13 Mar 2015

The Honorable Maid’s Conundrum.

by | posted in: Family, Fashion | 1
That's me, second from the left. Photo: A bride and her attendants in New Ulm, Minn., in October 1974.
That’s me, second from the left. Photo: A bride and her attendants in New Ulm, Minn., in October 1974.

The engagement happened. The smash hit party for Rebecca happened. The next big event in my younger sister’s nuptials will be the wedding itself. And I need something to wear.

My sister Rebecca, who has been and always will be cooler than me by a long stretch, knows better than to put her Maid of Honor in something she has chosen herself. Being that I am her Maid of Honor, I love her for this. Because when I was married, I got swept up in the whole “let’s put girls who are different in dresses that are the same” thing, and that choice has been filed in my slim folder of regrets.

Rebecca will have no bridesmaids, just me. This fact, and the freedom she’s giving me to select my outfit have caused me a lot of brow furrowing lately. This is the most important wardrobe decision I’ve made in many years. I mean, it took me some time to decide what I’d wear on that date with the doctor, but this feels more special, somehow. (Dr. Lame-o is totally out of the picture, by the way. I’ll tell you later.)

Here’s what we know:

1. Not only would it be disgusting in the extreme to wear something that would distract from the bride on her wedding day
2. …it is impossible to wear something that would distract from a bride on her wedding day because no woman is more beautiful than a bride on her wedding day. I have seen zero exceptions to this.
3. It’s still possible to make a very wrong choice, here.

I need to be classy, naturally. But I ain’t wearing a dun-colored St. John’s suit. I’m thirty-something, not a wizened great aunt. The ever-perfect black dress is out because it feels a) a bit severe; and b) funereal. Yellow is out because yellow is too conspicuous, for one thing, and years later someone who didn’t know my family might assume my sister’s favorite color was yellow (it isn’t) or that yellow was part of her wedding color scheme (she has none.) Here are other things other colors communicate:

RED: “Hi, I’m Mary, the Whore of Honor.”
GREEN: “Hi, I’m Mary. Yes, I look terrible in green but it seemed safe.”
BROWN: “I’m depressed. What? Oh, sorry. My name’s Mary.”
WHITE: “No, it’s a joke! Get it? Like, white wedding??”
ORANGE: “Hi, I’m Mary. I’m the Maid of Honor. I dressed my bridesmaids in orange when I got married. I’m divorced, now. I really hate the color orange. Can I get you a glass of wine?”

My rigorous thought process on all this has yielded what I believe to be the two top contenders: a pale pink or a deep navy. Right? Beautiful, conservative, classy. Yes, but it’s not that easy. My wardrobe challenge doesn’t end there. There’s the matter of style and cut. I want the dress to be architectural, but not Gaga architectural. I want it to be feminine, but not soft. The matter of “softness” was the one guideline my sister gave me. “I know you’ll pick the right thing,” she said, “But I guess… I want to be the soft one that day, you know?” Yep. So no lace, no chiffon overlays, no bows on straps or anything.

And I wanna be kinda hot. I mean… It’s a wedding. But “looking hot” lands way down on the list and one must remember the “What We Knows” listed above.

So, with vorpal sword in hand, I snicker-snack through the jungle of the Internet, seeking the perfect frock, for the perfect couple, on their perfect day. Jeeves, bring me my perfect credit card, darling.

11 Mar 2015

Lost In a Sea of Landmarks!

by | posted in: D.C. | 0
See? Teeth! Photo: Wikipedia, 2012
Watergate Building, Washington, DC. (I don’t like those shark teeth things.) Photo: Wikipedia, 2012. 

I had a doctor’s appointment at 600 New Hampshire NW today. I did not realize this meant my doctor’s appointment was deep in the Watergate office complex. When I walked up to the strange, round structure, I was like, “Wow! Watergate!” But my knowledge of the scandal of 1972 is pretty much this:

Nixon –> stuff taken –> lies –> more lies –> reporter Bob Woodward as bloodhound –> lies, lies, lies –> scandal –> Nixon busted –> Gerald Ford –> Chevy Chase making fun of Ford on SNL.

But I didn’t know that Watergate was the name of the office building where the theft went down. I think I thought Watergate was some code word for something? So I come up to the Watergate building and can’t find the doctor’s office for the life of me. I’m looking up from my Google maps and back down. I’m peering around Watergate this way and that; I’m telling you, Watergate was really in my way. It was a good thing I left enough time to get lost.

Meanwhile, I was wearing my fedora and my black trench coat; it was not lost on me that I looked mighty suspicious walking back and forth and back and forth on the street. At one point, I hit a dead end by a closed restaurant with all the windows papered up and I encountered a man smoking a cigarette back there. He glanced at me, we nodded to each other, and I felt like I was in a spy movie. All I needed was a briefcase and files of some kind.

Finally, I surrendered and went into a lobby. I asked the front desk lady, “I’m sorry, where is 600 New Hampshire? I’m new in town.”

“Sure, sweetie — it’s just at the end of the block. Go out and take a right.” I did, and discovered my doctor had an office in the Watergate scandal. It was so confusing. As I was disassembling what I thought I knew, I got whacked with another landmark. I took the elevator to the third floor, turned to my left and what do you suppose I saw? The office of flipping Atlantic magazine! The Atlantic! I’m not a subscriber, but I fly a lot and read a wide variety of magazines at 35,000 feet; me and the Atlantic go way back. So how about that! The Atlantic offices! I just shook my head.

But the Atlantic offices were actually the third landmark that smacked me in the face today. The other one? In a cruel, cruel twist of urban planning, directly across the street from Watergate is the Kennedy Center.

Oof. Poor Nixon. That one’s gotta hurt, buddy. Chin up.

9 Mar 2015

The Motorcycle Ride: San Francisco, 2004

by | posted in: Poetry, Story | 0
I can see my twenties from here! Image: Jack French, Wikipedia.

A song on the radio mentioned a motorcycle and it reminded me of something in a galaxy far away.

In 2004, I went on a slam poetry tour of the west coast. My friend Ezekiel went, too; he went to protect me and have a good time. He filmed the whole trip too, all the way from Portland to L.A. That there is footage of this adventure makes me wistful, curious, and horrified all at the same time. I’ve been out of the slam scene for so long, I’m not sure if folks are still doing tours like these, but in the early aughts, it was the thing to do. These tours weren’t lucrative; it was definitely the opposite. You’d end up spending money, not making it, because travel costs a lot and you’d be making only a couple hundred bucks at the gigs, if that. But what fun we had.

Ezekiel and I were in San Francisco. I had done my set at a slam and it must’ve gone well because we were in a celebratory mood. We went to a bar on the Haight. I was a tender 24 year-old wearing ripped jeans and an army jacket, surely waxing brilliantly about originality, spirituality, and all the other -alities 20-somethings talk about with zero authority and fiery conviction.

Then Motorcycle Guy walked in.

You could put a book of Allen Ginsberg poems to my neck and I wouldn’t be able to tell you his name but I remember exactly what he was wearing. It was leather motorcycle gear, top to bottom. Not Harley Davidson motorcycle, but like, drag racing, street bike motorcycle stuff. He was the sexiest thing I had ever seen in my life. Tousled sandy blonde hair. Five o’clock shadow. He looked like an ad for Gucci cologne or something. He had a sleepy grin and swagger for days. In short, he looked like sex.

I squeaked under my breath and said to Ezekiel that I was going to die of desire within the next few minutes and that he should be ready to deal with my dead, once-nubile body.

Ezekiel looked over at the guy and laughed. “I dare you to go talk to him,” he said. I flapped my hands at him. He was crazy. That person was not in my league.

“Double dog dare.”

I stared at the man sitting at the bar and melted into a pool of butter. After the rest of my pilsner and Ezekiel’s goading, I did go talk to him.

I marched right up to that fellow and lord knows what I said, but I did something right, because before too long, we were having a pleasant conversation. I would steal glances back at Ezekiel with huge eyeballs and point to the guy and be like, “Can you?? Are you??? Holy Haight Ashbury!!!” Motocross Guy was nice. He wasn’t terribly smart, but at twenty-four, neither was I; really, we were perfectly matched.

The night passed into the hour where decisions are made. Motocross Guy asked me did I want to come to his place for a drink. Yep. Let’s do it. I checked in with Ezekiel, who was summarily impressed that I had just successfully picked up someone at a bar. (I’ll have you know this was the one and only time in my life I have done this, not only because I can say I’m battin’ 1000, but also because I doubt I top this experience, ever.)

