Happy New Year, all. Hope 2021 finds you well. Let's hope it's the polar opposite of last year.
Like many of us, I feel as though my life has been on hold since last year. In my case, if I'm honest, it goes back well before the pandemic hit, for several reasons.
I'm trying to work out what to do about this rut, and how to get out of it. I realized this week that one thing has helped me in the past: writing about how I'm feeling, in one form or another. So that's what I'm going to try to do much more often this year with this blog.
I'm not sure if I've written about this previously, but there is one instance in my past where putting pen to paper was the key to moving forward in my life. Even if I have, I feel the need to retell it for myself. Interested? Follow along below the fold for more.
Hello all - hope this finds you and yours safe and well. In these difficult, challenging days, staying connected and maintaining perspective are more important than ever.
I'm working from home these days, as are many of us. And while it's challenging - I'm prone to depression, and I've been going through a difficult stretch for quite a while, for a number of reasons - I'm doing my best to counteract the feelings of loneliness and uncertainty by keeping in mind those who are making huge sacrifices for all of us.
People like my sister:
The photo is from a front page story in Saturday's Boston Globe. She's a nurse practitioner, and she and her colleagues at the clinic where she works are providing drive-through testing for the coronavirus. Here's another photo of her in action - she's at the car window.
People like my sister and her colleagues, the staff at the supermarket where I went shopping Thursday evening, the pharmacist at the drugstore where I picked up my estrogen patches on Friday evening, and many, many others are genuine heroes. It's encouraging to see people (not all of them, unfortunately, but quite a few) recognize them as such. I made it a point to thank the staff at the pharmacy and the supermarket to let them know their efforts are not going unnoticed. Even though times are challenging, thinking of them helps me to maintain perspective.
In the weeks and months to come there will be a great deal of speculation about how the world will change because of the pandemic. As horrific as it has been, and will continue to be, we can hope that it will inspire a more compassionate, equitable society once we get to the other side (and we will get to the other side).
On a personal note, I've been feeling stuck in a rut, both professional and personally, for far too long. I had already begun taking tentative steps to break out of it when the pandemic hit with full force. While I don't know how long it will take for things to return to some semblance of normalcy, I know that where I have been is no longer enough for me. I feel I have more to offer the world than what I've been doing.
I don't quite know how to get where I want to be, but I'm reminded of when I started my transition. I didn't know how to do that either - and yet here I am, living as myself at long last. If I can do that, I can do anything I put my mind to.
The first part of that will be appearing at this site in the weeks to come. I have something I've needed to write for a long, long time, and I've been putting it off and putting it off because I know how painful it will be. But I've realized that not writing it is holding me back from fully living. So, I've started work on it. It will be difficult, and will take time, but I have faith that finishing it will provide clarity and a sense of purpose. I can't prove it; I just know that it will lead me to be doing what I was put here to do. So, please bear with me. I hope others will find the result worthwhile as well.
In the meantime, please be safe, take care of your loved ones, and remember that we are all lost together.
That's the title track from Blue Rodeo's 1992 album. They close every concert with this, and you can see why in this great live version from Halifax, Nova Scotia from a few years ago:
In case you're wondering, the handsome young gent singing the second verse solo is Devin Cuddy, the son of Jim Cuddy, one of the two songwriters in the band (along with Greg Keelor, who wrote and sings this song). That is one proud papa looking on as he sings. 😊
And on that happy note we will wrap this up. See you soon, everyone...
Hey folks. Hope everyone is having a good day. I've been fighting a lingering cold, but I managed to once again join my friend Mike on his radio show on WMFO-FM here in Greater Boston. (See this post from a few weeks ago for more on WMFO-FM.)
My nephew C was supposed to join us and make his radio debut, but he's also suffering from a cold - one much worse than mine. He also just started nursing school, and, as his mother reminds him, he's still only a few months into his recovery from the serious health issues he was dealing with for over a year and a half. He is, wisely, being extra cautious and making sure he gets sufficient rest, even when it means passing up on something he was very much looking forward to. Fortunately, there's always next time, C. :c)
In spite of my rougher-than-usual voice, I had a terrific time per usual. Mike always does a terrific job, and makes it easy for me to sound relatively coherent (not a given, believe me!). I've already booked my next visit; mark your calendars for Saturday, November 2nd, folks. :c) In the meantime, here are the songs from my set today. Enjoy!
