PaperGirl Blog by Mary Fons

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10 May 2016

Man Yells At City, City Silent.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago | 0

If you like chilly, driving rain, strong winds, and a temperature hovering just over fifty degrees, you would have loved downtown Chicago today. I enjoy foul weather from time to time because it’s pleasant to be inside while it happens. Blow, ye winds, like trumpets blow, but put the kettle on.

It was ugly today. I had two appointments and didn’t think to bring an umbrella along when I left the house. (I did put on my rain jacket and it does have a hood.) The rain began approximately eight minutes after I got out the door. It wasn’t committing to being a downpour, though; it was the kind of rain that makes you think, “Aw, man! Well, it’s not that bad, I’m almost there” but while you’re looking on the bright side, it’s getting worse. You’re the lobster in the pot that doesn’t feel the water getting hotter and hotter, except that in this situation you’re a human, you’re walking to the drugstore, and you’re getting colder and wetter by the second. The wind kept blowing my hood back so I had to pinch it shut at my chin while my hand got soaked. It was not fun.

I was suffering along, headed for my second appointment when I heard a remarkably emotional man turning the air blue with rage. I look over to my right and this thirtysomething dude is positively freaking out. His umbrella had broken — and he hated his broken umbrella.

“G-D sonofa B! Effin’ Chicago! Eff you! G-D it!”

He was angry at the city! Cursing Chicago itself! Cursing it for today’s terrible weather and, I assume, for its general weather pattern, which is to say no pattern at all, just violent changes every five minutes. He was literally shaking his fist at the sky, furious. I had never seen anything quite like this. Well, that’s not true: I have witnessed plenty of angry rants directed at the gods, but those have always come from the pitiable, deranged folks on the subway or on Lower Wacker. This particular individual seemed to me to be having a special moment. He was flailing around, whipping his broken umbrella back and forth and gritting his teeth so hard they could’ve popped right out.

He didn’t have a coat on, and I think that was part of it. It was really cold. He had gotten stuck in the cold rain with a broken umbrella and that’s lousy enough, but I have a feeling it was a really bad day at work, too, or maybe he lost his wallet. I was witnessing one of the worst days in that guy’s recent memory, whatever it was.

Like poisonous snakes and thorny bushes, one must avoid ragey strangers in the city, so I gave the guy a wide berth and kept my quick pace to make it to my appointment on time, however soaked. But wouldn’t you know it, the guy was headed in my direction and had taken the other side of the street, so I saw him again and he was still struggling with the umbrella. He was trying to put it back together but it was futile. I saw him wang it against the side of a building a couple times before throwing it on the ground as I went through the door at 116 South Michigan.

Haven’t you always wondered what happens to those broken umbrellas everywhere? Now you know.

9 May 2016

Stolz Wie Bolle: “Proud As Bolle.”

by Mary | posted in: Word Nerd | 0

I love this guy. German people, c. 1916. Photo: Unknown

For all the love I have for words, you’d think I’d have managed to learn another language by now. When I was going to go to Peru back in April, I surprised myself when I focused on remembering Spanish words; turns out I remember a lot from Senora Harold’s clase de espanol, including “Puedo, por favor tener una galleta? No? Okay.”

And I’ve got a healthy store of foreign words and phrases at my disposal (e.g., in extremis, tikkun, bete noir, lasagna, etc.) but these are but pebbles tossed into vast seas of possibility available to me if I could truly speak another language. Today, Claus had the occasion to share with me a fabulous, brilliant German idiom and I have to share it with you:

Stolz wie Bolle.

The direct translation here is “proud as Bolle,” Bolle being a man’s name. Bolle — you could translate it to “Bob” from the German if you like, or just say “BOL-ee” — is the village guy who wins a ribbon for his prize hog at the fair and then walks around the rest of the year snapping his suspenders and offering all kinds of advice on hog farming, finding ways to mention, offhand, you know, that he won the big show.

Isn’t that great? That there’s an idiom for that thing that humans totally do? It’s so sweet! My sister told me about a guy in an improv class she took once who would totally Bolle-out when he was praised by the teacher after a scene. He would try not to smile so hard his cheek would twitch, he’d get all puffed up and then be impossible the rest of the night.

