Rather ominous photo of cologne in Milan, 1965. Image: Wikipedia.
Forgive me for being absent a few days, but there simply is no time to do anything whatsoever but repack my suitcase, answer emails, make rawther important phone calls, and smell Nick.
Yes, Nick, my PIO — that’s “Person of Interest” — smells so good, I need to smell him whenever possible. I’m glad most of my work requires me to go out of town, because if I had to work around Nick, smelling as good as he does, I would get nothing done. Have you ever tried to write a letter from the editor while sniffing the collar of someone’s t-shirt? Pointless!
Nick has always smelled great. He’s got that wonderful smell of a guy who cares about his laundry. He smells like a person who really scrubs the back of his neck when he takes a shower and he definitely reads the care labels on his clothes. Do you know what I mean? That sort of “this is just who I am” smell is enough to make me kind of woozy, but it’s worse, now, because Nick has become smitten with a certain cologne. This cologne smells great in the bottle but let me tell you: It’s downright criminal on Nick.
The fragrance: Neroli Portofino Acqua by Tom Ford.
It’s hard to describe the scent — scents are tough — but I’ll try. It’s got bergamot going on; it’s got a hint of lemon. It’s musky and dusky. It’s young but not frivolous. It’s smart but not stuffy. When I smell it, I think of a person who takes cool trips and does cool things and is kind to animals. Also, that person knows how to bake scones with currants and when you visit them in their country home for a week in the summer, they know you love them. It goes without saying that this mythical cologne person is rich. Because some colognes just smell expensive, you know? Neroli Portofino Acqua one smells like it has to cost a fortune, but it turns out that a small bottle isn’t terribly expensive at about $100 plus tax. The price surprised me and Nick, too, considering the fancy Tom Ford label and the way it smells like it has gold flecks in it or something.*
Nick and I have been talking a lot about fears and “what comes next” and we had a text message fight yesterday. I never have text message fights but it was a weak moment. We’re sort of at a point — and relationships have all kinds of different points all the time, it’s not just one — where we are either going to kick it up a notch … or not, I guess. The fear of failure, the fear of wasting time, the fear of “what if this” and “what if that” is terrible on thoughtful people. Text message fights may occur from time to time.
We patched it up. Yesterday, he brought me flowers. Today, I smelled his wrist. And you do the next thing.
*For another perfume-inspired reverie, you should definitely read this.
I just had to talk to you about this, face-to-sorta-face! Announcing Quiltfolk Patterns is very exciting and I hope you like what we’re making. You will be amazed at the price we’ve set. You will be amazed at who we got as our first Revival Quilt designer. I’m so excited for July 4th I can’t stand it. I fly to New Orleans tomorrow. I hope this video isn’t too long, but it’s my first time vlogging!
It was actually pretty fun and I didn’t have to type!
There’s a pattern here — and I’m not talkin’ fabric. Look!
I write a blog post –> my mother reads my blog post –> my mother is compelled to comment –> the crowd goes wild
Now, my mother reads my blog every time I post, but she doesn’t comment every time. Clearly she should, though, because you love it. You love my mom! I love my mom, too.
After making an egregious mistake in my summer reading list posts, my mom pointed this out (in a comment.) And everyone was so tickled by it, I thought I’d just call her up and interview her about my mistake and put the whole conversation up for your reading pleasure. It’s fun and informative!
PAPERGIRL INTERVIEW WITH MARIANNE FONS, JUNE 20, 2018
PG: Mommy.
MOM: Mary.
PG: Do you realize how much people like it when you comment on the blog? Do you see their comments on your comments?
MOM: No, I didn’t realize that! I’m delighted. I’ll comment more.
PG: Please do. As you know, I made a mistake when I went over my potential summer reading list. I credited Tender is the Night to Ernest Hemingway, but Tender is the Night was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Since you were one of the people to kindly point it out — and since you have a B.A. and an M.A. in English — I thought I would get your comment on this and perhaps learn a thing or two about those two egomaniacal jerks. I mean “brilliant geniuses.”
