poof!

7/26/99

I’ve started sewing again. It’s a thing I pick up every now and then. My mother is a quilter and she tried to get me into it when I was young, but my attention span has always fallen a little short. I finished one quilt when I was in high school. It took me several years, which is normal, but I didn’t actually sew it together. It was a crazy quilt of all denim, and my mom and I embroidered all the seams with dozens of different colors and stitches. The backing was bright plaid flannel—the whole thing was totally funky and cool. It was meant to be a quilt for the beach, and we left in lots of jeans pockets to hold change and sunblock and books and things, but when I finished it it was so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to use it at the beach. I used it on my bed through a couple years of college and then I put it away.

My next project was to be a yo-yo bedspread. This is sort of a novelty item, where you take hundreds and hundreds of fabric circles and sew them into tiny drawstring pouches, then flatten them into smaller circles with puckery middles and sew the corners together. I made hundreds of these tiny puckered kisses and kept them in ziploc bags, organized by colors. My mom and I took to calling them “poofs.” Worked on them off and on, whenever I was on vacation or bored. Many of my friends from high school and college helped me by cutting out circles.

I haven’t worked on it in a while. Never had time, never seemed to get anywhere. I have 524 of these little things. About 30 of the poofs are useless, because they’re bad—either the drawstring trick failed or we were inept when we first started or they just plain turned out lopsided. So I cut the number down to 484 and decided to make a tablecloth. The thought crossed my mind that I worked so hard and wouldn’t it be awful to give up now...and then I realized I could always sew more poofs and make the tablecloth into a bedspread.

I took an afternoon and became totally obsessive. I counted the number I had of each color and drew a detailed map of colors. I’d planned from the beginning to make a lot more blue and green poofs so that the overall effect of the spread would be blue. When I started sewing them together, I saw I was right. Hey—never underestimate a quilter.

My yo-yo tablecloth is kicking ass. I’ve sewn together over 100 in the last three days. I’ve left the box of circles and the needle and thread right on the couch so that I can’t ignore it when I’m watching TV. I really don’t want to put this project down again; I can’t afford to drag this box of poofs with me through one more move.

I found a job. My job is to go out five days a week and get lost in Warner Robins. Today I spent two hours driving about, visited K-Mart, Goodwill, and Rite Aid, bought nothing but a newspaper, and came home. Tell you what, it’s fucking annoying. I hate being so inefficient.

Dan sent me an e-mail today that got me thinking. Here’s the good part:

me: I’m a hit slut at heart.

Dan: really? but you don't have a counter anymore, do you?

me: only because I haven't bothered to put one up yet. Every night I get a little bit anxious about it, then I tell myself that I shouldn't care and I go without it for another day.

Dan: how would your writing be different in the two cases? what motivates you to post your writing online at all?

I've always written my paper journals with the idea in mind that someone would read it. I always put on the show like I didn't want people to read it. Once I asked my best friend to burn them for me if I died, without reading them. He said, "That's not really what you want. You want someone to read it and you know it." I did know it. At the same time, he refused to read my journals.

I used the same principle when his girlfriend left her journal on my dining room table--I thought, "She wants me to read that, that's why she left it there. So I'm not going to give her the satisfaction." And I didn't read it. Funny, I thought that gave me so much power over her.

Anyway. About a year ago, I asked John if he'd ever read my journals. I'd never gone out of my way to hide them. He said, "Of course I've read them! I've read almost everything in them!"

While that was silly, and while he'd never had my permission, I laughed and told him that I pretty much knew that, and I pretty much wanted him to. That was that.

I don't think I'd be any different if hundreds of people read me. I'd feel validated, maybe, but even that doesn't matter too much. I'm already careful not to offend anyone too much--I try to remember that my parents and relatives will eventually find my site. I have a notify list for feedback; none of my family (other than John) is on it, and I figure I'll deal with that issue when it comes up. Anyone on the list can tell you there’s nothing exciting going on.

What was the question again?

I like writing online because it forces me to write often. I am excited by the idea that people are interested, even mildly, in my life. My life is in the air right now, and the journal has given me a venting system. It has little to do, directly, with music, with John, with my family or my job, but I can talk about those things endlessly. Even if nobody's listening, I can imagine they are.