My Teapot, My Life, or: This Is Actually a Big Deal

posted in: Day In The Life 9
I wear a hat just like this when I have my tea. Painting by Lilla Cabot Perry, 1900-ish. Image courtesy Wikipedia.
I wear a hat just like this when I have my tea. Painting by Lilla Cabot Perry, 1900-ish. Image courtesy Wikipedia.

 

Sometimes I’m chatting with a person and it comes up that I keep a blog and have kept it, faithfully, for many years.

The person with whom I’m chatting usually says, “Oh, that’s interesting. What’s your blog about?” And that’s when I must go through the pain of telling the truth, which is that “I write a blog about my life.” It’s not that it’s painful (for me) to write a blog about my life; it’s painful to watch the person’s eyes glaze over because the word “blog” is pretty awful and the words “about my life” strike fear in the hearts of men, often for good reason.

So before the glaze sets in, I rush to assure them that PaperGirl:

  • is allergic to the overshare
  • is sometimes funny, sometimes sad (see: “about my life”)
  • is politics-free (unless absolutely necessary)
  • is never lengthy for length’s sake
  • never concerns itself with, like, what I had for breakfast

That last point mentions breakfast only as an example of something that might be interesting to me but, unless I had a real zinger of a breakfast, probably wouldn’t make for gripping copy. (Note: I have had actual Zingers for breakfast and that would be a great post.) The point is that I try to keep posts out of the realm of the banal unless the banal has become extraordinary.

And this may have happened and it actually pertains, sort of, to breakfast. So here we are.

Readers of this blog know that I have my Earl Grey tea every day. I roll out bed and shuffle to the stove and put the kettle on practically before I open my eyes for Lord’s sake. I use loose tea and steep it in my little red pot and when it’s ready to drink I put in half-and-half and honey and stir it with my spoon and if I am out of honey, I use maple syrup, which I used it in a pinch one time and it was A Very Good Idea and it all goes on my tea tray and I take it to the living room and I read and I drink my tea and then I can face the world. That’s my tea thing and I have been doing it most every day* for 15 years or something unbelievable like that.

A few days ago, though, I purchased a coffee-making machine.

It’s not a coffeepot. It’s not a Keuriggy-schmiggy thing. It’s not one of those fancy glass whatsits all the cool kids — like my brother-in-law — have and wipe with care and take insurance policies out on. No, I got a machine that makes coffee in a particular way that I love.

I got a Senseo coffee machine. Do you know this thing?? Made by Phillips. My Aunt Leesa has one at her house and when I visited her a few years ago — and when I visited her again last spring — I was blown away by the cup of coffee that coffee robot thing made for me. Whenever I think about having a coffee, I think: “Boy, I could really go in for some of that Senseo coffee right about now. Oh, well.”

For one thing, I have my tea thing and it’s part of my soul at this point. Plus, the Senseo robots are expensive already, but then you have to get these old-school pods that only work in that machine — and the Senseo robot doesn’t take any other kind of robot pods. But I had a price-watch thing set for eBay, so I was able to pay what seemed doable, finally, plus I had a credit in my account. So the cost was lowered enough and bam: I did it. My Senseo arrives tomorrow and I can’t wait to have my first cup.

Don’t ask me why I am doing this. There’s nothing wrong with my tea service, per se… except that maybe there is, if I’m looking elsewhere.

I love my little teapot. But maybe it needs a break, just like you and everyone we know.

I Got a Mouthguard: Clearly I Am Cool.

posted in: Day In The Life, Sicky 21
A mouthguard from a boxing match at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, or so Wikipedia tells me. Image: Wikipedia.
A (grody) mouthguard from a boxing match, apparently. Not my mouthguard, not my boxing match. Image: Wikipedia.

 

Pop Quiz No. 1:

Q: Two weeks ago, I went to the dentist to get a filling repaired. How did I break a filling?

A: Because I chomped ice cubes for like two months straight before my labs showed my anemia was so bad I was .5 ice cubes away from the blinkin’ emergency room. 

You remember, don’t you, how I narrowly-avoided an ER trip — it has been known to happen — but got my iron infusions and avoided that at the eleventh hour? That was great. Less great is that my dentist, Dr. Tahbaz, confirmed that my ice-eating was probably the main culprit for my busted filling.

Pop Quiz No. 2:

Q: My dentist visit cost $250. Guess how much my iron infusions cost?

A: $3,600. After insurance. 

I’m not sure what my face did when I opened that bill from Northwestern. Did it twist? Or was it flat? Did it buzz and fizz or was it numb? I don’t know because I kinda blanked out. I regained consciousness somewhere in the next few minutes, though, because I remember that I started laughing. Not because I was happy, or because anything was funny. No, I started laughing because I somehow kept opening mail and it somehow kept being bills for astronomical amounts: hospital treatments, tuition for grad school, condo payments. And I pay my own taxes, so I have to put money aside for that every quarter, which means that the money in my accounts isn’t really mine. I kept laughing to keep from crying or hitting things.

Life, man. A girl could just gnash her teeth all day over it all.

Except that she can’t. Because guess what else the dentist told her?

“You need to get a mouth guard. You’re grinding your teeth at night. A lot. Get a mouth guard. Today.”

It’s not earth-shattering news that I grind my teeth. I vaguely remember other dentists mentioning this to me. But either they were never really that concerned about it or I wasn’t listening, because no one ever did anything about my bruxism. Did you know that teeth-grinding has a name? It’s a real affliction/condition and it’s called bruxism.

Pop Quiz No. 3: 

Q: If you’re a teeth-grinder (tooth-grinder?) and an annoying person at a cocktail party asks you about your theological, ideological, or political beliefs, how do you answer like a boss?

A: “I’m a Bruxist. Oh, look at the time.” 

What I’m trying to get at is that I had to buy a mouthguard. The good news is that it was $25, not $250 or $3,600; the bad news is that I have a mouthguard I’m supposed to wear at night so I don’t grind my teeth against themselves but against a piece of inert plastic, instead. The news is bad because a) it’s sad I need protection against myself via the nocturnal manifestation of anxiety and existential angst, and because 2) mouthguards do not inspire a feeling of attractiveness, exactly. Mouthguards are practical, but they are not sexy.

But I like my teeth. Healthy teeth are sexy. So fine: I’ll wear my charming! clear! dainty! mouthguard when I’m sleeping alone. But should I have company, well, that thing is getting stuffed into the medicine cabinet before you can say “iron supplement.”

Mama, Little Boy, and Squinchy Eye.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life 6
Another mother and her wee bairn. Image: Wikipedia.
Mother and bairn. Image: Wikipedia.

 

An author I admire a lot once said, “The best thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Ain’t that just the way? It’s certainly an encouragement to go for a stroll. Because even if you don’t think up anything good while walking — I spend a lot of time thinking about jokes and snacks, for example — you’re bound to at least see some stuff.

Which counts for a lot.

On Friday, I was walking up Wabash, headed to the newspaper office** and I saw the sweetest thing. It wasn’t anything remarkable, but it was worth the walk.

A woman was with her son. She was in her late thirties, maybe; her little boy was eight or so. They had stopped on the sidewalk because there was a problem with the boy. He was so cute, but he was not happy: There was something in his eye.

Obviously, this was not an emergency; if it had been, this would be a very different post. No, the blinky eye in question was plagued with an eyelash or a no-see-um gnat or something minor. But shorty was so grumpy, whatever it was, it clearly hurt. A gnat is big when your eyeball is small.

As I approached, I saw how sweet the boy’s mother was, helping her child steady himself while he frowned and scrubbed at his face. She tried to get at his lil’ peeper with a thumb; I heard him say, “I can do it! Ow!”

There were but a few seconds to take in the scene, but I saw it all: pure tenderness and kindness coming from the mother, pure trust from the boy, who knew he was safe, even if it hurt. Suddenly, I recalled Aesop’s fable when the mouse taking the thorn from the paw of the lion.

Now that I think about it, it’s precisely that mother-son moment and consequently thinking of Aesop that is proof positive the best thoughts are conceived while walking.

After I passed the scene, I remembered how the health foods store a block away used to stock these maple peanut butter bar thingys that I love. Mm. If I turned right a block early, I could swing by the health food store and then grab a coffee to go with it before going into the office.

See? The best snacks are conceived while walking.

