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Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month

Just in time for Autism Awareness (or Acceptance) Month (April), I got to celebrate my autistic awareness (or acceptance) with my very own official diagnosis. This has been a long time coming. I started looking into the possibility that I might be autistic at the beginning of 2023. It’s the main reason that my blog posts since then have been much sparser than they were in 2022. It was hard to find the motivation to write about my mental health when I couldn’t be as… Read More »Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month

40

I always thought people made too much of a big deal of 40. Now it’s here, and I’m not sure how I feel anymore. Part of me is looking back at all I haven’t accomplished in the last 40 years and blaming myself pretty heavily. I can see some pretty big mistakes on my part, and I can see some problems that were completely out of my control—not least of which is what the world has learned about brains so far—but if I’m being completely… Read More »40

The Ups and Downs of Knowing Your Limits

It’s been months since my last post. I haven’t really felt like I have anything to say, or if I do, it’s in the form of a song or a story. And I promise, there’s movement on the album and the novel. But recently I realized I did have something I wanted to say, and it wasn’t going to fit neatly into either format. So here I am, back in the blog. My younger self didn’t know what my limits were. She would go running… Read More »The Ups and Downs of Knowing Your Limits

Out of My Depth

Imagine this. For the sake of argument, you are not a very strong swimmer. But you do like to be in the water, so you get yourself an ENORMOUS flutter board and you take it out to the lake or the pool and you flutter your way out of the shallows. Then you stand on your enormous flutter board. And it’s a bit of a struggle, as anyone who has tried to stand on a flutter board will tell you, but eventually you get yourself… Read More »Out of My Depth

Fire

You ever feel on such creative fire because you’re more than 30,000 words into a manuscript and almost through the demo process for your second EP and then you started a writing workshop facilitated by your favourite teacher from high school and you forget about your blog and don’t write anything for six weeks? Maybe? No? Well, that’s where I’m at. Let’s break it down by project. First off, the novel. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (https://nanowrimo.org) twice before and, although fun, the output from that has… Read More »Fire

Bear Hunt

You may (or may not) be familiar with some version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, by Michael Rosen. The story begins, We’re going on a bear hunt.We’re going to catch a big one.What a beautiful day!We’re not scared. The terrain is varied and difficult, and at each point the children have to decide how to tackle it. I learned a variation as a chant at Brownie camp and didn’t even realize it was a book until, years later, I did a search for the… Read More »Bear Hunt

Trouble with Things

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have an extremely hard time doing two or more “big things” in one day, especially if I’m wholly responsible for getting them done, and even more especially if they involve leaving the apartment. This means, typically, appointments, shopping trips, any [currently theoretical] shifts at work, any significant cleaning tasks, they all get their own days. This may sound like a mild annoyance (maybe, I’m not really sure how it sounds from the outside), but I have a lot of… Read More »Trouble with Things

Spark

I’ve been reflecting on my creative output over the last year. Yes, we put out an EP and we planned and executed a release event. But as far as writing, which I consider kind of a core aspect of my personality and sense of self, I only wrote about 30 non-EP blog posts, and I don’t think I finished a single new song. Not to say my creative self didn’t get any exercise, between putting together arrangements and recording and rehearsing and performing, but it’s… Read More »Spark

Christmas Makes Me Cry

I really like Christmas music. It’s probably my favourite (genre-crossing) “genre.” I like the sleigh bells and the half-diminished chords and the general preoccupation with nostalgia. I like the self-indulgent arrangements just on principle. I like that Christmas songs pull at your emotions, especially because, at this time of year I tend to get a little1 overwhelmed and sometimes have the impression that my emotions are stuck or even missing altogether. So I have a lot of favourite Christmas songs, including (I’m not ashamed to admit)… Read More »Christmas Makes Me Cry

More Room in My Head

Leading up to the show, I had so many things on my mind – more than once I drew the comparison between organizing the show and planning a wedding, and I don’t think I was exaggerating as much as it might have sounded like I was exaggerating. My poor brain was packed full of details, most especially because this was our first time doing anything like this. Well, it’s over, and although at first there was some weird stress surrounding the idea that we had… Read More »More Room in My Head