I still think I should have a scout hat on my head in the picture. Don’t know what a scout hat is, but there must be a standard-issue one.
“There are many misunderstandings about quilts in this country (e.g., they are made with yarn). But one I am on a crusade to correct is the notion that early American scrap quilts were made by women patching together little scraps from anything they could, scrimping and saving every fiber that was leftover after making Timmy’s britches. Not true.
In fact, scrap quilts cannot be made unless there is a lot of fabric available, not a little. Think about it. If you’ve got a quilt with 40 different fabrics in it, you had 40 different fabrics in your scrap bag. That’s not scarcity: that’s abundance.”
Like these two paragraphs? Well, you can read the rest of them over at Quilts, Inc. in the latest Quilt Scout column. If you don’t learn anything (but I think you might!) you’ll definitely see a picture of a bag of my scraps and my feet show in that picture. So, I mean.
I am still quite ill. But laughter is the best medicine.
Mom read PaperGirl yesterday and saw that I was sick, so she called. She asked if I had a fever; I told her I don’t know because I don’t have a thermometer. I felt strangely embarrassed about that, like I was a twenty-two year-old dude living in an apartment with an X-box, an amp, and a bunch of Chinese take-out containers in the kitchen. That guy does not have a thermometer. Thermometers are things people have when they grow up. What does this say about me?
“You know, for all the things smartphones do,” Mom said, “They ought to be able to take your temperature.” She was driving with Mark and Scrabble back from Door County to Iowa. I laughed because she is so right.
“Just think,” she said, “You could put your tongue on the screen and it would read your temperature. Or, or! You could put it in your buttcheeks, like a baby!”
Yep.
I was mid-sip and sprayed my tea all over my blanket and some of the couch. Mom suggested that putting your smartphone under your armpit would be better, maybe, than in your “buttcheeks.” I agreed. We decided if your smartphone could take your temperature in either of these places, there would be no more phone theft. Ever. Find a cell phone? Leave it right there. Some kid’s thinking about snitching someone’s new iPhone MXII when they’re not looking? Tell that kid to think about that person’s last bout with food poisoning. They were so feverish. So sweaty. They had to take their temperature… Several times…
“I really need to feel better tomorrow, Mom. There’s so much to do. I wish Scrabble was here to cuddle with.”
“Yeah,” Mom said. “She’s a good hot water bottle.”
This is not good. This is very bad. I think I have a flu.
I am achy, sniffy, feverish, though that’s not confirmed because I’ve just realized I don’t have a thermometer. I barfed twice. (Sorry.) I had terrible nightmares when I took a nap this afternoon; the nap felt like it was nine hours long but was really only about 1.5 hours long. When I stand up, I swoon. I’m hot. Then I’m cold. Then I’m hot. Then I’m crying while I’m flat on my back watching MasterChef on Hulu.
Damn, damn, damn! This year, I was going to get a flu shot! I’ve never gotten one but I reflected upon the past few years and realized I have been felled by flu more than once. I should’ve gotten a flu shot. It’s so easy! You can get them everywhere: Walgreen’s, CVS, sporting events, Burger King. Why! Why didn’t I do it?
Woe.
And the panic doesn’t help. There’s too much to do. I can’t be sick. I have to teach in Williamsburg this weekend. I have to go to North Carolina and Denver next week. Oh, I’ll make the gigs. Unless I’m in the hospital, I’ll be there and I’ll deliver. But when you feel like this, the road seems so long. There’s also the little matter of packing up my apartment and going home to Chicago.
As insurmountable as all this feels at the moment, I must focus on that last thing. When I think of being in my home — my real home — in a few weeks, I feel like I can make it. I realized today that I have been living in the air for a year and a half. I’ve been floating this whole time. My feet need the cement in Chicago, the sidewalk outside the door to my building. Maybe that’s what it is: maybe I’m airsick.
All of my life, I have never understood nor enjoyed Halloween. I just didn’t get it. Why would anyone cover themselves in sticky fake blood and go out in cold weather to do jello shots? What can be accomplished by being a trollopy milk maid in public in late October? I’ve never seen the zombie zeitgeist as some sort of catharsis for a society living in fear and isolation; I see it as creepy and tacky, not to mention disorienting, especially when you see a pack of zombies doing jello shots or doing a 5k run or both.
But I figured out the appeal last night! It’s not that you have to be scary or uncomfortable on Halloween; you don’t have to dwell on the undead or be some bizarre, modern version of an ancient pagan. It’s that on Halloween, you can be someone else. You can take the briefest break from being you, and this is a great gift. Do you know how exasperating it is to be me? Sure, because you know how exhausting it is to be you. We’re all living, breathing (beautiful) disasters. Who wouldn’t want to jump out of your disaster and into another one once a year?
I’ve mentioned my fancy-schmancy home in DC — the Kennedy Warren building on Connecticut Avenue — has a beautiful bar inside the building. It’s all dark wood and chrome with lots of plush velvet chairs and couches, a grand piano. A jazz trio plays in the evening. Politicians hang out there, journalists hang out there. Well, there was a Halloween do last night and I went down to see what was what. Of course I needed to wear a costume, so I put on the pair of funny glasses I happen to have and attached to my necklace a bow-tie I happen to have. I went and put on black trousers, a vest, my best Prada patent leather shoes with the steel heel (haaaaay!) and my black trench coat. Suddenly…I was not me!
I had so much fun last night. I met many cool people and several came up to my place for a nightcap. It was a wonderful Halloween and I have made peace with the holiday as of now. Incredibly, I’m already looking forward to next year. How about that.
*To Hannah, the incredible fan who sent me a carton of candy pumpkins… Hannah, you are a treasure of a human being. Thank you. I ate handfuls of them when they arrived. Pumpkins from heaven.
One of my favorite things to do is to memorize poems. I have quite a catalog, as I’ve been doing this many years. I know all my decent poems by heart, but when I learn other poets’ poems, my life is immeasurably enriched.
In my canon currently is one poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “The Day Is Done.” It is so beautiful, when I recite it, I get teary-eyed. Sometimes I just say it out loud when I’m cleaning house. Sometimes I get to say it out loud to people, which is better than saying it to the toilet brush but that’s better than nothing.
I made the illustration for this post a few minutes ago and when I posted it, I realized I had used a portrait of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Not Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I always get those two dum-dums mixed up.
The Day Is Done
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life’s endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from her heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in her soul the music Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.
