The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog

by Jen Lancaster

  What’s going to make this recipe my own is using Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe-Joes, which is like an Oreo, only it has a pepperminty center. The cream filling in the regular Oreos isn’t thick enough, so the author suggested Double Stuf. The Candy Cane Joe-Joes are thin like regular Oreos, so my plan is to pry them apart and restick two cream sides together to make my own ad hoc Double Stuf. Then I’ll take the spare cookie shells, smash them, and use them for piecrust. Brilliant! I’m like how the Indians would use every part of the buffalo, except with cookies.

  But back to the business at hand—as for what else to make, I’m tasking myself with trying something new. Initially, I considered learning to sew, but sewing is completely unforgiving. Do it wrong and everyone can tell. I won’t be happy if my presents make friends feel bad, all, “Shit, seeing Jen today. Better swap out my Kate Spade for the amorphous-blob sack she claims to be a purse.”

  Having had Fletch help me with a couple of seams over the summer, I finally accept that my inability to sew in a straight line is pathological. The sewing machine’s gas pedal makes me supernervous, and I’m always afraid I’m going to stitch over my finger. As I want to have a little fun while I do the craft, sewing is out, because I don’t see an upside and it makes me too anxious.

  What else could I do?

  My best option here is going directly to the source: the 1993 edition of Handmade Christmas: The Best of Martha Stewart Living.

  A quick observation right off the bat—Martha uses Mario Badescu skin-care products, which I know because I bought them, too, based on her blurb. All the little jars are matchy-matchy and adorable, and I appreciate how cute they are in the basket next to my sink. Granted, sometimes I’m so tired when I get ready for bed that I just use a couple of pumps of hand soap, but that’s not the point. The point is that Martha’s on the cover of this thing, and she looks better now than she did twenty years ago—and she’s served hard time since then! It’s got to be the Badescu.

  Right in the beginning of the book, Martha demonstrates how to make moss balls, which are strips of moss wrapped around Styrofoam forms. The end result is all organic and beautiful, and I envision these on white tablecloths and stacked in bowls.

  To shape the balls, it’s necessary to soak large strips of moss until pliable. There’s a shot of a bowl of fetid moss water where Martha’s squeezing out the extra liquid. Ugh. And mind you, this picture has been approved by whichever stylist worked on this book. So if the by-product is this level of gross while fancied up, I don’t even want to know what it would be like in real life. Also, have you ever smelled wet moss? It’s a lot like mold, only earthier. Frankly, if I want to get up close and personal with the stench of wet dirt, I’ll hug the dogs. Think I’ll pass on this project.

  Next up is a handmade wreath crafted entirely with succulents, and it is stunning. However, with the amount of pricey succulents used to craft this magnificent wreath, I could buy something even more spectacular and have enough cash left over for a lunch (with wine!). (Then I could invite Sandra Lee!)

  I freaking love the Christmas tree Martha’s decorated with seashells and starfish bedecked in silver dragées, but that’s more of a project I’d do for myself and not for a gift. Giving your friends handmade Christmas tree ornaments is like buying your friends a bra—like, the thought is there, but it’s an oddly personal choice and almost certain not to fit. Moving on.

  Okay, this? This I love. Martha’s made an ornament tree, which reminds me of those big French profiterole desserts. Small round ornaments of various-size pearls and metals are all stacked together in the shape of a tree, and they’re displayed in a vintage urn. I’m talking seriously elegant and gorgeous. According to the directions, the longer you have the tree, the more of an aged patina will develop on the ornaments. Perfect.

  To make the tree, it looks like I’ll need approximately 250 glass balls, a Styrofoam cone, and a hot-glue gun. Simple. Then I’ll start gluing from the bottom. Once I hit the ornament with the hot glue, I’ll hold it in place for a minute, which means…which means this project will take approximately 250 minutes, or a little over four hours.

  Four hours?

  Is this a joke?

  Are you high, 1990s Martha?

  I don’t have four extra hours to do anything, and if I did, I’d certainly not use them to hold balls in place. Four hours! The only person who’d have four hours to glue balls is the one who’s going all Benjamin Button on her book covers. So, no. Moving on.