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First up is a great live version of "Landed," from Ben Folds's 2005 album Songs For Silverman. This version is from a reunion tour he did a few years later with his pre-solo career band Ben Folds Five (which, naturally, is a trio lol). Check out his phenomenal piano chops on this one:
Track number two is interesting. It's a song called "Swimmer," by Amanda Shires. She began her career as an award-winning fiddle player (she joined the legendary Asleep At The Wheel while still a teenager) before launching a solo career as a singer-songwriter.
She's actually recorded two versions of this gorgeous song, which she wrote about falling in love with her future husband, Jason Isbell (a favorite of this blog). The first is a lovely, country-flavored acoustic version from her 2011 Carrying Lightning album. (That's her doing the whistling, incidentally.)
Then, in 2018, she recorded a terrific rock-oriented album called To The Sunset, which included a radically reworked version of "Swimmer" featuring electric guitars, more pronounced drums and percussion, and what sounds like a heavily treated fiddle playing the whistling part from the earlier version. Give it a listen:
After listening to both versions back to back today, the difference in her vocals between the two versions is quite striking as well. The original version - which I believe she recorded after she and Isbell were a couple but before they married - is more wistful. Her singing in the 2018 version, by which time they had been married for several years and had a daughter, by contrast, is more assured (but equally affecting). Anyway, I digress. :c)
Third on my playlist is the definition of a "deep track," in this case from someone regular readers can probably guess is one of my favorite artists, Bruce Cockburn. "January In The Halifax Airport Lounge" is on his 1975 album Joy Will Find A Way, which for many years was available only in his native Canada. (It was finally released in the US in the early Nineties, when he signed with Columbia Records and they reissued his entire catalogue here.)
The song was indeed inspired by an afternoon he spent waiting for a flight in Halifax, Nova Scotia; however, a closer listen reveals that it's true subject is the loneliness a touring musician faces, constantly on the road away from loved ones (in his case his wife and young daughter). I particularly love the keyboards on this one, which makes me feel (in a good way) as if I'm right there in that mid-70s airport lounge.
Continuing the Canadian theme, another favorite of mine - Blue Rodeo. When I sat in with Mike last month, we played "Hasn't Hit Me Yet," a song written and sung by Greg Keelor. This week we featured "New Morning Sun," from their 2013 album In Our Nature, written by Keelor's songwriting partner and band co-leader Jim Cuddy. He explains what inspired the song in the intro to the excellent live version recorded in Keelor's farmhouse, where they recorded the album.
The second-to-last song was Wilco's "At Least That's What You Said," from their 2004 album A Ghost Is Born. A wrenching, deeply personal song, Jeff Tweedy wrote this while struggling with an addiction to the painkillers he was taking in an attempt to control his chronic, debilitating panic attacks.
The song, particularly his savage, Neil Young-esque guitar playing in the song's second half, attempts to evoke what those panic attacks feel like. As someone with altogether too much firsthand experience with them, I can attest that he captures their primal terror with unnerving, bone-chilling accuracy. As Mike said after watching this video later, "He isn't just playing this; he's living it." Just so.
Bringing the set to a close (and necessarily lowering the intensity level) is that rarest of beasts: an obscure Beatles song. (Well, relatively speaking, anyway).
"Long Long Long," which closes what was Side 3 on the vinyl version of the White Album, is a beautiful, eerie song written by George Harrison. (Really, it's a song that only George Harrison could have written.) While the lyrics could be interpreted to be about a lover, the "you" he references is, in fact, God. The languid, hushed atmosphere of the song is punctuated only by Ringo's patented, perfectly placed drum fills in the breaks.
(As we listened to the track in the studio today, Mike commented on how heartening it is to see people finally recognizing what a great drummer Ringo was. I have a book that details every single recording session the Beatles ever held. The book's author, who listened to literally every second the band spent in a recording studio, said that in eight years of recording, playing literally hundreds and hundreds of takes of songs he was learning for the first time, Ringo made a total of two - yes, two - mistakes. That is the definition of "rock-solid.")
