One of the many subjects I never got around to addressing dealt with lifestyle maven Martha Stewart - specifically, her 2004 prison term that followed her conviction for obstruction of justice over questionable stock sales. I was going to suggest how she might have incorporated the experience into her homemakers' advice columns. You know, how to:
Personalize your cell
Accessorize your jumpsuit
Make hors d'oeuvre out of bread and water
Then earlier this month I heard Martha on NPR discussing her latest book (the 75th), Party At Martha's: Stewart's Tips For Entertaining, which features a ceramic nativity scene she crafted - in prison!
"When I was incarcerated at Alderson in West Virginia for a five-month term,
they had a ceramics class," she said without a trace of embarrassment. "In the class was a storage warehouse room where I found all the molds for an entire large nativity scene.
"I was able to purchase enough clay with my monthly stipend ... I didn't get a lot of other things that I would have liked in that five-month period because I bought clay instead. And I molded the entire nativity scene."
How about that. Instead of sitting on her government-issue bunk brooding over this interruption in her billion dollar career - like I would have - she made a creche!
Stewart even took on inmate rights, declaring her fellow prisoners risked "severe depression" because of false hopes raised by a Supreme Court ruling striking down federal sentencing guidelines.
I have to admit, the lady knows how to deal with personal failing: take it head on and turn a weakness into a strength. Besides, we're all made of clay.
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