 

**Did I tell you I got promoted? I got promoted to head-editor-in-charge of the school paper! I’m sharing the position with the brilliant and beautiful Irena, because we both were in the running for the job this coming year and decided that life, school, and working at the paper would be far more enjoyable/productive if we shared the duties of managing editor. Divide and conquer, that’s what we said, and we clinked glasses and went into the Publication Board meeting for our joint interview, which we nailed. We’re a terrific team and I’m in heaven, being a top-dog editor again. I really love being an editor. I might have to be one again, for a long time. I’ll keep you posted. 

Charlottesville’s Web.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Work 7
Summerdance looks a little like this, you might say. Image: Wikipedia.
so Tulips in Grant Park. Summerdance looks a little like this. Image: Wikipedia.

 

Remember that time that car drove into a crowd of people in Berlin? It was Christmas.

It was awful. A terrorist drove a van into a market in Berlin and I thought of Claus, of course, because Claus lives in Berlin. What I never got around to mentioning is that when I went to visit Claus in January, my hotel was practically on top of the site where that man did that. It was just a few weeks later, when I walked past for the first time. There were still many lit candles. There were still framed pictures of people who died, pictures of those injured irrevocably.

Ruin and death.

Last night, I had dinner with Heather in River North. We had tacos. Afterward, I walked her to the bus stop at Watertower Place. I blew a kiss to my friend as she boarded the bus north and after we waved to each other through the window, I turned to walk the 1.8 miles home, straight down Michigan Avenue. It was obvious that’s what I’d do; I had seen the news. I needed to be around other people. The air was fine, I was physically fine, and I was wearing my hat.

Baby, you should’ve been there. The world was out there. Families. Couples in love. Teenagers. Older folks. Babies in strollers. All of us, on a mild summer night in one of the greatest cities in the world, walking along the sidewalk to get across the great Chicago River, all of us together there on the DuSable Bridge.

It would’ve been be so easy to plow a car through us all.

Michigan Avenue is a sitting duck, really. So many people to hate, and for endless reasons. All it would take is a head start, maybe followed by throwing the car into reverse to catch a few more of us. You know I’m on that bridge all the time. I’m on Michigan Avenue probably 300 days out of the year. So are many children, young lovers, old folks. Last night, we got across.

As I approached Polk Street, almost home, I heard music. My heart leaped when I realized Summerdance was going on.

Summerdance is this sublime summer series in Grant Park, right here in my neighborhood. Every week, pretty signs are stuck into the grass and a modest stage is set up in the clearing for a band or DJ. And every night, Summerdance celebrates a different kind of music. Like, one week it’ll be salsa, the next week it might be swing, or Calypso — really, any and every kind of music you can dance to gets its turn from summer to summer. There’s more: Professional dance teachers come and teach you steps from the stage! Some folks who come to Summerdance are incredible dancers and some people have two left feet, but you have never seen so many smiling people together in your life.

After the lesson, for a couple hours, the band or the DJ plays music so people can dance their news steps, under the trees, under the stars, together. There are usually about 400 people there. There is no racial demographic. All are welcome. All come.

Here is what is true:

I’m not doing enough to help protect the people on the bridge on Michigan Avenue. I’m not doing enough to keep Summerdance safe. It’s good to write to you, my friends, about how beautiful it is to be among all of my American brothers and sisters. But the internet is not enough.

If I don’t do more than I’m doing right now, the bridges will burn. The music will stop. And that’s just not gonna work for me.

If you’re new to this blog, and the Google people tell me there are, you should probably read this. 

The Quilt Scout Is IN…the Little Boathouse.

Little Boathouse! Photo: Mom.
Little Boathouse! Photo: Mom.

 

The first of the August Quilt Scout columns for the mighty Quilts, Inc. is all about Washington Island.

You know, the place where musicians go to rehearse in the lake. And where I fell through the ice. The place where a certain wedding took place and where I played with my sister Hannah summer after summer after summer. (Note to self: Make summer Island play date with Hannah.) Oh, and there’s this. And… Well, just put “washington island” in the search box over there and you’ll see a slew of related material. There’s not much going on in the news or anything; what else are you going to read for heaven’s sake?

Anyway, over at the Quilt Scout column are some great pictures of the quilt studio, my mom, and our family and friends. So head on over, gang. The sun is shining.

Yours,
Mary Fons, Q.S., P.G.

p.s. Mom corrected me: The Little Boathouse is definitely not 600 square feet. Try 300, tops. I state in the piece that I’m bad at estimating distances. And I was telling the truth.

Charlie, Alison, and the Best Concert I’ve Ever Heard — Part Two.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Paean 16
This (annotated) photo is a remarkably good facsimile of our property and provides a rough idea of the concert situation. Image: Wikipedia, with notes by me.
This (annotated) photo is a remarkably good facsimile of our property and provides a rough idea of the concert situation. Image: Wikipedia, with notes by me.

 

The picture isn’t big enough. I need an IT person. But nevermind that! There’s no time.

To begin with, if you haven’t read yesterday’s post, you must. You just have to. Go and read this, then come back. Trust me. Would I lead you astray? Are you back? Great.

So there we are, at the lake house. It’s like 2 p.m. on Sunday, smack dab in the middle of the anniversary of my birth. I’m already in a terrific mood because Claus sent me the most enormous bouquet of Door County field flowers and my sister Rebecca asked me before we left Chicago what kind of cake I wanted and I said “funfetti” (duh) so that Mother could make the cake before we arrived on Friday because, as she told us, and I quote:

“Why make a birthday cake on Sunday when you guys have to leave Monday morning? I figured I’d make it so we could have cake all weekend.”

Marianne Fons for president.

Okay, so it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m reading a book upstairs. It’s likely I had just had some cake, but I don’t remember. I do know that I was not planning to leave my comfy recliner until I was done with my book, so when Mom called up to me to “come downstairs for a minute” I was rawther displeased.

“Mom!” I yelled back. “I’m reading! This is vacation! I’m reading!”

La Marianne did not yield.

“Mary, I need you for five minutes. Come downstairs, please.”

In my best six-year-old whine, I replied, “Don’t make me dooooo anything! It’s my birthday!”

Then, from the kitchen, a firm, “Mary. Come downstairs.”After that, a pause — because the woman knows gifts are my love language: “It’s a birthday surprise.”

Greased lightning. Down the stairs.

Suddenly finding myself on the first floor of the house, my eyes darted around. What was happening?? Was someone coming to visit?? Claus’s flowers were there on the bar. A truly ridiculous thought popped into my head. I gasped and grabbed Mom’s shoulder.

“Oh my god. Is Claus here??”

My mother shook her head. “Come outside.”

She led me to the water and we took a seat on the table rock. On our beach, beautiful, wide, big, flat rocks separate the water from the land and you can run and leap across them and you can sit and bask in the sun on them and nature must love that line because she is always changing it, working with it, bestowing beauty on that line. We sat down on that very line and suddenly, I knew what was going to happen:

Charlie was going to play “Happy Birthday” for me.

And so he did. From far, far down the beach, almost too far to hear but not too far to hear at all, came the sounds of a world-class trombonist playing a world-class trombone.

“Happy Birthday toooo youuuu… Happy Birthday toooo youuuuu… Happy Biiiirthday, dear Maaaaary…. Happy Birthday tooooo yoooouuuu…”

Again, again!!

I flapped my hands and jumped up and down and chased my tail and indeed, Chuck played on! The tune came once more. I didn’t know if that was because he wanted to make sure I heard it or what  — I heard, I heard! Do it again, Charlie! Do it again. And now we know: If anyone out there has the ability to play “Happy Birthday” to someone on an island beach from a half mile away, take it from me: Play it twice. The first time you play it, the recipient is freaking out too much to even, like, understand her life. The second round is when it really lands.

When the second solo was over, I jumped up and down like a madwoman, waving like I was stranded on the rocks, hoping Charlie could see my flailing and understand it as ecstatic gratitude. Then, I scrambled up to the house to call the Vernon residence and thank them for making possible one of the most delightful moments of my entire life. I’m deadly serious about that. And if you think it’s odd to pair the words “the most delightful [moment] of my life” and “deadly serious” in the same breath, you have never had a Chicago Symphony Orchestra musician perform “Happy Birthday” to you across Lake Michigan on a perfect August afternoon on your birthday. (By the way, I know a guy.)

Thank you, Alison and Charlie. I love you.

Charlie, Alison, and the Best Concert I’ve Ever Heard — Part One.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Paean 6

I'm 99% sure that's Charlie! Photo by Jordan Fischer, 2005, via Wikipedia. (Annotation mine.)

