• Articles,  Year-End Thoughts

    2019: A long walk, and then a run

    This year has been a series of pleasant surprises, which has been a real relief after a couple years with many good things in them but also many painful, unpleasant surprises. It has been disruptive, and healing, and energizing, in ways I could never have expected. A kick in the ass In February, after five incredible, successful, stressful years, the Distillery District eliminated my position. It was initially shocking, and for about an hour after I got the news I was entirely spun. But once the reality set in – five months of severance, and a bit of a rest – it felt a bit like winning the lottery. I’d…

  • Take my hand, 2018, we'll make it I swear.
    Articles,  Year-End Thoughts

    Take my hand, 2018, we’ll make it I swear.

    This year has been weird; sometimes extremely bad and hard, but still not a bad year, overall.   Endings and some beginnings I feel like 2017 has been a series of endings, personally.  My boss of several years left, and that changed the shape of my job in more ways than I can count; it’s almost like having a new job in a very familiar setting. It was stressful, at first, but there have been some good changes, too. I moved out of the apartment I’d shared with Tim Walker since 2013, and into another apartment in the same building with my new roommate, Robin Leblanc (aka The Thirsty Wench).  It’s…

  • 2014 - A new day!
    Articles,  Year-End Thoughts

    Not too shabby, 2014!

    Not a bad year, not an amazing year.  A good, solid year without major setbacks,  2014 has been pretty good to me.   The biggest achievement of my year, without a doubt, was achieving my long-held goal of paying off my student loans.  It happened in October.  After a decade of confusion, ((To this day, I’m not quite certain what my total amount loaned was – the system changed several times during my undergrad, leading to Federal and Provincial  loans all over the place.)) getting the run-around from various banks and student loan services, and low-paying contract work in Peterborough, I finally had the kind of dependable income that allowed me…