PaperGirl Blog by Mary Fons

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15 Dec 2013

Relocation.

by Mary Fons | posted in: Chicago, Fashion, Travel, Work | 10

"The Chess Players" Lucas van Leyden, 1508 — “The Chess Players” Lucas van Leyden, 1508. (The chick is winning.)

I cannot stay in my home when the second phase of the renovation begins and so I am leaving on a jet plane. I will go to Miami, then Las Vegas, then Iowa, then New York City, in that order, and you’re coming with me.

First, I should say that the bathroom looks incredible and it’s not even finished. The Greek key tile inlay is exquisite and now that it’s done, the rest of the bathroom will go quickly, but this means that the kitchen is about to be dismantled with sledgehammers and picks and slathered with dry wall and plaster and wet tile goo and mortar and sweat. The dust produced by the bathroom work over these weeks has threatened to choke me dead or drive me insane for the simple reason that my house has become impossible to clean. A visible layer of powdered wall daily sifts itself down upon my books, my tables, my quilts (!) and no amount of dusting, wiping, swabbing, etc., ameliorates the situation for more than a matter of hours. The kitchen is twice the size of the bathroom and the thought of doubling my already sisyphean dusting attempts creates in my brain uncomfortable, hula hoop-like gyrations. I work from home, for heaven’s sake. There is no escape here. So I will leave.

Signs point to Miami for New Year’s, which I’m excited for; I’ve never been and wanna see the art. I’ll be in Las Vegas for just a few days in mid-January, randomly; I actually have a a mild affinity for Vegas — all those feathers! Then I think I should head over to Iowa and work in the magazine office for a spell; good for the job, good for the team, good for the parental units who live in town, as well. And then, if a few things fall into place, I’ll be off to New York City, where I’ll stay with my older sister and eat lots of chickpea crust pizza in the East Village and visit my favorite resale shops that sell used Balenciaga at 80% off 60% off. Only in New York can you get an exquisite Dries Van Noten, bias-cut, asymmetrical cape-coat-pantaloon, used, for $85 bucks. Combien j’aime la mode…

So. You wanna go?

You’ll see Miami through my virgin eyes. You’ll see Vegas through a filter of someone who’s a) been there before and b) never gambles. You’ll see Iowa; glorious, quotidian Iowa where there are only feathers on the birds, thereby giving us more opportunity for reflection and rest (a good thing after Miami and Vegas to be sure.) And then New York City, the huge, glittering onyx in Earth’s fancy cocktail ring.* Oh, it will all be a gas and I do so love to see new things and write it all down. We’ll have fun, you and me, and when I come home, the bathroom and kitchen will be done.

I have some packing to do.

*In fact, I am headed to New York on the 20th of this month, as well. The Fons Family is having Christmas in NYC this year, so if you read this blog regularly, you’ll get plenty of New York stories over the holiday; this may come in handy if you’re stuck in Boise and need something sensational to read.

13 Dec 2013

Best Christmas Ever.

by Mary Fons | posted in: Family, Food, Story | 1

Here’s stuff people win:

a bet
money from a slot machine
a raffle
BINGO
favor with the king

These are all good things to win and I have won maybe two of them. When I was very young, I also won a prize from a pack of gum. Now, this wasn’t some lame Tootsie Roll Pop prize from a Tootsie Roll Pop star. Remember those? If you got an Indian* shooting a star on your Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper, you could take the wrapper to the dimestore and get a FREE Tootsie Roll Pop. This wasn’t that long ago, even though it sounds way too good to be true; this happened right there in my small town in Iowa in the early 1990s. (I promise you: the next time I’m back home, I’ll take a starred Tootsie Roll Pop wrapper to the counter and let you know here on the blog if it still works.)

So.

It was a sunny afternoon. I was knee-high to a cornstalk. My sister Hannah and I were playing in the living room of our family’s country home. There was this huge picture window that looked out onto the orchard and I remember being afraid of the boxelder bug that was making its slow path up to the top. Somehow, gloriously, I had scored an entire pack of HubbaBubba bubble gum and I was working my way through the stack, making every piece count. I chewed one soft pink wad until it was dead and then went for the next. I unwrapped the hot pink wrapping on the gum carefully, probably because I wanted to make a dress for my finger out of it later.

Then it happened. Tearing away more paper, I saw that one of the individually-wrapped cubes of gum was wrapped in a different color of paper.

“MARY!” my sister Hannah screamed. She practically took flight, so fast she was in moving from her spot on the couch to where I was on the carpet. She tackled me, gaping, wide-eyed at the pack in my paw. “MARY, YOU WON!”

It said it right there: “YOU WON!!! YOU WON!!! YOU WON!!! YOU WON!!!” again and again, printed round and round in teeny-tiny little hot pink letters on a white gum wrapper. Dumbly, I examined it. I won? What did that mean? Luck was not a concept I grasped at that point in my life, to say nothing of fate or providence — I was just excited because my sister was. She patiently explained to me that I was going to get a toy just because I had the pack of gum with the special wrapper and I think that was exactly the moment I did understand the concept of luck. File under, “Paradise, lost.”

My prize was the coolest. I was given the chance choose between a He-Man action figure and a She-Ra action figure. I didn’t get to choose the specific doll, but I could call gender. I firmly selected the She-Ra doll and about a year later I received my Hubba Bubba spoils. I got a Catra doll. Catra was a member of — wait for it — “The Evil Horde,” the fearsome (or just “fierce” — heyy!) pack of villains in Mattel’s She-Ra: Princess of Power series. Would I have rather had She-Ra? Yes. Would I have settled for Castaspella, Spinnarella, or Sweet Bee? Don’t remind me! But Catra would do; she was the most powerful of all the Evil Horde and she was free, after all. That’s the second best part of winning something: first comes the surprise, then comes the free stuff.