Incidentally, one of my favorite pieces of Beatles trivia involves this song. The strange rattling sound that starts at 2:32 is caused by an empty wine bottle that happened to be on top of a Leslie speaker in the studio. As Paul held a sustained note on the Hammond organ he was playing, the bottle began to vibrate. The entire band spontaneously incorporated it into the song: McCartney held the note on the organ, Ringo played an extended drum roll, and Harrison sang a wordless, ghostly howl before bringing the song to a close with a dissonant, thrashing chord on his Gibson guitar - one of the most moving, affecting song endings from a band that was endlessly inventive in finding new ways to do just that.
OK, that will do it for this post. Hope you all enjoyed the tunes. See you next time... :c)
Hello folks! Just got home from sitting in with my friend Mike on his radio show, as mentioned in yesterday's post. For anyone who missed it and would like to hear it, I have an MP3 copy of the show; drop me a line and I can share it. (It's two hours, with all of the songs included.)
If anyone is interested, here are the songs I played during my set:
Dire Straits: "Wild West End," from their 1978 self-titled debut album. This is a lovely live version from the same year:
Blue Rodeo: "Hasn't Hit Me Yet," from 1993's Five Days in July; this is a live version from their appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien:
The Tragically Hip: "Bobcaygeon," which will likely prove to be their most enduring song, from 1998's Phantom Power:
Sarah Harmer: "Greeting Card Aisle," from her 2004 album All Of Our Names:
Bruce Cockburn: "Night Train," from his 1997 album The Charity of Night (play this one loud, especially the guitar solo at the end!):
And finally Jonatha Brooke: "Ten Cent Wings," from her 1997 album of the same name:
Hope you like the songs and/or the show. I'll be sitting in again with Mike the first weekend in October, so mark your calendars now! :c)
Merry Christmas Eve, all. Hope your holiday preparations are proceeding apace.
Still recovering from my broken ribs here, which are putting a serious crimp in my ability to... well, do much of anything, really, but particularly to breathe, walk, and sleep. Oh well. All you can do is give them time to heal, so that's what I'm doing. Sitting still is hard, but you do what you have to do.
Unfortunately, my nephew is dealing with his health issues again. He's had a rough go of it this year, so please keep him in your thoughts. He's seeing a specialist this afternoon (the doctor kindly agreed to see him on short notice), so hopefully she can start to sort out what has been happening. Fingers crossed that 2019 will be a better year for him.
I thought I'd share some Christmas songs for the rest of this post for your listening pleasure. Here's hoping your Christmas Eve is as peaceful as the one Calvin & Hobbes are enjoying, above, and that Santa brings you exactly what you want. Merry Christmas, one and all.
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First up are Blue Rodeo, a longtime personal favorite, performing a rocking version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" from a CBC Christmas Eve special a few years ago:
Here's a lovely take on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' fromBlue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and Kathleen Edwards:
Next, a haunting, minor key version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" from T-Bone Burnett. Although these days he's best known as a producer, he's a terrific songwriter/performer in his own right (check out his brilliant 1983 Proof Through the Night album sometime), as you can hear here:
Finally, a gorgeous, melancholy instrumental titled, appropriately enough, "Christmas Eve," courtesy of Scotland's great Teenage Fanclub. This is a cover version, incidentally; the original is from Welsh band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci (say that five times fast), whose version is equally pretty:
Once again, Merry Christmas to you and yours, everyone...
I do have several longer posts in the works; I hope to get one of them finished and posted by the end of this week. In the meantime, just a quick update on a few things I've written about recently.
My nephew C is slowly improving, fortunately. He's lost quite a bit of weight, and, consequently, strength. He has a ways to go to get back to normal, but he's on the right track. thankfully.
I'm doing well too. I have some soreness, and I wish I was able to do more in terms of exercise, but I'm being careful not to overdo it. Not surprisingly, I was having a great deal of trouble sleeping, even by my lifelong insomniac standards.
