PaperGirl Blog by Mary Fons

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1 Jan 2015

Me And George.

by Mary | posted in: D.C., Day In The Life, Tips, Travel | 0

Portrait of George by Gilbert Stuart Williamstown. Not another town! Gah!

Moving to a new city means relinquishing your card to the People Who Know Where They’re Going club. Because you don’t. Know where you’re going. Even with Google Maps, sometimes.

And now, a quick history lesson with creepy details:

Several hundred years ago, America’s forefathers formed a more perfect union. Around the same time, the urban planners of Washington, DC drew a circle around all that hot, democratic action and built a city around it. Washington is organized into four quadrants (NE, NW, SE, SW). To have a city divided like that, you have to have a central locus point. Are you ready to freak out?

The central locus of DC is a crypt.

Did you know that?! Turns out, to properly navigate your way through DC, you gotta pivot on a skeleton. Well, sort of. Here’s the deal: the Capitol Building has a rotunda, which is the inside of the big, beautiful Capitol dome (currently covered in scaffolding because it’s having some work done.) The Capitol crypt is located directly below the rotunda and was made to be the entrance to George Washington’s tomb, two levels down. I know!

George Washington politely declined to be entombed in the Capitol Building, however. Since he was dead when he expressed his wishes, he got whatever he wanted. (Just kidding; his wishes were in his last will.) Washington is actually buried in Mount Vernon, VA, on the family’s estate. But the crypt and tomb are still the smack-dab middle of DC and you can tour the place, which I’m going to do as soon as The Great Holiday Goof-Off officially ends. (I love The Great Holiday Goof-Off but it’s cutting into my DC museum time.)

From the crypt, the streets in DC are numbered going east, from 1st to 2nd, to 3rd, and so on. They are also numbered the same as they go west: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, but these numbers are claimed by different quadrants. The same system goes for the north and south, but the city planners used letters instead of numbers or names. To go north of the crypt, you hit A, B, C, etc.; heading south, you do the same thing, but — and I know you’re getting this, students — you’re in a different quadrant. To go to 4th and F Street, you need to know which 4th and which F Street you need. Because there are two of those.

This system makes a lot of sense as long as know which way is north. If you get turned around, you’ll end up on the other side of town pretty quickly. (Ask me how I know.) Then there’s the matter of all the state-named diagonals that cut through the grid. Thinking of those right now gives me a headache. I slightly hate Massachusetts Avenue; it has foiled several of my expeditions. It goes down but it heads west! It’s… I can’t talk about it.

One of my favorite writers died of cancer a few years ago. He made the comment that the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a bromide with essentially zero truth behind it. If you’re in a car accident and walk away without a scratch, you might have a little swagger. If you learn from mistakes that were painful, you may become wiser. But chemotherapy, round after round, doesn’t make anyone stronger: it makes you weaker. If you have surgery after surgery on your abdomen (ahem) your abdomen is not stronger, suddenly; it’s fragile. It’s delicate. It’s at risk.

I’ve been wondering if that thinking might apply to having to frequently figure out the layouts of new cities. It’s something that I’ve had to do a lot in the past eight months. Does it help my sense of direction to be constantly thrown into a new place? Or are my navigational skills compromised because, for example, I just figured out which streets in Manhattan have bike lanes and no longer need that information but I must learn quickly whether the Glenmont Red Line train heads to the NE quadrant of town or the NW quadrant. Am I strengthening my brain or scrambling it?

Have map, will use brain cells. Because I need groceries.

31 Dec 2014

Happy New Year: Gramma Style!

by Mary | posted in: Family, Tips | 1

It's the magical, mythical Rooster of New Year's! — It’s the magical, mythical Rooster of New Year’s!

Earlier this evening, I was having a chat with my friend Luke, a talented quilter/artist/communicator. We were discussing how weird New Year’s Eve can be. What in the world are the good people of Earth supposed to do with a single second? How can any of us squeeze portent and meaning into a single stroke of the clock? We can try, but it’s a heck of a job — and most people try to manage it whilst crammed in between 400 other people and a hotel bar.

I told Luke my plan was to walk to the steps of the Library of Congress tonight around midnight. I want to be around all those books and sculptures. Nerdy for sure, but also sort of portent-y. Luke’s plan was to try and find a silver suit before it was too late. We made a pact, though: we’re not going to make the stroke of midnight anything more than just one of a lot of great moments in any given day. We also agreed to do what my gramma said to do. Grandma Graham, rest her soul, would tell me:

“Whatever you do on the first day of the year sets the tone for the rest of the year. So make it a great day.”

