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.
Read MoreIt’s now a few weeks into the new year, and I’m back at work. Technically, I’m working from home most of the week thanks to Omicron, and going into the office one day a week to take care of matters that aren’t as easily arranged from my apartment.
Read MoreIt’s September again. Crowded bus season. Halifax is a university city, so the buses and streets are teeming with young adults.
Read MoreWriting is hard.
Writing is particularly hard when you’re lost in your own head. It’s hard to get much of anything done in that state, but to have to put a coherent string of words together is particularly challenging, especially when you purport to represent your inner self in your writing.
Read MoreDaylight Savings Time ending meant I had another hour to sleep last night. I wanted to get more done, but once again I found myself sleeping most of the day away.
Read MoreMy brain is weird sometimes. I guess that's a truism when you're prone to depression, anxiety, or just occupy the space outside optimal mental health or sociability, but lately I'm in a space where I'm craving both rest and distraction at the same time.
Read MoreEver 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 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'm currently looking for work, so the photography thing hasn't been a big priority for the past few weeks. I haven't really felt motivated to write either, although sometimes I get the urge in the middle of the night, which I usually try to extinguish because my sleeping patterns are messed up enough as it is. Pay-what-you-can photo shoots are still on the table indefinitely, but it's definitely a side-gig for me at best; to be honest, even that doesn't seem like much of a priority compared to finding full-time employment.
Read MoreThe beginning of the year always brings reflection, especially on social media; I've seen a lot of posts reflecting on the previous 12 months and tentatively mapping out future plans. I've done posts like that in the past, but I didn't really feel like trying to itemize and summarize (or even make sense of) all that I've done and felt in the last year, at least not in the space of one Facebook post lost among many.
Read MoreThis exercise winds down with one last entry. It's a relief to not have to worry about my daily posting quota or feel guilt over marking the day with a one-sentence post, and there's some bit of satisfaction to take in posting every day for 30 days, but the thing I worry about is that I'm going to squander this momentum. Maybe it will channel itself into my renewed focus on the SNL reviews, but what I really want is to regularly update the two streams of my blog. I aspire to the level of writing I see regularly on The Belle Jar and Trans Canada (My Way), and want to have something more to say than what I thought of a 30-year-old episode of a television show. For someone who's been trying to write for years, I'm still searching for my voice.
I started a new job last week; it's in Dartmouth, so the commute is a bit longer than it was to my old job. This means I have to wake up earlier, which technically means I should be getting to bed earlier than I have been. Old habits die hard. Wil Wheaton just posted an entry on his blog about seven things he did to reboot his life that gave me pause, but do I need a reboot of my life, or do I need to figure out what I want before I can do that?
I'm giving myself two weeks until my friends' party to pare down the growing backlog of photos I still need to edit from this summer (going back to June). I don't know what the penalty will be aside from feeling like I can't stay on top of things, but it has to be done or it will either grow bigger with every event I shoot, or hold me back from wanting to take more pictures.
That's 30.
This is a three-day weekend for me here in Halifax (Natal Day). Truth be told, I could use the extra time off.
Read MoreI said I was going to aim for new content every Tuesday, but of course, when you miss one week, then another, and another... I thought the idea of forcing myself to do a weekly post was the discipline I needed to force myself to write, but for the most part my focus has been on a couple of different things I have on my plate: work, photography, my cat, the New York trip, and the business of trying to keep a semblance of responsible adulthood.
Read MoreFor the last few months, I've been a strange combination of busy and mentally blocked. In the summer and fall, I was concentrating on my work for my contract position (which has since ended) while doing a few portrait shoots in my free time, plus a few informal events. I always forget about how time-intensive the editing process is, though, and the combination of an aging computer, general mental fog after work, and a cat that repeatedly jumps on my keyboard means there's sometimes a long delay before I get the shots ready for other eyes to look at.
Read MoreI've been busy the last two months (including a job change). To be honest, I'm going through another block where I'm not satisfied with anything I write, and anytime I try to post what I've been up to, it comes off as a grade school-level "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" report ("and then I did this, and then I did this, and then I did this...").
I don't know if it's just that I'm trying to summarize two months' worth of events (and non-events), or if it's a sign of a focus that's been divided into unproductivity. Maybe I'm just too mindful of who my potential audience is, and now that my name is attached to this blog as a "professional calling card", that triggers a whole new set of anxieties about content, tone, and quality. I have to ask myself what point of view I'm trying to express with both my writing and photography.
My portfolio now has a few examples of my couples photography, as well as some individual portraits. I had a shoot on Thursday that I still need to edit, with three more sittings coming up in the near future. If anyone's interested in booking a sitting, please don't hesitate to contact me.
I'm a little restless with this design. I may change it up.
I went about two months without a post on this site; my energy's been all over the place lately, and I often don't have the amount of focus that I feel I need to do anything particularly well. There are a number of things I'm doing or want to be doing these days, some more important than others, but for the last few months I've been short on resources (financially, yes, but more in terms of time and energy) and have been more concerned with maintaining a sort of "status quo" with my life than moving it forward.
Read MorePersonal 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.
“The Cisco Kid” sketches include “Message From Prickley: The Cisco Kid”, “Marlon Perkins’ Wildlife Dinner Restaurant”, “Promo: Neil Jung, Psychiatrist”, “Promo: The Love Boat”, “Kanadian Korner” and “The Cisco Kid”.
“The Best of SCTV” sketches include “Message From Guy: Satellite”, “Sunrise Semester: Do-It-Yourself Advertising”, “Promo: The Merv Griffin Show”, “Kanadian Korner”, “Promo: Taxi Driver”, “The Dick Cavett Show”, “Promo: Elvis ‘N Costello”, “K-Tel’s Fast-Talking Playhouse”, “Promo: White Man, Black Girl”, “Promo: My Fair Lady”, “Promo: My Life, One More Time”, “Mamorex Video Tape” and “Signoff: The National Anthem”.
“Mel’s Rock Pile - MacArthur Park” sketches include “Sunrise Semester: Greek Travel”, “Message From Prickley: Mel’s Rock Pile”, “Promo: Jackie Stewart’s Wide World of High Voices”, “Exercise Is Easy”, “Kanadian Korner” and “Mel’s Rock Pile”.
“Dick Cavett” sketches include “Cooking With Marcello”, “Kanadian Korner”, “Promo: Fish ‘N Chips”, “Logos Galore”, “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre” and “The Dick Cavett Show”.
“The Mating Game” sketches include “Promo: Starting Out with Bill Needle”, “Eskimo Arts”, “Message From Prickley: The Mating Game”, “Kanadian Korner”, “Promo: Taxi Driver”, “SCTV News” and “The Mating Game”.
“Gene Shalit’s America” sketches include “Sunrise Semester: Societal Behavior”, “American Express”, “SCTV Special News Report”, “Kanadian Korner”, “SCTV News”, “Comment with David Brinkley”, “Gene Shalit’s America” and “Dialing For Dollars”.
“Midnight Express Special” sketches include “Sunrise Semester: Basic Photography”, “Mamorex Video Tape”, “Kanadian Korner”, “Promo: Tomorrow, Today, Tonight”, “Bill Needle’s Mailbag”, “Message From Guy: Midnight Express Special”, and “Midnight Express Special”.
“Cookery Crock” sketches include “Sunrise Semester: Disasters In The Home”, “Nasex Nasal Deodorant”, “Bill Needle’s Mailbag”, “Kanadian Korner”, “Promo: The Freddie De Cordova Show”, “Cookery Crock” and “Quincy: Cartoon Coroner”.
There’s a podcast called The Loudest Girl In The World, hosted by Lauren Ober. The show concerns Ober’s autism diagnosis at 42, as well as her experience dealing with this information and opening up to others about it. When I listened to it last summer, I related pretty heavily to what she was talking about. I’ve also started to make peace with how my own brain works in the last few years. It’s been a rough road, though.