Ever since I started writing back here in November, I feel compelled to keep you all in the loop of what's been going on in my life. It's funny; I've tried private journals and diaries before but never really stuck with them past a few days or up to a half a month, despite the appeal of being able just bleed raw feelings onto the page. Maybe the accountability of posting in public appeals to me more.
Read MoreWhat is the generally accepted demarcation of middle age? Is it a set chronological age or is it when certain milestones are reached?
Read MoreI wrote this about two years ago. Relationships were on my mind at the time as a few of my friends had gone through breakups the previous fall; as much as I was trying to keep things vague in the post, I was also trying to work through some of my own feelings by writing about them, still blindsided and conflicted over the automatic neurochemical reactions I kept experiencing with a specific person a while back (part of the equation: for the first time in at least 10 years, it was a woman). As far as I know, nothing was going to come of it, but I still try to keep the number of real-world interactions to a minimum because I don't want any involuntary emotions leaking out.
Read MoreJanuary still hasn't ended yet, but it feels like ages since the new year began. I'm not sure whether it's the weather (a few storms, but no actual storm days aside from an early close) or something else but time seemed to slow down this month.
Read MoreI want to thank all those who responded to my last post; I haven't been so great at finding the time and brainpower to send my reply to your kind e-mails as of yet, but rest assured that I will sooner or later. (Also, keep them coming! I take a look at my site analytics to see where my traffic comes from, and wonder who's visiting the page.)
Read MoreI miss e-mail. I still get plenty of new things filling up my inbox, but just like the box in my apartment lobby, most of what I get is bill notifications, subscriptions, and junk mail. The odd piece of correspondence from another human being slips through on occasion, but not enough for my liking.
Read MoreI finally decided to go to a walk-in clinic on November 23rd regarding my depression. This was a step I had been thinking about taking for a little while, but something in me held me back.
Read MoreI wonder if it's worth it to keep this site.
Read MoreI'm not going to mince words: I'm depressed.
Read MoreI’ve been trying to come up with a personal blog post for a little while. Maybe this comes with the trap of having an online space signed with your name, but I’m afraid of posting what I truly feel because I worry about how such a post will reflect on me. Every time I consciously try to write something I end up generalizing things so much to the point where it rings false.
Read MoreLast summer, I offered pay-what-you-can portrait sessions; I did three of the ten promised shoots, edited one set, and then put my camera away sometime in late August, and haven't taken it out since.
Read MoreLeonard Cohen is gone. It was an inevitability, telegraphed by the man himself in recent months, but seeing the official status at the top of my Facebook feed was an unwelcome surprise tonight. Right now, it doesn’t feel much like the big loss I expected to feel; in a year that already claimed David Bowie and Prince, where voters in the UK and US legitimized hatred and resentment of the other, Cohen’s death almost seems anticlimactic. Just another light gone out after our eyes already adjusted to the darkness.
Read MoreNocturne is this weekend; I went pretty much every year since I moved here. but it really peaked for me about three years ago. I don't really want to go out by myself (or run into people on the street when alone), but I don't really feel up to making plans with other people this week. It's a free event, so budget isn't a problem, but I just have this overwhelming feeling that art really isn't my thing, no matter how much I want it to be. I guess that makes me a dilettante.
I'm sitting on raw photos I shot in August when I did a "free photoshoot" offer. I'm not especially thrilled that I haven't finished editing them, but when I see what I shot, so little of it is salvageable. Too many out of focus shots. Part of me thinks it's because I'm using a cheapo Opteka portrait lens that won't focus properly at 1.8, but the poor craftsman blames his tools. It could just be my own eyes. I had hoped to supplement my income with photography, but I really don't think I have hustle, skills or tools to make it work right now, nor can I really afford to invest in the latter two. I've been wondering whether I actually enjoy photography, or just the validation that I get when I share the pictures.
I recently read Truth Is Fragmentary by Gabrielle Bell; it's a graphic novel of her travelogues and diaries, including daily comics for the month of July in three different years. There's quite a lot I identified with, particularly her insecurities and anxieties; the tendency to pull away from other people and get lost in the mess of one's own thoughts.
