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They say that 80% of all New Years resolutions fail by the second week of February. So, welcome to the party losers.

Don’t worry though, your resolutions were probably garbage. I mean, I’m sure they came from a good place, “I want to be healthier,” “I want to be happier,” “I want to do that thing I always say I’m going to do but never actually do.” We’ve all been there.

We all want to use our phones less and eat more vegetables and stop smoking and really focus on me this year, but we’re bad at it and I think it’s because we make bad resolutions. Which is why for years I flat out refused. I loved the view from my high horse and lording over others as I patronizingly said “January 1 is such an arbitrary date, if you want to change your life do it on April 15th.” The snark was delicious.

Continue reading “You don’t suck, but your resolutions do.”

Some days my mind exists in a frenzied, angsty mess. My heart shudders around my chest like I’ve just been running a race. Not ‘just crossed the finish line’ race, but say, 10 minutes later and still feeling the pitter patter of adrenaline and excitement. I like to think of it as ‘high alert heart’ where fight of flight is imminent and the best you can do it settle in to the discomfort.

Then there’s my mind, jumping from thought to thought like a tiny squirrel inconveniently located on the wrong side of a pair of human legs and the tree they want to be in. Twitch, pause, pause, twitch, watch, wait, TWITCH.

Continue reading “Just sit in it.”

Sometimes I miss the good old days of TV, when my family’s cable connection was pumping through NBC’s Thursday Night lineup of Seinfeld or Friends. Or when I’d sit listening to my brother read the listings from a double-page newspaper spread that came once a week, dutifully informing us when our favourite shows would be on the air, if they were new, and every so often if we were lucky, there might be a teaser synopsis to wet our appetite.

This was back in the day when TV commercials were precious times. They were the breaks that had you running for the bathroom, and dashing to the kitchen for a pickle and a glass of water in the hopes you could make it back before someone inevitably yelled “IT’S ON!” at the top of their lungs.

Continue reading ““IT’S ON!!””

I don’t know about you, but I love reading books. I love having my eyes opened to new ideas by non-fiction or being transported to strange worlds with compelling characters in a novel, but I’m awful at it. Well, I’m not awful at reading, I’m awful at making the time to read. Though, truth be told, I’m a slow, word-by-word reader.

Lately, I’ve even been finding it difficult to focus, even when I do sit down to read. I’ll find myself on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a book in one hand and a giant cup of tea in the other searching for any reason to put the book down after a page or two.

Panic set in as I started to wonder, “Am I losing my ability to read? Or am I just really bad at picking interesting books?”

Continue reading “Am I Getting Stupider?”

Do you remember when you were a kid and you made a new best friend every school year? I mean, sure you had mainstay friends, the ones that were sometimes in your class but sometimes weren’t and so you’d fall in and out of friendship with them but they were always kind of around. When you’re a kid you move through friendships quickly and easily; it was all whose desk is next to yours, who likes playing on the monkey bars, who’s on your coach-pitch team?

Then you get a little older, and maybe there are some longer term friends. I guess that would depend how and where you grew up. I had the lucky fortune of coming of age in a small town where of my 60 person graduating class probably 20 of us went to kindergarten together.

Continue reading “Let’s talk about friends, baby. Let’s talk about you and me.”

That’s the big challenge in life–to chisel disappointment into wisdom so people respect you and you don’t annoy your friends with your whining.

-Marc Maron

I’m exhausted. Not the nice kind of exhausted where you plop down on your couch and melt into the cushions with a giddy heart and completely worn our body. That’s the good kind of exhausted. That’s the kind where you’ve been on a lake all weekend laughing your face off, or you hiked 5 mountains with some lovely friends, or you’ve been up to so many of the things that you adore doing that you simply can take no more of it. The glee of that exhaustion is so lovely that it feels rewarding.

That is not the kind of exhausted that I am.

Continue reading “Exhausted. Smiley Face. Question Mark.”

It’s that time of the year in Canada when we trade in our winter boots and down-filled jackets for shorts and ball caps. We walk out of our air-tight apartments blinking into the sun, stumbling in search of outdoor space. As soon as the thermometer hits 10C we’re on patios, sometimes still in toques, covered in blankets, and tucked underneath space heaters, but we’re on a patio dammit!

We live so much of our lives avoiding the cold that as soon as that sun starts to warm our cold hearts we’re ready to swig as much golden ale and booze-filled slush as possible on a packed picnic bench, tucked behind a fence. We love our patios, beer gardens, and other equally restrictive outdoor pens to consume alcohol.

Because we love it so much if means that we’re often hunting for elusive patio space, turning up disappointed. I don’t want to disparage the wonderful world of patios, there is little better than spending an entire afternoon with friends and beers, but, I’m no high roller and that gets expensive. Then think about festivals, being tucked into an area that often doesn’t allow you to enjoy the music, has a long line, and overpriced beer. This is not ideal.

Continue reading “Beer Freedom”

Fireworks were electric;
inspiring awe,
in the moment.

She was a slow burn;
timid to ignite,
unstoppable in motion.