We walked outside. “Here,” he said, handing me his motorcycle helmet. “Put this on.” It had not occurred to me that a man in full motorcycle gear was dressed that way because he had arrived on a motorcycle. But there his bike was, beautiful, parked right there in front. The machine was pure testosterone. Slick, fast, hot — kinda like him. He got on the bike and told me to get on and hold onto him. Before I could take a breath, we peeled out of the parking spot and sped into the San Francisco night.

Not all cities are beautiful, but San Francisco is a jewel. If you’ve ever been to there, you know it is a city of hills. Those hills mean village lights shine from shelves below and above you; the Bay is endless and the Golden Gate watches over all the good citizens. We flew. We climbed up and up, then fast down, zipping around corners and zagging the switchbacks. It was a good thing I was behind the fellow and wearing a helmet because my mouth was hanging open the whole time.

“More! More!!” I shouted. “Can we ride a little longer? Show me more!”

I had never been on a motorcycle in my life, not because I hadn’t had the opportunity. One of my and my family’s dearest friends, Jeremiah, had died in a motorcycle accident at twenty-four. I was twenty at the time, in college, when that had happened. Taking this ride wasn’t just fun and risky, it was a terrifying leap into the life I missed so terribly. It didn’t make sense. It was a stupid, dangerous idea — and one I couldn’t have resisted for anything and still cannot explain.

We got to his place. The evening ran its course. In the morning, I rubbed my eyes and I saw the ketchup packets and the stale Chinese takeout on his kitchen table. These sorts of interactions are not what they’re cracked up to be, you realize, due to the eternal fact that morning follows evening. He offered to take me down to where Ezekiel and I were staying, which was gentlemanly of him. I was so happy I could ride on the back of the bike again, I don’t think I drank the orange juice he gave me.

On the way back, he was showing off and got stopped by a cop for speeding. It was one of the most awkward moments in my life and it might still make his list, too: I hopped off the bike as the policeman came up. Getting a ticket takes time. It was getting late in the day. I didn’t even know this person’s last name; he didn’t know mine. We had no connection to each other, really. I said, “Um, well… Hm. I think… I think the train is over there?” Motocross Guy was like, “Oh… Yeah. Yeah, you don’t have to stick around for this… Um… Well, that was great. I’ll… I’ll see you around.”

He got his license out for the cop and I bought a train ticket and there you go.

6 Mar 2015

Marianne Fons, Fashioner of Items.

by | posted in: Family | 0
An actual toothbrush? Who needs it! Photo: Jonas Bergsten.
An actual toothbrush? Who needs it! Photo: Jonas Bergsten.

After thousands upon thousands of miles, innumerable flights, check-in counters, trains, cars, and so much shoe leather, my luggage has officially died.

My beloved silver Zero Halliburton suitcase used to have three different handles: the pulley-uppy retractable one, the grippy handle on top, and a similar grippy handle on the side. These handles were, as one might agree, useful for moving the piece of luggage through space. The pulley-uppy handle snapped off months ago. I would’ve gotten it fixed but I have this habit of needing my suitcase every other day. It wasn’t too bad; I could grip the top handle and wheel the thing along with not too much notice. I had to stoop slightly to the side but I almost looked cool with that little lean, like I was all, “Whatever. Planes.”

Well, the top handle broke off today at Midway. It’s over. My luggage is suddenly a horrible, heavy box. If that last handle snaps I will be forced to carry my suitcase like a baby, which is the exact opposite of what a piece of luggage is supposed to do for a person. The last handle — the one on the side — is what I’ve been using, which means I look like the worst casting decision in history for a production of Death of a Salesman. We don’t know what is good and what is bad, but come on.

When I told my mom that my luggage had given up on life, that the handles were off, she chirped, “Well, I could fashion you a handle.” We laughed, because how awful a fashioned luggage handle would be. Duct tape? Duct tape wrapped ’round and ’round the luggage when it was closed and twisted into some hideous, gnarled, sticky tape-handle? The thing is, my mother would not only figure out how to fashion a handle on a piece of luggage, she’d make it look pretty good and insist that the sticky side of the tape was all tucked in so you wouldn’t get sticky on your hand.

“It’s surprising I don’t like camping,” she said. “I loved The Swiss Family Robinson. They always had to make things out of what they had. They had to fashion things. I love fashioning things!” I said I knew it and I admired the quality in her. “Mom, you could fashion a hat out of a cinnamon stick,” I said, and it’s true.

“Remember when Jack was at the cottage and he had forgotten his toothbrush?” Mom said. “I told him, ‘Jack, I’ll just fashion you one!'” We all thought that was pretty hilarious at the time, but it wasn’t a serious offer; we keep extra toothbrushes at the lake house. But tonight, Mom and I tried to think how one might actually fashion a toothbrush.

“You could cut up a sponge!” I cried. “For the scrubby part!” I thought this was a rather inspired place to start.

“Yes, that’s it,” my mother said, miles ahead of me. “And I’d take dental floss or twine and wrap it around the sponge square so that you’d have nubbies, you know, like bristles. And then I’d get some drinking straws — three of them, for extra support — and I’d wind those together, too, for the handle. Then wind the sponge onto it and there you go: a fashioned toothbrush!”

My broken-down, put-er-out-to-pasture suitcase might be useful for something, but I don’t know what. A planter? A swimming pool for kittens? Does that mean I would be fashioning a planter? Fashioning a kitten swimming pool?

28 Feb 2015

Well, That Was Interesting: Making Out With a Doctor

by | posted in: D.C., Day In The Life, Story | 4
Ah, dinner. Photo: Chris Phutully, 2013.
Ah, dinner. Photo: Chris Phutully, 2013.

The best way to tend a bruised heart is to go on a date with someone new. That’s what they say.

The breaking up of love, the move, the rats, the second move, the hemogoblins, etc. — all this has meant that for many moons my cocktail dresses have stayed put on their hangers, my evening bags and high heels in dust bags on the shelf. Not too long ago I began to look longingly at it all and I realized I might like to go out for dinner with a good-looking man. I’m absolutely allergic to love right now, but dinner would be nice. Maybe even some smooching would be nice. I’m a grown woman.

Well, I did go on a date and I even smooched but what’s really noteworthy about the whole thing is that mid-smooch I was diagnosed with an ailment I can now add to my list of ailments. I’m 100% serious.

My dinner companion, who I met online, is a doctor. He wore a beautiful suit and his Range Rover, as I would come to find out, had excellent butt warmers. (That is not a euphemism.) I wore a luscious, canary yellow dress with my favorite Dolce & Gabbana heels: black satin with bows on the toes. Dinner was great. I picked the restaurant: a mahogany-paneled, real power-dinner place where I know heads of state have done dirty deeds dirt cheap in the corner booths. There was a live piano player and a standup bass. The conversation flowed, the steaks were rare, the champagne was right on time. All of this factored into my mind as I looked at this very handsome fellow across the table from me and tried to decide if I’d let him smooch me when he dropped me off at home. Yes, I decided. Yes, I would.

We pull up to the door of my building about an hour later and we start smooching and it’s going great; he smelled incredible, all soap and cologne. He said all the right things, e.g., “You’re gorgeous,” and “You’re such a great kisser,” and a few other things that are not appropriate to mention here (hi, Mom.) So then Dr. Smooch gives me a little squeeze, kinda on my hip. I liked that a lot, so he squeezed me again. Then he like, poked me there on my hip a little. Poke, poke.

“You have a lipoma here,” he said.

I shot back like a shrimp and crammed myself against the window of the passenger seat. “What?! What are you saying? What do I have??” I felt just where his hand had been on my dress, there on the left side, right at my pelvic bone. Sure enough, there was a small bump that wiggled around when I massaged it.

He chuckled. “It could just be a muscle,” he said, poking it again. “It’s nothing serious. Just a little fat deposit.” I looked up at him. I had just been diagnosed with a fat deformity mid-makeout session, proving to me once again that if you just get out of bed in the morning, if you just get out of bed and walk out the door, things will happen to you. Things you could never have imagined. Things like this.

Thanks, Doc. I’ll get it looked at. Now, where were we?

22 Feb 2015

Oscar Nite: Out of the Office

by | posted in: Chicago, Family | 0
Lucille Ball at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. This was Lucy's last public appearance; she died about a month later.
Lucille Ball at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. This was Lucy’s last public appearance; she died about a month later. Photo: Alan Light

Tonight I’m Chicago watching the Oscars with my sister Rebecca and her betrothed, Jack. I haven’t tuned into the show for probably eight years, but this is the first year that I have seen exactly none of the films nominated. This makes me feel triumphant and hopelessly isolated at the same time. I did it to myself; I just never want to go see a movie. It’s all sewing and books for me when I have a free evening.