I love that. I have very few traditions, but this is something I make sure to do every year. The day must always include working, playing, reading, thinking, exercise, love, and writing. If something bad happens, okay. Then I deal with it with a level head and optimism.

From my gramma to me, from me to you. Make tomorrow a good day, friends, and set your own tone for 2015, which is a very attractive-looking number, don’t you think?

30 Dec 2014

Bi-Coastal.

by Mary | posted in: D.C., Luv | 0

The monthly average maximum temperature of Los Angeles compared to Washington. This graph appears to be a school project. My apologies to any professional meteorologist I have just gravely offended.

For New Year’s Eve, I will be here in Washington and Yuri will be in Los Angeles. We texted and have arranged to talk at midnight tomorrow, which means that now I have plans for the evening. When I woke up this morning, I did not have plans. I don’t know if this suited me or not; New Year’s Eve is always a little problematic on account of all the people wearing paper hats and drinking Rumplemintz.

You know what’s hard? Breaking up.

You know what’s harder? After all that.

I’ve been working my house pride. There were leaves on my stone steps; I swept them away before any snow could fall and lock them into the corners. I’ve been sewing up a storm the past few days; I tidied my sewing table and vacuumed up thread this morning. I did laundry. I baked. Keeping the ship ship-shape is my tendency, but now, anything less than sparkly is non-negotiable. I can be on my own, in a new city, with colder weather bearing down; I can miss my boo and actually ask various people, “What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” with no hint of irony, but I cannot do any of this with a sinkful of dirty dishes or mud on the living room rug. Only clean countertops will do.

Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice: If you are going along after a breakup and feeling relatively fit and optimistic, do not under any circumstances begin to hum the Rosemary Clooney rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do?” This is dangerous. Circling sharks dangerous. You’ll forget one of the verses and be so crippled by how applicable this gorgeous, sad song is to your very life, you will have to go online and find it and listen to it.

Oxygen masks. Flotation device. Emergency exit. Oh, dear.

What’ll I do
When you are far away
And I’m blue
What’ll I do?

What’ll I do
When I am wondering
Who Is kissing you
What’ll I do?

What’ll I do
With just a photograph
To tell my troubles to?

When I’m alone
With only dreams of you
That won’t come true
What’ll I do?

What’ll I do
With just a photograph
To tell my troubles to?

When I’m alone
With only dreams of you
That won’t come true
What’ll I do?

29 Dec 2014

Eviction Notice.

by Mary | posted in: D.C. | 0

The couches weren't exactly like this. Photo: Serife Gerenschier. — The couches weren’t exactly like this. Photo: Serife Gerenschier.

As I sped toward Capitol Hill in a taxi yesterday, I thought, “Do I really live here? Is this my life?” Such thoughts have come to me before, even when I have been in the same place for a long time, but changes have happened so quickly lately and the reversals have been so swift, I had whiplash in a smooth cab ride.

Speaking of upheaval, today I saw something I had never seen before: a fresh eviction. I was on U Street, headed for groceries, and I suspect if I had been just ten minutes earlier, I might’ve seen actual furniture being thrown out the actual window or pushed through an actual door.

Furniture was all over the sidewalk as I walked up. There was commotion. Couches, tables, a TV set, splintered wood, a few sagging boxes of cords and things, all pushed up to the curb and only saved from falling into the street by the parked cars there. Two young men of about twenty-five in hoodies and baggy pants were nervously laughing too loud, punching each other and whooping, clearly trying to make what was a big, fat, hairy mess, look like a hilarious moment in an otherwise unremarkable day. Their strategy was not working. This was a big, fat, hairy mess for these guys and the whole neighborhood/world could see it, right there on U and 14th.

As they passed, people either stepped around the situation or stopped to more closely examine it. I was one of the former, choosing to cross the street when I heard another woman near me exclaim, in a chastising, it-takes-a-village kind of tone, “I guess y’all been evicted.” Until she said that, I was unsure of what I was looking at. The woman gave the boys a wide berth, too. But other people were more brave than the two of us. A man and a woman who walked out of the Chinese restaurant nearby examined a table, inspecting it for possible rescue, I guess. Several indigent-looking folks had descended and were picking this and that, giving looks of “What are you gonna do about it?” as the boys cavorted nearby, presumably in shock.

