Personal

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Wow it’s been over a year

To remind myself what was going on, and to illustrate this expanse of silence, we will be exploring a photo listicle beginning with February 2021: Josie yawns and is adorable. No further caption required.

Shortly thereafter, I got myself into a mental bind with regard to writing and art, and it has taken this long while to untangle it enough to come back here and put some words down.

It was February 2021. I was working for BonLook, I was making CookIt meals (and occasionally having meltdowns in the unfamiliar space of cooking), and I was chatting with my friend Emma to get our stories into shape for Confabulation’s Shortest Story XI. I quietly gave my fantasy novel another crack in an orange notebook I’d written in before, keeping one page empty for notes and ideas and doodles.

Then March, and I keep pulling tarot cards, and I start learning the team leader position at work, and I struggle to add new routines to my life. It’s easiest to do something as an established routine, and I want to journal more consistently, and stretch every day, and feel better overall in my life. The fantasy project is going on in the background, for fun, but there isn’t any serious writing happening yet. Training and learning a new role takes a lot of energy.

In May, I turn to runestones (though I will barely broach the second futhark before getting distracted). I like to feel the cold stone grow warm in my closed fist, I like the sound of them rattling together in their bag, I like keeping one nearby to affirm its meaning. They’re also nice to look at.

Then we got COVID. It felt gross to think that although we had “done everything right,” we still somehow failed. While I worked from home, my boyfriend worked in retail, so the math was not in our favour to begin with. Fortunately, neither of us required hospitalization, and our sense of smell and taste were gone only long enough to startle us a little. After five days, things were looking up.

We keep on CookingIt, with a few mishaps, and certainly more meltdowns. My therapist has talked me through visualizing the outcome I desire, and preparing myself: watching videos, rereading the recipe, and seeing myself perform each step properly. It just feels like there isn’t enough time, and I spend a lot of my time feeling drained of energy.

We celebrate Orlando’s birthday in a restaurant, a first since having COVID. I remember anxiously awaiting the vaccine; health guidance was to wait 90 days after symptoms ended to get the prick. But we had a lovely supper at a restaurant with a couple of friends, it felt so “normal” that I got up to go to the bathroom at one point and was three full steps away from the table when I realized I’d forgotten my mask. What times.

Around this time, I also attended the Violet Hour Book Club and wrote the note “hopepunk” in my journal. I have no clue who said it in reference to which book, but I was glad to see it. Hopepunk. Nice.

Summer is weird. Hangouts with friends outside, although the numbers are down and so is our guard, somewhat. But then we can socialize while walking in the open air, sweating and hydrating, or on nicer days when the heat isn’t so cruel. I also spend a lot of time in Final Fantasy XIV as Vile Amethyst, a red mage who dispatches local gods and fights evil empires, like ya do.

September comes, and the COVID cases are rising and making me nervous, but I have two virtual appointments I’m looking forward to. First is my irregular meeting with my therapist, every few months to help with panic attacks or dissatisfaction with my work/writing/entire life.

The other is with École Setsuko, which I have had my eyes on for a while, another piece of advice from my therapist. Their site now mentions a payment plan, and my promotion in the late winter/early spring means I might be able to swing it, if I cancel CookIt. My therapist recommends I sign up for a day-long introductory workshop before committing, and that’s the plan.

I sign up, I sweat through it (which I was also warned of, therapy is fantastic!), and I walk home exhilarated and exhausted. I commit right away, because the workshop was on Sunday and class starts Tuesday. Within a couple of weeks, I know basic strokes, I have far more of an understanding of anatomy than ever, and I buy my massage table.

Life since September 2021 has largely been devoted to massage school, and practice, and homework. There has been some room for creative work, and there are a few things bubbling under the surface that I will mention here soon (but not yet, sorry). There was also a return to the Confabulation stage in March of this year.

Since then, I’ve continued to work as communications coordinator for Confabulation. I have continued to study hard and practice harder at my Swedish massage program, with the eventual goal of building up a private practice. I have continued to work at BonLook, though I am reducing my hours to accommodate a course for massage school.

I have also been writing, but the point of this post was to get all of the prelude out of the way. The real talk about writing is coming down the line, when I’m more sure of my feet and the direction they are taking me in. It has taken a while to claw my way to some space of decent organization, and this space is a tool for organizing myself and drawing a semblance of structure around my life.

It’s also a great way to take inventory of what I’ve been up to and realize, “Damn. I really have been busy. And that’s okay.”

See ya soon. Maybe at the Centaur, tomorrow? Confabulation is celebrating twelve years of true-life storytelling with Signs and Symbols (click the link for tickets!) tomorrow, May 28th at 8:00pm. I’ve actually been working with Emma again, helping her get her story stage-ready, and I can’t wait to see the final result!

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How I look at the world

I dropped my phone in early March, causing its rear camera to lose the ability to focus. I tried to make light of it on social media, but blurry photos are only amusing for so long. Yet still I dragged my feet. I had the cost to think about; the device was just past its warranty, and with almost a year left on my contract I was left with replacing or repairing it.

Then the world got more complicated and I retreated to my bedroom and slept through most of the month of April. I remember sitting on my balcony and watching people go by, wondering how they could walk around so easily when I felt like I was gearing up for battle just to go to the grocery store? Why would I want to pull my phone out of my pocket after I had washed my hands and stepped outside?

An orange kite string which connects a tin can at my apartment to one at my neighbourfriend’s, across and down the street. Blurry. Like April felt.

I think it’s safe to say we’re all still dealing with the mental adjustment to whatever our present hellscape is. Summer has brought an air of normalcy, and for the first time I have to stop myself in my thoughts and remember, “Oh right, that’s not a safe-for-pandemic activity.” As I’ve been getting out and going on more walks, I’ve missed the opportunity to take pictures.

I immediately questioned whether this thought was unhealthy and indicative of an overdependence on social media. Was I missing the pictures, or the likes on instagram? As I looked into the prices and procedures of a repair, a bigger question took over: could I possibly bear to be without a phone for three hours?

Rays of sunlight from beyond fluffy clouds. Imagine how lovely this would look in focus.

At home? No problem! There’s my laptop and wifi, there’s Final Fantasy XIV, and my cats almost always want cuddles and attention. The place I looked into was downtown, and going there and back would be annoying (or exhausting if I bixi’d the whole time). I could bring a couple of books and find somewhere outdoors to chill for a bit, I could hand my phone to a stranger and be without it for 180 entire minutes, I could wear a watch so I know what time it is without consulting the screen in my pocket.

It was a lot less nerve-wracking than I expected. I journaled, I had lunch with a cute conversationalist, and I finished reading a book. (Not the book we’re discussing tomorrow at book club, I hadn’t even started reading that one. Oops.) $150 and three hours later, I walked home to Ville-Émard from downtown, taking pictures all the way.

The theme is blue and green.

It felt like a part of me woke up, a part that I hadn’t even realized had gone to sleep. I stopped taking pictures, so I stopped looking at my surroundings the same way. Instead of a treasure trove of vantage points, my world became drab and lifeless. I missed being able to capture moments from a walk, or even seeing somewhere I could stand and wondering what the view would be like from that position.

In addition to having lost a form of creative expression, I also now have an incomplete visual record of the season. I go back in my gallery and look at photos when I am writing a story, to help set the mood or put myself in the right frame of mind. Sometimes I check details like weather: even if I am the only one paying attention to whether it rained on some date in the past, I want to get it right. It’s my kind of geekery.

Now that I’m able to take pictures whose details are actually discernable, I plan to roam the city and find as many interesting views as I can. For now, I leave you with one final study in blue.

I love the way the LEDs in this fountain’s basin light up the leaves above.
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Structure pt 2

It’s been two months since I wrote Structure, but am I doing any better with routine?

Well, yes and no.

For the yes: Thanks to a friend, I got a job tutoring local students in English (from home). After an adjustment period and an all-too-predictable crisis of confidence, I’ve found my stride and gotten to correct some pretty interesting essays. My storytelling skills have turned out to be completely applicable, as well as the reminder that young people are simply people who are young. I treat them with the same respect as adults and encourage them to explore their imaginations in their writing assignments.

And now the no. On days I don’t work, I prefer not to set an alarm, and wake up when I wake up. Making my bed and some coffee are my first priorities, then my days usually devolve into some combination of rewatching familiar TV shows and doomscrolling (often at the same time). Sometimes I go to the grocery store and grab fixings for easily made meals, sometimes I wait too long and am obligated to order delivery, and my confidence rises or falls accordingly.

When it slips down too low, I shut down and become a hermit. I return texts late, I miss appointments for naps, I either forget to shower or I spend too long in the bathroom. I become disconnected from time in the worst way; for all my romantic notions about being untethered, I need some firmer grasp of the passing of time in order to get shit done.

Why is it that I can be organized and on top of things when I’m being paid to do it for someone else, but I can’t apply that same skill to my personal life? Am I not the coolest boss I could ever hope to have? How many days off have I already given myself because I didn’t feel up to writing?

Clearly, it’s time to get back to work. My mentorship brought the entire first part of my novel to a much better place, and the gears have been turning in the background with thoughts about part two. My impostor voice is easily silenced by the number of versions of chapters I have gone through already: each one is an attempt in which mistakes were made and lessons were learned. Mistakes are beautiful opportunities.

Work on a novel is slow, and I am motivated by being able to share projects. I have most of a zine ready to go, and time planned out tomorrow to sit at my desk and work. Writing practice, zine work, a reread of part one where I add notes of my own to April’s, and anything else I can accomplish with whatever energy I have. (In an unrelated but relevant note, I’m also going to look into getting my phone fixed; I miss taking pictures.)

I owe this time to myself. The best way I can benefit from my past experience is to take the skills I used working corporate jobs and put them to use for myself. I can make a schedule, a to-do list, and organize tasks by breaking them down into steps. What is a novel if not the result of repeated writing and revision sessions? I’m good at repetitive tasks, especially if I’ve got good music to bob my head to.

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Structure

I know I’m not the only one struggling to build my own routine right now. I envy disciplined people who can set up calendars and stick to them: a time for meditation, a time for exercise, a time for enjoying nature while constantly being aware of how close the nearest person (vector‽) is.

I can’t do the calendar thing, at least not all in one leap. I have a weekly entry for these blog posts, and whatever zoom meeting is coming next. I have added regular times for exercise in the past, but too often I ignore the recurring events and after a couple of weeks, I delete them.

It feels prudent to examine why I have failed before I attempt the same strategy once more.

My trouble with isolation has been that there is rarely an obligation which requires me to set an alarm. Consequently, my waking time has varied dramatically. I know from experience that I feel best when I sleep around 2:00 or 3:00am and wake about eight hours later, but in April I had great difficulty waking up before three in the afternoon.

May has been better, and I’ve been going to bed at more reasonable hours (it was not uncommon to see dawn last month). I’ve even set a recurring alarm Monday through Friday for 11:00am. I have settled into a morning routine of texting, reading news and checking out social media, then preparing coffee and breakfast.

On good days, breakfast takes place at my desk with my calendar and to-do list open so that I am aware of my goals. Drafting or editing blog posts is easy, and I’ve been very good at keeping my desktop organized so my projects are within reach. My desk has become a space where I come to work, which makes it easy to open a notebook or document and get to it.

Then there are days where I float to the living room with my coffee and get pulled into my phone again. I am trying to train myself to put it facedown more often, so that I can’t see the silent notifications appear on the screen. (But what’s the covid case count, will business opening increase it, is it safe to go outside… there are so many reasons why my brain wants me to check my phone at all times, including “Did that cute boy reply to my text?”)

I am going to put more energy into having my days be good. That might mean adopting a morning stretch routine where I drop out of bed onto a yoga mat and start my day feeling my body, or going from breakfast into the shower. Apparently I crave a physical warm-up, and I know better than to dismiss the link between the mind and the body.

I’ve done things backwards today. I’m going to click “schedule” and have a steamy shower. I’m staying indoors again today, I already had an encounter with heat exhaustion Monday and I am taking care not to repeat the experience. A jog can wait for a drop in temperature. Stay cool, and stay safe.

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Floating

I have sort of let things get derailed, and these weekly updates will not be added to the list!

I had gotten a pretty steady routine together: exercising in my living room, doing yoga before bed, jogging in the park nearby. I had been whining for months that I need to do something with my body, because each time I levered myself up off the sofa, I creaked and cracked and felt far older than my years.

I first tried a yoga routine that I found on YouTube a few months ago, discovered that the floor was entirely too firm, and bought a yoga mat.

Reconnecting with my body felt amazing. Hearing the pops and cracks in my legs as I followed the instructions of a soothing voice every night before bed is a great way to disconnect and wind down. I added my exercise routine, mostly lunges and squats and push-ups, and relished the soreness I would feel the next day. I jogged and loved the air filling my lungs and the feeling of my thighs and calves and feet all working together.

Then my routines crumbled. Getting started became a monumental task I couldn’t accomplish. I would try to rationalize the benefits, reminding myself that it usually felt good, and I’d thank myself later. It’s so much easier to get stuck in my phone and let the hours slip away, though.

I am working to let go of the ensuing guilt at “failing” to get myself started. I have read articles on procrastination and laziness and I know there are reasons behind these things, there are explanations as to why we can’t just do the things we want to do. There are ways to overcome these roadblocks, the task can be broken into smaller steps, I can set a goal that’s easier to reach: get dressed for exercise!

I don’t know how many times I’ve talked about this in therapy. Putting this out here is helping remind me of what I’ve already learned, and that’s useful. I think I’ll whip out the yoga mat, change into something that’s easier to move in, and put on an upbeat playlist.

Another thing that I’ve discussed in therapy is a sort of counterintuitive cascade effect. It’s part of the smaller goals idea: if my goal is to get dressed for exercise, then it’s easy to follow that up with some actual exercise. Even if I quit before I finish, like the time I tried to jog when it was ridiculously hot, I still achieved my goal and that’s enough to silence the awful Voice of Guilt.

If I write this blog post, it’s easy to then do something else, and something else, until I don’t have the energy. Even if I do stop at this blog post, I’ll have met my goal, and I can be okay with that.

I’m totally getting changed, though. For lunges!

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Pride

I have been struggling since June to put words to my feelings about Pride. It’s taken me a while to get where I am with my sexuality, contrary to the idea I had when I was younger where I would come out, maybe get gay married, and that would be it. Turns out there’s a lot more to the story!

My most significant coming out was a few weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday. I spent the day with my girlfriend of nine months, Whitney. This was a rare treat for us; we lived 45 minutes apart by car, and neither of us had one. I have very fond memories of that day, but when I came to my realization, I felt I had to tell her. I’d been a shitty boyfriend and kept things from her before, I wanted to be honest.

It was a relief to say the words out loud, but I felt so guilty for disappointing her.

One thing I would like straight people to know is that you never stop coming out. New acquaintances, managers and colleagues in the workplace, complete strangers even. You get better at it, but there’s always that moment of hesitation before you say it because you wonder how that person will react. Will it change the relationship that you have? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter; you need to be true to yourself. But we always fear that change, or the idea of losing someone who cannot accept who we are.