 

A few summers back, Mom was up at the lake house with Mark.

One perfect afternoon, Mom went down to the shoreline with Scrabble, who surely wanted to rustle up some seagull jerky. There at the water, from waaaay down the beach, at the bend about a half-mile south of our place, she heard what sounded like someone playing a horn.

Yes, it sounded to Mom like someone playing some kind of brass instrument, though she couldn’t place which kind. It wasn’t a trumpet. Maybe a French horn? This wasn’t the first time Mom had registered the sound, either. As she went to fetch Mark for a second opinion, my mother looked back once more and saw a golden flash of sun glinting off metal. It was a horn! But it wasn’t on shore. Was the player standing in the water?? Playing a horn while wading?

That’s how we met the Vernons.

You see, Mom was right. There was a dude out there practicing music in the water. But it wasn’t just any dude, and it wasn’t just any music, either. Our Island neighbor turned out to be none other than Charlie Vernon, one of the world’s most celebrated trombonists, a man who has graced the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for over 20 years and counting. Charlie’s wife, the luminous, whip-smart, first-draft-pick-in-the-zombie-apocalypse Alison Vernon, is a musician, too. Her lilting soprano voice would stir even the iciest of hearts, and that’s when she’s singing on an actual stage. I haven’t heard her singing while standing in Lake Michigan, but I want to.

I tell you all this because the Vernons had a huge hand in this terrific recent birthday of mine. This post is in two parts because there are two equally terrific sections to share and I don’t want anyone skimming!

So.

Jack, Rebecca, and I arrived at the Island on Friday. Mom had made reservations for five at the perch fry at Findlay’s restaurant that night. It was pretty much non-negotiable when we decided we were coming “up Island,” as Mark likes to say; the perch fry is not to be trifled with. The longstanding Island dinner only happens Friday nights; you have to have a reservation; you have to tell Mrs. Findlay when you call if you want baked potato or fries; you get cherry pie at the end, and if you’re local (or close enough, like us) you know to ask for your pie a la mode. The Friday night perch fry has been happening in this exact manner since the Pleistocene era because if it is delicious, please do not fix it.

We had just been seated when who should walk into the dining room? Charlie and Alison Vernon!! We immediately scooted so they could sit with us and it was cozy and perfect.

Toward the end of the last platter of fish, Mom asked us kids if we had ever heard the story about how Alison and Charlie had been integral in the campaign to get Maestro Riccardo Muti, the world-class, virtuoso conductor, to come to Chicago and lead the city’s symphony. We sort of knew about that, but no, none of us knew the full tale.

Now, I’d like to think my family has a catalog of great stories, but Friday night we were delighted to be out of our league, big time. The story Alison and Charlie told of how a community of musicians in a major metropolis fell in love with a conductor and wrote him personal letters to get him to Chicago — and how these two dear friends of ours were so committed to helping the whole process because they believed, to their core, Muti was The Man — kept us utterly in thrall. Oh! That story is a tear-jerking, nail-biting, heart-swelling, gloriously triumphant tale and two of the lead actors were our personal storytellers. Heaven.

Anyway, the next day, there were more gifts from the Vernons. And you won’t believe what I have to tell you. You just won’t believe what happened.

 

‘Crowdstashing’: Marianne’s Fabric S.O.S.

posted in: Day In The Life, Quilting 25
That's the quilt in progress. And that's my sad mom. We're up at the lake house. It's time to crowdstash. Image: Me
That’s the quilt in progress. And that’s my sad mom. It’s time to crowdstash. Image: Me

 

People, we have a quilt crisis situation.

It’s time to crowdstash.

Crowdstashing is like crowdsourcing, except for fabric. I mean, this seems like it should be a word. Because if  you want to fund a lemonade stand operation, you can go on sites like Kickstarter or GoFundMe and raise money from the proverbial “crowd.” Well, if you desperately need a specific fabric for a quilt — fabric that is definitely not available in quilt shops or online and yes, you checked everywhere — it’s time to call upon the quilting crowd and ask if they might dig into their respective (bottomless) stashes to see if they might have some of what you need. That’s crowdstashing, baby — and it could one day save your very life!

Here now follows an interview I did with La Marianne about an hour ago. I’m up here at the lake house in Door County and we’re back from the Friday night fish fry, but don’t let that fool you for a second. This is serious business.

PAPERGIRL: What’s the situation, Mommy.

MOM: I’m working on a major quilt. It’s likely be slated for a TV episode and for publication in Love of Quilting magazine. It’s a really big quilt: 110″ square. And it’s working, design-wise. The fabric, the patchwork. It looks good.

PG: Okay.

MOM: One of the two most important fabrics in the quilt — one I’ve had in my stash for more than five years — is a wonderful toile print, thin black on a creamy ground. I was thrilled I had so much of it when I started because the setting pieces are really huge: 26” squares, cut in half. But, honey, I made mistakes. In the cutting. One of the squares I cut too small. If you need a 27” square and you cut it 25”, it’s just —

PG: Yeah. That’s…not good.

MOM: Right. And then I wasted more of this fabric in a design error! When you’re making a prototype, you know, these things are going to happen sometimes. But now I’m really over a barrel. I mean, I don’t have enough fabric to do this quilt. And it really has to be that particular toile print in those setting pieces. It’s a real crisis.

PG: Now, I’m generally an advocate for finding a fabric that will work instead or changing the whole direction of the quilt, but a) you and I work differently, and b) you literally can’t do that in this case. This is not a place for winging it. This quilt is a serious deal.

MOM: The painful thing is that if I had not made those cutting mistakes, I would’ve had enough. But… There’s no turning back.

PG: I don’t want to undermine your pain, Mom, but people are going to love reading that you screw stuff up, too. You’re human. You measure incorrectly. You run out of a fabric you cannot get anymore, anywhere online or via the quilt mafia. What was the feeling you had when you realized what you’d done?

MOM: Sinking.

PG: Okay, so let’s take action. Let’s crowdstash. There are millions and millions of quilters out there. Most with incredible fabric stashes filled with fabric new and old. I’ll bet someone has this fabric, Mom, and if we make the deal sweet, you might just be able to get your hands on some. What do you need, exactly?

MOM: The fabric I need is by Anna Griffin for Windham Fabrics. The selvedge says “Anna Griffin for Windham Presents the Dorothy Collection Pattern #27189I”. And in quilt shop terms, I need a one-and-a-half yards.

[EDITOR’S UPDATE, 8/5: Mom needs the black on cream, not the brown on cream. We’ve found a good deal of the brown, but black’s the thing! xoxo, Pendennis]

PG: Oh, come on! Someone will have that. They just have to! What are you/we gonna do to sweeten the pot? You have to give back when you crowdstash. That’s the model.

MOM: Well —

PG: Ooh! We could talk about it on the TV episode! We could share the story about crowdstashing!

MOM: Yep. Great idea. And if I get enough of it, I’ll put it on the back, too. That would be terrific.

PG: And I can write it up for my Quilt Scout column. I’ll do that. That’s a promise.

MOM: Of course, I’ll pay for the material and the shipping. Gee, what if we get a ton of it?

PG: We could make dresses and wear those on the show, too.

MOM: Dresses and headbands and rings. That would be really funny.

 

***If you indeed have this fabric — and other pictures of it are coming on Facebook tomorrow to help identify — please email me a picture at mary  @ maryfons dot com. I’ll be checking back to see if this crowdstashing thing could actually work. Thank you!!!

 

Today, Sophie Is Published In The New Yorker.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Luv, Work 9
An excerpt from "Horrible Phone Calls I Assume I'd Have If It Wasn't For The Internet" by Sophie Johnson. Image COURTESY OF THE ARTIST BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW HER, AGGGHHH!
An excerpt from “Horrible Phone Calls I Assume I’d Have If It Wasn’t For The Internet” by Sophie Johnson. Image COURTESY OF THE ARTIST BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW HER, AGGGHHH!

 

Today’s post is pure joy to write.

Sophie Lucido Johnson, a bosom buddy friendship in my life on the level of Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, is published this very day in The New Yorker. She wrote and illustrated a wonderful comic entitled, “Horrible Phone Calls I Assume I’d Have If It Wasn’t For The Internet” and, as you will shortly discover, Sophie’s cartoon is brilliant.

Being published in The New Yorker is a mammoth achievement. I probably don’t need to say that.