The gilded stage pieces, the lace beadwork, the shiny white teeth — it’s all distracting me, so I’m going to make this short: if there’s big money riding on your predictions (an office contest, perhaps, or some crazy bracket system you’ve found on the Internet) may you drink the blood your foes and secure your legacy by guessing correctly in every category from Best Supportive Actress to Best Copy Editing to Best Sweater.

Have fun. I gotta go change out of this dress.

 

19 Feb 2015

This Is Not About The Weather.

by | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life | 0
"Court of Honor, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893"; painting by John Henry Twachtman. [Could be worse: my last name could be Twachtman.]
“Court of Honor, World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893”; painting by John Henry Twachtman. [Could be worse: my last name could be Twachtman.]
I will not write about how cold it is in Chicago. I will not write about how cold it is in Chicago. I will not write about —

My god.

It’s so cold in Chicago, “minus twenty-five” actually refers to the number of people we’ve lost to frostbite in the last hour.

It’s so cold in Chicago, when your older brother tells you to chill, you burst into tears.

It’s so cold in Chicago, you’d think you be at a bar where all the chicks is models.

It’s so cold in Chicago, the ice machines in all the restaurants are out back smoking cigarettes because dude.

It’s so cold in Chicago, I put on a shirt, a sweater, and another sweater this morning. I carefully wrapped my scarf around and around my neck and face, put on my hat and gloves, and pulled on my flea-market fur coat. Double socks, then out the door to the Latin School to talk about poems and teach storytelling to some of the most incredible students on the planet. (They’re also some of the most hardcore; Latin stayed open while most public schools in Chicago closed for the “extreme weather.” It really was -25 today.) I walked to the school from my hotel thinking, “Well, I’m bundled up. I’ll get a little walk in this morning.” The cold took my breath away; it took a half-hour being inside before my toes stopped aching.

I’m headed to Austin now for QuiltCon. When I get to Texas tonight, I’ll hang my fur coat up in the closet and I will not look at it till I leave. Remind me to get an entourage, by the way. I love my life but the schlep is killing me.

18 Feb 2015

Washington, We Have a Problem.

by | posted in: Chicago, D.C. | 0
Bartholdi Fountain, Independence Avenue and C Street SW, Washington, DC. Photo: Louise Taft, 1984.
Bartholdi Fountain, Independence Avenue and C Street SW, Washington, DC. Photo: Louise Taft, 1984.

I have a problem. I love Washington.

For a year now, I’ve been wingeing on about how much I miss Chicago, how it’s like a long-lost lover I know I’m going to see in a few months for a reunion. And if it’s bad on PaperGirl, imagine how much worse it is in my private journals. For so long, I have been counting the months until my exile would come to an end.

But something is happening to me.

It’s the wide streets downtown, maybe. It’s most definitely the art. My new quilting friends have had a huge impact on my fondness for the place. That I can get to Reagan National Airport in almost exactly twenty minutes from my door on the yellow line train has something to do with my crush. It’s the men in their suits. It’s my buddy Abraham Lincoln over there on the Mall, always ready to hang out and just sit quietly with me. It’s the dinner I had the other night with the incredible Malbec.

The circumstances that brought me here were relatively grim. (I realized this past Saturday that the last time I even though the word “valentine” it was to announce Yuri and I breaking up; that illustration of the two kids looking out at the rain is perhaps the most appropriate image I’ve ever selected for any entry in the history of this blog.) But since getting to DC I’ve blossomed like the cherry trees in the National Cherry Tree Festival set to begin next month. Honest, I have. When I was in New York City, I couldn’t drag myself to a decent workout or yoga practice. Now, unless I’m feeling poorly, I’m all over it. In New York, I did almost zero socializing. I just couldn’t get out there. But I’m a butterfly now! My quilting friends, my writer’s group — I’m making new acquaintances all the time and I love it.

Washington, you were supposed to be a weigh station. You were supposed to be a place I said I lived in for six months, once, in my thirties. You were not supposed to enchant me like this. With you, I feel like the most fabulous 1980s, Jessica Lange-y, Mary Tyler Moore-y, working gal with a hot date on the books and a plane to catch. The only other city that ever made me feel like that was Chicago, but you have three distinct advantages over that most recent love:

1. Chicago winters are sick, cruel, horrifying; yours are kinda cute
2. I did not get married and divorced in you
3. No Cubs

We shall see. If my adorable medical students want to renew their lease, I may just let them. When I let my life unspool before me, when I let it show me what it wants to do and then I pay attention, I am always entertained.

16 Feb 2015

The Snow Twilight Zone!

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Quilting, Story, Travel, Washington, Work | 0
"Maslanitsa," by Boris Kustodiev, 1918. Stick Rod Serling's face in there somewhere and you've got it.
“Maslanitsa,” by Boris Kustodiev, 1918. Stick Rod Serling’s face in there somewhere and you’ve got it.

I remember exactly one Twilight Zone episode out of the dozen or so I saw accidentally as a kid. The one I remember, not surprisingly, is the one that scarred me for life. I was about eight when I saw it and I think about it whenever life presents an obvious twist of fate.

In the episode, a pretty lady is driving a car one night and she gets into a bad wreck. The cosmos, God, fate, etc., had determined that she would die as a result. Like, it was written in some big ledger in the sky that her time was up and she was supposed to die that night. But then she doesn’t. There is a wrinkle in the time-space continuum or something and she survives without a scratch. She’s happy about this until zombies.

These way-too-scary-for-an-eight-year-old people-creatures who, looking back, were totally zombies though I didn’t know what zombies were at the time, began appearing in this woman’s world. They weren’t everywhere at first but as she went through her life in the next few weeks, these people-creatures would pop up and like, grab at her.** Their goal was to take her to the other side, the side she was supposed to be on. She was in the living world, but that was wrong. She was an escapee from the natural order of things, a rogue moment that had to be corrected because… Well, because it made for a great Twilight Zone episode, I guess.

NOTE: To all the brilliant, gracious, attractive ladies in my lecture and class outside Richmond, VA, thank you for a wonderful day today and please do not in any way think that I am connecting you with zombies from the Twilight Zone. 

That said, tonight I’m totally the lady from the other side. Because I should still be in Richmond. It is written that I should be giving my second lecture right now to a large group of quilters at the fabulous Sew Refreshing shop. But I’m not there. There’s been a wrinkle in the time-space continuum and I am home. In my pajamas. AAAAAGHHHHH!

It’s because a snowpocalypse snow storm is bearing down on the east coast. Richmond, a city that owns maybe 1.2 snow plows, both made in 1946, is expected to get a foot of snow tonight. Terri, my host and owner of the shop picked me up this morning and said, so sweetly, “Mary, ah… Well, I’m just wondering about the lecture we added this evening… Well, we’re going to get about twelve inches starting this afternoon and I just don’t know that the ladies should be driving in the weather…” I knew what she was suggesting and was 100% onboard, sad as it is to cancel an event. Truth was, I wasn’t so sure about doing the evening lecture after I heard the weather report.

“Terri, absolutely. We should cancel the evening program. I’ll look at the train schedule.”

And so it was that after my morning lecture and the 1,000 Pyramid class — such a good class! — I went to the train station and got the 4:00-ish #80 Amtrak back into Washington. I almost got off at Fredericksburg because I’m a Civil War nerd and I’m dying to check it out, but I figured with the blizzard and all and not knowing a single thing about Fredericksburg other than it being an historic battle site, I should wait.

I should be in a smart outfit with a laser pointer, but instead I’m drinking juice. I’m on my couch. There are no zombies in the closet, though. I know because I checked.

** Please remember that I’m describing a Twilight Zone episode I saw once when I was like, eight. If some of you know the episode well, forgive me for butchering (!) it. I’m only recounting what scarred me for life, not the mise en scene or the actress in the title role. I only remember death.

15 Feb 2015

For My High School Homies.

by | posted in: Art, Paean, Poetry | 0
Sample card.
Sample card.

I’m at Washington, DC’s palatial, awe-inspiring Union Station, waiting for my Amtrak to Richmond, VA. I’m lecturing and teaching tomorrow and very much looking forward to it; not only do I get to earn a living in a soul-affirming way, I get to hang out in Union Station and then take a train for a couple hours, which is neat. I feel a bit lightheaded and dizzy today, but who cares when there is actual gold leaf on the domed ceiling high above my head. If I pass out I’ll get a great visual before everything goes dark.

Next week is almost entirely on the road. QuiltCon approacheth in Austin but before and after that, I’ll be in Chicago doing a number of poetry gigs for high schools and one middle school. In February and April every year there is lots of creative writing programming in schools in the Chicagoland area. You could say I’m on the circuit; I’ve been a visiting writer-performer at these sorts of events for many years, now.

