When I tell you that the past two weeks have been agonizing, don’t be alarmed. It was a certain kind of agonizing that was not many other kinds of agonizing, thank goodness.
I was not nightly persecuted by owls, for example. No anvils dropped out of the sky at regular (or irregular) intervals. My fridge did not say disapproving things to me as she witnessed my eating habits. Can you imagine??
No, life was tough because I was on location for Quiltfolk last week and most of the week before and I couldn’t tell you anything about it. I didn’t tell you I was traveling at all! I just kept quiet as a mouse and had to post less often, partly because I worked 16-18 hour days and partly because I couldn’t make a peep about where we were. We like to keep the location of the next issue of Quiltfolk a secret for at least a little while, so I couldn’t write to you about any of the things I was seeing, the people I was meeting, the quilts I saw … !
How painful it was to not be able to tell you about when [REDACTED] brought out all the quilts made by [REDACTED] that are so world-famous. How it pained me to not share about when the lady at the [REDACTED] showed us the legendary [REDACTED] and we actually met [REDACTED], who made us a [CHEESECAKE] for lunch!
I think I can say cheesecake, can’t I? Guess we’ll find out!
But seriously: Going to [REDACTED] for Issue 07 was one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve had in my professional life. It was that good.
Issue 06 : Arizona is now on newsstands everywhere. It’s shipping to subscribers, available now. I’m so proud of the Arizona issue, so over-the-moon happy about the work we’re doing. Quiltfolk is oral history. It’s culture for quilters, for people. It’s getting stronger with every story because it must. The stakes are high, the time is now.
And when you see Issue 07 in a few months, you’ll see why I was in agony, trying to not let the [REDACTED] cat out of the bag.
Me, I remember both of those wardrobe selections. How could I forget? When I found those items I screamed with delight, fell on the floor, got back up, did furious/idiotic math in my head so to convince myself I could afford to buy such frivolous fripperies (!) and clicked “BUY” and dreamed about being fabulous in this specific, If-Anna Wintour-Were-A-Quilter kind of way.
And the items did arrive.
Both were carefully boxed by the merchant. Both the coat and the shoes arrived safely via UPS to my receiving room where I picked them up after school/work/school/work/school. I signed out my packages and carried both boxes up to my unit where they lasted exactly .02 seconds before I tore them open with the bad scissors* and tried on the contents. And I realized that I never told you what happened after that. And it’s time.
Both items were unqualified disasters.
Question: Do you ever eat something so good you laugh?
I had strawberry soup in Paris once and it was so remarkable, so stupidly fresh and pretty, the moment I put a spoonful into my mouth, I burst out laughing. This was years ago. I hadn’t ever eaten a dessert like that. The dish — fresh strawberries in simple syrup, with mint, in a shallow bowl — was so surprising in its deliciousness, I just dissolved into laughter. How could something be that good?
When I tried on the Isabel Marant velvet Log Cabin [description mine] coat, I burst out laughing in the same kind of way, but not because it was just that purely good; I laughed with total delight in that it was so very, very bad.
To begin with, the coat was not pieced in any way. The Log Cabin pattern was printed and it was printed on material which was basically luxe polar fleece? Sort of? I’m not sure about the voodoo they-do with digital printing these days with the laser beams and whatnot, but the designers somehow figured out how to print a patchwork-y pattern on foofy, minky-like material and make a coat out of it. This could be a great thing, but the coat that these particular folks made seemed to be inspired by a Hefty 20-gallon garbage bag. I have never tried on a Hefty 20-gallon garbage bag, but I don’t need to. Because I tried on that coat.
I looked like a sad, sad, deranged lady. I looked like someone who … I looked like someone who needed a friend. Badly. So I returned it.
As for the shoes … I have never clad my foot in a more horrifying shoe. I may have screamed when I looked in the mirror. Those horrifying monstrosities got sent back the day they arrived. Truly, I say unto thee there hath never been a more hideous piece of footwear in all the land.