Maybe you read the magazine, maybe you don’t. Maybe you have a stack of New Yorkers on a chair in your apartment because you buy them when you’re in the airport and you swear you’re going to get through them all by the end of the summer (cough, cough.) Regardless of your relationship to the magazine, it cannot be denied that the editorial standards over there are about as high as they come. You gotta be good to get in that door.

And how do you get good? You know the answer.

You work.

And that’s what Sophie does. The girl. Practices. Constantly. She’s always writing, drawing, looking, thinking. When we’re in meetings or in the audience for something, Sophie pulls out her drawing pad and a pencil and sketches. She’ll draw people or things. She’ll make a cartoon or do lettering. She does it because she wants to get better and she’s willing to do the work. Of course, Sophie draws and writes because she loves it, too, but I want to drive home how hard she works at all this.

Being published in The New Yorker is pretty glamorous. But I assure you, and Sophie as she reads this will be nodding her head vigorously: Making art and writing is not glamorous. This stuff is frustrating, it takes forever, you fail, you get sad, you ignore other things, you doubt. But then, if you’re like Sophie and a handful of other people I know, you go back into the salt mines. Because you have to. Because that’s what it takes.

This beautiful girl works so hard. She works so hard, she got a comic in The New Yorker.

Congratulations, Soph.

Time, The Revelator (‘Reunion Report’ Conclusion, At Least For Now.)

posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Paean 7
High school yearbook photos from 1942, somewhere in the middle west. Image: Wikipedia.
High school yearbook photos from 1942, somewhere in the middle west. Image: Wikipedia.

 

This will be my third and final “Reunion Report.” For now, anyway.

It’s just that there was so much to think about. I had to space things out. I had to plug in the iron, really press and smooth. I can’t figure anything out unless I write it out, as I’ve said. It’s been this way since I was in sophomore study hall, scribbling poems on the rubber sole of my Converse sneakers. I mention this again in case anyone from the reunion started reading my blog and is right now shaking their head, legitimately wondering why I can’t just chill and let the reunion be what it was: a great party. But I can’t help it. A sandwich is never a sandwich around here.

Whatever the occasion or experience, as time passes, impressions solidify, or they cauterize, or they get frozen in amber, or they disintegrate completely. Six-ish days after the reunion, I can finally get to what for me was the heart of it all. The thought started on Saturday evening and survived the night itself, the hangover on Sunday, the mulling, and the return to the city.

Time is the great equalizer. That’s what survived.

Every classmate I talked to last weekend, regardless of the tenor of our conversation — which did range from convivial to dark — was an adult. Time has no caste system, has no opinions about what you do for a living. I talked in the last post about “reverting to type” and I did, but not the whole time. Most of the time, I just felt like a person with people I admired simply by virtue of the fact that we’ve gone through a good deal of life since we were all in a room together. It’s been 20 years. Think of that.

Think of that.

Births. Deaths. Suffering. Ecstasy. Loss. Windfalls. Horror. Bliss. Addiction. Recovery. Jobs. Ruin. Success. Disappointment. Marriage. Divorce. Second divorce. Aging parents. Sibling pain. Fears for children, worry for friends. Disease. Redemption.

Living history, in other words.

The history we’re making and have each made in 20 years, all of us in our different ways (which are the same ways), that is the great equalizer. Time flattens us all and in this case, it’s a good thing. When I go on about feeling awkward, I’m being paranoid and small, even just taking up space to say that. Most of that night, we were all just folks, connected by the fact that two decades after we crossed the stage in the gymnasium wearing long robes and weird, betasseled cardboard hats, we are alive and we have earned — and paid dearly for — the space we occupy.

That’s what I figure. There’s more, but tomorrow I want to talk about how I rearranged all the furniture in my apartment this evening. What else am I supposed to do after seeing the grand pageant of humanity in the faces of my graduating class?

Move the couch, that’s what.

Reunion Report, Part Two: The Fails.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family 6
I like this guy. Image: Wikipedia.
I like this guy. Image: Wikipedia.

 

Yesterday, I shared what I managed to get right at the reunion. Now, it’s time to confess at least a few of the things I got wrong.

Fail No. 1 — I reverted to type. 
If you are an adult with siblings, and the bunch of you get together for holidays or large family functions, you likely have witnessed or experienced yourself a “revert to type.” To revert to type is “to come or go back, as to a former condition, period, or subject.”

For example, if your younger brother, who yanked your ponytail constantly when you were growing up but is now actually a mature, stand-up person, totally yanks your ponytail every time you’re both at Mom’s, he’s reverting to type, slipping into the kid brother role he had for so long. Meanwhile, you can’t believe the Typical Older Sister stuff coming out of your mouth. Reverting to type might not feel great, but at least it feels familiar.

Well, I reverted to type the other night. I got nerdy. Nervous. I tried to be funny and sort of was, sometimes, but mostly I was just clammy and didn’t know where to put my hands or how to not say lame things to people to whom I always managed to say lame things. I wasn’t hopeless in high school, but I had frequent clammy encounters. Anyway, it happened at the party and it was weird. I’ve come a long way since high school — so how come I forgot all that stuff when I tried to insert myself into conversations?

Fail No. 2 — I drank too much. 
(See: reverting to type.) Not that I drank in high school — I could count on one hand the times I did. No, I mean that because I felt nervous, my cup was never empty. On top of that, I’m on a new medication and I think the combo made me pretty spacey. It’s not like I had a lampshade on my head at the end of the night, but I spent the next day feelin’ barf-o-riffic, indeed. Go high school!

Fail No. 3 — I didn’t take many pictures. And I didn’t tackle the hosts to thank them for everything before I left. Super lame.
Okay, so that’s two in one. I probably wasn’t the only reveler who sort of drifted off as the party broke up, but that’s not usually my way. And though I can’t do much about the first thing, I’ve got an idea to remedy the second.

Now that done a little get realin’, it’s time to brush my teeth and go to bed. Oh wait:

Fail No. 4 — Definitely did not brush my teeth before I went to bed Saturday night. 
I was so good about that in high school.

Reunion Report, Part One: The Winners.

posted in: Day In The Life, Family 4
I really need to start taking more pictures. This is a high school reunion photograph from 1947. They look pretty good — but we looked better. I'll see what I can do. Image: Wikipedia.
I really need to start taking more pictures. This is a high school reunion photograph from 1947. They look pretty good — but we looked better. I’ll see what I can do. Image: Wikipedia.

 

The reunion was not about me.

But while I process the trillions of impressions I had that night, about that night; while I reflect on the brilliance and fascination of the people who were there — which is, of course, what the reunion actually was about — I gotta buy myself some time.

And so, a pair of lists: What I got right, and what I got wrong, at my high school reunion. First up, because you should do the worst first, and because good news is harder to write than bad, here’s what I got right a couple nights ago.

And so, a pair of lists. Namely, what I got right — and what I got wrong — at my high school reunion. First up, because you should do the worst first, and because good news is harder to write than bad, here’s what I got right a couple nights ago.

Itemize with me, won’t you?

Win No. 1: I went with Sar.
I could start a whole new blog and call it “SarahGirl” or “PaperSar” and write it for the next ten years and still be unable — as a writer, you understand — to portray the wonder and depth of that woman. When I say she is my “first friend,” I mean it in the literal sense: Sarah and I knew each other in utero. Her mom and my mom have been friends longer than the two of us have taken breath.

At 5:30pm on Saturday evening, I picked Sar up at her house. Sar’s house: the house six blocks away from the Fons’s. A house I know so well, I could find it blindfolded. The house that still has the same phone number after all these years — and you better believe I still know that sequence by heart. Sar and I went to the party together and we left together. Obviously.

Win No. 2: No wardrobe malfunctions!
Darlin’, you haven’t had a wardrobe challenge until you’ve had to figure out what to wear to see classmates from 20 years ago, in a meadow, in 90-degree weather, with the very real possibility that you may consume heroic servings of vodka lemonade, not that I would know anything about that. Think about it: You must look cute, but you can’t wear your criminally hot YSL pumps — what are you, nuts?! Hello, gravel roads?? Start over. Okay, next up: You must stay cool, temperature-wise, but showing too much skin? No way, and besides: mosquitoes.