Because I get paid to do them, they are jobs. But barely, because I love them so much. The gigs  typically consist of me performing poems and reading stuff I’ve written in a big auditorium; sometimes I teach a workshop or two. There’s one high school I love the best — I feel like I shouldn’t say which one but you know who you are — because the students are incredible and the teachers are fiercely invested in their jobs. When I tried to figure out how many years in a row I’ve been to this particular Writer’s Week, I got pale: I think it’s nine. Nine years has zapped past me? Oh, boy.

Each year I do school poetry/writing gigs — and this goes for all the schools — I try to do something totally different. Last year, I climbed up on a ladder and set a poem on fire. I do a Neo play where I kiss a student (on the cheek) and one year I put on big sunglasses at one point and covered a Lady Gaga song as though it were a poem, which it is. This year, because I’m feeling mortal, I’ve decided to treat the gig at my favorite school as though it were my last ever. I certainly hope it is not, but I asked myself: “If I never got to come back to this school that I love so much, what would I tell these people?”

Giving a physical gift to an audience member makes a huge impact; I learned this from my years as a Neo-Futurist. But I don’t want to give a gift to one person in the audience; I want to give a gift to every last one. So what I’ve done is copy off little cards that say what I would say to these students if I never saw them again. But giving a slip of paper is lame and since I happen to be a quilter with way, way too much fabric in my scrap bag(s), I am stitching fabric to the back of every card (see scan above.) There are, um, thousands of these to be made. I’m about halfway through the stack. After I get back from Richmond, before I go to Chicago, I’m gonna have to race to finish them.

But it’s worth it. I’ll make some tea. I’ll turn on my podcasts. I have a lot of other work to do on Tuesday, but I’ll make it. Not every student will care about these cards, and I know that. Plenty will get tossed in the garbage, which is lousy, but come on: it’s high school.

Sorry I didn’t do a spoiler alert to those students who read PaperGirl. But I promise my “show” will be good and hey, if you care to, you can make a little space in your wallet ahead of time.

13 Feb 2015

Shine On, Crazy Shoes.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Tips | 0
Astaire in Royal Wedding. Can you imagine how shiny his shoes are? With the suit and the top hat?? Oh, brother.
Astaire in Royal Wedding. Can you imagine how shiny his shoes are? With the suit and the top hat?? Oh, brother.

I’m in downtown Chicago for the next twenty-four and I’m feelin’ fine.

The buildings look just like I remember them (tall, smart) and the weather is a familiar negative ten-thousand degrees. It’s great! I love Chicago so much. As I clippity-clopped through the city today, doing errands, I thought about the expression, “I know _____ like the back of my hand.” I’ll bet I know downtown Chicago better. I’ve seen the back of my hand a lot, but which one? And at what stage of life? My hands keep changing, but Chicago is Chicago is Chicago.

But a city is hell on shoes. The low-slung cowboy boots I’ve been hoofing around in for the past couple months were looking awful: dirty and dull, desperately in need of a shoe facial. So, after I turned in a bunch of work, etc., I went in search of a shoe shine shop. Find one I did, and I sat there trying not to smile like a weirdo through the whole thing because I had forgotten that there is perhaps nothing on Earth — on Earth — that feels better than walking out of a shoe shine shop with shiny shoes. Hey, don’t take my word for it: take Fred Astaire’s word for it. Take Fred Astaire’s word for everything. There’s a song he sings called “Put a Shine On Your Shoes” in the MGM movie The Bandwagon. This song says everything better than I could say on this topic. Consider:

When you feel as low/As the bottom of a well/And can’t get out of the mood/Do something to perk yourself up/And change your attitude/Give a tug to your tie/Put a crease in your pants/But if you really want to feel fine/Give your shoes a shine

When there’s a shine on your shoes/There’s a melody in your heart/With a singable happy feeling/A wonderful way to start/To face the world every day/With a deedle-dum-dee-dah-dah/A little melody that is making/The worrying world go by

Put a shine on your shoes/Put a shine on your shoes… [REPEAT AD INFINITUM.]

The number is marvelous. Astaire twirls up to the guy working the shoe shine stand and wins him over like he always wins everyone over; before long, the guy is killing the rhythm with his brushes and his towel as he works. Of course, all the extras in the background are happy, smiling at the song and dance. There are some charming slapstick moments — there so often were in these sorts of films — but obviously the best thing about it is that it’s a number about feet and it’s Fred Astaire, so what more do you want in life? In life! A number focusing expressly on Fred Astaire’s feet?? Just… Just stick a fork in me. I’m done. You’re done, too! There’s no way you’re going to keep reading this because you’re clicking over to YouTube right now to watch Fred Astaire dance, aren’t you? It’s okay. I left writing to watch it, too.

Have you come back? I hope so. I’m almost done. I only wanted to say that my boots look brand new after my shoe shine. In fact, they look better than when I got them. I’m a new woman. And the coolest thing was when the guy was almost finished, he did one final back n’ forth with the clean towel around each heel and quick whipped it off with a “thwap!” It was like a gun went off, it was so loud! Awesome. If it’s possible to tip too liberally, I did.

Shine those shoes.

12 Feb 2015

The Trouble With Backpacks.

by | posted in: Rant | 0
Backpack, rucksack, satchel, bomb. Photo: Ligar, 2001.
Backpack, rucksack, satchel, bomb. Photo: Ligar, 2001.

I touched on the subject of current events the other day; I am allergic to doing this usually (see: The Papergirl Pledge) but I keep seeing abandoned backpacks and this forces me to think of terrorism. I used to see backpacks left someplace and think of Grand Canyon hikers sick of carrying freeze-dried goji berries or students who got careless. Now I think of bombs. This makes me furious.

There was a satchel in a leaf-clogged corner outside of Union Station the other day. It was tattered, old, and looked empty as could be; a deflated balloon of a bag. No threat there, surely. But a bomb at Union Station would be a smart move for a terrorist. Abort transportation at a major hub and you abort infrastructure and flight. This morning there was an old duffel bag crumpled against the wall right where you turn in the corridor to Terminal A here at Washington Reagan Airport (I’m headed to Chicago for a do-over of my catastrophic trip a few weeks back.) It wasn’t a satchel, exactly, but it was an abandoned canvas thing and I immediately eyed it, suspicious.

The worst incident, however, occurred when my family and I were at the vodou exhibit at the Field Museum over Christmas. I didn’t mention it at the time, probably because I was too bitter about losing my Kindle.

We were milling about in the main gallery and suddenly, a museum guard said in a loud voice, “Does this belong to anyone? Excuse me! Does this backpack belong to anyone?” She held up high a very full backpack and the museumgoers turned to look.

The two girls who were standing next to me murmured, “Oh my god… That… Let’s get out of here,” and they slowly inched toward the door. I stepped toward my sisters and said, “Okay, that’s an abandoned backpack? That is not okay. Where are Mom and Mark?” We were instantly discomfited and looked for our parents and my blood pressure rose. Why the Sam Hill would someone leave a backpack in a corner of a public place? First of all, do you not care about your belongings? Second, and much more importantly, did Boston escape your attention? Do you have the context everyone else has for abandoned backpacks in crowded places?

I felt more fear as the guard shouted again, “Excuse me! Does this bag belong to anyo — ” and then it was claimed. A young man went to the guard and apologized, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I set it down and forgot.” I looked at him with dagger eyes. I could’ve socked him in the gut. Look, I’ve misplaced things. That very day, I left my Kindle on the bus. But carrying a heavy backpack ought to take up a small space in one’s consciousness. If it was set down, one might wonder, “Moments ago I was a pack mule and now I feel light as a feather. What has changed in this situation?” and retrieve one’s backpack.

When I lived in New York City, I became neurotic the moment I got a mailing address. I feared things I never feared before: hurricanes, bed bugs, epidemics, terrorist attacks. Once out of the city, I returned to my baseline outlook: naive, optimistic, Iowan. But backpacks remain a source of fear and likely always will. Maybe more in the near future. I resent this a great deal.

As my ex-uncle-in-law used to say in his heavy Croatian accent, “Eyes open. Eyes open.”

9 Feb 2015

There Is No Time For Poetry.

by | posted in: Poetry | 0
Something like this, maybe. Photo: Kofler Jurgen, 2003.
Something like this, maybe. Photo: Kofler Jurgen, 2003.

Eternally true statements are hard to properly credit. Time is one big VitaMix, chopping, sluicing, pureeing all the words. The phrase, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” for example, has been attributed to Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Stravinsky, Faulkner, and many others. Does it matter who said it? Not really — unless you’re a guy named Joe Smith and you said it and never got credit. That would be kinda sad.