Without going into detail, it was because nerve endings are slowly regenerating as part of the healing process. This is a good thing, needless to say, but it also resulted in an unfortunate side effect: it was very difficult for me to get comfortable while trying to sleep. I tried all of the suggestions offered by the staff in Montreal, and by my sister C (a nurse practitioner), but nothing worked for more than a single night, if that.
For several weeks I was fortunate if I got three or four hours, which is insufficient even for someone used to getting by on six hours. Fortunately things finally seem to have improved the past few days, a trend I hope will continue. There's still some discomfort, but at least I'm able to fall asleep, and to go back to sleep when it wakes me up.
On a totally different topic, I was greatly heartened by the number of openly transgender candidates who won office in the elections here in the United States last week. Danicia Roem, in particular, demonstrated a level of grace and class inversely proportional to the disgusting, transphobic tactics employed by her opponent. Congratulations to all of you for your courage and commitment to public service.
I think that will cover things for now. As I mentioned, watch this space for a longer post - hopefully by the end of this week. I certainly have no shortage of things to write about; I have a lot to look forward to, happily. :c) However, trying to sort them all out in a coherent manner is a challenge. But as my friend B says, all will be revealed in the fullness of time. :c) In the meantime, be well, everyone, and I hope you have a wonderful week.
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I'll be writing in more detail about my experience with the surgery and recovery process in future posts. For now, I can say that music plays an important role for me. And the one band I've been listening to more than any other the past two months is Blue Rodeo. I've loved them for a long, long time, and find their music very comforting. It has helped more times than I can count to relax, take a deep breath, and keep the big picture in mind during that time.
I'll post more of their songs in my upcoming posts, but here's a terrific live version of one of my favorites: "New Morning Sun," from their excellent 2013 album In Our Nature. I've listened to it, and them, over and over, and will continue to listen to over and over as the healing process continues. Check this out to see why:
The introduction shows why they've been together for so long: they genuinely like other. That is no small accomplishment after 30-plus years together. :c)
Well, I don't know about Devil (perhaps "mischievous pixie," to paraphrase how Alice usually refers to me? lol).. but I certainly enjoyed wearing my steampunk outfit to the Halloween party at the office today!
Well, part of my steampunk outfit, anyway; I purchased an awesome hat online to go with this outfit, but alas, it didn't arrive in time for the party today.
But no matter; I loved every second I spent wearing it, from the dress to the petticoats (sigh... petticoats) to my thigh-high boots. (The skirt and petticoat cover them up, but take my word for it: they are sooooo much fun to wear! Even if I was barely able to hobble to my car in the parking lot at the end of the day. lol)
Since this is an actual outfit and not simply a costume, I'll be able to wear it again in the future - and I plan to do so as much as possible, be-hatted and carrying my aerodynamically-efficient parasol. In the meantime, here's a more close-up shot of yours truly in her steampunked glory. Hope you like it!
As you can likely tell, I had an absolute blast dressing up today. Not to be outdone, my colleagues, The Divine Miss M and The Equally Adorable Miss S, both came dressed to the nines today.
As it turned out, TDMM and I were matching gingers. She even managed the seemingly impossible feat of being even paler than your humble blogstress. No mean feat, that. (In case you're wondering, she came as a zombie - a cute-as-a-button zombie, granted... but still a zombie). :D
TEDMS, meanwhile, while not a ginger-for-a-day like TDMM, was just as fetching in all of her elf-like glory. :c) And she bakes a mean spicy chocolate cookie too, I might add. Yummm....
Happy Halloween, all!
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It's a given that this post feature Bruce Springsteen's epic "Devil With the Blue Dress" medley, covering Detroit's great Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels:
And since I saw them just a few weeks ago, here's a gorgeous song from Toronto's favorite sons, Blue Rodeo:
Soooo good! In fact, that deserves a follow-up, don't you think?
Incidentally, the handsome young gentleman singing the second verse is Devin Cuddy - and that's his father, Jim, Blue Rodeo's co-founder (along with Greg Keelor, who wrote and sings this song) beaming proudly in the background. :c)
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