  When I page to the gift section of the book, I find that I can take acorns and turn them into tiny boxes, shaped…exactly like acorns. What? Acorn boxes would be the ideal size if I were gifting someone, say, a contact lens or a couple of rocks of crack, which clearly I would have been smoking when I decided to turn an acorn into a present box in the first place.

  I don’t mean to go all Whatever, Martha, here, but when I watch her show now and listen to her on the radio and read her magazine, every single thing she says is gold. Her projects are either useful or beautiful or mindful of the environment, and often all three. But this stuff from the 1990s? It’s bat-shit, bug-fuck, banana-sandwich crazy.

  I can’t blame Martha, though. The 1990s were a weird time for many of us. No one was themselves. Dirty hair was in style, for crying out loud. When this book was published, I was running around in cargo shorts over long underwear, wearing ragg wool socks, Birkenstocks, and flannel shirts tied around my waist. I was the L.L.Bean version of grunge. What I’m saying is, people made bad decisions back then.

  When I get to the point where Martha demonstrates how to dip my own particularly phallic-shaped candles, I’m done. I’m not going to be the gal who gives all her girls wax d-i-l-d-o-s for Christmas.

  Maybe I’ll just come up with handmade gifts on my own.

  What might I be able to make that doesn’t entail four hours, a hot-glue gun, and six months of merciless lunchtime teasing due to an unfortunate dick-candle incident?

  I dig the idea of needlepoint and am desperately in love with the cross-stitch piece my friend Wendy made for me a few years ago. I adore when the delivery of a sentiment is completely counterintuitive to the medium in which it’s expressed.

  (This also neatly explains why any movie where kids swear is my favorite. Love you, Role Models!)

  While I was on my last book tour, I found myself watching Ice Loves Coco (more charming than I imagined) (yes, I hate myself a little), and there’s an episode where Ice and Coco are looking at new houses. One place had an amazing guest room, but that was a deal breaker for Ice. Great guest rooms are so welcoming that they encourage people to stay awhile, and Ice found that problematic. He said he wanted his guest room to express the sentiment, “Don’t get too comfortable here; motherfuckers need to leave,” which I thought would be the best quote ever to cross-stitch for a guest room pillow. However, needlepoint requires reading glasses—over my dead, squinty body—and the ability to count. So my filthy cross-stitch pipe dream remains just that.

  I figure my best bet for inspiration is to wander around the craft store. Maybe if I hit Michaels when I’m not five seconds away from a moment of human urgency, I’ll hate it less.

  Off I go.

  The jewelry-making section is at the front of the store, and I spend a decent amount of time contemplating this avenue. Martha doesn’t do much with jewelry making on her Web site, but I do find instructions for making horsehair bracelets, which I really like. Problem is, I don’t have any horses in need of a haircut. All I have is a large black German shepherd with appropriately long bits of fur on his tail and flanks.

  Would anyone want a Loki-hair bracelet? Considering we had him treated for both Swamp Ass and Jungle Balls again this summer, my guess is no. (It’s a too-much-swimming-not-enough-drying thing. He’s fine.)

  As I wander the aisles, I muse on each offering. Turns out I am pro–nonpornographic candle making, but all the patterns I see would look best in Jack Tripper’s apartment or perhaps as a hostess gif
t for Mrs. Roper’s next party. Ditto on the macramé plant holders.

  Nope, keep walking.

  Glass etching intrigues me, but it seems pretty random. I’d probably go all meta and want to etch an image of a glass on a glass and no one would appreciate that but me.

  I stroll and consider.

  Love the idea of doing scrimshaw, but Michaels is fresh out of whalebone.

  Years ago my brother used to practice whittling with a bar of soap and a butter knife. That always seemed fun, but if I give Stacey a bar of Irish Spring shaped like a duck’s head, I’m never going to hear the end of it. As it is, she’s still snickering about my Thanksgiving-killing doomsday preps.

