Goodreads Review

The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History
by Ken Gormley

This is an ensemble piece, with scholars of all stripes doing individual explorations on each president and then a final chapter discussing unifying themes and trends. I'm fully guilty of that syndrome where you know Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Ummm de dummm, Lincoln, Hmm hmm hmm, Roosevelt, Ummm, Roosevelt again, Cleveland's in there twice somewhere... This book helped a lot to establish identities behind the head of each administration, up to the Obama administration. It's also, at thirty dollars plus, the most I've spent on an ebook so far. And a worthwhile investment. I'd thought it would be more about the Supreme Court (and I'm still on the look out for that book) so I was a little disappointed at first, but this is just as rich and textured, and as much of a learning experience as I'd hoped.

Meltdown

There's a quote, probably Stoppard, something about how Things have gotten about as bad as they can get when things have gone about as far as they can go. I did that. Last night's auditions were hot and stressful, and wandering a strange city in the dark was stressful, and apparently I took all the stress I've been trying to stay on top of for the past couple of months and turned it into nausea, a migraine, a fugue state with no real rest, vertigo, and a general sense of dissociation. It was supposed to be a day where I did dishes, went shopping, built a bookcase, and took the cat to the vet. Mostly I spent the day in bed crying over Handmaid's Tale and Happy! Amanda helped me deal with refilling my daily drug buckets, and I ate food. Hopefully tonight I sleep and tomorrow I can reset.