I have a lot to learn. But I know bad fashion when I order it.
*the good scissors are for fabric/thread, OBVIOUSLY
It’s been awhile since I updated you on my future dog. If you don’t know about wee Philip Larkin (aka “Philip Barkin,” aka “Pipkin,” aka “Mary’s Heart’s Delight,” etc.), just click the category over there on the right-hand side of the blog that says “Philip Larkin” and you can see the posts about him.
The good news is that, thanks to all of your incredible internet sleuthing and helpful suggestions about where to get me a Philip, I believe I have found my source. Thank you, thank you to all for your input about breeders vs. shelters; your warnings about puppy mills; your care and concern for animals in this world and your care and concern for me. I am more convicted than ever: Once I am able to provide a stable home for my lil’ pup — after graduation, with a more routine travel schedule — I will put the wheels in motion.
Except.
Except that the bad news is something which has not changed since the last time we talked but is now weighing most heavily on my mind: I would have to petition my condo board and management to have Philip in my building. Because dogs are not allowed in this building … Unless.
Unless they are service animals.
Please, please read the rest of the post before commenting. Beware when/if emotions begin to take over, and use your brilliant mind to reason out your thoughts before typing anything. (I have come to expect the best from you.) And I need your help. This post is sort of like the nursing post: I’m really of two minds on all this as it applies to my own life and your input is valued. So bring your values as we look at this hot topic together. And sorry this post is so long, but splitting it into two would be chaos. I need to say the whole thing at once.
If you need filling in, the deal is this:
Service animals — often dogs, but not always — are animals trained to help their owner navigate the world due to that owner being disabled or differently-abled. Service animals can go pretty much anywhere with their owner — including places that usually don’t allow pets, like stores, airplanes, and condominiums — because their owner needs that animal to be in the world. For example, a person who is legally blind may use a seeing-eye dog; a person who needs help reaching things or retrieving things as a result of limited mobility may have a pet who can help with that. Everyone agrees these smart, loving service creatures are superheros.
Some service animals serve owners in a different, official-ish capacity as so-called “emotional support” animals. These service animals are understood to provide relief of the mental and emotional kind for those who care for them. Emotional support animals are needed less when crossing the street, more to quell anxiety attacks; less needed for alerting paramedics to an ostomy, more needed for the crushing depression and grinding loneliness that might come from a medical condition. For example.
And that’s not quack stuff or touchy-feely logic. Anyone who has a pet knows how much emotional support pets provide. And across the board, doctors, therapists, behavioral scientists, caretakers, casual observers, and certainly the owners of animals are all in agreement: Pets help people cope with hard stuff. Whether it’s cancer, HIV/AIDS, depression, PTSD, or the havoc of life, or the stubborn existential crisis, or any number of health disasters that can befall us at any time, having an animal around makes us feel better. A pet is a friend — and we all need a friend, especially when we’re facing hard stuff.
I live alone. I have friends, but I don’t have a partner. Most of the time I’m okay like that, but sometimes I am terribly lonesome. My forever GI situation and day-to-day management of my body is exhausting and if I think about it too long, I get sad, very sad, very sad. Until my insurance got canceled, I saw a therapist every 10 days because like millions of other Americans, I face depression. I can’t afford Dr. Herman right now, so I am not in therapy.
Every time I think even for a second about how happy my little Philip would make me, running toward me when I get home with his little tongue out, well, I just burst into tears. I’m literally crying right now, thinking of his funny face. It happens every time.
I could petition and do the “emotional support animal” thing and likely succeed. I write effective letters. But is it really fair to try and get special treatment to have my dog?
The reason there are no dogs allowed in my building is because dogs are hard on a building. I’m an owner in this condominium. I have agreed to the rules. I want others to play by those rules, too. What if everyone petitioned for a dog? I wouldn’t like that. I’d move, eventually, if the house was a big dog park. So, okay: Maybe if I want a dog so badly, I should be the one who moves to a dog-friendly building, not be the person who inconveniences my neighbors — neighbors who moved into the building possibly because there was a no-dog policy.