  Back to the task at hand: I’m not painting/sketching anything, because my entire artistic repertoire consists of primitively drawn pigs, bananas, and pineapples, and that brings us back to the whole awkward “Oh, no, she’s coming over; hang the atrocity” business.

  Besides, my friends with kids already have enough shitty artwork in their house.

  I contemplate making everyone a birdhouse but suspect Fletch doesn’t have time to Tom Sawyer them up for me when they go off the rails. Or, worse yet, when I have to use the power saw myself and I lose my middle finger. Then I’ll never be able to drive in Chicago traffic!

  In the back corner of the store, I finally hit pay dirt in the form of yarn. I’ve never successfully worked a knitting needle before, but as a kid, I had one of those little loom dealies and I used to make my Barbies all sorts of mod tube tops. I consider a long, straight loom that practically guarantees that any idiot could operate it. Hey, I’m an idiot! I bet I could work this! I suddenly envision many, many scarves in my friends’ futures.

  Looms are great, because they don’t require knitting needles, so there’s no need to be ultracoordinated. Simply wind the yarn around a series of pegs and then loop the yarn over with a little pick. Seems quick and easy, two of my favorite traits. Plus, unlike birdhouse making, I could knit in front of the television and keep all my fingers. Sold!

  On my way toward the front of the store, I also grab a kit to make a latch-hook bald eagle tapestry for my friend Tracey. As she never once mocked me for my sardine cache, she deserves something extra special.

  As soon as I get home, I bust open the yarn and begin to make my first scarf. It’s slow going and, until I get used to the pick digging into my finger, the process will be a tiny bit uncomfortable, but in no way prohibitive. The unexpected bonus while I make the scarf is that the knitting causes me to reflect on the recipient, which gives me an extra burst of happiness. I mean, ultimately isn’t that what everyone wants? For their inner circle to spontaneously think nice thoughts of them?

  The first scarf is for my friend Caprice as part of her housewarming present. She’s really willowy and tends to get chilly, so I make this one extra thick and wide, remembering how the last time she was here, she cranked the temperature up to eighty degrees and shivered into her heated seat…on a fifty-degree day. I imagine her wearing the scarf I’m making and being grateful for its warmth. Plus, she’s profoundly thoughtful, so I suspect she’ll appreciate my attempts, dropped stitches and all.

  I’m slowly learning that the old adage about the thought counting most isn’t just something cheap people say to justify a chintzy present. The thought has become my call to action. When Caprice bought her new house in LA, my initial instinct was to send a Jonathan Adler gift certificate. She likes his stuff, and with a couple of clicks, I’d be done and I could put a big old check mark on the “Satisfied Housewarming Present Requirement” box. But my year of Martha has inspired me to do more than that, to make the effort. Ordering a gift would have taken moments, and it’s one step removed from saying, “Here’s a handful of five-dollar bills. Knock yourself out.” So it’s suddenly important that my housewarming gift be special, thoughtful, and personal.

  Caprice moved to a famous old part of LA, so I felt my housewarming present should relate to her new neighborhood. I have another friend who collects really specific vintage postcards; thus I’m always on the lookout for her brand when I hit vintage shops. That’s when I remembered that I’d run across all kinds of cool old LA postcards, so I headed to the antiques mall.

  After searching through dozens of vendors’ shoe boxes across the complex, I found five amazing black-and-white postcards featuring different shots of the Farmers Market back when it was hosted on a racetrack. Then I took them to one of the you-frame-it shops and put them all together in a collage that was not only incredibly cool and old-school, but also neutral enough to blend in with any decor. The picture is ready to ship, as soon as the scarf’s complete.

  My secondary purpose in knitting her a scarf is also utilitarian. What I’m making her is so thick and soft, it will neatly protect her framed postcards in shipping. In providing the one-two punch of considerate and practical, I feel like I just won at life!

  When I do finally finish Caprice’s scarf—and it takes forever—I’m struck by yet another Tao tenet: Semihomemade is as appropriate and welcome as, say, semiliterate, semisweet, or seminude. Which is to say, not at all. Give me actual homemade, or forget it.

  Ooh, better yet:

  Despite sometimes being affiliated with the pathological penny-pinchers, nothing says, “I love you” like a gift from the heart and the hands.