There’s a statement I love that I thought belonged to Mark Twain. He wrote a letter to a friend, the story goes, and said, essentially, “I apologize for the length of this letter; if I had had more time, it would’ve been shorter.” What he meant, of course, is that it takes longer to write tighter, better sentences than loosey-goosey, long, unfocused ones. It takes far more time to put all one’s thoughts onto a single handwritten page than it does to type half those thoughts in a small novel. As it turns out, it may not have been Twain at all who said that; I looked it up and the “shorter letter more time” concept might have come to us by way of our man Blaise Pascal or George Bernard Shaw. Whoever said it, however they did, they were right.

This post is proof. Here’s why.

I rode in a taxi this morning for about thirty-five minutes. The sky in D.C. is grey; it’s a blustery February day, a Monday. In my cab, I craned my neck all around to look at what we were driving past; I’m still soaking in all the places and sights and streets of this town and riding in a taxi is great for sightseeing, for bearing-finding. We drove east on Constitution, and that meant we went right by the Washington Monument, right by the Museum of Natural History, and then we passed the National Gallery, and so many more Beaux-Arts buildings standing white and pristine in the dull, sunless sky.

There was a lot of traffic, so we stopped a lot and for many minutes at a time. Right before the Washington Monument, I looked out the window and saw an extraordinary sight. There was a park on our right, many hundreds of yards from the street. The trees in the park were tall, tall, tall, and spindly — and leafless, of course. They were all skinny and went so high up; they were needles. And deep in the tree line (is that right? the tree line?) was a woman in a well-cut, fine red coat. The shade of the coat was not tomato, nor cherry, nor brick, but cardinal red, so precisely cardinal red that she looked as natural as could be in the trees there, as though she were the bird itself.

I saw her and thought, “She must have a dog.” Because this woman was standing there in the trees and looking up; it would have made sense for her to be waiting for her dog to finish doing its business. But I squinted and saw she had no pet. She was just standing amongst the trees, looking up at the sky, I guess, regarding it. Considering it, all by herself, on Monday morning, near the tallest structure in this entire city. Black birds flew. A car horn sounded. I watched her as long as I could, waiting to see if I could discern what she was doing, standing so still and alone in that park. The cab began to pull forward and I began to lose sight of the woman. Then, the car we got behind was playing a Bob Dylan song loud enough it was like the taxi driver had turned on the radio in our car.

What this post should be is a poem. I should go write a poem about female cardinal, the needle trees, and Bob Dylan; I should work on a poem about the white of the stones in the monuments against the pewter sky in a city I’m falling in love with. But I don’t have time. It would take a long time to write that poem properly. But I can’t do nothing. I can’t forget it. I can’t put it out of my mind. So loosey-goosey it is, PaperGirl is the clearinghouse for my experience this morning.

What were you looking at?

4 Feb 2015

Who’s To Say?

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Story | 0
Doris Day in Romance on the High Seas (1948)
Doris Day in Romance on the High Seas (1948).

I heard a parable once that stuck to me like bubblegum on my high heels. It’s one you may have heard yourself — you’ll recognize it at once if you have — and if you haven’t, do enjoy the stickiness. This is my retelling, which I’m sure is clear.

There once was a farmer who had a single horse with which to work his land. One day, the horse ran away. “That is terrible news!” said his concerned neighbor. The farmer shrugged and said, “Who’s to say what is good and what is bad?” The neighbor probably looked at him like he was weird. He was kind of weird, but that has nothing to do with the story.

The horse came back the very next day and brought another horse with him! Very good news, no? Maybe, maybe not. Because the farmer gave the second horse to his strapping son and the next day, the horse threw the young man off and he broke his leg in like nine places. The (nosy) concerned neighbor said, “Ooh! Now that is bad news!” but the farmer put up his hands and said, “Who’s to say what is good and what is bad?” Now the neighbor was like, “See ya,” and he didn’t take over a hot dish to the son, who was convalescing.

In a week or so, the king’s men — because we are in Arthurian England, suddenly — came to take every able-bodied man to war. They didn’t take the farmer’s son, clearly, because he was useless to them with the broken leg.

Good news, no?

I think about this story so much. Because again and again and again in my life, I see this playing out. When I moved away to college, I was sad and afraid. But then, you know, college was awesome. I got a job in a nightclub when I was twenty-two and thought, “Boo-yah!” but it was terrible after awhile. I was so excited to move to New York City last year and then it turned so sour. And I was incredibly sad and disappointed when I had to relinquish my lovely D.C. townhouse to the rat, rat, rats, but do you know that… Well, I’m so happy here. I love this building now. It’s cozy. It’s safer. The sun comes up over Washington D.C. in peachy pink and golden orange and I just feel so happy.

I’m not sure how anemia can be good, but who knows? The boy in the story who shattered his leg certainly didn’t think it was very good, but then he didn’t have to fight in a war. Maybe I’ll be spared a war.

Maybe you will.

 

 

2 Feb 2015

Sometimes Fancy Ain’t Fancy, Just Smart

by | posted in: Fashion | 0
Woman's silk damask shoes with buckles; 1740-1750, London. Photo: Los Angeles Museum of Art.
Woman’s silk damask shoes with buckles; 1740-1750, London. Photo: Los Angeles Museum of Art.

All this talk of magazine closures and hemogoblins calls for lighter fare. It’s time for fashion.

Years ago, I dated a chap who did not own a pair of bluejeans. He was fancy. He wore suits and bowties and because I liked him so much, I decided to clean up my act. I was a scruffy, twenty-two year-old slam poet waitress, so I naturally lived in jeans and hoodies. This guy was charmed by me, but it was clear that I’d need a dress or two if I was gonna go out with him.

Embarking on this upgrade wasn’t easy; I was still on a waitress budget, so I got good at sourcing fake pearl earrings and designer dresses at secondhand shops. But it worked. I began to cut a fine figure, if I do say so. I kept refining it because I discovered was that when I dressed a little nicer, when my shoes were polished, life was kinda better. People smiled at me more. I walked a bit taller. This was not social climbing — no one was mistaking me for Brooke Astor — but it was confidence-building. I was hooked.

The dapper fellow dumpity-dump-dump dumped me and broke my heart, but I continued to work on fanciness. (Who needed that guy, anyway. Bow-ties? Seriously?) Not long after the breakup, I quit working as a coat check girl and a waitress and got several great writing jobs. Eventually, I could afford nicer clothes (take that, Mr. Fancy Pants!) and I learned the true secret to looking good in one’s clothes:

Buy nice stuff, never at full-boat retail, and get a good tailor.

Got a nice dress? Take it to a tailor. For a bit o’ cash, you can get that dress taken in a nip there, let out a bit here, and voila: you are now a smokin’ hot mama. Gentlemen’s suits can be shaved down a smidge or opened up a bit; suddenly a fellow who looked rather average before is now A Man of Consequence. Tailors vary in style and price, of course, but start humbly and get used to the process: you’ll come to love it. You know all the dry cleaning places with the signs that say, “Alterations”? That means they do alterations in there. The pantsuit you really love but never wear because the crotch is…well, it’s not good. That can be fixed, usually. Instead of buying a new outfit ($100+) you can be green, fancy, and look great for far less.

Cobblers are important, too. The high heels that look like the dog chewed them can be restored within a day or so. Twenty bucks at a shoe repair shop beats Zappos with a stick.

That is the fashion report. The body report is that I’m feeling better but worried that my body cannot absorb iron. A friend emailed me to share her own anemia trouble; she’s been battling acute anemia for several decades. I may be in for another odyssey; we shall see. Thank you to each and every kindly soul who sent encouragement. I can’t reply to all the comments but I see all of them.

Thank you. Now go into your closet and make a plan!

 

31 Jan 2015

Let’s Talk About The Monkey.

by | posted in: Family | 0
Existential despair? Or rapture? One cannot be sure with Pendennis, but one can always be curious.
Existential despair or pure rapture? One cannot be sure with Pendennis, but one can always be curious.

I am a grown woman and I have a stuffed animal. Like, right over there. On the couch.

I do not chew on this object. It does not come with me on business trips. I don’t rub it on my cheek to soothe me when I’m scared or advised to seek the help of an oncologist to figure out my severe hemogoblin problem. This stuffed animal is not exactly a security blanket; besides, he’s too small to properly cover a grown woman. He couldn’t possibly be a security blanket. It’s ridiculous.