A lot of the controversy surrounding emotional support animals centers on people taking their emotional support animals into airports, grocery store lines, Starbucks cafes, into bathrooms — into places that are not for dogs. If the dog is wild, if the dog misbehaves, if the dog acts like a dog at all and not like a stuffed animal, people get understandably upset. And they get way more upset if the person with the wild dog is like, “I need this animal for emotional support” when really, they just didn’t want to board their dog or they really just think they don’t need to obey the rules. There are absolutely those people out there. I read about one man taking a peacock on a plane because he needed it for “emotional support.” Dude, really?
However. We can’t tell who has a disability or not. The woman at the movie theater with her dog on her lap — her dog who is wearing a “I’m an Emotional Support Animal” jacket purchased online for a few dollars — might very well be gaming the system. And she makes it harder for others who really do need emotional support and can find that in a pet that they need close as much as possible. But she also might be dealing with crippling anxiety and agoraphobia and her pup is helping her be in the world. We don’t know who has mental illness most of the time. We don’t know each other’s lives until we do. And when we do, it’s harder to be judgemental.
Two last things:
I’m afraid that if I would try for this special dispensation, I would be lumped in with the people who are gaming the system and that would be embarrassing and unfair. I’m afraid that I would be taking advantage of a system, that I don’t need Philip that badly, that if I got permission and it made people mad, it might make it harder for someone with terminal cancer to get a dog or cat that saves their life every day.
When I told my family that I would have to make Philip a service animal to get permission to have him, I told them about those fears I just mentioned. Mom, Hannah, and Rebecca, almost on cue, looked at me and said, “Um … Mar, you definitely need emotional support. Get … Get the dog.”
AIDS Quilt in Washington, 1986. Image: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, via Wikipedia.
On the phone today, speaking with a nice lady about a gig I’m doing in Maryland next week, I had a twinge of sadness that I can’t take on any more road gigs for the foreseeable future. We were going over the lectures I’m doing for the Bayside Quilters in Easton next week, and the lady said:
“We’ve done a lot of publicity already, so we can’t switch the lectures we selected, but I did have someone ask if we could have the AIDS Quilt lecture … Maybe next time!”
When we made the date for my appearance, of course, many months ago, the AIDS Quilt lecture didn’t exist. Now it does, and I very much look forward to the time when I can give it again. I know that lecture will have a long run, but as to when the talk will be presented — and to whom — we shall have to wait and see.
For now, here is the second part of the two-part Quilt Scout column in which I share a bit of what I learned in researching the AIDS Quilt. Make sure you read the first part first and then go on to the second. I hope you’ll feel enriched by the material as I was.
Joy in Concepción, Chile. Image: Camdiluv via Wikipedia.
Holy Easter Bunny! The readership hath spoken!
Verily, I say unto thee: I will not go back and edit past entries of the ol’ PG. At all. Ever. Except for glaring typos. And at least not until a Major Publisher wants to publish The PaperGirl Compendium Criterion Collection with an Introduction By Virginia Woolf.
Yes, almost without exception*, PaperGirl readers (a handsomer, delightful readership there never was) do not want me to tinker with the past. And that’s nice to know, partly because there is no time to go back and mess with history, but also because this log has been, for many years, a record of myself. One record, anyway: My diary holds another record; my essays another. My Instagram another. My email “Sent” list another. We all leave records all over the place; I keep a few extra going, just in case.
In the spirit of not monkeying with the past, however painful it might be to read, here are three old entries that I am not even going to glance at before linking you over. I know there are new readers who haven’t gone back and read the entire blog (what, you have better things to do??) so here’s a taste for you:
Any typos? Any pre-AP-style guide moments? Any awkward grammar? Any weird stuff? It stays! It stays — and I ain’t going anywhere.
xo
Mary
*One nice lady, also a blogger, said that I should do what makes me happy. A sentiment in the same vein as everyone else, really, just said in a different way.
