Liner Notes: May - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours/Go Your Own Way/Gold Dust Woman

I feel like I need to say something important before we get into today's post:

I like Lindsey Buckingham. 

He's an incredibly talented musician and I had a huge crush on him when I was like 11 years old. MTV used to play the 80s era Fleetwood Mac videos, which are all wild and designed to showcase how incredibly attractive and cool the band is, or in Mick and John's cases, how weird and silly they are. Neither Mick or John are bad looking, but Lindsey is objectively more handsome than both. 

One of my favorite Lindsey Buckingham songs is "Big Love," which was on the 1987 album Tango in the Night. There's a fantastic version of the song featured on a short-lived Showtime series, Roadies. The show, created by Cameron Crowe, was about a band on tour, but focused on the road crew and all the dramas and fun happening behind the scenes. Real bands and musicians, like Buckingham, appeared on the show as support acts for the band. The video of his appearance on the show isn't great, so here's the audio only:

Such a great song and I love this version of it so much. If you have a chance to watch Roadies, watch it. Performances like this one and a great one from the band Lucius, as well as fun characters and a really great episode called "The All Night Bus Ride," made this show so worth watching. I wish it had gotten one more season.

Anyway, I feel I have to say nice things about Lindsey Buckingham because I usually say mean things about him whenever I talk about Rumours. I've read a lot about the band during this period, including interviews with all the members, and no matter what, he always comes across as a complete asshole. Whether he's talking about his relationship with Stevie or her musical ability or he's re-recording John's bass tracks, he comes across as a controlling perfectionist who deserves all the meanness sent his way. I want to say, "my dude, do you see why you were the only one who consistently got kicked out of the band?" If you saw the play Stereophonic, the character Peter is the stand-in for Lindsey...and it's a very close interpretation of Lindsey during this period. 

But there is no Fleetwood Mac without him, and there's certainly no Rumours without Lindsey Buckingham. What I love about this album is the movement around the three primary songwriters: Christine, Stevie, and Lindsey. The album makes sense because each one is bringing a different element and spirit to the music. There's harmony in discord. Rumours should not have worked but it did. 

This week, I was listening to "Go Your Own Way" and Gold Dust Woman," both the original versions of the songs and covers. "Go Your Own Way" is one of the most well-known songs off the album and is about Buckingham's perspective on his and Stevie's breakup. The lyrics are all sorts of contradictions about their relationship and moving on. It's fantastic. Here's the official video. Please enjoy Lindsey's shirt and Stevie's top hat.

On the surface, "Gold Dust Woman" is about drugs, and there were lots of drugs around during the recording of Rumours, but Stevie Nicks has talked about how this song was written before the drugs and was really about groupies and fame. She would notice how groupies, who are almost always women, would treat her and Christine, and how their behavior would immediately change when the men came into the room. The song also features a coda with screaming and animal-like noises (all the band) and glass breaking (Mick's doing). I think about this song a lot when I think of men and power. "Rulers make bad lovers/You better your kingdom up for sale" is such a great line.

This is a very long way of saying I spent a lot of time in my thoughts this week, and these two songs are also a lot in their thoughts so it was a great pairing of songs and embroidery. I started layering stitches and added a few of my own variations on the chain stitch. I also wanted to make sure everyone knows I like Lindsey Buckingham because next week, I'm going to talk about a cult I'd form, if I was the kind of person who formed a cult, that centers on a performance where you can see Lindsey's soul leave his body. It eventually returns, but that's not really the point or important. 

Here's this week's study of chain stitches:

May 17 - I haven't done the Hungarian braided chain stitch since 2021 and it shows. 

May 18

May 19 - while this looks like a traditional chains stitch, it's actually a detached chain (lazy daisy) stitch. The chains aren't connected. I finished each chain and started the next one to the right or left of the previous stitch so it gives the illusion of a connected chain. Very much like the band during this period. 

May 20 - same technique as May 19.

May 21

May 22

May 23

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours through May 23

WIPs, Rainbows, and Other Small Joys

So much progress on the mushroom needlepoint this week! I probably should have been doing 100 other things, but whatever. Bea likes to lounge under my work table in the evenings, so I spent time in the studio working on this piece so she would know that I enjoy and support her hobbies too. 

May 18

May 20

May 21

I'm going to hit my goal of finishing by the end of the month. I'm treating myself to a little thrift store day today, and one of the items I'm looking for is a frame for this piece. It's going in my kitchen and I want to find something fun and maybe a little weird. 

Not sure why, but my brain was very convinced I needed to get out the bug tablecloth I bought last Halloween. I love having a tablecloth on the table (I don't even know why this is my reality) but was getting a little tired of my green one. So I went into the Halloween bins and brought out the bugs. I'm pretty certain a candle melted in the bin, but that's a September Erin problem. Of course, it was in the bottom bin, so I had to move everything. I ended up finding three mugs, including two rainbow mugs, that I don't remember putting in storage. I brought them out too. 

I don't think Bea likes this tablecloth as much since it's not as soft as the green one. She still lays on it, so there's that.

One chore I did manage to complete this week was cleaning out my hall closet and doing another pass at my clothes. I took everything to Green Drop yesterday so it's also all out of my house. Good job adulting! I'm not ready to give up this dress yet, but need to make it into something else. The consensus from my informal Facebook poll was to make it into a skirt. It's going to be one of my summer projects. 

Programming Note

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen me mention getting an MRI earlier this week. If you live in my area and ever need an MRI, I highly recommend the Inova Alexandria imaging center. Great team; they made me feel very comfortable and made my first MRI experience way less intimidating.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have uterine fibroids. I was diagnosed last summer, but have probably had them for many years given their size (they're baseball sized). I opted not to have surgery last year because I wasn't really prepared for it, but the pain and discomfort has gotten worse since then to the point where I can't do certain things without immediately regretting it. I've been on leave from the museum since October and have slowed down on a lot of other things I normally love doing. If you invite me somewhere, my first question is always going to be "is there seating?" 

Anyway, I'm having a hysterectomy the first week of June. There are other procedures, but this is the best option for me given my age, the fact that I'm not interested in having children, and that this will help ensure they don't come back. My doctor thinks I'll be able to have a laparoscopic hysterectomy, so the procedure will be less invasive and the recovery period is shorter. The MRI will help determine if that's the right path forward. His concern is where the fibroids are; he described my situation as "your fibroids have a uterus," so that's fun. I'll be on medical leave until July, although I don't know how long into July. 

This is all to say that Liner Notes and the blog will still go on, but June may start a little slower and I may have to stack a few days of stitching here and there. June is focused on the music of David Bowie, and I think I've figured out what I want to do for it. I'm hoping to get the design done this week so it's easier to work on. I know several people who have had this same type of surgery and had smooth recoveries, so I'm hoping I join their club, but I'm also being realistic and know that I may not have the energy to do things for a bit. And that's completely okay.

If you're a person with a uterus and something feels off, please talk to your doctor about the possibility of uterine fibroids. I didn't know much about them until I had an abnormally long and bloody period last summer, which then caused mild anemia. I was able to get in and get things addressed, but it was horrible. The pain and fatigue is real, so don't think to yourself, "Well, that's the price of having a uterus. Everything is a little painful." That's a lie we've all been told since we started menstruating. Having a uterus doesn't mean we deserve more pain and less medical options. Just ask all the people with endometriosis who are waiting on medical studies because the money went to study male patterned baldness. (No really...there are more medical studies on male patterned baldness than there are on endometriosis.) 

Enjoy some photos of Bea being Bea and make sure you're taking care of yourself.