Many years ago, when I was in high school — late 1990s — I was the teacher’s aide for Mrs. Silber, one of the coolest, prettiest, raddest teachers I ever had. She was brassy and blonde and sorta husky, but that description makes her sound like a waitress in Reno. No, Mrs. Silber was classy. She was an art teacher, so that says a lot. Just tops, that lady. I actually babysat her kids once but I was a terrible babysitter because children scared me to death. I let them do anything. Marshmallows, TV — anything.

I had discovered the joy of sock monkeys somewhere during this time. Knowing this and loving me, at the end of that senior year, Mrs. Silber made me my very own sock monkey. Thirty kids drew me cards of sock monkeys to go with it. I was headed to college; I needed cards. Of course, I was overjoyed with the gifts. It was love at first squeeze.

Now, there was, you will remember, a sock monkey zeitgeist that has recently, blessedly passed. My love for my sock monkey was something I felt I had to hide while the culture experienced a sock monkey craze. Sheets, fabric, keychains, pajamas, mugs — for awhile, everywhere you looked (in Target especially) there were monkeys. But I was stalwart. I kept my dignity. I knew my love was strong, original, and unwavering, that the fickle public would move on soon enough. I was not wrong: Frozen came and Legos came again and I no longer felt like a joiner. I refuse to join!

Regarding the monkey’s name: Pendennis is the protagonist in William Makepeace Thackeray’s The History of Pendennis, written in 1904. If my life depended on it, I could not tell you why I named my monkey Pendennis because a public high school education in Iowa is great, but ain’t nobody reading Thackeray. I feel like my friend Leia and I came across the name, somehow, and it was just too memorable, funny, and odd to pass up. However he was named, the monkey was named Pendennis and so he has remained.

Pendennis is on the set of every Quilty episode ever taped. He is the mascot and masthead of this blog. He has been with me through many periods of convalescence.The gestures he effortlessly creates; the way his body flop-mopseys around; that eternal gaze… I either laugh out loud or shake my head when I see him or see just the tip of his hat poking out from the covers. Pendennis is a metaphor, a symbol, a monkey-ersonification of what I see is the baffling, beautiful experience of living. Yeah, I know. All that from a monkey.

I’ve written of my wee friend before. I will again, too, because there are friends and then their are friends — and then there is Pendennis.

20 Jan 2015

For the Quilters: A New Way to Stash

by | posted in: D.C., Quilting, Tips | 2
It's like the olden days!
It’s like the olden days, all colorful and random and cozy. In process: “George Washington’s Cabin,” by Mary Fons, 2015.

If you’re not a quilter, you probably don’t have a stash.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and make a “Well, my husband has a mustache” joke. But watch it: if there are quilters in your midst, they may be inching toward you, tightening their grip on their sharp rotary cutters. A quilter’s fabric stash is, in the simplest terms, the fabric that she owns that is not in a quilt, yet. A quilter’s stash is her library, her paint palette, her big lake of color and texture from which she brings great ladles of the stuff to put into her patchwork.

As you can imagine, some stashes are bigger than others. Quilters who have been sewing since the early 1980s have… a lot of fabric. Those who are new might have just the seeds of a stash. Some folks hoard and some folks cull (ahem) but if you make quilts in any serious way — and you ought to — you have fabric somewhere. And that is your stash.

Did I mention I moved around a lot in 2014? I moved around a lot in 2014. A good two-thirds of my fabric stash is in storage in Chicago, but I have a whole lot with me, too, and that means I’ve transported all this fabric many times in the past nine months or so. And something cool happened in the shuffle: I changed my stash organization style and this has made all the difference.

I used to organize my stash by color. All the reds, all the greens, etc., all together. Now, this is a fantastic way to do things and as a quilter who typically starts with color inspiration and goes from there, I fully support this mode of stashing. But because all my fabric has been in and out of boxes all year, keeping it all color-coded has been hard. So what’s happened is that my tiny red prints are getting thrown in with my wide, black stripes, my yellow chambray is all up in my calicoes, my browns and pinks are sleeping with each other — it’s mass hysteria. And it’s fabulous.

I’m seeing new combinations. I’m considering new styles. Fabrics I might never have put together before (e.g., pink, burgundy, navy) become, suddenly, very necessary combos.

So there you go. Mix ‘er up. Don’t be too regimented. A tidy stash and studio are essentials and I’ll keep preaching that gospel till I’m dead, but don’t be too strict with your materials. As I say in my book:

“Quilts are like dogs; the best ones are usually mixed breeds.”

19 Jan 2015

Magazine Graveyard: Quilty Is Closing

by | posted in: Paean | 8
Quilty magazine; first issue, Spring/Summer 2012
Quilty magazine; first issue, Spring/Summer 2012

About a month ago, I announced (publicly, though that sounds too fancy) that I was leaving Quilty magazine as editor. I had made my decision in August and, painful as it was, it was the right thing to do.

A number of weeks ago, my publisher informed me that Quilty magazine is closing.

The May/Jun ’15 issue will be the last issue. Me and Team Quilty are putting the finishing touches on the Mar/Apr ’15 issue now and that will be out at the end of next month. Then it’s just the one more issue in the spring and poof: gone with the wind.

When I go to speak at guilds and quilt events around the country, I will inevitably be approached by a smiling, happy woman with a copy of the first issue of the magazine.

“I’ve loved this magazine from the start,” she’ll say. “It’s so friendly. It’s so easy to read and honestly, this magazine has taught me how to make quilts. I love the articles, I love the tips, I love the videos that show you how to do everything… Thank you, Quilty!” I’d thank her for reading, thank her for buying, and I’d joke that she was smart to get the first issue, as it’s clearly going to be a collector’s item. I don’t want to inflate the value of a niche market periodical, but this might actually be true, now.

Quilty is just a magazine in a sea of magazines. Except that it isn’t. Before Quilty, there was never a magazine devoted entirely to the beginner quilter. It was my vision that this absolutely had to exist if we (quilters and the quilt industry) wanted to bridge a strange, frightening gap that is occurring for the first time in American history — namely, that we have a culture that still values quilts and we have great numbers of people who want to make them, but we have now and will have forever more a culture that does not teach sewing. We are a service industry. We are not manufacturers. For all intents and purposes, manufacturing and fabrication in America is over. We’re not going to start sewing our own clothes again and that means there aren’t sewing machines in the home.

So for the women and men who want to make a wedding quilt for their best friend in the whole world but who haven’t the faintest idea that you have to plug in the foot peddle or wind a bobbin to sew a stitch (“What’s a bobbin?”) there simply has to be a landing place for them, a world of with-it, clear, and yes, dammit, entertaining how-to content where they can get beginner instruction and actually reach their goal: to make their best friend a gift that is an actual, physical manifestation of love, that will last generations, and that will secure their place as the Person Who Gave The Best Gift Ever, BAM.

Quilty was that place, that friendly landing place. Surely, there will be something that will fill the gap when Quilty closes. There has to be. It’s not like Quilty was or is only one place for a beginner quilter to get help, thank goodness. But there was only one Quilty. Only one Spooly. Only a short period of years where being a little bit weird and a little bit funny actually happened in a quilt magazine.

I think the Quilty videos will continue after I leave; I’ve got one more shoot to do in April, then it’s no longer my sea-faring vessel to man, so I don’t know. There are thousands and thousands of fierce Quilty fans out there. I see their letters, I meet them, I watch the ticker tick up on the video views. You matter, friends, even if those fabulous, glossy pages will be no more. Keep learning, keep asking questions. Tell the Quilt Police to go play in traffic. Make the quilts you want to make.

And buy up a bunch of past issues. Let’s start that eBay bidding war.

18 Jan 2015

Le Smoking.

by | posted in: Day In The Life | 0
Insert brand here. Photo: Kiwiev, 2014.
You’ve come a long way, baby. Photo: Kiwiev, 2014.

I used to smoke. A little.

Smokers gauge the personal investment in their habit by the number of packs they smoke per day. Even when I did smoke cigarettes, the idea that I would smoke an entire pack in the course of one day was enough to make me queasy. But I counted as a smoker, and I know this because I would roll my eyes at non-smokers at house parties who would bum a smoke the minute they got tipsy. It’s incredible how the most health-conscious among us will crave a cigarette after enough vodka.

The most I ever smoked was probably three cigarettes a day, on average. This habit — and, relatively mild as it was, it was a habit to be sure — started in high school. I did it so my sister’s older friends and my best friend Annie would think I was cool. I didn’t need to try and impress Annie once we truly bonded, but she continued to impress me for a number of reasons, including her commitment to smoking about a pack a day of Marlboro Reds. Reds! By sophomore year! The last time I saw Annie was in Oklahoma, and we hit up a Kum n’ Go to buy a couple packs of smokes. We smoked a couple, guiltily. The older you get, the less cute smoking becomes. Annie has kids. I’m at high risk for cancer in my intestines due to my health history. Put ’em down, girls.