After three changes*, I went with the following: pale pink chinos; crisp white shirt w/tiny red clip-dot; super-fancy, slingback Oxford loafers I got super-cheap on clearance; and sensible-but-beguiling gold Jason Wu hoop earrings. Oh, and a watch I borrowed from my mother’s jewelry box, except it wasn’t keeping time. The battery was dead. But of course, on Saturday night, I didn’t care what time it was. And I put it back before I left.

Win No. 3: I made it.
A few months ago, I shared about my friend Heather. In that post, I confessed that while I’m not a bad friend — what would that even mean? pom-pom sabotage? hair-pulling? — I could be a more even one. Smoother, you know? It’s like, I want to show up more; I just don’t always know how. My point is that this weekend I knew how. I made it to the field, you know? I got on the train.

Tomorrow, the paces. Also, I mised you.

*four

“Sar’s Picking Me Up At The Station: A Song In Four Verses

posted in: Day In The Life, Family 9
Osceola train station. Not pictured: Sar. Pictured: Some Dude. Image: Wikipedia.
Osceola train station. Not pictured: Sar. Pictured: Some Dude. Image: Wikipedia.

Yesterday, I was crackin’ jokes. A few days before that, I was going on about television. What is this, an entertainment blog? Am I here to amuse?? Let’s get one thing straight: I’m deep. I’m deep!

I wrote the following jaunty tune on the train to Iowa tonight, which should be abundantly clear. (I’ve come here for my high school reunion, remember.) You will be happy to know that I sang this actual song to its actual subject while we waited for the train to clear the tracks outside the Osceola station. I should’ve warmed up, but that would’ve been hard to do in coach.

As you sing this song — to yourself, please — a couple notes:

1) Text inside the square brackets should be understood as information outside the lyrics of the song — a kind of aside from me to you. I probably don’t have to say that, but I’m thinking you’ll need all the help you can get with this.

2) The meter does work, but only if you put the emphasis on a specific word in each line. It has been noted for you with a bold underline. What can I say? I’m a generous person.

That’s it. Have fun. And hey: The next time someone you love comes to pick you up at a dinky train station 40 minutes from town and waits around an hour for you to actually get there, I recommend writing her a song. It gives you something to do and your friend gets a Snickers bar — if you do it right.

Sar’s Picking Me Up At The Train Station And I Can’t Wait To See Her. Sar, My First Friend and Bonus Sister In This Life, I Love You More Than I Will Ever Be Able To Properly Express And I’m Sorry My Train Was An Hour Late
by Mary Fons

I’m on a train to Iowa, Iowa, Iowa,
I’m on a train to Iowa, going to my house.
I’m gonna sleep in Iowa, Iowa, Iowa,
I’m gonna sleep in Iowa, because I am a mouse.

[whatever, let’s just keep going]

My kin’s from the Heartland State, Heartland State, Heartland State,
My kin’s from Heartland State; we’re lucky so n’ so’s.
So I’m goin to The Heartland State, Heartland State, Heartland State,
I’m goin to the Heartland State, ‘cause that’s the place to…goes.

[stop asking questions!]

Ohhh!

Been on this train for six full h’ars, six full h’ars, six full h’ars,
Been on this train for six full h’ars, I’m ready to be there.
‘Cuz when I get to Iowa, Iowa, Iowa,
Oh, when I get to Iowa, I get to see Sar!

Sar’s the best gal in the land, in the land, in the land,
Sar’s the best gal in the land, and that’s for sure a fact.

Ohhh!

[Allargando!]*

Thank you, Sar, for pickin’ me up, pickin’ me up, pickin’ me up,
Thank you Sar, for pickin’ me up —

I — brought yoooou — a snaaaaaaaaack!

[produce a half a Snickers, end of song.]

*Italian music term meaning “slowing down and broadening, becoming more stately and majestic, possibly louder”

Skylines.

posted in: Day In The Life, Quilting 6
Chicago skyline from 96th floor of John Hancock Building. Photo: Wikipedia.
Chicago skyline from 96th floor of John Hancock Building. Photo: Wikipedia.

 

I had an important meeting tonight. I’ve been preparing for it for several months, researching and note-taking, reading and reading and writing, then reading some more and writing some more.

The meeting went well. Very well, even. If it hadn’t, I would be sad and I’d tell you I was sad, but I’d probably tell you about some other thing I was sad about. If the meeting hadn’t gone well, I’d be too sad to talk about it, yet.

Anyway, I came home and went up to the roof of my building. In case you don’t read the captions for the images I post, I’ll say it here, too: That image up there is not the view from the roof of my building. My roof view is good, it just ain’t quite that good.

What my view does provide, though, is a 360-degree panorama of Chicago’s skyline. My chosen city’s skyline is bold and beautiful and, in the night, it glitters and twinkles. Great towers — Obsidian monoliths! — thrust up into the sky, each studded with countless diamonds of light and then, just when you can’t take all that beauty, you get a break. Because the whole of the horizon to the east is open, endless. It’s achingly pretty, prettier than any of the rest, because it is empty. Because to the east is the lake. You can’t build on a lake.that’s why Chicago is the best city, the most coveted place for me. Here, you always have room. (It occurs to me that coastal cities like Portland and San Francisco have this going for them, but those cities are on the ocean and the ocean has sharks. We just have big fish and we’re also closer to Iowa, so… I’m partial, is what I’m saying.)

The three-sided skyline which Nature insists upon, that’s why Chicago is the best city, the most wondrous city, at least for me. Here, you always have room. (It occurs to me that coastal cities like Portland, Maine and San Francisco have this going for them, but those cities are on the ocean and the ocean has sharks. We just have big fish.)

So I’m up there, and I’m dreaming big. I’m excited about the future. I’m looking at all the glittery stuff and wishing on every one of the man-made stars. (You can’t see the other stars, not where I live, but man-made stars work just fine because hey: nice job, guys!) And I’m thinking about innovation and motion, about big ideas and progress. I love all those things and I want to be part of it. My meeting tonight made me felt like I could be, with this Next Big Project.

But then I turned to my left and I realized the open horizon was the best view, the view that actually meant the most. The world above Lake Michigan is limitless. The skyline’s got nothing on her, you know?

Me, I don’t feel limitless. A lot of the time, I feel tiny and tight, confined by a long list of factors that crowd me from all sides. I guess that’s my point. Looking to the east tonight, almost by mistake, I realized how small I’ve been thinking.

My Recurring Nightmare, Literally.

posted in: Day In The Life 13
A terrifying image which is hopefully composed for effect. Courtesy Wikipedia, as usual.
A terrifying image hopefully composed for effect. Courtesy Wikipedia, as usual.

 

Let’s begin with a note on the title of this post.

As a general rule, I refuse to wag my finger at changes in the English language, even when they vex me alot.* Language is a living, shape-shifting thing — a cruel mistress, even. All the proof you need lies in that copy of Hamlet on your coffee table. But even as I am understanding, wise, and patient about language (and everything else), I swear, the bastardization of the word “literally” still kills me. Kills me dead, though of not literally, because to say “the bastardization of the word ‘literally’ literally kills me dead” would mean that what I see as the word’s misuse would cause me to cease to live. To me, still, “literally” means “exactly”, as in “What I’m saying is literally X is exactly what I mean, without nuance or metaphor.”

Fewer and fewer people mean “literally” the way it was used in the good ol’ days. I am losing this battle. I am not, incidentally, “loosing” this battle, which is a new threat to the current “verbiage”, which is, incidentally, the threat after that. I can’t talk about it.

Where was I? Oh, right: My recurring nightmare. When I say I literally have a recurring nightmare, I mean that I actually have had roughly the same nightmare multiple times and that I expect it shall continue to visit me in future sleep cycles.

My recurring nightmare is one in which I crack open my laptop to find I have been attacked by a computer virus, courtesy a ring of Russian hackers, who systematically take over my computer and drain my data as I watch. (My nightmare predates all the Russian stuff in the news, for the record, though all of our records are being eaten by robots as we speak, so does it matter?)

I had the nightmare again a few nights ago. What can it mean? Am I anxious? Scared about an upcoming meeting? Feeling pressure at work? Troubled by tuition costs? Crushed, perhaps, by the weight of my own existence and/or worn down by the agonizing tedium wrought by the everyday? Me? All those things, definitely? Nah.

Whatever it is, I wake up in a cold sweat. You got a nightmare that comes back and back? Maybe if we talk about it, it’ll go away.

