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  • Was today typical?

    Was today typical?

    Sure. Now, please define “typical” for me. I’m not ever going to share intense details of my personal life, I’m not going to talk about my struggles, I’m not going to brag about my small victories, and I’m not going to give details about what I ate, thought, or did. This is a stoopid writing…

  • Saudade: Sweaters, leather boots, and hot lentil stews

    Saudade: Sweaters, leather boots, and hot lentil stews

    I don’t have much in this life, but I do have cleavage. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. This summer feels as though it’s been carrying on for months now, and it’s not even August.  I’m not sure why this is, since the year overall feels like it was strapped to a rocket and launched…

  • The Great Grime of Granville Strip [UPDATED ONE DAY LATER…]

    The Great Grime of Granville Strip [UPDATED ONE DAY LATER…]

    I’ve been immersing myself in all sorts of things Vancouver-related, largely because I’m stuck here.  I know, I know: there are worse places to be stuck, and no matter the myriad challenges that life can throw at you (my second cousin, a Saskatchewan boy and therefore one of the most down-to-earth people I know, listened…

  • Okay, that was that. Let’s go, kids!

    Okay, that was that. Let’s go, kids!

    Well, it happens. We fall into states of misery and rumination, and then we read a bunch of spiritual tomes, and we watch some Up With People videos, and we shove some Haribo candy into our mouths, and we stare at our pets for hours, and our loved ones assure us we’re loved, and ka-blam!…

  • Crazy From The Heat

    Crazy From The Heat

    I wanted to quickly express my astonishment that my post about Davie Village received well over a thousand views in just a few days, a first-time occurrence for anything I’ve written on here. The majority of the traffic was visitors to my site–as opposed to subscribers–and only two things could possibly have brought that about:…

  • Celebrating Trudeaustan Day

    Celebrating Trudeaustan Day

    …with my favourite song of all time, by a band that was criminally underrated and should have been massive. And yes, that’s the leader of our country in blackface. Two flawless studio albums, and they then threw in the towel because the world in the very early 90s was too fixated on hair metal (okay,…

  • What Makes A Teacher Great?

    What Makes A Teacher Great?

    Thanks for this daily writing prompt, WordPress, because I can speak from first-hand knowledge. Not only was I an ESL teacher for many years, I was also a teacher trainer, meaning that I instructed fluent-level international students on how to be effective, creative English teachers in their home countries. I loathed teaching. Despised it. Never…

  • The Ongoing Ennui of Davie Village.

    The Ongoing Ennui of Davie Village.

    The West End of Vancouver isn’t huge at all.  It’s a neighbourhood consisting of a handful of blocks in a grid, the furthest area west of downtown you can go, mere steps from English Bay and Stanley Park.  It is not to be confused with West Vancouver or the West Side of Vancouver, which I…

  • Brutalism in Vancouver.

    Brutalism in Vancouver.

    I am not referring to the job market, the cost of living, or the misanthropy of the residents in my particular neighbourhood, although any of those would be perfectly acceptable as material for this topic.  I am talking about an architectural movement that has been an object of mild fascination for me ever since I…

  • I Know Liberty, And It Is This Caftan.

    I Know Liberty, And It Is This Caftan.

    This wouldn’t even be close to a gunpoint-at-head scenario; it would be sweet relief and freedom. I purchased that caftan–an item of clothing I had never considered owning, never mind wearing, in my entire life–back in the summer of 2020. Along with all of the other atrocities and grotesqueries the world was forced to submit…