When I think about childlike wonder this time of year, I think of winning a She-Ra doll in a pack of Hubba Bubba bubble gum. I guess it’s because I felt like there was magic in the world that would find me, or that there were forces beyond me that were waiting to grant favors to kids who were good. The best news ever is that we’re all good and the force is with us already. And yeah, I know I just mixed my sci-fi action figure catch phrases, but I don’t think Yoda minds. He didn’t sign with Hubba Bubba.

11 Dec 2013

Sounds Good.

by Mary Fons | posted in: Day In The Life, Tips | 2

The objects in my home that get handled the most would probably be, in order: house keys, tea tray, journal, little red radio. That last is my Tivoli SongBook (why, even the name is melodious!) and I hook it up to my computer to amplify the podcasts, music, and YouTube videos of the IQ2 debates I watch while I sew patchwork. If I could carry my tea and open my door with my Tivoli radio I would. (Replacing the journal would be tough.)

The Tivoli Songbook really is book-sized, if that book is the Penguin Classics edition of Great Expectations — and a satisfying thickness it is. The radio comes in several colors; mine is tomato red. There’s a tiny screen that glows a luminous ice blue when the radio is on and I appreciate the generous length of the antenna even though it doesn’t still doesn’t help me get reception in my condo. The SongBook gets loud, too, which is good for those moments when you need to bust out and dance like a maniac to the latest Lady Gaga record while you brush your teeth.

All of these qualities would be enough to to make my little red radio lovable, but I have another potent reason: I have gravely mishandled my SongBook and it still loves me.

I have dropped that thing a hundred times if I’ve dropped it once. I have plugged it into bum outlets and wiggled the cord like I was loosening a tooth; when I move papers too hastily it hits the wood table slap! flat on its back; the tip of the antenna snapped off; and when the Gaga is turned up way loud, the speaker threatens to blow out but never does. The wee radio keeps going. Sometimes I have to make a fist and bang it on the top to get it to work, but even that makes me happy: I feel like a soldier in WWI, smacking my radio receiver in the trenches: “Tivoli, this is Fons, do you copy??”

The Tivoli company didn’t pay me to write this post, by the way. They certainly could, though I doubt most companies are in the business of finding free publicity and then retroactively paying for it. Still, I recommend the SongBook this year as an excellent Christmas gift for someone you love. It runs about $200 and that’s not exactly cheap, but I guarantee pleasure for years (of abuse) to come.

Did I mention I have used it as coaster?

10 Dec 2013

The Truth Hurts.

by Mary Fons | posted in: Day In The Life, Tips | 7

Being a good friend is not easy; sometimes you have to deliver bad news.

My best friend sat me down the other day and gave me a bit of a talking to. This person loves me a great deal and his decision to tell me the unadorned truth about what he was seeing with me lately was born out of compassion and care; of this I am certain. Some people like to boss folks around, some folks delight in others’ pain; this is never the case with him. He read me because he cares.

He pointed out that I have boundary issues. I rarely set them and when I do, I dismantle them with almost comedic haste. I say yes when I should say no to another project, another class, another date, another lunch of chocolate and coffee when I swore I’d eat a salad; another coat. Wait, what? Mm. I have a thing with coats like some girls have a thing with shoes. I say yes because I can handle it and most of the time, I can. But my candle burns at both ends and lately I’ve been going after the middle. It’s a perfectly good middle!

Oh, I thrashed. I argued. I justified. But he was right. What do we do when we’re given the truth, however lovingly it’s delivered? We can’t change everything in a day and it’s foolish to think so, foolish to make some New Year’s resolution style proclamation. The words “Starting today, I…” are dangerous, useless. The only way to do something about what’s broken is to take action — or maybe just an ax — to them. We mustn’t just make a resolution because talk isn’t cheap; it’s expensive. It costs you. Change happens in deed only.

I went some time without a best friend. It just shook out that way after college. My ex-husband was my bestie for many years, but that’s hardly true now. Having a BFF today is worth its weight in gold even though friendship isn’t something we can weight. We can feel it, though, and in the feeling we can see its shape.

It kind of looks like an anchor.

7 Dec 2013

Rebecca of SunnyTree Farm.

by Mary Fons | posted in: Chicago, Family | 1

Who do you admire?

When we saw the Christmas trees lined up at Whole Foods yesterday, my younger sister Rebecca went for it. Her No. 1 impulse — her immediate desire — was to dive into the middle of the free-range, organic, mini-pine forest and smile like that.

Admirable things about my sister:

1. she is a full-time film industry professional working outside of Hollywood
2. she is one half of the coolest couple in Chicago (yes, I do wanna make a bet)
3. she is side-splittingly funny
4. she be pretty n’schtuff

When she jumped into the holiday forest, she made that eight-year-old kid smile and I half-laughed, half-barked, “Wait! Oh, lord, wait!” and went for my phone to take her picture. My sister Rebecca can make my heart ache with joy like no one else. What can I say? She’s my kid sister. I look at her with the wonder of a child who gets a new sibling, even though we’re both in our thirties, now. We are both in our thirties now. Talk about wonder.

I’m on the Quilty set today, filming the latest season. Rebecca is the producer of the show. Over lunch, I asked her what she was thinking when she jumped in the trees.

“They were just asking to be jumped into,” she said. “There was this perfect entrance. And I mean, the smell.” She blinked her eyes, considered again her motivations, and said with finality: “I had to jump in. It was Christmas in there.”

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