*AHEM

It’s Official: I’m Going to My 20th High School Reunion Next Weekend.

posted in: Day In The Life 9
I'm the one in a red wig. That would be senior prom. Photo: The guy whose job it was to take pictures of a bunch of dweebs at Winterset High School senior prom. Go Huskies!
I’d identify the other two besties in this picture but they might kill me. (You look fabulous, girls!!!) Anyway, I’m the one in a red wig. That would be senior prom. Photo: The guy whose job it was to take pictures of a bunch of dweebs at Winterset High School senior prom. Go Huskies!

 

I heard about my 20th high school reunion through the grapevine.

Plans have been brewing on Facebook but I’m not on my personal Facebook page often enough to have seen about it much — not enough, anyway, to think deeply about going. It’s not for an interest or even an excitement; it’s just an out of sight, out of mind thing, you know?

But yesterday, my oldest friend on this planet, Sarah, who knew me before we could speak literal words, emailed me to ask if I was going. Then, my sister Rebecca sent me a Snapchat. In it, she said, “You should go. I went to my 10 year and it was super fun!”

I do not have a good excuse to stay away. And I have an ever-mounting pile of reasons to go. So I’m gonna get an Amtrak ticket to Iowa. And I’m going to my 20th high school reunion in Winterset. It’s next weekend. I can’t wait.

Wanna come?

Good. Because you’re going.

My Little ‘Breaking Bad’ Problem.

posted in: Art, Day In The Life 18
From L-R: My true love of all time, Jesse Pinkman, and the other guy. Screenshot by me, obviously.
From L-R: My true love of all time, Jesse Pinkman, and…the other guy. Screenshot: Me, gladly.

 

Remember a few months back when I talked about House of Cards? I shared how much I liked that show, how excited I was for the new season. Remember that? Sure. I remember that, too.

Hey, then do you remember how I swore I would never, ever, ever use this blog to talk about television because heaven help us the world is big and beautiful and full of so many three-dimensional, extra-legit things to do and see and look at and we have bodies! Do you remember how I said we have bodies and we’re so lucky to have them and we should use them?? We should use them to leap and shake like the Quakers (or milkshakes, whatever) and spin and at least get off the couch and not watch television for hours and hours, supine, on the couch?? Do you remember that?

Me neither. Because I didn’t say it! I should have. But I did not. And while it can be hard to remember things you did say, it’s harder still to remember things you did not say. In fact… Yeah, gee, I can’t think of anything harder than that. Unless you count…

Well, unless you know how hard it is to stop watching Breaking Bad once you’ve started, once you’ve really started in earnest and fallen irretrievably in love with fictional people who make terrible, terrible decisions, endlessly, with a soundtrack playing in the background and comic relief going for it. Stopping that train once it’s pulled out of that station? Forget it.

Yes, I did what many people told me for years to do: watch Breaking Bad. Ugh. It began… Honestly, I can’t remember. A couple weeks ago? It’s a blur. I said it’s a blur! Stop asking so many questions!

I’ll call Mike!*

Seriously, though: I was feeling soggy and blue, uninspired and feverish. I had no will. Would it last? Surely it wouldn’t, I told myself. But in the meantime, while I wasn’t doing much more than languishing, listless and pale — but somehow still beguiling — on the couch, why not take in a little Netflix? A lot of Netflix. Who would know? It’s not like ever said in black and white in front of thousands of people that I had some moral objection to TV, thank goodness.

Anyway, this show has to end. I’m in Season 5, the last season. I cannot wait for it to be done because it is just too good. I’m not reading or writing. I’m not “going for a jog.” I’m not doing charity work and — horror — I’m not at the sewing machine. I’m just… Embroiled. Bewitched. Chained to a show that features such fine acting and writing, it’s criminal. Which is funny, except my life does not think it’s funny. My life wants my life back.

Also, it does not help that I am in love with the character of Jesse Pinkman and yes, I’m about six years too late and yes, he’s not real, but all he needs is the love of a good woman, okay? And I am that woman! What, you think I can’t be fictional?? You think I can’t have real love for a scripted person in a show that ended five years ago??

It’s a good thing I don’t write about TV shows on this blog, right? Impossible.

 

*a little Breaking Bad shout-out for my BB peeps

“Miss! This Is a Library!”

posted in: Day In The Life 11
Library! Photo: Wikipedia.
Library! Photo: Wikipedia.

 

I have a joke for you.

It’s not ideal to write out a joke which is meant to be told, but can I possibly meet everyone who reads PaperGirl and personally deliver this joke? I’d like to, sure, but verily, I say unto thee, I cannot.

There is one caveat — and I know with every sentence I’m writing before telling this joke, more people are yelling, “Get on with it, Fons!” — but the caveat remains:

This is a blonde joke.

Before folks arch an eyebrow or puffs up in any sort of (admirably) defensive way, remember: I’ve been blonde for the better part of nine months and I’ve been a proud female for over three decades. I am also a person who regularly does or says daffy-but-hopefully-charming things that I often later regret. Considering all that, the way I see it is that I can tell a blonde joke without reservation. Not everyone is allowed to tell all jokes and that’s not some identity politics thing you need to be wary of, not some “don’t be so sensitive!” thing with which, frankly, I often side. But as a favorite comedian of mine says, “In jokes, you have to ‘punch up.’ You have to make fun of the guy bigger than you; not the guy smaller than you. That’s kind of the code. You get away from that and stuff starts not being so funny.” Anyway, my point is that I can tell this joke and I can’t believe I’ve gone into Mary’s Theory of Jokes but there you have it.

Note: Perhaps my lengthy positioning on this is due to the fact that I’ve taken my lumps on this blog when some folks, however well-meaning, didn’t catch a certain subtlety. With all this exposition, I may still feel the sting of public opinion.

But whether or not you should tell this joke is up to your judgment. Just know that I have found this joke suitable for every social situation in which it has been appropriate to start telling jokes. In my opinion, these situations present themselves with great frequency.

And now, finally: The Blonde In a Library joke:

So this blonde walks into a library. She goes up to the librarian and says, real loud and obnoxious:

“Can I get a cheeseburger and fries?”

The librarian, horrified, whispers to the woman, “Miss! This is a library!”

The blonde goes, “Oh! Sorry!” — and then, in a whisper — “Can I get a cheeseburger and fries?”

It’s really funny! You might have to try it on someone, that I’ll accept. Really get that high and low down for the blonde character, that loud, “Can I get a cheeseburger and fries??” and then drop down real low to a whisper when she corrects herself. And make the librarian very upset.

And it has just occurred to me that I should’ve spent the whole post apologizing to librarians. This is a perfect example of how you cannot, cannot, cannot please everyone and that trying is a blonde’s errand.

My Email Problems Make Me As Sad As This Abandoned Mitten.

posted in: Day In The Life, Rant 21
This adorable, lost mitten is my soul. My soul! Photo: Wikipedia.
This adorable, lost mitten is my soul. My soul! Photo: Wikipedia.

On July 3rd, I received very few emails.

“Terrific!” I thought. “It’s so nice to know that people are taking time for the holiday! Perhaps I should do the same.” And off I went to do something I can’t remember, but I know it wasn’t email related. The next day, when I did a couple of habitual email checks on my phone, I still didn’t have any emails and that was still fine. “Phenomenal!” I thought again. “It is a holiday. No one should be emailing today in observance of our country’s birthday. Good job, everyone!” And then I went to sleep. 

By mid-morning on July 5th, however, I grew concerned.

“Well, how’s that?” I thought, and scratched my head. For a moment, I wondered if folks were just sleeping off the firework festivities. Then I remembered that I do not have many friends who are undergraduate students but lots of friends and colleagues who have to work for a living for Lord’s sake. It was very unlikely that most of the working world was sleeping off a hangover after four days off. And though it was possible that no one in the entire world needed or wanted to reach me… Well, that was depressing to think about so I shook it off. Could it be there was something wrong with my email? I refreshed my browser for the sixth time before I saw the error message:

“Unable to retrieve mail for [email address.] Too many messages on server.”

This confused me a great deal because I fancy myself as being pretty good about cleaning out old mail and zapping spam and all that. Besides, Gmail gives you a bazillion GBs, whatever those are. I poked around to try and understand what was going on and by “poked around” I do mean that I poked at keys and looked at the screen without understanding anything. I hate that I am hopeless at anything information-technology-related, not just because this causes me untold 21st-century anguish, but also because it would be so cool if I were good at all that! Don’t you just love a gal who’s a computer whiz? Like Penny on Inspector Gadget! But the sad truth is that I can sew and give killer lectures and write stuff and tell corny jokes but I cannot, cannot fix any problem related to an email server, a modem, or a website, ever. Have you ever truly gnashed your teeth? I have.

