Author: christinestaffa

My life's journey has taken me from the streets of New York, up the Hudson Valley, to a little goat farm under Vermont's highest mountain.

Book Corner 2020.42

And in the End…

by Ken McNab

A chronicle of Beatle trivia for the year 1969. There was a lot more about the business angle than i was prepared to digest, and McNab does very little to clarify exactly what is going on (who the hell is “Nems”? what exactly is ‘Northern Songs”?). I had little choice but to glaze over during some of the business dealing discussions; I TRIED to figure out the answers to my questions by using the index, thinking it was just my lazy inattentiveness that was the problem; but no, it’s him. In fact he never really introduces Nems or Northern Songs properly; I guess we’re just supposed to know who they are. I get that John, Paul, George, and Ringo need no introduction, and it was fine to throw us right in the middle of January 1969 with little backstory insofar as the personal angle. But I really felt like I had missed some prequel volumes.

It was also repetitive. E.g. I get what a great song “Something” was.

I learned plenty of fun facts though.

– The ending medley on ABBEY ROAD, probably my favorite Beatle “song”, was recorded the week I was being born.

– “Because” is in 9-part harmony. Because they did not have 9 tracks available to tape on, John, Paul, & George had to sing three of the parts together on one track. They had not had to harmonize like that together in years, but they could still do it, even though they hated each other.

– George recorded the guitar solo to “Something” on the same track with the orchestra.

– John wanted “Cold Turkey” to be a Beatle song and actually thought it had great single potential.

– “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” which I always liked and Xopher always hated (“It just goes on forever”) just goes on forever because it’s actually two different takes back to back. John couldn’t decide which one he wanted so he used both of them.

I love learning tidbits about what went on behind the actual recording of the soundtrack to my brain. (  )

Book Corner 2020.41

History of Living Forever

by Jake Wolff

A teen-age boy loses his lover, his chemistry teacher, and inherits his journals, which give us all the backstory of his pursuit of the secret elixir of eternal life. It’s always nice to read a book about scientists rather than more writers and writers thinly disguised as artists. This book had a lot of action and mystery, which isn’t what I was expecting from the beginning. The plot seemed to hold together well, though I did get confused about a lot of things, so don’t hold me to that. In the end, though, I didn’t really care very much. (  )

Hard Times, Come Again No More

I’m feeling some eerie parallels with the Hard Times I experienced from 2012 – 2015.

  • Then: While my father was dying, I felt stuck in suspended animation, unable to truly enjoy much of anything, seriously afraid I’d run out of money. Practically speaking I felt unable to leave New England or the tri-state area, afraid what would happen if I did, sure that if I traveled far, THAT would be the trigger.
  • Now: Once again, thanx COVID, I can’t travel. I’m afraid to leave New England or go anywhere on an overnight.
  • Then: I started getting mouth pain. It wasn’t the most excruciating pain in the world, but it was constant, unless you count seconds or minutes where it would be gone and it would be like suddenly noticing silence; and you’d be like, “Hey, I feel pretty good, could it finally be…” nope.
  • And it was impervious to anything – with one strange exception, which was gum chewing. But gum would get tasteless, my jaw would get tired, and you can’t chew while you’re trying to fall asleep. Nothing else helped. No medicine, no position, not hot water or cold, not pressure or relaxation, it would just always there, there, there,
  • Now: I’ve got these headaches. They’re in my sinus areas; but I don’t have any stuffy or runny nose, just headaches. They aren’t excruciating, they’re just constant. (I haven’t tried gum.) Except for some seconds or minutes where I notice they are gone, and I’m like, “Hey, this feels pretty good…” then whoomp. They’re impervious to anything. Sometimes my old pal the mouth pain comes along with them.
  • None of it usually keeps me from sleeping. But gaining consciousness is a strange feeling. I slowly wake up, and there’s no pain at first, but there comes a consciousness threshold where the pain all kicks in again. Sigh, a nice welcome back to reality.
  • Then: My marriage was in its worst shape ever for a while there. It was, until now, hard to remember exactly how haywire it was; but I was miserable, and it was like X was just a mirror of me. We were unhappy and angry with each other all the time. I started to wonder why the hell we were together.
  • Now: X and I blew up at each other last night. Now I remember what that period was like. I’m so unhappy, there’s a weight on me, I cannot be happy with him, and he is not the type that can rise to the occasion and carry us forward when I’m down – far from it.

I’m just seeing these parallels and I’m scared.

Can knowledge & hindsight & wisdom & self-awareness save me from going There again?

Been down one time,

Been down two times,

Never going back again

Merino Silk

Merino/Silk roving I bought a few weeks ago during an outing we took to Waitsfield. Mad River Fiber Arts & Mill, think I mentioned it before. I finally dyed it today.

I’ve been having headaches and depression and sometime insomnia, though thankfully those nights are few & far between. But the headaches just come and go. And for the past few days, the depression has sometimes weighed on my head seemingly physically. I might be ill.

And today’s our first full day of Staycation. I’ve never been so depressed going into a time off. It’s sunny out but deceptively so; it’s cold, too cold for outdoor dining. My upcoming wintertime semi-quarantine isolation is scaring me.

I pull it together because you have to do something. You can’t stare at the wall and drool. Though sometimes I’ve wanted to, sometimes it’s that bad.

But I took trash around. I helped X trim some goat hooves. We went out together to buy useless, pretty gourds and pumpkins. We bought bagels and sat on some warm grass to eat them. He bought things he needed to repair the ever-breaking-down infrastructure around here. I put a pie pumpkin in the oven. I dyed this merino/silk (it really took hardly any time at all). I chose 1/2 teaspoon of amethyst plus 1/16 teaspoon of green, thinking that would both dull it a tiny bit and pull it a tiny bit towards the blue end of the spectrum. Probably should have gone with 1/8. I don’t really like candy-kindergarten colors, I like some subtlety. But purple almost always gets a pass. My plan is to spin it loose and as bulky as I can, which isn’t very; then make a winter hat.