I am a late bloomer.
I don't mean that I resemble a delicate and winsome autumn flower - good God, I'm about as winsome as battered four-door sedan, not to mention that the only thing autumnal about me is my age, even if I was recently stunned to be offered the 55 and over discount. I also don't mean that I wear those kicky and ever-stylish baggie pants named after pioneering feminist and dress reformer Amelia Bloomer, which would probably make me look quite a bit like Shamu.
No, I mean that I found my calling in life, as a textile historian and writer, comparatively late. I was 43 when I first presented a workshop at a conference, 46 when I first delivered an academic paper, and nearly 48 when my first serious paper was published. I didn't start blogging here until I was 50, and I first succeeded in tricking an editor into buying my fiction when I was 52. I'm now starting to send out flyers in hopes of getting teaching gigs at area quilt guilds to supplement my income, and who knows, I might actually write that novel one of these years.
In short, I'm doing everything backwards: marriage and working at the Job That Pays the Bills and Wrecks the Soul when I was in my 20's, struggling writer in a garret in my 50's. It's not precisely the way I planned my life, but hey, if living backwards worked for Merlin in The Sword in the Stone, who am I to say no? I could be a shining example of the benefits of career change and an obsession with geek literature and terrible booksthat ever happens.
As wonderful as all this is, it has its drawbacks. Strange though it seems, at least to me, I'm actually considered an Expert, and as such, I sometimes find myself asked to give a speech, take a look at an old quilt, or write a book review. Most of the time there's no remuneration, but it sure looks nice on my CV.
It also occasionally disrupts my normal life, including our forays into Badbookistan.
Such is the case this Saturday night. I'm scheduled to give a presentation on medieval patchwork tomorrow near Boston, and the prep work is taking more time than I thought it would. Add in that I'm carpooling with a friend and thus cannot take the morning to do a final check, this means that I'll have to disappear into the stygian depths of the Last Homely Shack's archival sinkhole/wet bar/place where Gil the Wonder Cat deposits enough fur to cloth a family of four for a year, and pull out a couple of past diaries so I don't disappoint the vast hordes of Kossacks who rely on me for their weekend entertainment.
If you think that last sentence was a joke, you're probably right.
Or not, depending on what Gil the Wonder Cat gets up to while I'm out of the house.
Regardless of what that ungrateful wretch I adopted three years ago does behind my back, the diary originally planned for tonight, "Mr. Monk's Oubliette of Screaming Horror," will appear for your dining and dancing pleasure next weekend. It'll be an eldritch horror, drenched in gouts of blood spurting from the victims of a crazed madman's lust a seasonal themed look at one of the originators of the horror genre, so keep watching this space.
At the same time, I would not leave you, my faithful readers, comfortless. I therefore bring you not one, but two - yes, two! - past diaries to tide you over. One is a serious look at early quilting, while the second is a critique of an influential, fluidly written, and completely bogus "history" of an alleged Sooper Sekrit Kwilt Kode from years past:
Fact of Fiction: The Question of Early Patchwork in Europe - this is a slightly edited version of my basic medieval patchwork lecture, with links to some very pretty pictures of patchwork clothing and domestic items. If nothing else, enjoy the eye candy, and who knows, you might even be inspired to start quilting yourself!
The Making of a Modern Myth - a surprising number of people are absolutely, positively, 100% convinced that slaves relied on a "quilt code" to guide them north along the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War. This story, which seems to originated in a children's picture book about a fictional quilt and a very, very bad history book, is nearly as ensconced in American folklore as the idea that George Washington threw money across a river when he wasn't chopping down cherry trees. It's also nearly as hard to eradicate as kudzu, as quilt historians have learned to their sorrow....
%%%%%
Do you quilt? Study the Civil War or the Middle Ages? Have you ever heard of the Underground Railroad Quilt Code myth? Let's see how far this story has spread, shall we....
%%%%%
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule: