’t get on top of the fires. Fires, weeds. I don’t know. She’s sorry she’s been a little sporadic, she’s sorry she ate jumbo marshmallows for breakfast again…what else. Hang on, I have notes. (Rifles through notes using head.) Oh, here: she’s still in love, her kitchen is amazing, all she wants is to curl up with a good book and some tea, and she’s got lots of funny stories to tell but first she has to file her taxes, shoot 26 episodes of Quilty this weekend, finish one issue of the magazine and get the next one caught up, pitch a new show, possibly write new manuscript by mid-April and send wardrobe to Iowa for PBS taping in a week. And she’s teaching in Cleveland before Iowa. And she has to finish a quilt. And she’s going to miss Yuri terribly when he goes back home to NYC tomorrow.
There’s one note down here. She says, “My heart and soul come together on paper and on PaperGirl. I’m never far away.” (He shrugs.)
I have so enjoyed sewing at The Yarn Company over the past few weeks. I’ve nearly completed my latest quilt for Quilty, a string quilt I’m calling “Majesty,” due to all the royal purple fabrics. A string quilt, if you don’t know, is a quilt made by sewing long strips (“strings”) of fabric to paper foundations. You sew, trim, and then tear the paper off the back of the units you’ve sewn. You sew the units together to make blocks, and from the blocks, you make the quilt top, and so on.
There is a myth that quilters are patient. It’s the opposite. We are extremely impatient. We must forever be doing something with our hands. We finish a quilt and immediately start the next one (many of us, including me, begin our next project before we finish what we’ve got going.) We look for efficiencies everywhere. We strategize. There is no meandering, no lackadaisical approach. We make patchwork and quilt quilts to calm ourselves down, not because we are some breed of serene creature with nothing better to do than sit around and (slowly) make “blankets.”*
I’ve calmed myself down in the middle of Manhattan by working on “Majesty” at my sewing machine. If I could’ve spent hours and hours more doing so, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten sick. (A more optimistic way to frame it: I might’ve been sicker had I not enjoyed many hours of sewing.) The whirr of my Babylock, the snic! of my scissors cutting thread; these are the sounds of patchwork science that have soothed my cerebrum when it’s been burnt crispy by the sirens and the subway. There are dishes to do, always, and dinner and cookies to make for myself and Yuri. There are phone calls and emails and fires — all of it important, none of it more important than anyone else’s phone calls, emails, and fires. All of this is laid down when you sew. You really can’t do much else when your foot is on that pedal.
My mom likes to say this:
“When I was a young mother, working on my first book, it seemed crazy to make quilts in my ‘spare time.’ But I loved making patchwork and quilts because they stayed done. The dishes didn’t stay done, the laundry didn’t stay done. There was always more homework, there were more bills… But a quilt block stayed done. You could say, ‘I made this’ and enjoy it forever.”
Chicago will see very little of me; the remainder of March is all we have together. I go to Cleveland, Iowa, Florida, Lincoln, and somewhere else before coming back to NYC in early May. Nothing stays done. Plane tickets don’t get framed. Suitcases don’t stay packed or unpacked. Kisses are like matches. Sandwiches are consumed. But “Majesty,” when it’s done, will stay done. And someone will cover up under it one day and see the Quilt Charm on the back. It will read, “Made by Mary Fons, NYC, 2014. Done.”
*Don’t call them “blankets.” Your CB2 knit throw is a blanket. We make quilts.
Tim Gunn backstage during New York Fashion Week, 2009. Image: Wikipedia.
I have only a few days left in Manhattan before I return to Chicago for a few weeks. I was getting worried that I hadn’t bumped into Madonna in the park or seen Sam Harris on the subway. I don’t seek out celebrity encounters, but I was a little bummed my elbows hadn’t been bumped by anyone fancy since arriving in the city.
Then I met Tim Gunn.
Yuri and I both had loads of work to do this weekend and decided to set up shop at the Balcony Lounge at the Met. This is a private lounge for members of the museum, and my family has a membership. (Thanks, Ma!) The lounge is quiet, serves excellent tea and cheese, there’s fast wireless, and if you need to take a break and go see Walker Evans photographs or stare at The Harvesters by Bruegel the Elder, you can absolutely do that. We all need Bruegel the Elder breaks from time to time.
I was focused on editing the May/June ’14 issue of Quilty when I heard a one-of-a-kind voice. I looked up to see none other than style icon and Project Runway host Tim Gunn greeting the nice lady at the registration desk. My mouth dropped open. I grabbed Yuri’s leg. I do that a lot for a variety of reasons on a regular basis, so he didn’t look up from his laptop.