I have more I want to talk about, but I need Tylenol and rest.
I got back into Halifax at about 10 last night; despite a small delay in Moncton, my bus ride was for the most part uneventful. The power was out in a lot of the city, though; the north end looked positively eerie as my bus crossed over the MacDonald Bridge, and the neighborhood around the bus terminal was dark as well. From what I could tell, my neighborhood wasn't affected in the least (it rarely has been in the four years I've lived there), and I came home to the sound of CBC Radio One and an attention-starved cat.
I fell behind on this whole 31-in-31 thing fairly quickly; I still intend to make up the posts by months' end, but I don't want to fall into the trap of just posting one sentence and publishing. I know that's closer to the spirit of the exercise than only posting when you have something substantial to write about, but I feel like I've been so mute lately that I want to use this spot to get back in touch with a part of myself that's become lost in the fog, especially whenever I tend to withdraw from people in the real world (today was one of those days).
I didn't get around to writing a second post as I had expected yesterday. My first bus (from Halifax to Moncton) had wi-fi and outlets, but I was so cramped in my seat that it was very uncomfortable to have my laptop open, and I didn't want to accidentally jam my elbow in my seatmate's face. My second bus (Moncton to Fredericton) was roomier, but didn't have the wi-fi or the outlets. I rarely go west of Moncton anyway, so I wanted to see the unfamiliar stretches of the route.
I moved a lot when I was a kid, and when I was 8, my family moved from Nova Scotia to Manitoba. The second day of our trip ended with us in Fredericton, and to my younger self, that part of the trip seemed interminable. Some of the highways were realigned and renumbered in the past quarter century; the Trans-Canada is now a four-lane expressway all the way through New Brunswick, though the bus still has to go on the old alignment for part of the leg between Sussex and Fredericton. It's a beautiful country drive, but It's weird to think of that stretch as part of the main artery through the province until fifteen years ago.
I got into Fredericton at about 7:30, had dinner with my sisters, then we went to my friends' place. I've known Andrew since I moved to New Brunswick in 1999, and we've been in touch pretty much constantly since high school; he and I have a very similar sense of humor and a mutual appreciation for "second golden age" SNL (1986-91 or so). I hadn't seen him in person in about a year, and I don't think I had seen Christine (his partner) in about five. It was a good night, full of homemade wine, unconsecrated host cuttings, cheese, and a homemade adaptation of Cards Against Humanity with even more offensive and Canadian content. We ended up staying to watch SNL and didn't get back to my sisters' apartment until about 3 am.
My parents came down for Thanksgiving dinner today and after they left, my sisters and I watched the debate. It was an interesting contrast in body language between the two candidates; the way both handled the undecided voters' questions told volumes. Either way, I have a headache after watching the whole thing.
This post is a little late. It could have been the two beers I had after work (which I needed this week). It could have been the news about Donald Trump that consumed my social media feed like a giant car wreck which everyone witnessed.
I may compensate for this short "marking time" post with another one later today, but I'll be travelling for most of of the day and have plans after I get to my destination.
I've been up way too late all week. I've been napping more after work, and then trying to reclaim some of the lost productivity afterward; it's a bit of a backslide from being able to get to bed at around 11 pm for the last few weeks. I have to wake up at 6 in the morning to catch an early bus that I don't really need to take, and by the end of the day I'm usually in this fog of exhaustion.
I had a little more money than usual this week and have been spending too much on eating out. It may be a byproduct of my exhaustion, or I'm sick of what I can cook on my otherwise limited budget and culinary skills. I sometimes stop off at the liquor store to buy a single beer or cider; if I'm going to just have one, I don't really want to spend the money at a bar unless I'm there with another person. Of course, I end up not making plans with people because I don't think I can afford to, likely because I spent the money on the food and beer already. The cycle continues.
I've been having hypothetical conversations in my head. I catch myself making the gestures that go along with these conversations and wonder if some of the words are spilling out of my mouth.