In college, though, that was when I smoked for keeps. Smoking was cute when I was twenty and besides, it was strategic. I was studying theater and everyone knew that auditions were essential, but the real casting happened on the stoop of the theater building between rehearsals and classes. If you wanted to date or go to parties, you flirted and got invites whilst puffing away on your American Spirits. The smokers were the cool kids and I was desperate to be cool by the time I got to Iowa City. In high school I was only grudgingly accepted. I wasn’t a social leper but in the galaxy of Popular Kids, I was a distant, dwarf star. I remember being at the legendary senior party at the end of senior year; just being there engendered love for my fellow classmates, even the ones who would never talk to me. Ben Radish* and a bunch of other people were in the kitchen of the house where the party was and Radish squinted his eyes and regarded me from across the room. He lowered his can of Natty Ice and nodded his head, barely.

“You know, Mary Fons? I guess you’re pretty cool.”

It was like a blessing from the Pope. It’s amazing how much I craved validation from a high school wrestler in a HyperColor shirt whose last name was Radish.

Anyway, the whole cool kid thing, the strategy thing with smoking, it kept going after college because I continued to make theater in Chicago and I was a waitress. Same cultures. Same five-minute break structure in a person’s day. You smoke, therefore you have friends; you smoke, therefore you have something to do between the early morning rush and the mid-morning rush.

But I bagged smoking some time ago. Years ago, with occasional “Let me just see if this still works for me” transgressions. It does not. The more you are not a person who smokes, the more revolting the stink of cigarette smoke becomes, at least for me. I like the way a cigar smells when it’s being actively smoked twenty feet away from me; I do not like the way my shirt smells even after simply holding a cigarette for someone while they button their jacket.

I walk the cities where I live and see people lighting up. I get it. I used to really love smoking. It was a habit and I’m a fan of habits, especially ones that relieve anxiety (e.g., patchwork, chewing my cuticles, rocking ever-so-slightly during intense conversations, etc.) But smoking is for the birds. And the birds don’t even smoke. So probably no one should.

Of course, we could all vape. 

*Name changed.

 

17 Jan 2015

Weltschmerz R Us.

by | posted in: Word Nerd | 0
What is absolutely superb about this picture is that these two kittens could be illustrating any one of the words I define in this post. Glorious. (Photo: Stephan Brunet, 2007)
What is absolutely superb about this picture is that these two kittens could be illustrating any one of the words I define in this post. Glorious. (Photo: Stephan Brunet, 2007)

The English language is a monstrous mutt. It’s a hydra. It’s a slouch. It’s messy, confusing, and — if I may be so bold as to say it — it whores around. The French have put a cap on the words in their language, but English? She takes all comers.

And thank goodness. Because as gorgeous and vast as the English language is (there were something like 1,025,110 words as of January last year) sometimes only a word or phrase from another language will get you where you need to go. Here now are three of my favorite foreign words and terms, favorites because in a matter of syllables they precisely describe universal concepts that English can’t do in a long paragraph. First I’ll give you the word, then the dictionary definition, then a working interpretation. Also, those are my own phonetics because writing phonetics is my kind of fun on a Saturday night and I am not joking even a little.

sprezzatura: (Italian; say “spret-za-TOO-ra”) rehearsed spontaneity, studied carelessness.
When you spend 1.5 hours getting ready for a date just so you can look like you don’t care, you’re practicing sprezzatura. 

l’esprit d’escalier: (French; say, “les-PREE de-skal-YEY”) Literally, “the spirit of the staircase”; the predicament of thinking of the perfect retort too late.
Some jerk says something awful to you. You fume, you steam. Five minutes after you and the jerk part company, it hits you: Ooooh! You should’ve said [insert awesome comeback here.] Yes, Virginia, there’s a term for that exact feeling. “L’esprit d’escalier” is what happens when you think of the perfect, deliciously awesome thing to say to a jerk when he/she is gone and you’re halfway down the stairs, headed to your car. We’ve all been there.

Weltschmerz: (German; say, “VEL-schmertz”) a feeling of melancholy and world-weariness.
I love how the Germans jam words together. Welt = world; schmertz = pain. When the bastards have gotten you down; when you don’t miss New York but you do miss the love you had there; when you spill tea in the kitchen and you clean it up but there’s still invisible-to-the-naked-eye honey on the floor in spots that sticks to your bare feet; when tax time approacheth and you’re a self-employed woman with a zillion 1099 forms that will surely all be lost in the mail this year because four addresses in 2014 (!!!!); when you go to a guild meeting — a wonderful, amazing, warm and inspiring guild meeting — and see no fewer than four pregnant women, and you feel pretty sure you will not be a mother in this life; when you forget to get shaving cream — this is Weltschmerz.

See what I mean about needing a paragraph? One word will do it if you pick the proper one. Or, as the stewardesses say (in English):

“Please locate the two exits nearest you, keeping in mind that the closest exit may be behind you.”

 

12 Jan 2015

Poetic Interlude: The Sandpiper by Elisabeth Bishop

by | posted in: Art, Poetry | 0
A sandpiper at the water.
A sandpiper at the water.

On this Monday, let us pause for poetry. Have you ever read Elisabeth Bishop’s poems? I’m only now discovering them. Have you ever seen a sandpiper hopping around on a beach? I hadn’t until I read this poem written by Bishop in 1956.

The Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

– Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which.
His beak is focused; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

12 Jan 2015

Make It Work: How To Spruce Up A Bad Apartment

by | posted in: D.C., Day In The Life, Tips | 0
My living room. It wasn't finished at this point, but it was getting there.
My living room. It wasn’t finished at this point, but it was getting there.

It’s true that I had a moment of real despair when I moved into my new apartment. When the door shut behind me, I saw, as if for the first time, the unit for which I had just signed a six-month lease.

The flat screen TV was gargantuan. Its tyrannical throne was a clear glass table that was long and rectangular, too short and shallow to use as my sewing table, far too big to stash in a closet. The cords for the TV, the DVD player, the cable box, the router, the other router and several extension cords were in tangled hell on the floor and because the table was glass, the tangle was practically the centerpiece for the room. The cream-colored sectional had at least eight slightly dingy cream-colored pillows and a couple ratty light blue ones; a weak afterthought. There were several fake plants. Ugly, mass-produced “art” adorned the walls and my heart just sank. The drapes were heavy and blue. In every kitchen cupboard I found dozens upon dozens of glasses meant for alcohol: plastic martini glasses, plastic margarita glasses, shot glasses, drinking glasses, juice glasses. There were Dollar Store tzchokes everywhere, and for some inexplicable reason, more tupperware containers in a lower kitchen cupboard than I have ever seen in one place in my life. This apartment was a revolving door. It put the “corporate” and “temporary” in “corporate temporary housing.”

Something had to be done. A lot of somethings. I sat like Rodin’s Thinker and thought and thought. Then I dove in.

Curtains: down and folded and into the utility closet. All but six glasses — for water drinking and juice — were stored in a cupboard with 98% of the tupperware. All tzchokes stowed. All art (except this one really cool framed cloth Guatemalan thing, which I love) replaced with the few pieces I brought on my journey this year. I wrastled with the couch cushion covers until I got them all off and into the washing machine they went. I salvaged exactly three white bowls in the kitchen’s dish cupboard and stowed every other dark blue plate and bowl. Because ew.

I completely dismantled the “entertainment station.” None of it survived. My new home might be on life support, soul-wise, but it didn’t stand a chance with a TV. I unscrewed the cable box, unplugged everything, untangled all the cords, organized everything and into a box in the (pleasingly spacious) bedroom closet they went. The 1,000 plastic hangers I found went into bags and into the utility closet and I unpacked my wooden hangers and lovingly hung my wardrobe. The glass table I swapped for the lean-to desk that was weirdly in the bedroom and the tall, boxy, glass IKEA storage shelves I moved together and set them at an angle for my fabric. Tablecloth on the glass “dining” table which is now my sewing studio. Design wall, up. I ordered dimmer switches for the track lighting in the kitchen and living room. Down came the depressing brown shower curtain and I found a very cool, very bright white one on Amazon and promptly ordered that, too. And a gorgeous, Lucite lamp for my sewing table.

And I was reminded, once again, that if you put enough quilts and enough books in a room, you cannot fail.

Every scrap of linen was washed in practically boiling water and I turned the easy chair at an angle toward the window so that I could look out at the tops of the buildings in the morning as I write and have my tea.