My ex-husband’s family owned rental properties in Chicago and I learned a thing or two (really, like one thing or two things) about the landlord-tenant relationship. Though my sources were biased, it did appear that the tenant has a slight edge over the landlord in the relationship’s balance of power. Once a lease is signed — at least in Chicago — a tenant is entitled to some rights that favor his or her situation (needing a place to live) over the landlord’s situation (owning an apartment.) Over the six or so years I was with my ex-husband, I heard of a few instances where an eviction needed to take place but couldn’t because of this or that red tape; I understood that the cost of evicting someone was often higher than just giving them a free month’s rent and threatening them with police force if they didn’t get out by a certain date. This usually did the trick and involved far less paperwork for everyone.

So the boys today, they must’ve screwed up pretty bad. There’s a big homelessness problem in DC. I see bums everywhere, especially around Union Station, the nearest train stop for me. I stepped around a plastic garbage can on the curb and thought that this might be just how it starts, an eviction at the end of December; for many, it’s just a domino somewhere in the middle of the chain.

27 Dec 2014

“Missy! Missy! Coffee!”

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life | 0

Waitress taking a breakfast order at Kahala Hilton Hotel, Hawaii, USA, 1989. Photo: Wikipedia.

After I had been in Chicago a few years and worked a few (very) odd jobs, I returned to my roots as a waitress. I knew how to wait tables. The first job I ever had in life was waiting tables at the Northside Cafe in Winterset, IA, right up on the town square. As soon as I was fourteen I marched through the cafe’s front door and asked for a job. The concept that I could do things and be paid for them was exciting. Far as I figured, I’d be doing things anyway; why not get paid for it?

Two women, Vicki and Betty, trained me at Northside. “Training me” meant they showed me how to make coffee and how to write out a ticket for the kitchen. That was basically the extent of their guidance. Vicki would’ve shown me how to smoke cigarettes if I asked, but I didn’t. I learned the front of the cafe first; a few months later I was allowed to take a section in the back room where the Lion’s Club had meetings. You could still smoke back then and I emptied a lot of ashtrays when I wasn’t making pot after pot of Folger’s.

I would work myself to death at that place. The Northside was packed on the weekends: farmer’s needed biscuits and gravy at 6am, the pre-church crowd was there from 7-9am, the late-risers came in from 9-noon, and then it was after-church folks and the typical lunch crowd. When the cafe closed at 3pm, we had to sweep, mop, scour, marry (ketchup), and lock it all down. It’s easy to mythologize about the past; the fish we catch get bigger and bigger every time we remember catching them. But my mom and sisters could attest to my exhaustion after a busy weekend at Northside. I’d drag myself through the back door of our house, throw my apron on the dining room table, kick off my sneakers and sink into the couch. I’d pull out my wad of tips and recount them while my feet went “whomp-whomp-whomp” with achiness.

Because good, god-fearin’ waitressin’ was programmed into me early, I never lost the knack. In Chicago, I took a job at a new brunch restaurant called Tweet. (This was pre-Twitter, by at least five years, I’ll have you know.) A friend of a friend recommended me for one of three waiter positions and I got hired. The owner, a brassy (brilliant) businesswoman asked me several questions in the interview but the two I remember were: “What’s your sign?” and “Are you on drugs?” I replied with “Leo” and “No.” My first day would be that weekend.

Chicagoans love their brunch. We love it. I’m sure there will be a brunch tax at some point. For two years of the three I worked there, Tweet was one of the hottest brunch tickets in town. The restaurant was only open on the weekend, which made it exclusive, in a way. The neighborhood around it was fairly crappy at the time (Uptown East), and the food was really, really good. There was also a bar next door where you could drink if you had to wait for a table and everyone had to wait for a table. On our busiest days, a three-hour wait was not that weird. And people did wait that long. (I’m telling you: brunch tax.)

If I had been tired after a day at Northside, I was a dead woman walking after a shift at Tweet. I made a lot more money, though. A lot more. Upwardly mobile white people from Lincoln Park tip better than sixty-year-old men who ride combines most of the day. Who knew?

I was thinking about my life in aprons the past few days as I encountered hotel staff and waiters working through the holiday. I feel you. I don’t work those shifts now, but I did for years. Working on Christmas, say, ain’t that bad — but it’s not that great. Having fun with the people you work with is the best thing for it, so try to do that.

And cheer up. All around you are members of the Secret Order of Former Service Industry Providers. I carry the card, myself, and we’re fantastic tippers.

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