MOM: Sounds fun, sweetie, fire away.
PG: By the way, where are you right now?
MOM: I’m sitting in one of my favorite spots in the whole world: the rocking chair on the front porch here in Winterset.
PG: Lovely. So, first things first: Tender Is the Night. What’s it about?
MOM: I read it a long time ago, in grad school. It really has been a long time, but I recall thinking that it was a better book than The Great Gatsby, which is still considered sort of the gold standard American novel. Now I’m worried I’ve got it wrong, but I think Tender is the Night has to do with mental illness. And beautiful, tragic people. The female character … I think she’s institutionalized in the novel, and I’m pretty sure she’s based on F. Scott’s wife, Zelda.
PG: That sounds about right. Poor ol’ Zelda.
MOM: All these years later, I might find the tale less appealing, but when I read it I would’ve been around 32, and everyone in that F. Scott Fitzgerald world seemed to be these glamorous, tragic figures.
PG: It’s a little different in Hemingway’s books, right? I’ve read The Sun Also Rises and … something else. I remember lots of sunshine and bullfighting and drinking while bullfighting in the sun.
MOM: I did an independent study on Hemingway in grad school and read all his books. I read a lot about his life and because of that, I read a lot about Fitzgerald, too, because they were pals.
PG: Of course they were.
MOM: I remember learning that Fitzgerald had money but was cheap, while Hemingway was poor but generous.
PG: Wow! That’s a really interesting thing to know. Hm.
MOM: Hemingway’s belief was that you should be good to people like waiters and busboys, bell captains, people working service positions, basically, where Fitzgerald was rude to so-called underlings. There’s an anecdote I remember: F. Scott Fitzgerald was ill with a fever and very sick —
PG: Probably hungover, right?
MOM: — probably, and Hemingway put him in the tub and was trying to make him well. He apparently was able to get a thermometer and maybe some medicine or something from a bellboy and Hemingway said, basically, “Look, you need to be good to people in service professions because when the chips are down, they’re the ones who are really going to be the people you need to ask for help.”
PG: I agree completely, though it sounds a little transactional. But I know what he means and I waited tables for 10 years of my life, so like, go Hemingway.
MOM: Well, yes, Fitzgerald was a snob, but I think Hemingway was a real a**, too. He was horrible to women and then he got cancer and couldn’t take it and he blew his head off with a rifle.
PG: Mom!
MOM: His father committed suicide, too, I think. His father was a doctor.
PG: “Got cancer and couldn’t take it.” I’m still processing that one, Marianne.
MOM: Well, he really changed fiction, I think. Hemingway did. Oh, and honey, good luck reading Henry James. I’m an educated person, but I think Henry James is hard to read. His sentence structure is so dense and long … One sentence will be an entire paragraph. I read Turn of the Screw and I tried to read The Ambassadors and I just couldn’t do it.
PG: Well, if we’re talking about the other books on my list, how about the Donna Tartt novel, The Goldfinch?
MOM: I heard about Donna Tartt when Goldfinch came out. Her novels are … what are they called?
PG / MOM: Southern Gothic.
MOM: Southern Gothic, yes. I started that last one and it was just so … I don’t know. Southern Gothic? Everyone was just just runnin’ around in red ditches, catchin’ rattlesnakes. And something horrible happened but what don’t know whatit was and it’s gonna take a loooooong time fo find out what it was and it was just … unsatisfyingly dark. I didn’t finish The Goldfinch, and that is unusual for me.
PG: What about David Foster Wallace?
MOM: Did he write Confederacy of Dunces?
PG: No! Well, I’m not reading that one, yet, even though if I had chosen on my own, I’d have probably picked it. It’s okay. I’m going with 1984 because the people have spoken and I love the people. Orwell is one of my top-five authors, so I’m happy. Have you read 1984?
MOM: I’m sure I have, but every time I picture it, I just picture Animal Farm.
PG: Hey, you wanna read it with me??