The image for this post does not come from Wikipedia for once; this is a portion of a photo that Claus sent me from his personal archive. It is a picture from almost exactly 100 years ago. The guy pictured is a villager who came to welcome home a distinguished general who had returned from the war. The look on his face is precisely stolz wie Bolle because he got into the picture. The distinguished man of the hour is in the center of the shot, but Bolle made it into the frame. You can tell he can’t wait to get to the bar and accidentally bring it up.

That man makes me so happy. His smile is a straight line!

By the way: my Small Wonders fabric line (exclusively for independents, you know) has a line extension coming out soon. In addition to the India, China, France, USA, South America/Peru, and Netherlands groups, we’ll be adding Japan, Brazil, and Germany — just for you, Bolle. Small Wonders is available at your local quilt shop and at fine online retailers like Missouri Star and Fabric Depot.

8 May 2016

Good Moms.

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Family, Paean | 1

Marianne and Mary, c. 1981. Photo: My dad. — Me n’ Marianne, Christmas, c. 1981. Photo: My dad.

When I sat down to write this Mother’s Day post, I started it: “I’ve got a good mom.” But what you’re reading now is a second draft.

Around the third paragraph, somewhere between detailing my Mom’s incredible bring-home-the-bacon-fry-it-in-the-pan-single-mom sacrifices and all 627 of her current projects, I decided that though I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have a “good mom,” saying that I have a “good mom” implies that there are not-so-good ones, as well as downright dastardly moms and worse than that.

Before I head into the terrifying wilderness of moral relativism, I want to say that there are bad people who are bad, full stop. If you hurt someone who can’t defend himself or herself, and if you do that on purpose, more than once, that’s bad, and we can stand in judgement of the perpetrator and say, “You cannot do this. This — and you, by extension, sir/madam — are bad.” Since there’s nothing keeping anyone from having children, if a kid’s got a for-real bad female for a parent, it follows that a person can definitely have “a bad mom.”

But apart from these depressing exceptions, I’d like to suggest there are no “bad moms” in the delivery room. Rare is the woman who holds her 30-second-year-old on her breast and feels anything but wonder, pride, good intentions, love. Things kick off that way and then they go on from there. Sometimes they go pretty good. Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes, not so much at all.

Now, I’ve never made a mistake in my life, of course. All the decisions I’ve ever made have been perfectly-timed and dead-on. I’m constantly delighted by my 100% rightness in every situation; I regret nothing. The plans I lay, they are carried out precisely as I intended from a place of clarity and wisdom. Nothing bothers me. I don’t lose my temper. I love everyone for who they are because I realize holding people to my high expectations is absurd. I laugh at life’s troubles and I have unwavering grace and tact in all my personal and professional relationships.

But I’ve heard there are people who make mistakes — and I have heard that people who are mothers were people first. Contrary to fabric softener commercials and stories about “the good old days,” a woman does necessarily not become a flawless caregiver the instant she gives birth. It’s more likely that she is essentially the same person she was before she had a baby, except now the whole world has changed, which would shake anyone up.

My point is: Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms: good, less-good, and otherwise. It’s a heckuva job, from what I can tell. I’m not a mom, but I could be someday* and I know I will need plenty of grace; this is a Mother’s Day card to the moms out there who need some today.

*Big Mother’s Day ups to Gramma Graham, my mother’s mother; she had my mom and Mom’s twin brother David at age forty, and that was back in the early ’50s. Dorothy was a cougar! That’s hot, Gramma. I’m thirty-six.

7 May 2016

Dresses.

by Mary | posted in: Fashion | 0

Yellow chiffon dress, 1968. Image: Maison couture Jean Dessès via Wikipedia.

On the drive back from Beaver Dam to Chicago this evening, I stopped at Gurnee Mills. Gurnee Mills is a collection of small pond mills set in the rolling countryside of Illinois. Just kidding; it’s an absolutely enormous shopping center outside of Chicago off I-94 and a couple times a year for one reason or another, I’ll pass Gurnee Mills in an automobile. I’ve pulled off the highway to visit the Old Mill a couple times and both times, I was sad and happy.