My last attempt to at least see where this alleged glut of emails could be hiding, I logged onto my main email address’s online mailbox. (Usually, I forward all that to my Gmail account and no, I did not set that up myself nor do I understand how it works and even writing that sentence makes me all itchy.) What I found when I logged onto that site made scream in horror, a la Janet Leigh in Psycho:

My email account contained 4,000 emails. Four thousand. Why?

BECAUSE I WAS SPAMMED 4,000 TIMES.

That’s right. I had 4,000 blinkin’ email offers for Celexa, Viagra, Hot-SExy Ladiez, notices of Incoming Faxxes, etc. But 4,000?? Why? How? The only thing I could figure is that when my main email was configured to funnel into my Gmail, the Gmail robots caught all that spam before it got to my Gmail inbox but it stayed on the main email server and hasn’t been deleted off the server for years at this point and — oh, for the love of Philip Larkin, I don’t know!!

Hyperventilating is not a laughing matter, but I was having a little respiratory trouble or a hot flash or something. I emailed the customer service-like email address associated with my account and put “URGENT!” in the subject line. While I waited for a response, I bit off all my nails thinking about all the emails I wasn’t getting. What would become of them? Of me??

When the response came, I felt like bursting into tears. When you read what “Mark” suggested to me, you may cry, too:

“Hi, Mary: We can simply remove all that if you want, but I don’t really have an easy way server-side to retain anything unless you need to keep something with a specific string, or email address. I could also put them in a tarball and you could download them, rename them to .eml and open them in Mozilla Thunderbird. If this were my account though, I’d just setup POP3 in Thunderbird to download and delete everything and use spam filterer plugin to drop all garbage.”

What does that even mean, Mark? What does that mean?? 

What’s a “tarball”?? What’s a “.eml”?? And you’re telling me Mozilla still exists?? And it’s not your account, Mark! It’s mine! So don’t tell me about what you would do because you are an IT guy and you can hit a few keys and make, I don’t know, animated websites?? And another thing! I barely, barely know what a plugin is and I like it that way, Mark! I like it that way!

I tried not to cry as I stabbed out a reply email, telling this nice man that I didn’t know what he was saying at all — but I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t engage in this horrible, terrible “tarball” task he was going to try and talk me through. So, with a lead heart, I went to the inbox…and I started to delete things. I realize this is not a real fix; I’m going to have to talk to Mark eventually. But I figured I could at least clear some room so that my emails could come and go until that time came. I configured my inbox to show 200 messages per page; I did a search for any email with “Lexapro” or “Wedding Nite” or “Send MoN3Y” in it and deleted the pages and pages of emails those searches returned.

For now, I think I’m getting my email okay. But the spam keeps coming. Oh, it’s so awful. For every real email I get, I get four spams. And it’s at times like this when I think about the problems folks had in the old days and wonder if they’d trade with us. It would have really been lousy to break the handle of your only butter churn, you know? It would be a real drag to find a wolf got all the eggs out of the hen house again. And I know a problem with my email doesn’t involve trudging through the snow to slop the hogs, etc., but it is the worst.

Tonight, I’d choose the butter churn.

America, America.

posted in: Day In The Life 10
Fourth of July Parade, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., 2014. Photo: Mike Licht via Wikipedia.
Fourth of July Parade, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., 2014. Photo: Mike Licht via Wikipedia.

 

I’m not out tonight for the Fourth of July.

There are fireworks to be enjoyed at various points across the city, but great throngs of people and loud, intermittent ka-pows coming at me from different points in the immediate vicinity and/or sky isn’t so much my jam. My jam tonight is my couch, some butter pecan ice cream, Netflix, and blessed rest. Also: the sound of distant fireworks. Nice.

America, I love you so much. I’m worried sick about you half the time; a lot of us are. We’re wondering when you’re going to feel better. You look like you haven’t been sleeping very well lately, or maybe your iron levels are low. I know the feeling. But there are a lot of people rooting for you. So, so many people love you. Let’s start with that, keep that up front.

My home is in America.

How Joyce Learned To Sew: A Truly Scandalous Tale

posted in: Day In The Life, Story 14
Classroom, 1943. Photo: Wikipedia, via National Archives and Records Administration.
Classroom, 1943. Photo: Wikipedia, via National Archives and Records Administration.

 

I heard this totally true tale some years ago. Heaven knows why it came back to me today; sometimes you just remember things and isn’t that lucky?

Out on a gig in Florida, I met a woman I’ll call Joyce. She was in her late fifties, I’d say. We had a few hours in a car together, driving out to Pensacola past the blooming cotton fields, just 30 miles or so in from the coast. We liked each other right away. In these kinds of situations (okay, in most situations) I’d rather learn about someone else’s life than talk about my own, so I unofficially interviewed Joyce as we drove along. Of course, one of the first questions I asked her was how she learned to sew. Joyce was very good at sewing, you see.

She chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you the real story, Mary, because I like you. I don’t always go into it because it’s really very sad.”

I leaned forward in my car seat. (Not like, a baby car seat. I was in a normal car seat.)

“Neither my mother or grandmother did much sewing, so I sewed my first stitch in high school,” she said. “I took a home economics class* my freshman year. The cooking lessons and so forth, that was okay, I guess, but I just loved the sewing. Took to it right away. Before long, I was making all my clothes and clothes for my friends.”

“The woman who taught all the home economics classes was a nice woman and a good teacher in her way, but — and this is the terrible part — she was… Well, she was a drinker. A terrible alcoholic, you know, and she would come into the classroom in the morning, even in the middle of the day, smelling like liquor. She lived alone, I seem to remember. It was terrible, really sad.”

“Oh, Joyce!” I said.

“So, by the time I got to the end of sophomore year — it might’ve even been earlier than that — I had gotten so good at sewing and making clothes and home things, you know, like curtains and ironing board covers and all that, I was helping the other girls quite a bit. Well, one afternoon, she asked me if I would teach the class for her.”

“She was drunk?” I asked, my eyes big.

“She didn’t come out and say that, of course, but oh, she was in terrible shape. And that was how it started: I ended up teaching all the sewing lessons in the home economics classes my entire junior and senior year…while she slept in the coat closet.”

My mouth hung open.

“Joyce,” I said, “You’re telling me you taught two years of high school economics classes as a high school student while your teacher slept it off in the coat room??”

“That’s right.”

“Didn’t anyone say anything??”

Joyce shook her head. “No one said anything. We were having fun and turning her in just didn’t seem kind, I guess. She was a nice woman.”

“No wonder you’re so good sewing,” I said, trying not to stare.

“Oh, I’ve still got plenty to learn. But it’s true that if I was good at sewing before all that, I got better fast, having to have my lesson plans ready,” Joyce laughed. “Anyway, that’s how I learned to sew.” She paused. “But I usually just say I learned in high school.”

Wherever you are, Joyce, thanks for the story. And wherever you are, Home Economics Teacher, I hope you’re in a better place.

 

*This field of study is formally called Family and Consumer Science, but Joyce used the term “home economics classes” when she told me the story, so I’m going with that. 

The Power of Wipes.

posted in: Day In The Life, Food, Travel 13
Fried chicken. Not pictured: Wipes! Image: Wikipedia.
Fried chicken. Not pictured: Wipes! Image: Wikipedia.

My grandma was a stable figure in my life for a long time. She could be counted on for a hug, she never hollered at us kids — even if we deserved it and we so did — and she always, always had a few things in her purse: Trident cinnamon-flavored gum, a couple “fun-size” Snickers bars, a few Brach’s peppermints, an emery board, and fresh Kleenex. Always.

I never had much use for the emery board. The Trident was only interesting if my sisters hogged the Snickers bars/peppermints before I got to them. The Kleenex was handy. But more important than needing these particular items was knowing they would invariably be there. My grandmother’s consistently stocked handbag gave me a sense of security, a belief that there was order to the universe even if there wasn’t. I’m still not sure there is order, but in some universe, in some dimension, I can reach over in church and whisper to Gramma if I can have a peppermint and Gramma will stick her hand down into her purse and there will be one to give me.