MOM: Sure! That sounds fun, honey. But I think … Yes, I’ll have to get it. When should we start reading?
Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, better known as Ann Landers, in 1961. Photo: Wikipedia.
I have decided that this blog should become an advice column — but not the normal kind where people write to the columnist for advice.
No, this blog ought to be an advice column where I bring you my problems and quandaries and you give me advice! It already happens so often! Anytime I ask for it, I get great advice!
Whether I’m wondering about how to feel about public breastfeeding or the matter of having an emotional support animal or what book to start with on my summer reading list, the advice and counsel I get from PaperGirl readers is way more interesting and helpful than what I might dole out to you sitting here on my tuffet.*
Honestly, don’t you think that’s a fun idea? An “advice column” where the columnist is the one asking for the advice? Hilarious!
Thanks to all of you, my summer reading list is set. I didn’t tabulate exact votes, but it was pretty clear how things shook out. I am going to read my five novels in this order, as per your advice:
1984 byGeorge Orwell
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James The Pale King by David Foster Wallace Tender is the Night by Ernest Hemingway
It was pretty close between Orwell and Tartt, but I think it’s okay for me to start with the shorter work before I dive into the really long one. Henry James was definitely in third place, and David Foster Wallace and Hemingway were neck and neck bringing up the caboose, but I decided to let Hemingway come in last. He so often comes in first, doesn’t he? He’ll be okay.
Once I’m finished with Orwell, I’ll bring you my book report. It’s interesting timing: I’ve been thinking about deleting my Facebook account. I was going to bring you the case and — wait for it — ask you for your advice. Reading 1984 with that in mind, that idea about deleting Facebook, will be most interesting.
Thanks, gang.
*I’m not on a tuffet. I just needed to create a visual of some haughty Advice Columnist who thinks she knows everything and putting her on a tuffet seemed right.
Summer reading swag! I would LOVE wearing a summer reading pin! Photo: Rachel Larue via Wikipedia.
A few weeks back, I put on my librarian hat — a fetching chapeau! — and did some organization and pruning of my living room library. (I have a library full of quilt history books, but that is in the office.)
As I worked through the shelves, I found lots of titles I was ready to give away, and it felt good to watch that pile grow. Most of the books I didn’t want I put up in my building’s laundry room on the cute “take a book, leave a book” shelves by the elevator. Right now, someone is enjoying a gluten-free baking cookbook and my extra copy of the Lapham’s Quarterly on “Time.” (Interesting how I bought that particular issue twice!)
While it felt good to shed extra stuff and hopefully make someone happy, it felt bad to see all the books I own but haven’t read. There aren’t that many, but it cannot be denied that I have a good deal of fabulous reading material that I’ve never cracked. I think this is true for most people who love to buy books. You can’t wait to read the books you just bought, but then you get busy or you get interested in something else and then it’s five years later and you never read that biography of Eleanor Roosevelt or the complete history of polka dots or The Brothers Karamazov.
For me, it’s always the novels I don’t get around to reading. I go for the essay, the article, the interview, the criticism. Non-fiction, in other words. But I do want to read a novel or two this summer for heaven’s sake, so I thought I’d ask for your help.
Here are five novels I own but have not yet read, and I want YOU to tell me what to read first.
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 1984 by George Orwell The Pale King by David Foster Wallace Tender is the Night by Ernest Hemingway
I thought about giving you descriptions, but, since so many of you are book-nerdy like me, I thought you might enjoy looking into the books on your own. Of course, most folks won’t need to look up Orwell’s 1984; that canonical work is pretty well known and I am horrified to admit that I’ve never read it! Me! An Orwell fangirl! But this is what I mean about books you own: Sometimes, you just never get around to them, even if they’re classic works of literature that most people read their sophomore year of high school.
I can’t wait to see what you think, gang. Some of the books are (much) longer than others, but I’m ready for what you all decide. Oh, and if anyone wants to read along with me, please do: I’ll write up a book report when I get done with each title.