And now? I love it here. My surface remodeling worked and, dare I say, it’s darned cozy in here. I could almost feel the space going, “Where have you been all my life?”

Uh, Iowa, Chicago, New York and many points in between. I pick up a few things.

10 Jan 2015

The Postal Museum: Must See

by | posted in: Day In The Life | 0
The famous "Inverted Jenny" stamp, circa 1918.
The famous “Inverted Jenny” stamp, circa 1918.

As I get more familiar with Washington, DC, the more I absolutely love it here. Stinky rats? Gross. Relocation? A real pain in the neck. But it’s a testament to the city that we both keep rising to the top of the poo bucket. And another thing: it’s so fantastic when you trust yourself and what you trusted yourself about — in this case, truly disliking living in New York and believing a move to Washington was a wise decision — is validated. It’s so hard to put the breaks on a relationship, to dive headfirst into pain like that. But what’s left of my guts is reliable; I trusted my insides and so far my situation seems to be okay. Better.

Yesterday I had an errand to run next door to The Postal Museum. Writing letters is a joyful activity for me and I love stationery and stamps. I love envelopes and office supplies. Clearly, I am the demographic for a museum of this kind.

Sometimes, one’s true nerdiness cannot be hidden by any veneer of coolness or hipness that has been constructed over time. My squeals of delight in that museum yesterday elicited alarmed looks from my fellow museumgoers but there was nothing I could do. Here is what is in that museum in the first room of the whole place: 

A Stamp Act stamp —  A STAMP FROM THE FREAKING STAMP ACT!!!
The first stamp in America ever — EVER!!!!!
A letter from the Pony Express — THE BLINKIN’ PONY EXPRESS!!!!!
An Inverted Jenny — I was less amazed by this but it’s the most expensive stamp in the world
Fumigated and perforated letters from the time of cholera — CHOLERA!
Other things that were amazing — OTHER THINGS!!!!

And they had so many interactive stations, too. There’s this huge screen where hundreds of stamps are cataloged and you use the touch screen to scroll and scroll through all these stamps and you can select your ten favorite to put in a virtual stamp collection! And then you can email it to yourself!

And there was a kiosk where you could put your face on a stamp! And work on the design and even give it the rate you wanted! (I did a couple versions, but my finest work was the 10-cent stamp.) And you can email that to yourself, too! My 10-cent stamp never came through my email, though, so I guess I’ll have to go and play on it again. Oh, darn.

To me, the mail is like airplanes: I can’t believe we made this stuff. That these systems work. It’s just the coolest thing in the world that you can send a piece of paper to me and I will get it at my house and it’s very cheap to do this.

I leave you with the exquisitely beautiful, unofficial creed of the USPS. It was a line Herodotus wrote a long time ago, translated by a Harvard professor named George Herbert Palmer. If you don’t get chills reading it, you must be in a very warm room:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Send a piece of paper today, won’t you?

8 Jan 2015

Differently Abled.

by | posted in: Day In The Life | 1
The Gallaudet Cheerleaders, 2013. Photo: Gallaudet University.
The Gallaudet Cheerleaders, 2013. Photo: Gallaudet University.

 

I’ve returned to my Bikram yoga practice and it feels great, except that the first time I walked into the Capitol Hill studio on New Year’s Eve day, a real cruddy memory came flooding back.

In 2009, I was here in D.C. with the Neo-Futurists, performing for a month at Woolly Mammoth theater — which is just a few blocks from my new home, incidentally. It was that trip that caused me to fall in love with D.C. At the time, I was extremely committed to my yoga practice and would get up at five in the morning to walk to the Capitol Hill studio to take the six a.m. class so that I could be showered, fed, watered and at the theater by nine o’clock rehearsal. I kinda can’t believe I did that.

I had an ostomy bag for many years. I had my first bag for about a year and then the surgeons poked my intestine back into my body. I got sick again right away, so I had to get an ostomy again. The second time, I had it about two years. When I was well enough during both periods, I kept practicing yoga. Bikram yoga is 90 minutes inside a room heated to 105 degrees. An ostomy bag is attached to the body with a wax seal and a sticker. Before every class over those years, I would have to tape up my bag with athletic tape so it wouldn’t fall off, then empty it, and then explain to the teacher before class that in between the standing series and the floor series, I would probably have to go empty it again. I usually did; the second half of a Bikram class is done largely on your belly. A bag full of… Well, you can imagine. Typically, it’s not cool to leave a Bikram class at all, so it was my responsibility to apprise teachers of my special case.

The only time any Bikram teacher ever made me feel bad about my ostomy bag was at the Capitol Hill studio, and I’ve practiced in Bikram studios coast to coast.

“Hey, hi,” I said to the teacher with a smile. “I just wanted to let you know, I have an ostomy bag, and I usually have to go to the bathroom between the standing and floor series, so if that’s cool with y—”

The teacher looked at me like there was a bug crawling across my face. “Oh. Well… Is it…visible?” she asked me, her lip kind of up by her nose.

I blinked. No one had ever asked me that before.

“Uh… No, not… No. I mean, you can see a little bit of the appliance and the tape, I guess, poking up over my shorts…” I trailed off. I felt so lousy. It’s amazing how the differences we have become our “normal” until someone makes them bizarre and therefore wrong.

The other day in the changing room, I heard some very unusual sounds. Two girls were making the sounds, which were kind of breathless squeaks. I turned to see two young ladies smiling and jumping up and down and signing to each other like crazy. Either they hadn’t seen each other in awhile or one of the girls was having a really great day and telling the other about it. One of the girls had a Gallaudet sweatshirt on and I remembered that the prestigious college for the deaf, Gallaudet University, is here in D.C.

Bikram yoga is a class that is taught by one teacher who has a 90-minute “dialogue” that he or she recites. It’s the same every class. You listen to the words, you do the poses. Those girls come to yoga, but they can’t hear the words the teacher is saying. But Bikram yoga is also — and always — taught in a room with a floor-to-ceiling mirror in the front of the room. So you don’t really have to hear the dialogue, I realized; you can just watch what the class is doing and keep perfect pace.

I understand why “disabled” is a term that a lot of people don’t like. “Differently abled” is a far better choice of words.

6 Jan 2015

Maps The Clock Puts There.

by | posted in: Day In The Life | 0
Bed illustration, 1869. Photo: Ward, Lock, & Tyler of London, via Wikicommons.
Bed illustration, 1869. Photo: Ward, Lock, & Tyler of London, via Wikicommons.

Dangerous things include:

Alligator hunting
Necking in the 1950s
Taking a job as a logger
Quoting your own poetry

The last thing could be the most dangerous of them all, but I’m going to do it, as I feel a kind of heady, delirious courage at the moment. I have been packing and moving boxes since dawn — right about when it began to snow. All the possessions have been transferred. I am in a new home. I no longer have keys to my little Capitol Hill treehouse.

Here’s the quote, from a poem called “A Cake/For The Fall”:

“The lines on our faces are maps the clock puts there/the forehead shows that path of the first worry/the cheek charts the hardest years/laugh lines are easy landmarks/but beware fatigue at the corner of the eye, my son/it belies the optimist’s gaze/I can spot a broken heart in a happy man a mile away”

The poem was written many years ago and when I wrote it I thought I was writing about a boy, but now I think I was writing about time. Days like these — periods of time like these — put lines on our faces. Today I picked up the third? fourth? duffel bag of fabric (Pendennis tucked into one of them for safe keeping) and I fumbled for the new set of keys for the apartment that is ugly and cramped compared to my darling little rat-infested house. I stomped snow off my shoes. I looked out at the view that I have; I saw not the grand dome of the Capitol Building but square, squat buildings that look like boxes, and a highway, and an empty lot. The apartment itself is a box inside a building that looks just like the others out there. Only the snowfall was familiar as I pressed my nose to the glass.

It’s not so bad. It has its charms. But oh, I cried.

And I thought about my poem because I remember when I was a kid and I’d look up at adults and think, “They look so weird and different from me.” It’s the lines. Adults have lines in our faces, and even if they’re not wrinkles yet, kids do not have even a whisper of these. They don’t have lines because they haven’t moved twice in a month, in winter, after love faltered in a different apartment in Manhattan. They haven’t forwarded their mail. Again. Of course, I don’t want any of that to happen to any kid, but it will. It’s the law of nature, little dude, little miss, and you, too, will grow up (and grow old) under the law. But it gets better after it sucks for awhile. That’s a law, too.

Tomorrow, my sister and her fiance are returning home from their 10-day trip to India. What stopped me blubbering on like a dweeb today was remembering that I want so many, many things, but most of all, I want them home safe and sound.

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