I moved to Quebec, where coming out was part of my backstory: “I moved here to be with my husband,” I would say. I almost came out during a job interview when the recruiter was talking about diversity and acceptance being company values, but a small voice stopped me. A voice of shame that has been with me since before I knew I was gay.

I was raised in rural Louisiana, I grew up attending mass on Sundays, I have even had to listen to teachers denounce the effects of homosexuality on the sanctity of the nuclear family (nevermind that I am a child of divorce, like many of my friends growing up). There was nothing to be proud of, only a label that meant I could never fit in. How could these people really love the sinner when they hated the sin so much?

I went into university leaning into my gayness. I started my first semester with purple hair; I am so upset there is no photographic evidence of this. I spoke in a very animated fashion with lots of hand movements. Before long, I was being introduced the same way to new people: “Have you met my gay friend Lukas?”

Oh. Two months into a new and exciting phase of my life and I’m the Gay Guy. Still clinging to my shame, I didn’t want my sexuality to be the thing I was known for. I wanted to be that nerdy guy, or the fantasy buff, or, “Hey, he’s got great taste in music!” I got hung up on my identifier like I was in a cheesy high school movie. Picture a scene of me listening to Dashboard Confessional while crying over a boy and cutting my hair into a garbage bin. My stylist at the time loved that.

I was already trying to “tone it down” by the time I met Mathieu online. You may have seen the story at Confabulation: boy meets boy, boys get married, boy moves to Canada. Now I was a Responsible Young Adult, with a Husband, so I needed to work on a House with a Picket Fence and two-point-whatever kids. I decided to put away childish things, while my husband decorated our home with Hello Kitty clocks and posters and waffle irons.

Without understanding at all what I was doing, I began to emulate the image of married men I had known. Men who do not show emotions other than anger. They certainly don’t get teary-eyed during emotional scenes of animated films, or even watch cartoons in the first place. They don’t have stuffed animals decorating bookshelves. They don’t express affection, and even when their homosexuality is tolerated, they shouldn’t push it by ever kissing a man in front of someone else. Not even a peck on the lips is allowed.

The marriage ended for many reasons, but the biggest culprit in my mind is this false image I was trying to realize. I was trying to act out what I thought our marriage should be instead of understanding that it could have been whatever we wanted it to be. There was a lot going on that I didn’t have the vocabulary for: toxic masculinity, intimacy issues, and the growing notion of polyamory.

Freshly divorced, I moved from Blainville to Sainte-Rose. Now most interactions seemed to take place on the apps: Grindr, Growlr, Scruff. Ostensibly for meeting people, but everyone calls them the hookup apps. I learned how boredom can turn into an hours-long quest for sex, how validation can become addictive, and how awful it feels to be ghosted after making what feels like a genuine connection. I would delete the apps out of frustration, or because I’d agreed to be exclusive with a new boyfriend, only to come back weeks or months later, single and hungry to connect again.

After a few cycles of this, I started therapy. I learned how to talk about what I really want, how to manage my expectations, how to use the apps as the tools they are instead of getting pulled into long nights and disappointing encounters. I started embracing this idea of being who I am without a care for what people think, and being rewarded for this in encounters with new people. Now when some guy ghosts me, I only spend a moment wondering if I did something wrong before moving on. Why should I spare a thought for someone who decided I wasn’t someone they want around?

This process of learning to celebrate who I am has helped me understand that I want to emphasize what makes me different. I will be that gay guy, the guy who watches cartoons, the guy who uses stuffed animals as home decor. I have seen children looking at the bright and colourful buttons on the shoulder strap of my bag and I have thought, Yes! You can decorate your life like this, too! Be weird, now and in your thirties!

In short, I have found pride. It has been a struggle, and it continues to be a fight in a world that seems to prefer that we sit down and shut up. I’ve started to say I’m done being polite, because I feel like I’ve held my tongue for too long while people say and do hateful things. By being silent, I stifle my own self-expression, and that only leads to more doubt and anxiety.