“Yuri!” I hissed. “Yuri, it’s Tim Gunn. Tim Gunn just walked in!”
Yuri was programming. “Who?”
“Tim Gunn! Tim Gunn from Project Runway! And, like, fashion!”
My body was contorting into Martha Graham-like shapes. I was excited. Tim Gunn is someone whose career I admire. He taught at (and led) Parsons School of Design for many years. He was Chief Creative Officer at Liz Claiborne for awhile, which, according to my research, put him at the company during its morph into the Kate Spade-Juicy Couture-JC Penny animal it is now? This is unclear to me, but it is clear is that Tim Gunn is the man. And, as most people who are not named Yuri know, Tim Gunn has served as beloved mentor to designers cast in Project Runway since the very first season of the show in 2004. He’s written books, he’s done TV and film cameos; he’s even got his own catchphrase. Though we know people on screens are not magic, it’s plain as can be: Tim Gunn is neat.
I tried to focus on my work but it was impossible. I kept stealing teensy glances over to the sofa where Tim Gunn was sitting. He was perusing a large art book. There are many beautiful books of art on offer in the member lounge, no surprise, and he was engrossed in his selection.
What to do? I desperately wanted to meet him but refused to be weird or annoying. I decided after he had been there for an hour or so to write an extremely short, non-creepy little note to him. (Hear me out.) I would buy his glass of wine and give my note to the waitress to give to him in lieu of his check. My note said something like:
“Hi, Tim Gunn! Thank you for inspiring so many of us who work with textiles. If you ever need a quilt or a quilter for any reason, call me!”
I taped my business card in the center of the note using one of the stickers for my upcoming book. Actually speaking to the man was not part of my plan. I’d take care of the bill and Yuri and I would leave before he did or he’d call for his check and before he left, I’d escape to the bathroom so he wouldn’t feel obligated to come say anything. I wanted to make tiny, meaningfulcontact with a compliment. No awkwardness, no foul.
But then the waitress went on break! She was his waitress and my waitress! She was the lynchpin of my entire scheme! Now what?!
After a few panicky texts with my sisters, I changed my mind: I would deliver my note in person. If I didn’t try to say hello to Tim Gunn at the Met lounge at that moment, I would never have the chance again. I put on some lip gloss and walked over to where he was sitting.
Readers, I am happy to report that Tim Gunn is wonderful.
“Excuse me, Mr. Gunn?”
He was immediately on his feet.
“Call me Tim! Please!” He placed his book down on the table and stood to shake my hand. “How are you?” he asked, as though we had met. Eep!
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said. I was more timid than I have ever been in my life, I think. “I had this whole plan how not to disturb you. I was going to give you this little note and buy your glass of wine, but then the waitress went on break and, well, I just wanted to say thank you so much. You’re very inspiring. I’m a quilter.”
Tim Gunn was looking at my note. “This is wonderful! How delightful! My goodness! A quilter? That’s marvelous! What is this?” He was pointing to the sticker.
“That’s my book! My first book. It’s coming out in May.”
“That is a tremendous accomplishment,” said Tim Gunn. “I don’t know what I’d do without my co-author. She turns what I write into something actually worth reading! Congratulations to you! When does it come out?”
“May,” I said, beaming. Talking to Tim Gunn was like talking to… Well, Tim Gunn. It was the best. And yes, he looked amazing in tailored everything and he smelled terrific.
We chatted a teensy bit more. He said, “Oh, good. I see your email, here. I’ll send you my last couple of books!” and I said, “I’ll send you mine! We’ll trade!” and Tim Gunn said that sounded like a fine idea.
Start to finish, the encounter was all of two minutes, but it sure was pleasant. Thanks, Tim Gunn, for being kind to a stranger who admires you a great deal. I hope you do receive my book when I send it to you; since it doesn’t come out till May, it’s possible you’ll forget why you’re getting it and your people will move it to the revolving file. But if you do get it, I hope the quilts in the book will inspire you, even a tiny bit.
Not pictured: actual glass that cut me, sponge, or blood.
I incurred a serious injury last week, and not one of the metaphorical or interpersonal sense.
A drinking glass exploded in my hand while I was washing dishes at the sink. I had my right paw and a sponge inside the glass when it burst and my pinky finger was, uh, compromised. The story is coming now because I wasn’t sure if it was over or not.
