Keep Your Head Up

I have discovered that I really enjoy listening to audiobooks in the car. I have chosen biographies and non-fiction because and it’s better than a podcast. Three of my more recent listens that I have very much enjoyed are Sandi Toksvig’s Between the Stops and Susan Calman’s Cheer Up, Love and Sunny Side Up. Two …

The great author John Irving appeared at our city’s writers’ festival tonight. He was here because of his new book The Last Chairlift, but he talked about writing and process and they whys and hows he does things. I got emotional when he talked about where he started learning about fiction writing and who he …

I need better mornings. I’ve always been bad at them. I stay up late and have trouble waking up, the bed is warm and outside the bed is cold. I rarely eat breakfast – even when my mother would pour out the bowl of cereal and leave it in the kitchen with a spoon I wouldn’t. …

I joined Twitter in 2008, followed the two people I knew there and tried to figure out what was going on. I don’t remember how long it took me to get going, but get going I did. By the time the 2008 election rolled around, I was using Twitter for work and it proved very …

My copy of my friend Ann Douglas’ newest book Navigating the Messy Middle finally came in last week and I am now reading it. I turn 42 in a few months and I do consider myself middle aged, though I also feel very young – but so do some of the women she described. Immediately …

When you have a B.A. in Political Science with a specialization in Canadian politics and you have a passion for said politics and a whole bunch of unprecedented stuff happens at the same time, it’s actually kind of overwhelming. First there was the whole second Trudeau, second time the Emergency Measures Act was ever used …

I have a deep desire to do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a hint of a story that I think could really be something I could write. Not necessarily something that will be great, but something that I can get a good first draft going with. That’s all I really want. I want to have …

I’ve been feeling something of a sea change. I don’t know if it’s because I’m hurtling towards 42 and Hitchhiker’s Guide affected me more than I thought, or it’s because of the current state of the world. It’s exhausting being angry so much of the time, and I’m missing out on the things that are …

For months, if not years, I have been creeping towards burn out. It’s been a long series of really hard things. We’ve moved, lost family members, I’ve changed jobs, and this whole COVID thing. I’ve taken things on that I probably shouldn’t have, and I’ve waited for situations to get better or change longer than …

This morning I woke up to the news that Roe v Wade has been overturned by the US Supreme Court. Not only that, but Justice Thomas seems to think this is a good start to overturn other rights like marriage equality and access to contraception. There are states who have trigger laws, just waiting for …