And Everything Is Going Fine

Last night I watched a posthumous production about Spaulding Gray called And Everything is Going Fine. I truly loved watching bits and pieces of his filmed monologues that covered several decades. I saw a man with a unique talent for storytelling that combined, laughter, pathos and charm. He'd suffered a terrible car accident and while physically improving, had gotten more and more depressed. He disappeared two months before they found his body floating near Brooklyn. They think he jumped off a Staten Island Ferry. I just looked up his obituary from 2004 and this sentence struck home for me. "In a 1980 show, Mr. Gray spoke a line that may well have summed up his life and career. ''It's very hard for me,'' he said, ''not to tell everybody everything.''

That is true for me, too. I remember taking the girls to an event where we sat with another family. The mother and I got to talking and one of the other children said her mother had to talk to everybody. My girls agreed that their mother did that too. The consensus among the children was that we were odd. The mother and I had a fine old conversation. If I could remember whole conversations the way Spaulding Gray did, or make up new ones like Garrison Keillor, I would be a story teller. There are some very funny (and off color) anecdotes about my folks in their older, uncensored years that would make a great stand up act. But I will never do it. I like telling stories though. I like working through the physical details and coming out the other side to what I think it means. What do I need to learn and can I share it with others? That is why I blog.

I like people and I like learning about them and seeing how they work. Even people I have known for years can surprise me. I think I first went to S.R. Harris Fabric Outlet about fifteen or twenty years ago. I bought polar fleece for throws that I was making for Christmas presents for daughters, niece and five nephews. This was before I learned about cutting fringe and I actually blanket stitched around all of them. I did it in August while the girls were at camp and endured the summer heat and having my lap covered with fleece while I worked. No air-conditioning, of course. The owner of the warehouse was a real pill, crabby all the time. I used to avoid him if possible. Today he was jolly, making jokes and the life of the party, so to speak. I introduced him as the owner to the friend I was with and he said, "Not any longer!" He had given the business to his son, who frankly looked a bit haggard. Just not being responsible for those millions of yards of fabric had freed him to be the nice guy he wanted to be. Amazing.

Also amazing was my friend. She needed to recover some couch cushions, had brought a swatch from her sofa and found her fabric in about ten minutes. I could not believe it! This place has thousands of rolls of upholstery fabric, to say nothing of every other kind of cloth, leather, fake fur, fleece, you name it, they have it, piled high to the ceiling. I wanted her to look at all the options and she did spend another while looking but when it came down to it, the oatmeal colored ultra suede was her choice, and at $8.49 per yard a real steal. My usual mode of shopping at S.R. Harris is to walk around and get overwhelmed and leave. But she was one pointed, knew what she wanted and would not be moved.

How can one look at a garden and say one flower is more beautiful than another? How could I look at silk and not want it all? I started thinking scarves for presents, no, I'd go into business and become the hand made silk scarf queen! Then I saw an exquisite sheer silk with little clusters of french knot embroidery. I looked at that roll and saw every few inches a cluster of the knots, all done perfectly, and all done by hand. Then I saw the same pattern in a celadon green with matching embroidery. The next roll was yards and yards of tiny french knots running across in rippling stripes. I turned it over to see how it was done and my heart nearly broke. Could you imagine the woman who sewed each perfect knot in a never ending task? I could almost feel the toughness of her calloused fingers as she plied her needle for hours. I could almost feel her back aching. That silk was marked $40. a yard. It was on sale at half that. How much did she make for all that work? It wasn't the price of a retail yard I am sure. I mentioned how upset seeing that beautiful fabric made me and someone more prosaic said that at least that person had work to feed her family. I hope she does make enough to take care of her family and that they aren't in want.

Getting back to telling everything, I had a long conversation with one of my daughters this evening. We were talking about facebook and the implications of social media. She warned me about checking my privacy settings, etc., which I have done. The other point she made is that in some states employers will not only check what you have posted, they will also ask for the password to your facebook account. I am an open book and don't really care if people can see what I have posted, but if it came to that, I would erase my account and refuse to work for that employer. I believe in the right to privacy, even if I am open about my life. If I was a candidate and asked to talk about religion or sex or anything I don't feel has an impact on the office, I would tell them that I have the right to privacy. When they asked Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky he should have asked them why they needed to know. When they ask President Obama about his religious views he should tell them that it is private.  Mitt Romney is invoking his right to privacy in not releasing his tax returns. Of course that pisses me off because that does have an impact on how he would govern. Am I a hypocrite? I don't think so, if he shows me his... I'll show him mine. A fun time would be had by all.