Looking at my right pinky at press time, I think we’re gonna be okay. By “okay” I mean we’ll have a gnarly scar but no sepsis. Today was the cut-off (too soon!) date for the “I need to see a doctor” discussion with myself. If the disgusting-weird part on the top of the cut had not closed significantly, we’d go for a consult and probably stitches; this was the deal I made with myself in the bathroom, gritting my teeth (yet again) to pull back the gauze and the tape and the Band-Aid (yet again) to see what was doing under there. When I opened the bandage however, lots of white blood cell fairies had apparently come in the night. My pinky looked like a finger with a nasty-but-healing cut, not something from a “before” picture in a Red Cross how-to field guide.
Good people of Earth, I beg you: spend a little more. Invest in good glassware.
The glass I was washing was an IKEA special. I like IKEA. I like Target. I am down with K-Mart when I’m here in NYC because there’s a huge one at Astor Place and I can get coconut water and a spatula there, for example. Discount retailers like the aforementioned are awfully handy, especially if you’re a real-estate firm in New York who rents out furnished apartments. Setting up a furnished apartment to put on the market means stocking it with items that you’re absolutely willing to never see again. When faced with procuring drinking glasses for Unit A7 on the 5th floor of the building on the corner of 3st Ave and Yo Boulevard, a trip to IKEA is de rigeur. Any other option would be a waste of money, though I hardly need to state that I want nothing to do with any of it longer than necessary.
And here we have the perfect example of why I believe in spending even a little more for better quality objects.
Cheap glass breaks. It doesn’t last. It’s like cheap shoes. Yeah, they’re really inexpensive, but you will wear a hole in the sole in two months, which will then make you believe that a) people don’t make shoes like they used to and/or b) it’s time to buy a new pair of shoes. Your second assumption is correct, but not your first: people do make shoes like they used to, but you ain’t gonna get ’em at the PayLess. And you don’t have to drink your tap water from Waterford crystal stemware (note to self: do that) but when you buy cheap glasses, they’re gonna shatter sooner than even slightly better ones that cost more.
When the glass broke, it make a disturbing “pop” and I gasped as the bubbles in my hands turned dark red and pink. I turned around and saw Yuri and my face sort of broke and I said, “I just cut myself very badly,” and I dropped to the floor to put my hand above my heart.
Yuri jolted from his position on the bed and was at my side in an instant. When a vital, intelligent, athletic man looks at a wound and goes, “Oh my god, oh no, no, oh, baby, no…” you know you’ve got a lil’ issue. I’ll spare you the medical attention I got (it involved peroxide, a lot of blood, and several shots of whiskey) and I’ll also preempt your inevitable cry of, “Why didn’t you go to the hospital?!” by telling you that I was too afraid to go to the hospital because I saw Adventures In Babysitting ten million times as a seventh-grader and I didn’t want to camp out all night in a busy NYC emergency room for “one stitch.”*
The finger will make it. Love of Quilting viewers, if they look closely, may catch glimpse of a scar on my right pinky in a future show, though. My pinkies don’t show too much on TV but it’ll happen sometime. I suppose I should’ve gone in for medical attention for that reason, too: my hands are more seen than most people’s hands and I need to keep them nice-looking.
“Northbound.” From my first book, “Make + Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century.” Available nationwide May 15th.
Most people assume I have been making quilts since I was small. My mother, Marianne Fons, is a famous quilter, so it makes sense that she would’ve taught me how to sew from an early age. If I had shown more interest, she most certainly would have. We made a few doll quilts and a few quilts for friends of mine, but my creative pursuits took me to writing stories, putting on plays, singing…and creating and editing a magazine for my junior high school called TRUTH, the name of which I got from a film strip we watched about Russian communist propaganda newspaper, PRAVDA (translation: “truth”). I hired my best friends as columnists and we put out six issues with zero ad support. True story. Have I mentioned I didn’t have a boyfriend till my senior year of high school?
I started making quilts about six years ago. In my lectures to quilters, I talk about the reasons why:
I realized I didn’t have to make quilts that looked like what I saw in contemporary magazines or books; my quilts could look like ME, with solid black fabric, and teeny-tiny prints, and washed out shirting prints, and zero rick-rack
it was no longer uncool to be like my mom — in fact, it struck me as the coolest thing ever to be a part of my family’s place in the world
I got really, really sick and I needed non-medicinal healing (hello, patchwork)
the timing was right, age-wise. I was in my late twenties and ready to sit down for five seconds
And so I became a quilter and making quilts has brought me untold joy ever since. I’m not sure how many quilts I’ve made; it’s dozens, and they’re all kinda huge. Mom has always told me to make quilts that cover people, since that’s what quilts are for. The Fons women don’t do table toppers, though we support anyone who does. We support quilters, period.