  Although I have to wonder…where did I come up with the notion that handmade gifts were inexpensive? I’ve been working with a lot of baby alpaca and merino wool, and some of these pieces are running sixty bucks in material alone. Add in the cost of my time, and this scarf, this loopy, sloppy, love-filled scarf, would retail for more. Significantly more.

  So I’m probably not going to quit my day job (as it were) to professionally loom scarves.

  But I will have all kinds of fun making these thoughtful gifts for everyone I care about. And if in giving them I happen to receive some fine-quality Jo Malone products in return?

  I won’t complain.

  I’ve developed a callus on my finger. Look at it, all hard and lumpy! Ha!

  I’M A PROFESSIONAL KNITTER, BITCHES!!

  I’M AWARE NOW, DAMN IT

  Back in Crocktober, before I pledged my love everlasting to a skein of yarn, I was perusing Martha’s tweets for inspiration. Turns out I found it…but not in the way I expected. While searching for ideas on the game night I hosted for my birthday, I ran across her tweet on how it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. That made me think about mammograms. Mind you, mammograms are a shitty party theme, although I suspect our girl could pull it off. But seriously, they’re a must, especially if you’re over forty. So I quickly scheduled an appointment because I was overdue and then went back to sourcing the very best baked potato salad recipe.

  Of course, I then missed my appointment because I’m an idiot who can’t read a calendar when she’s busy planning a game night. I was supposed to show up on a Thursday at one p.m., but in my head, I thought it was Friday. Damn it. Because apparently everyone calls to schedule their yearly scan in October (excellent job on raising awareness, all you purveyors of pink), this time I can’t get in until the Friday after Thanksgiving, three weeks later.

  I had my baseline mammogram taken last year, so I’m not particularly concerned about this time around. After just completing my well-woman exam, I’m reminded of what a big fan I am of any medical procedure that allows me to wear pants. I feel like I’d particularly excel at therapy. All that lying down fully dressed on big leather couches and complaining about the perceived wrongs in my life? That is so in my wheelhouse. I could knit while I was there, too. Plus, with the possible end result of having mood-altering pharmaceuticals prescribed? Yes! But I’m on an even mental keel, because I actively avoid situations that make me nuts, so mammogram it is.

  The last time I came to the Women’s Center for my exam, there were Quaker Chewy Granola Bars in lobby, but today there’s only coffee. I’m not left waiting long enough to enjoy a cup or a (missing) bar, yet I’m d
isappointed all the same, because I brought my loom with me and I was hoping to get in a few rows before I’m called.

  This knitting thing?

  It’s become an obsession.

  I love the immediacy of knitting. In five minutes, I can create an entire inch of scarf. And if I make a mistake? Pfft, no big deal. Pull a few loops and it’s like it never even happened. I’ve not yet graduated to fancy stitching or projects outside of scarves, but I’ll get there. Plus, I’m naturally fidgety, so knitting gives me an outlet for nervous movement, and it really calms me down. And there’s something about the wrist action of knitting on a loom that counteracts the wrist pain I feel when I type a lot.

  When I sit down with a full TiVo cache and a skein of yarn, my whole being exhales. There’s something incredibly calming about the repetitive motion. I’d say knitting produces the same kind of Zen as meditation for me, but when I’m finished, I have mental clarity and a new pair of socks.

  The best part of this new, productive hobby is that both Laurie and Gina are knitters—who knew? Gina’s even the founder of a local chapter of a drink-and-knit group called the Stitch ’n’ Bitch. And Laurie? Laurie’s up on all the hot knitting spots on the North Shore and introduced me to the most amazing yarn shop called Three Bags Full. (Never in my life did I predict I’d use the words “amazing” and “yarn shop” in the same sentence. Never.)

  One of goals in living a year via Martha’s dictates has been a desire to bond more with my friends. I love that by simply discovering a somewhat esoteric, mutually agreed upon, and highly productive hobby, I’ve advanced that mission. We’re all about knitting get-togethers now and have an entirely new subject of conversation.