Because they have a Neiman Marcus Last Call store there. The Neiman Marcus Last Call stores are where all the stuff that didn’t sell at Neiman Marcus Regular Stores goes to die. You’ve got your Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dresses here, you got your Fendi paperweights there — you get the idea. They price everything relatively low, low, low, but “relatively low” when you’re talking about Stella McCartney is still “relatively ridiculous.”

But lo, the siren song of discounted high fashion called to me and, as I was not able to lash myself to my own Toyota Corolla rental car, I had to exit and find a parking spot.

The dresses I tried on would make you crazy. Crazy with lust. With desire. There was the Akris shift with the hand-dye. There was the Isabel Marant snap-front mid-length thing that was a little tight but in a good way. The Jil Sander. The other Jil Sander. I kept thinking about restaurants I’d go to if I had this one, about various charity functions where that one would work, etc. When you try on clothes, you try on a life.

Now is not the time for dresses, though. I’ve got bigger things on my mind and don’t have the dough. Changes are afoot, comrades. More will be revealed and it’s a whole lot of more. I did buy a cute little jacket. It was 65% off the lowest marked price and is the hottest pink.

Confession: I also bought a chicken sandwich for the ride home. Jesus, take the wheel!

[The management would like to point the new reader’s attention to a three part story from April about a girl in a pretty dress.]

6 May 2016

Eureka Moment or, “Why I Push Hard.”

by Mary | posted in: Work | 1

"Dutch Summer" by me, 2015. This quilt uses the Netherlands group from Small Wonders. Photo: Court at Springs Creative. — “Dutch Summer” by me, 2015. This quilt uses the Netherlands group from Small Wonders. Photo: Court at Springs Creative.

I had a huge, revelatory moment with Tammy, the ebullient and creamy-complexioned event coordinator and production genius at Nancy Zieman’s here in Beaver Dam:

When I get done at the end of a day on a gig, I am bone-weary. Missing a number of internal organs has something to do with it (and my low hemogoblins don’t help) — and in a day I will typically meet hundreds of people, sign a lot of things, and smile for a whole bunch of pictures, which is all pretty intense — but it’s something else, too.

Proving myself in the quilt world takes an extraordinary amount of energy. Since I began doing this quilt world thing for keeps, I have committed myself to knocking it out of the park every single time I do anything: editing a magazine, hosting shows online or or TV, lecturing, speaking, teaching, etc., etc. I know for a fact I have failed at all of these things in various ways over the years, but boy, I will take extraordinary measures to not let that happen. I am nearly obsessed with taking everything through and past that finish line because I have to prove that I am not riding on Mom’s coattails, that I have my own point of view, that I know what I’m doing, that I’m not an imposter. Sticking around for a bunch of years has done a lot; I can’t be a dilettante if I’m still here.

But if people leave an event with me feeling disappointed, if they don’t have a good experience in class, any feelings they had about me being lame or a phony, well, those feelings are suddenly validated for them. “Hm!” they might say, “I went to see/take a class from Mary Fons and it was just awful.” I fight, fight, fight hard to “catch” every last person and create happy customers so that doesn’t happen. A lad in Buffalo last weekend said, “You know, when you first came on the show, I thought you were just a spoiled brat. I told my husband, ‘I won’t watch this show anymore.’ But now I think you’re great!” These sorts of things haunt me.

But my thinking on these things is ridiculous — cannot possibly change what a person thinks about me; they’re gonna feel a type of way whether I bend over backwards for them or not. But look at my profile: I’m a middle child whose dad left early on in life and I have a born interest in doing stuff onstage. I’m perfectly set up to be an over-achiever; add to that a fierce need to prove I’m not just glomming onto my mother’s success… It’s a recipe for dragging myself to my hotel room and getting horizontal as soon as possible after a day of work.

Mary: get over it. You’re starting to get circles under your eyes. I think that’s supposed to start happening at forty-something. Don’t push it at thirty-six.

**Crucial note: I don’t just try to do a good job because I need to prove something. I genuinely want people to have a fabulous day, an a-ha moment-rich class experience, to laugh and ponder stuff I share with them. That is really important to understand.

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