A sewing machine with my name on it arrived in New York City yesterday. The fine folks at BabyLock are loaning me an Ellisimo while I’m here, and I carried that huge, glorious box 2.5 blocks and up 2.5 flights of Manhattan walk-up stairs with huge smile on my face. Anywhere I hang my hat for more than about four minutes simply ain’t a home unless I’ve got a sewing machine nearby. Making patchwork and making quilts isn’t just something I do: it’s something I am. The craft, the gesture, the sense-memory of the process is in my DNA, now. I quilt, therefore I am a whole person.
I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to put this thing. Seriously.
I promise this, on an airplane, so you know I’m serious.
This blog has a purpose. It’s had the same purpose since 2006, though there was a year I didn’t write at all, though all the entries from the old site are lost on a dusty server someplace. (If I didn’t have a hard copy of every last one of those entries I might not stop crying till I drowned — it’s not that they’re that great, it’s that they are a record of my life and what else do I have?)
John Dewey, the 20th century American philosopher, once said, “If you are deeply moved by some experience, write a letter to your grandmother. It will help you to better understand the experience, and it will bring great pleasure to your grandmother.”
That’s why I make this. Dewey nailed the best reason to write anything. PaperGirl is me, deeply moved by the experience of life, writing to you, my hypothetical grandmother. You look fabulous, gramma!
But how to do it right? How to balance my privacy and your interest? How to wisely navigate my public job (decorum = critical) with my desire to tell the truth about absolutely everything? (Good writing must tell the truth, but the whole truth? I refuse to speak of my lingerie preferences, much as I’d like to.) How to make sure you stay? Images? Guest posts? Advertisements? All these questions are valid and because they are innumerable, the best way to form the form of the blog is to make a pledge.
And so.
The PaperGirl 10-Point Pledge:
1. I pledge to deliver a fresh paper at least six times a week.
2. I pledge no clickable links, save for references to previous PaperGirl posts. When you’re here, you’re safe from outside tugs. We’ll have a moment, you and I. There is one exception: should I reference an artist, a piece of art, or the work of a writer that ethically must be attached to the post, I will do so — judiciously.
3. I pledge one image per post.
4. I pledge honesty. See No. 5.
5. I pledge class. Details including (but not limited to) my menstrual cycle, my sexual exploits, business matters, or other people’s matters will not be published. Oblique references can and will be made to the above.
6. I pledge to ask anyone mentioned in the blog if I may use their name. If they do not give permission, I will change their name. Direct quotes published in print or online are, by journalistic standards, fair game. See this post about mean people on the Internet. Suckas!
7. I pledge to give you a nice mix of heartfelt, funny, and weird. I will vary the posts so that you will never say, “Geez, that blog is a real drag” or — perhaps worse — “That blog used to be honest and like, sincere, and now it’s just goofy.”
8. I pledge to share what I learn. Poetry, sage words I come across, recommendations for places, people, art, and life choices, etc. — if I learn it, you’ll know it.
9. I pledge to value my readers. Every last one. Even if they don’t ever comment or say hi on Facebook.
10. I pledge to love writing today as much as I did when I was six.
“The Chess Players” Lucas van Leyden, 1508. (The chick is winning.)
I cannot stay in my home when the second phase of the renovation begins and so I am leaving on a jet plane. I will go to Miami, then Las Vegas, then Iowa, then New York City, in that order, and you’re coming with me.
First, I should say that the bathroom looks incredible and it’s not even finished. The Greek key tile inlay is exquisite and now that it’s done, the rest of the bathroom will go quickly, but this means that the kitchen is about to be dismantled with sledgehammers and picks and slathered with dry wall and plaster and wet tile goo and mortar and sweat. The dust produced by the bathroom work over these weeks has threatened to choke me dead or drive me insane for the simple reason that my house has become impossible to clean. A visible layer of powdered wall daily sifts itself down upon my books, my tables, my quilts (!) and no amount of dusting, wiping, swabbing, etc., ameliorates the situation for more than a matter of hours. The kitchen is twice the size of the bathroom and the thought of doubling my already sisyphean dusting attempts creates in my brain uncomfortable, hula hoop-like gyrations. I work from home, for heaven’s sake. There is no escape here. So I will leave.