Some friends and I were at a fried chicken restaurant not so very long ago. The restaurant was packed. The only seats to be found out on the breezy patio (the best place to eat fried chicken) were those wedged in between people who had gotten there before you did. We looked around to find a place to put our butts and our baskets and then I spied room next to some folks already seated. If we squeezed, the four of us could join the three of them at the wide picnic-style table. We asked, and they said of course and made room for us right away.

It helped that one of their party was a baby. Beautiful Blake, with her shining eyes and her caramel-cream baby cheeks couldn’t have weighed more than 20 pounds. Her young parents, Curtis and Kristina, were friendly and interesting and we all chatted over the course of our respective meals of hot chicken, collard greens, black-eyed pea salad, french fries, and so on.

When we were finishing up, my friend Leah and I were both frowning at our hands, which were covered in grease, and our fingernails, which needed serious attention. We looked at the line to the bathroom and were about to despair and wipe our hands on our bluejeans when Kristina pulled an entire pack of Dove-brand wet wipes out of her generous satchel.

“I’m a mom,” she laughed. “I’ve got what you need right here.”

We whooped with gratitude as Kristina passed the pack around. She made us all so happy! Our hands were wiped clean and cool after our dinner. But there was a deeper feeling of joy in this for me: Baby Blake is one heck of a lucky baby. That kid has a mom with wipes at the ready, you know? And she’s willing to share them with strangers who she made room for in a busy room, in a big city.

Thanks, Kristina.

 

The Day I Bought My Hat.

This isn't my hat, but it's pretty darn close. Montecristi hat, Optimo. Image: Wikipedia.
This isn’t my hat, but it’s pretty darn close. Montecristi hat, Optimo. Image: Wikipedia.

 

Today, I bought a proper hat.

I’ve been thinking about buying a proper hat for some time, now, and today was the day I put my money where my head is, which is directly above my neck. (In case the location of my head wasn’t obvious, you can now locate my head easily, what with the hat on it.)

You might be wondering what I mean by a “proper hat” because you are smart and curious. Indeed, I should clarify here because not everyone will agree upon what a proper hat might be. I mean, for some people, the only thing a woman should wear on her head is a bonnet. To those folks, a bonnet is a proper hat, even though really it’s a bonnet and isn’t that more headwear? Other people would consider a proper hat to be a straw boater — but those people are usually the three other guys singing in your barbershop quartet in Boston in the 1930s.

For me, a professional woman/grad student in the second half of her thirties living in downtown Chicago, a proper hat is one which:

  • can’t be balled up and stuck in a drawer
  • has been fitted for her by a Person Who Knows About Hats (such people often work in a hat shop)
  • is appropriate for the season
  • is stylish but not trendy (e.g., huge cloth flowers, extreme brims, hardware of any kind, etc.)
  • can be repaired if need be
  • comes in a hatbox
  • serves a functional purpose

This last thing was the clincher. Until recently, I never saw hats as serving a purpose, exactly — not for me, anyway. They always seemed to be a fashion thing, an accessory, and sister, I got enough to worry about without some new wardrobe component to manage. I skipped hats because like, who needs ’em? Like, who actually needs them?

Well, me, when a few months ago, what used to be unequivocally good became slightly menacing.

I’m talking about the sun.

For most of my life, the sun on my face felt fabulous, just warm and good. Most people have this experience with the sun. And besides feeling great, the sun looks good on me! My anemic, Norwegian/Scots-Irish, pasty complexion gets an upgrade when I “get a little sun.” In the summer months I usually get some freckles, which lend me an air of vitality and sportiness (as opposed to the “19th century fainting couch” thing I’ve usually got going on.)

But freckles are not what I want anymore. At all. Maybe that whole “woman/grad student in the second half of her thirties” description of myself is the key, here. At 20, you can lay out, go to tanning beds, slather yourself in baby oil and who cares? Sun damage? Whatever! Grab the bucket of Coronas — let’s hit the beach! But when you’re thirty-something, such behavior is definitely no bueno. Sun damage starts to show up on a girl’s mug at my age, especially if she’s extra pale, though it’s hardly just my appearance I’m concerned about: Skin cancer is a very real thing I do not want in my life.

So. A couple years ago I began using a good daily sunscreen. The only time I’m tan is when a person sprays me with tan-colored paint. But sometime in late April, waiting to cross the street on a very hot, very bright day, I had my Hat Epiphany: A hat is practical because it will keep the sun off my face.

And, just like that, I began to make moves. Hat moves. I did research. I consulted sources. And today I got my hat at Optimo, the most glorious store, hat or otherwise, in all of Chicago — seriously. I wore my hat out of the shop and discovered that a proper hat affects your feet: It makes them skip!

My hat totally works, too. I know because the sun was shining.

If Only I Could Be Light!

posted in: Day In The Life 27
"Música en las Tullerías" by Eduard Manet, 1862. Image: National Gallery, London, via Wikipedia.
“Música en las Tullerías” by Eduard Manet, 1862. Image: National Gallery, London, via Wikipedia.

 

Having a blog about my life is strange, sometimes.

I am sad. But I’ve been avoiding writing about it because who wants to hear about that? Actually, that’s not the question. The question is “Who wants to hear about you being sad, Mary, for more than one post?” After all this time, I should know you better than that, my darling, but I suffer from wanting you to like me, wanting to entertain you, wanting to be Good. Though I “keep it real” here, how real do I allow myself to keep it? How real, really?

When I say I’m sad, I don’t mean I’m dealing with a sadness that won’t allow me to get up off the couch. That’s not where I am. (Well, okay: I am on the couch at this moment, but I just got back after a day at the newspaper office and a drink with a friend, so I’ve not been on the couch all day, which we all know is something that can and does happen, sometimes.) No, the quality of my sadness of late is something gnawing at me lately but isn’t eating me whole, I guess. But it’s slowing me down, keeping me from you for fear of letting you down, and it’s been making certain things harder.

I’m telling you now because if you’re feeling that way, you should know you’re not the only one.

It’s got a lot to do with culture. My friends, my friends. I’m afraid for us. We have become, it seems, a tribal society. If we don’t listen to each other, if we don’t try to understand, if we don’t swallow our ruinous pride from time to time, we’re doomed. My identity as an American is so foundational to this life I have. Thus, when I see this terrible political climate — everyone is implicated! both sides guilty and foolish! — it would be strange if I didn’t feel sad. Our country is aching, fighting, warring, hating, barbing, spitting mad. But…we’re brothers and sisters. Aren’t we? Aren’t we, after all, but you wouldn’t know it, looking at godforsaken Facebook. In this case, that is not a figure of speech: I think God has forsaken social media. It is a calamitous wasteland, a monster. I loathe it. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t dream of censoring it, but I see some of these Facebook comment pockets — and it matters not on which “side” they’re posted — I put my head in my hands.

I’m not better than anyone. That’s not it at all. It’s that I believe in the better angels of our nature and when angels forget our nature, I guess, it’s heartbreaking.

There. I’ve gotten it off my chest!

It’s been hard to write because even though I try to “keep it real” around here, even though I’m among friends, it’s still hard to be totally honest. Few people Instagram their terrible blemish, few people make Pinterest boards of ex-boyfriends, you know? But if I don’t tell you that a) I’m sad and b) why, then why would you come here? There are Pinterest boards for fantasies, Instagram accounts for pretty pictures 100% of the time.

Pendennis just looks at me, you know? He won’t let me get away with that for very long.

The Pendennis Observer: Easy Like Wednesday Morning.

posted in: Day In The Life, Sicky 14
My little guy. Photo: Isn't it obvious?
My little guy. Photo: Me.

 

It’s been some time since there was a dispatch from The Pendennis Observer, the mini-magazine inside this blog dedicated to capturing Pendennis, my personal mascot/spirit animal.

As longtime readers know (Margaret Maloney, I’m looking at you), photographs catching Pendennis in the act of being the perfect stuffed animal are never posed or staged. The beauty of Pendennis is in the random gesture, his naturally floppy postures, those stick arms and legs all splayed out every which way. He’s just the best and he can always make me happy.

I had my pouchoscopy today and they did an upper sigmoidoscopy, too. Biopsies were taken from both ends. My friend Kristina came with me; I try to spread out the friend-hospital burden. K. was incredible. She brought me a coloring book and petted my head when I started freaking out. I get in that gown and I just lose it, you know?

Between Kristina, texts with Mom, and Pendennis’s little face — oh, and ice cream when I got home — the day turned out to be not so bad, not so bad at all.

1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 26