I try to dodge the ghosts whenever I can. It's nothing personal, but they raise too many questions with no right answers. I always have to be on guard for them; there are some spaces I'm certain they never inhabit, and there are some places where I won't go anymore whenever possible. It takes a lot of work and strain to always rejig travel arrangements to minimize run-ins, probably more than it's worth.
The encounters aren't so bad, but the lingering haunting is the rough part.
Today started with a headache; I can't remember if I was on my usual vibrating bus on my commute, but I felt exhausted and gross pretty much all day. I wasn't really up to making small talk or anything like that (even less so than usual), and to be honest I kind of tried to move around undetected by acquaintances whenever I could (which is not really an option on one of the two floors I work on). Even the post work nap didn't have me feeling 100% tonight, though I managed to make it to vote in the municipal election online and watch the vice-presidential debate.
I downloaded Tinder, but I don't swipe right on anybody. I rarely swipe at all. It's mainly a curiosity thing at this point; dating's not really on the table until the other fronts stabilize. We'll see where this goes.
My cat has taken to hopping onto the bookcase shelves whenever I sit at the laptop and don't pay enough attention to her. She does something similar whenever I'm asleep and she wants something from me. It's either that or she starts tearing apart anything on paper. Magazines, notebooks, flyers, that kind of stuff. I have to take precautions to make sure she doesn't wreck letters from friends or important documents. She's a little needy.
I keep thinking back to a conversation I had a few years ago. I was visiting a friend in Moncton, and we both wistfully reminisced about some of the people from our university days; special relationships that just eventually faded, like our lives were individual orbits that came together at a specific time to provide something each needed, only to diverge again. I wish the detail and emotion of that whole night weren't as fuzzy as they are now, but I'm always going to remember how intimate and piercing that whole discussion was, and how fortunate I am to have had it.
The people who take me to that point are the ones I want to keep in my life.
Personal website of photographer and writer Bronwyn Douwsma.
I’m on the bus. It’s too early to be human and I haven’t had my coffee yet so I don’t really want to do much; maybe read or listen to music, things that help tune out the other people or the monotony of the commute. When I leave the suburbs, it's usually dark. I sometimes look out the windows, but more to see how far I’ve traveled than at anything interesting. By the time I arrive downtown, I can see the sun coming up over the harbour.
The year is winding down. I’m preparing to go to New Brunswick for my regular Christmas visit with the family; my travel arrangements up there have all been taken care of. I haven’t bothered with Christmas shopping yet; my cash flow was a little tight until my last paycheque came in, and my tolerance for the malls has dropped over the years. Everything costs too much money now.
If there was one word to describe the 13th season of SNL, it would be “consistent”. No longer on the bubble thanks to the previous year’s success, SNL in 1987-88 continued pretty much in the same direction as the last season with a little more confidence and a little less to prove.
Sketches include “Pumping Up With Hans & Franz”, “Wilson Trap Doors”, “Church Chat”, “Airline”, “Jorge Garcia, Nice Guy Dictator”, “The Cop & The Prostitute”, “When Great Minds Meet” and “Pirates”. 10,000 Maniacs performs “Like The Weather” and “What’s The Matter Here”.
Sketches include “Calgary 1988”, “Giant Businessman”, “The Bean Cafe”, “The Pat Stevens Show”, “Girl Watchers”, “Computer Panic”, “Casey Kasem Sings The Beatles”, “Delivery Room”, “Stand-Ups III”, and “The Pawn Shop”. Randy Travis performs “Forever And Ever, Amen” and “What’ll You Do About Me”.
“Dining With LaRue” sketches include “Promo: Take The Money And Run”, “Raised By Geese”, “Big Giant Restaurant”, “Relaxing With Raoul”, “National Council of Antique and Restricted Automatic Weapons”, and “Dining With LaRue”.
“The Flaming Turkey” sketches include “The Two Goofs Grocery Store”, “PSA: Mental Illness”, “Insights with Hugh Betcha”, “Promo: Meet The Pawnbroker”, “SCTV News” “Polardak ESP-1 Camera”, “Firing Squad” and “SCTV Big Cultural Event: The Flaming Turkey”.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here.