Signs point to Miami for New Year’s, which I’m excited for; I’ve never been and wanna see the art. I’ll be in Las Vegas for just a few days in mid-January, randomly; I actually have a a mild affinity for Vegas — all those feathers! Then I think I should head over to Iowa and work in the magazine office for a spell; good for the job, good for the team, good for the parental units who live in town, as well. And then, if a few things fall into place, I’ll be off to New York City, where I’ll stay with my older sister and eat lots of chickpea crust pizza in the East Village and visit my favorite resale shops that sell used Balenciaga at 80% off 60% off. Only in New York can you get an exquisite Dries Van Noten, bias-cut, asymmetrical cape-coat-pantaloon, used, for $85 bucks. Combien j’aime la mode…
So. You wanna go?
You’ll see Miami through my virgin eyes. You’ll see Vegas through a filter of someone who’s a) been there before and b) never gambles. You’ll see Iowa; glorious, quotidian Iowa where there are only feathers on the birds, thereby giving us more opportunity for reflection and rest (a good thing after Miami and Vegas to be sure.) And then New York City, the huge, glittering onyx in Earth’s fancy cocktail ring.* Oh, it will all be a gas and I do so love to see new things and write it all down. We’ll have fun, you and me, and when I come home, the bathroom and kitchen will be done.
I have some packing to do.
*In fact, I am headed to New York on the 20th of this month, as well. The Fons Family is having Christmas in NYC this year, so if you read this blog regularly, you’ll get plenty of New York stories over the holiday; this may come in handy if you’re stuck in Boise and need something sensational to read.
I stood in a well-ventilated clapboard chamber, totally nude, while a gal named Heather worked me over with an airbrushing machine. I got a spray tan yesterday.
I’m hardly the first person to point out that a body paint job is a ludicrous concept, a frivolous, vain expenditure. That’s fair, but it’s something else, too, I realized today: Getting a spray tan transgresses deeply grooved boundaries of the public and the private, and I believe this has value.
It’s is the same transgression that occurs when I go for a bikini wax. Every time I’m in these situations, when I’m nakey in a tiny room with another person who is fully clothed, I think about these things. Why is being naked in the name of grooming okay while most of us will go to great lengths to cover up in the gym locker room? Weird.
This is an observation, not a complaint. I’m not suggesting we all run around naked and start dismantling body taboos. (I think we’re all in okay with most folks keeping their pants in place). But I do think these “intricate rituals,” as artist Barbara Kruger put it once, help us remember that we don’t have a body; we are a body.
What is it to be seen? What is it to be still, with your back to a stranger, without a stitch of clothing on? It’s certainly not comfortable. For some people, it’s their worst nightmare.
Ah, but the spray tan girl. She’ll make it better. Mine was chatting about her upcoming wedding.
“I really wanted a gold gown but no one would let me do it! It’s crazy how people just tell you no! The dress place was like, ‘You look like you’re going to prom. You look like you’re on Dancing With the Stars.’ And I was like, ‘Crap, you’re right.’ So I got a dress with lace but I’m getting gold shoes and my fiancee and I are going to Italy for the honeymoon but not yet, so we’re thinking a long weekend in Lake Geneva…”
It was a stream of small talk and we had very little eye contact from the start, especially when my gal knelt down for my lower half. I turned when she said, “Okay hon, turn,” and I made the namaste-like gesture so she could get my sides properly. We acted like there was nothing wrong or odd whatsoever that I was nekkid as a j-bird, as they say. Well, except for my shower cap.
I can’t believe I just told you about the shower cap. Perhaps that’s the thing to feel ashamed about?
I don’t have any children. But I have written a book. Because of this book, I feel I understand a thing or two about parentage and stewardship, about hard work and real fear.
Let’s break down the [MOTHER] is to [AUTHOR] as [CHILD] is to [BOOK] analogy:
CHILD: A moment of conception must occur (i.e., orgasm.)
BOOK: A moment of conception must occur (i.e., great idea.)
CHILD: Blastocyst = cluster of cells formed early in mammal development
BOOK: Outline = cluster of ideas formed early in manuscript development
CHILD: The expectant mother may experience extreme tiredness, mood swings, carpal tunnel syndrome, nipple tenderness.
BOOK: Expectant author may also experience all of the above. WELL SHE CAN, OKAY??
CHILD: Needs a name.
BOOK: Needs a name that will sell.
CHILD: Though each woman’s labor varies, nearly all experience degrees of severe pain in labor and delivery.
