Here's another reason why Facebook is ruining my life. I was all set to finish off the year strong with lots of writing projects and ambitious experiments. I have a screenplay in my head that I want to write, but first I have to take a class on how to write a screenplay. And I have two little cartoons that I'd love to do but first I have to take a class on how to draw people and dogs. Actually, everything. How to draw everything.
But it looks like now, thanks to All-Up-in-My-Facebook, I'm going to be making little fabric hearts for babies.
Someone posted about The Preemie Project, in which people make tiny fabric hearts to give to hospital neonatal intensive care units, where they're passed out to moms who have recently delivered preemies and are unable to hold them a lot. The mom puts these Developmental Hearts on her skin, right on the Pledge of Allegiance spot and wears it around for a while, letting the fabric absorb her scent. Then she gives the heart to the baby, so part of her is always with her child.
Screw screenplays. I want to do that. I want to make that happen.
I'm a sucker for charity projects in which I get to do quantity-over-quality projects that make babies and other helpless folks feel good. I'm really skilled at churning out love, factory-style.
When I lived in Ohio, I got connected with a Catholic hospital in Ethiopia that needed people to make crib sheets. Apparently, there and in some other countries in Africa, when you are hospitalized you have to bring your own sheets. If you don't, the nuns will try to scrounge up a sheet from the supply closet, but in many cases you have to sleep on the bare mattress, unless you remembered to BYOS.
So some nuns decided to ask American housewives to send some crib sheets so at least the babies would have a clean sheet to lie on. It seems babies are the most forgetful when it comes time to go to the hospital. "Don't worry. We've got you covered, babies," we said. And then we took it and ran with it.
A lady from my church, who helped me get started, told me I could make the crib sheets at almost no cost, if I used old but perfectly good-condition pillowcases that hotels throw away. So I would drive around to local hotels and ask for their old pillowcases, take them home, rip open the seams, sew new seams, launder them, fold them neatly, and put them in a box with some stuffed animals and send them to the nuns.
Starting out, I was nervous. I'm told I have a strong work ethic, and for someone who hasn't worked full-time in 25 years, I can only explain that I'm from Ohio. We Midwesterners tend to take an assignment and work the heck out of it. We'll outwork everyone else, whether we're getting paid for it or not, because we're hoping for that elusive star sticker at the top of our paper.
So maybe that's what I was subconsciously looking for when I called one of the nuns to ask how the corner seams should be sewn on the pillowcases-turned-crib-sheets.
"Oh for the love of God," she said in a New York accent. "Just anything - anything you send is fine." I asked if there were a lot of us who were contributing.
"Yes, but you're the only one who has called to clarify the instructions," she deadpanned.
I holed up in my basement and churned out box after box of crib sheets, when I should have been teaching my kids about Internet safety or learning Italian. After that, I obsessively knitted squares for Quilts for America when I should have been saving the manatees or escorting baby loggerhead turtles to their eventual watery grave. I made prayer shawls for a church group when I should have been running for school board.
And now it looks like I'll be buying out Jo-Ann's of pastel flannel prints and piecing together little hearts for preemies, when I should be selling a heartwarming screenplay about a writer-photographer team who travel the country to make a coffee table book. (They learn about life and a little bit about themselves as well. But you knew that.)
I guess I prefer these charity projects that anyone could do, because the disadvantaged and the charitable organizations are the only ones who won't pick apart my work. The things I make, literally, can easily be picked apart by just pulling on one of the threads. Knot-tying and finishing are not my strong suits.
What is my strong suit? Getting as many tiny hearts into baby incubators as I possibly can. They won't be washable, because they might not stand up to a rigorous spin cycle, but the mama sweat and baby spit-up will just make them more adorable.