BOOK: Author labor varies, but nearly all experience degrees of severe pain throughout the editing process and delivery of manuscript.
CHILD: May arrive diseased and malformed through no direct fault of the mother.
BOOK: Totally on you.
Let us leave the analogy, then, and let me tell you about the book coming out this spring from C&T Publishing. This is not the official book blurb, this is just me, PaperGirl, talking to you.
I wrote Make + Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century is my book to delight readers, artists, and quilters. There are patterns for twelve original bed-sized scrap quilts, designed by me. There is instruction that takes you through the quiltmaking process, start to finish. There are tips and advice for creating good patchwork and a good life. There are quotes on love from all kinds of folks from Nietzsche to Montaigne to Marilyn Monroe. There is stunning photography of the quilts (gorgeous style shots as well as front and back flat shots of each), the fabric used, and the Quilt Charms I had engraved and stitched on the back.
The art direction is killer. When I was on a phone meeting with the book team in California, I reached for the sky: I told them to “make this book the most beautiful book you have ever made. Ever.” I promised them I’d do my part — and they held up their end of the bargain, I assure you. The book is more beautiful than I even imagined it would be. I’ve cried several times and I haven’t even seen a bound galley copy, yet.
In 1952, experimental composer John Cage composed this three-movement piece called 4’33”. Written for any instrument or combination of instruments, the score instructs the performer(s) not to play their instrument(s). At all. It’s just silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Nice.
My voice has skipped town. Three days, now. No word from her. Very concerned.
In her stead, this bizarre, rather spooky sound is coming from my throat and it alternates between a barely audible squeak and an alarming baritone. The baritone only happens when I decide I absolutely must be heard and the only way that will happen is if I drop my voice down to my chest, furrow my brow a bit, and push sound out with a full-on bark. I was in the airport yesterday and did this while on a phone meeting and I visibly frightened three grown men who were reading newspapers at Gate A9. They all jumped a foot and looked at me like, “What in God’s name is wrong with that woman?!”
It’s a cold, brother.
Which I don’t get very often! I’ve been smote by far worse maladies in life and thus I like to think I’ve been given a pass on the other stuff, the little stuff, like colds and the flu. But that’s silly, and the proof is in the mucus. The real problem is that I am in Oklahoma today and a whole lot of people are coming to hear me speak. I know, right? THE IRONY. I’m speaking alongside my mom on this trip and she can help translate any interpretive dances I need to do to communicate with the people, but seriously: I need to be able to talk. Really need that talking thing. So I sent a high-priority email to my friend Kristina The Actress. She’s been onstage her whole life and she’s done Broadway and all that, so she knows a thing or two about losing one’s, er, moneymaker.
“Kristina,” I feverishly typed. “I’m [REDACTED]. My voice. Gone. Totally. Lecture tomorrow. HELP ME.”
This morning, my voice is a 1,000 better and it has 90% to do with her sage wisdom. (The other 10% of improvement can be attributed to time and rest.) So mark the following practical advice in your mind, fair reader, and when you lose your voice at a bad time — isn’t it always? — you can say, “Well, a Broadway actress told me once…”
“Sweets: able to help…speaking to missing voice (which I totally thought was a metaphor at first): If there is mucus, Broadway agrees you must take Mucinex. Then chew/suck raw ginger and also put it in your tea. Then there’s a brand of cough drops called “Fisherman’s Friend.” Sucrets for pain. And then some doctor comes and injects steroids in your throat…I love you.”
See what I mean? That’s a serious assault from all corners and it worked for me, folks. I didn’t have the steroids in my throat (ew) but it’s good to know about the big guns. Thank you, Kristina. You are beautiful in many ways and lots of people love you, but now large crowds of quilters in Oklahoma will love you and when you woke up yesterday morning I bet you didn’t see that comin’.
There are fires to put out and people to give things to. There are tasks need done and a clock that’s ticking in the halls of my brain. There’s a hard stop for it all on Wednesday morning, when I leave for Oklahoma for a several day-long lecture series — but that’s a hard stop no harder than a day all-too-soon when we sign off on the latest issue of the magazine.
My kingdom for a kingdom. Then I’d have help.
And all of this while the sawing and the buzzing and tour de force takes place in my home and the men shout, “‘Ey, Ryan! Bring me that pipe?” from the other side of the house and I can’t write. So I leave and find the best place to be homeless today. The coffee shop on Tuesday was good, but a weirdo was staring at me so I couldn’t edit. The common room in my building yesterday was okay, but there was a chill and I felt sad.
Today, I’m here at the Hilton. It’s just around the corner from the cavity they’re drilling in my bathroom. There’s fresh coffee to scam off the buffet and there’s a convention going on with free wi-fi to be had. And I found this hall-slash-ballroom upstairs from the lobby where the sun is streaming in and the chandeliers have been dusted recently. It’s vast and paneled and there’s not a soul in sight.
When you work from home and you can’t be home, you can work in a ballroom. And that makes all the difference.
“Master bathroom” sounds awfully fancy, like there’s room for a helicopter pad in there. I assure you there is only room for a sink, a shower, and a loo. And a towel rack. But it’s my sink, shower, loo, and towel rack and dammit, I deserve to enjoy them all while standing on tile that isn’t cracked. When I got my condo, both bathrooms were clearly quick fix, Home-Depot’s-havin-a-sale, let’s-move-this-unit jobbies, and a few months back I decided it was high time I do something about it. The cabinet under the sink is (was) this icky laminate and over time, the sprays, soaps, and powders from my morning toilette took their toll. ‘Twas getting a bit sticky, you see, and no amount of 409 could help it.
The bathroom is’a gonna be’a sweet. The sink is getting downsized. The shower is getting upsized. The tile will be custom; small white squares with an inlaid black Greek key thingy that will run from the floor into the shower and back. And I’m wallpapering, which might sound cray, but it can be done with the proper treatment. The zebras up there? That’s my wallpaper. It’s made by a company called Scalamandre and that’s half the reason I like it. I say it all the time with lusty flair when I walk past the sample tacked to the wall: “ScalaMANDRE!” and I gesture like an Italian.*
The work has begun and boy is it weird have three big, sweaty dudes in my house. I notice it most at lunchtime when they bring out their sandwiches and cans of pop. They all sit down on buckets in the cordoned off portion of the main room and they’re just in there, munching and talking about the game, the girl, or the government. I work at home, but we’ll see if that will remain to be true. I may have to do a coffee shop tour of Chicago for awhile; when they start cutting tile, I might start biting my nails. Which certainly won’t do. I have to save those. I have to save them because as soon as they finish the bathroom?
Once upon a time, there was a girl whose alarm went off.
She fumbled for her phone and knocked it off the bedside table. Thus, she began her day the way she always did, with panic that she had just broken a piece of plastic that cost five hundred dollars. Finding that her phone was fine, the girl shut the alarm off and rubbed her eyelids for awhile.
She got up and shuffled to the bar sink in her hotel room. She took a little paper hat off a coffee mug and plugged in the coffeemaker on the counter. “Hello, coffeemaker,” she said.
The coffeemaker said nothing.
The girl filled her mug to the top with water and poured the water into the coffeemaker’s reservoir. She put the coffee pod in the coffee pod basket. She pushed a button that said BREW and then she stood there at the sink and thought about her job.
The coffeemaker burbled and steamed for a few minutes, and then with a rather rude “Pah!” it was done. The girl — who needed coffee very badly — was excited until she looked at what the machine had produced: a half cup of coffee. But she had poured a full mug of water into the reservoir! However much water was in her mug, when it ran through the coffeemaker, shouldn’t she get exactly that much coffee in her cup? Even adjusting for evaporation/inflation, there was definitely coffee missing. But where had it gone?
The girl drank the coffee, but it was gone too quickly and she was confused.
“Let’s try this again,” the girl said, and she studied the directions on the coffeemaker’s lid. She repeated the steps: mugful — truly full — of water, pod, BREW. Sure enough, “Pah!” went the coffeemaker when it was finished and her mug was again only half-full.
“Coffeemaker, whydid you not make a full cup of coffee?” the girl said in a stern voice. Again, the coffeemaker said nothing.
The girl picked up the coffeemaker and shook it. She unplugged it and plugged it back in. She read the instructions on the lid once more; she even tried making two cups at once to see if that might be the ticket, but every time, no matter what she did or how much water she poured into the coffeemaker, she still only got a half cup of coffee in her mug. Every time.
“I don’t like you,” the girl said, narrowing her eyes. “At best, you’re terrible at making coffee. At worst, you’re drinking it. If you don’t explain yourself in the next 60 seconds, I’m going to the breakfast buffet where there are faucets of coffee just waiting to fill up every cup in Houston. Do you understand me? Now talk!”
The coffeemaker was silent. The girl tapped her foot. Almost a minute went by.
“That’s ten more seconds you’ve got, Mister…Coffee,” said the girl, though really it was a different brand so she knew she had just weakened her position. After ten more seconds, after the coffeemaker had stubbornly refused any attempt to explain itself, the girl sniffed and turned on her heels. She promptly tripped on her bathrobe, catching herself on the closet door handle on the way down. The day was shaping up great.
To encounter one or two people in your life who don’t like your face, just get out of bed in the morning. To have a sizable number of those people, you’ll need to be on television.
Sipping my coffee this morning, feeling fantastic about wrapping the latest 2-week taping of Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting, I accidentally found a gnarled thread on the Fons & Porter Facebook page. The venerable, incredible teacher and company founder, Liz Porter, visited the set to film two (excellent) episodes the other day and a picture was taken of us at work. I love working with Liz and felt quite chipper about it all until this morning.
“If they would just film with MaryAnn [sic] Fons instead of that nitwit daughter.. all would be good,” commented one Cora McDivitt Darrin, upon viewing the photo. Virginia Anne Lewis felt similarly, adding, “I wish mary [sic] would stop making faces and nodding and shaking her head.” Four people Liked that. And from the lady so irresistible she has not one but four last names, Pat Stubo Erickson Sullivan lamented, “I’m almost ready to stop watching….Mary drives me nuts. She talks WAY too much and her waving hands are so distracting. I’d rather have MaryAnn on alone with guests if we can’t have Liz back!” Various other folks digitally nodded their heads (not so vigorously they might’ve strained their necks, I hope) in agreement.
I took another sip of coffee. The cream was curdled.
Every well-intentioned mother in the world, including mine, would advise me to “just ignore it.” Just ignore it, the well-intentioned mothers say, shaking their collective heads, “some people are just negative.” This is the part that catches in my throat along with the hot tears in my eyes: Why do negative people get a pass for being wretched? I’m not negative. I’m all good. I’d never call a well-intentioned human a nitwit. Look:
nitwit |ˈnitˌwit|
noun informal a silly or foolish person (often as a general term of abuse).
I’ll claim silly. I wear silly with pride. And perhaps in affairs of the heart, I am at my core, a fool. But you don’t know that, Cora darling, and since I don’t speak of my love life on Public Television, and since I know my job pretty well, I’d say that makes the word “fool” off limits. Besides, once the word “abuse” pops into the mix, you have wronged your fellow man. Ask around; it’s unanimous.
But hey, if you don’t want know strangers’ opinions of you, Mary Fons, stay inside your house. Strangers will still have opinions about you (you’ll be the crazy person who never comes out of your house) but you’ll never know what they’re saying, which is good if you’re a sensitive gal. But I did leave the house. I’m on a show that broadcasts to 93% of the PBS markets in America. I chose to approach this circumstance and I’ll lay in it. If I spent time whining about how a stranger in Montana (or hundreds of strangers in Texas) don’t adore me, I’d actually be the nitwit Cora believes me to be.
I can’t complain about negative comments happening. They’ll keep happening. But I can call people out for being simple and mean to me. Your name is as public as mine when you write on walls in binary code.
So: Does it feel weird to be talked about so intimately by someone you don’t know? It’s crazy, right, ladies?! Feels kinda crappy. Makes you sorta mad. But who should you get mad at? It’s hard to know! I know!! Such an impotent, helpless feeling. Just do what I do: try not to let this webpage ruin your day; instantly fail. Clench your jaw a few times, click over to Amazon and try to forget about it. Click back. Read your name again. Feel like a failure. Burn. Get paralyzed for about an hour. Literally, physically shake “it” off and set about your day. Eventually forget whatever nasty thing Person XYZ said about you, but not completely; no not completely, because they did say it and a bunch of people saw it. You mustn’t cry, though, even if you feel like you got punched in the face. If you cry, you’ll really feel dumb because people will say that if you don’t like it, don’t work.
As for all the strangers who said lovely things, I’d like to thank you individually for your your charm, your intelligence, your flawless skin, your timeless elegance, and those swan-like necks! Ms. Susan Parrish admitted to missing my mom and Liz but managed a sincere tally-ho: “[Liz and Marianne] made such a good team,” Parrish said, “But I like Mary as well; she is doing a great job. Keep up the good work.” The incomparable Leslie Fitzgerald went to bat for me, wading into the fetid comment stream to say, “For those of you who have been bashing Mary, what happened to the old adage, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” Sheesh!”
Ah, but Leslie. This is the Internet. Welcome to the Internet. Leave your face at the door.