Do not apologize for who you are, do not let anyone tell you who you are, and do not let anyone try to change who you are ❤

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Back to work

I meant to come here and catch up sooner; I even brought my laptop down to Vermont in hopes of catching up with my writing life. It’s a bit harder than I remembered to get things organised when starting a new job, and packing up and leaving for a few days means I can’t bring all of my writing stuff with me.

I did manage to critique a piece for my gay writing group, but mostly my evenings were spent going to bed early and listening to the howling mountain wind. Vermont was beautiful, Stratton was lovely; but that wind. I declined to buy earplugs at Jean Coutu before we set off, so that’s on me.

Just before leaving for Vermont, I got to tell another story at Confabulation. Twice. The Shortest Story is an annual event, and having experienced the frenetic energy once, I can’t wait to do it again.

It was awesome to chat with other storytellers and hang out backstage. As always, it’s a pleasure to listen to what everyone shares, and I got to see most everyone else’s performances. There’s no theme, so we got to hear a bit of everything.

A really interesting thing about getting to tell a story twice in one night is that I got the first crowd’s reaction, and figured out what to play up or draw out. It’s easier to relax when you’ve already told your story once and it went well. And I had a drink in the green room during intermission, so by the time I got up to tell my story again, I felt amazing and I think it was better than the first time.

Now, between that and work, I haven’t made much time for writing. I met with both my writing groups this week and received wonderful feedback that asks the sort of questions I’m too close to come up with myself. I’ve scrawled all over the print copies for the eventual revision, but I’m still firm about saving that for later. I still have a lot of ground to cover with the rough draft, and I have to balance that with work now.

I cannot possibly express just how relieved I am to finally be receiving incooooooooome. Unemployment loses its charm extremely quickly.

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Momentum and mountains

One of my most common excuses for not doing writing is that I don’t have a decent place to write. Since September of last year, I have a home office, but it hasn’t felt like an inviting place: there have been boxes and recyclable bags left unpacked since the move, the bare walls make a horrible echo, and there’s been a spare monitor at my feet when I sit at my desk.

No more.

I’ve been tackling various parts of my home in the past few days, finally claiming these spaces instead of leaving projects unfinished. I alphabetised my DVD rack and pared down my collection to what fit on the shelves. I mounted a painting, a canvas, and a poster. I came into my home office and emptied boxes.

One of these boxes was filled with a stack of papers that I had basically packed that way, the mountain on top of the file cabinet. Tax documents for annual income, investment and loan statements, the instruction manual for my toaster oven. Luckily, I bought hanging folders and labels years ago, so I started sorting through the pile, making a new folder whenever it was necessary (FIVE just for writing!). In short order, the mountain had been ground down and sifted into separate containers, clearly identified, easy to find if need be.

I had started with a simple task, and let the momentum from that carry me until the office was nearly done! I did take a break to eat something—this the result of ONE cup of coffee—and instead of returning to the physical stuff, I updated my CV and came here. Still time well spent, imo.

These are all things that I could have done at any time during the past four months, though I expect my neighbours are grateful I don’t typically use the hammer after dark. It just seemed like so much, and the thought of even starting with one tiny thing felt impossible. I at least had to clear a space and take down a box and grab a marker… it becomes easy to make excuses, easier to maintain them, even in the face of guilt.

I gave myself the benefit of having started and completed other projects, like reorganising my DVDs. I also put on an energetic playlist and had caffeine singing in my veins. I may have a box, a pair of rollerblades, and some paper garbage to take care of; but that seems like nothing against the mountain of papers I’ve already conquered. I’ll get it done.

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I’m a writer because I write

Last year was amazing in terms of establishing who I am as a writer in my own mind. I have struggled with this identity in the past, especially since any declaration is immediately followed with the question, “What have you published?” It’s a common measure of a writer’s worth; since I have nothing published, I often felt worthless as a writer.

My therapist was the one to suggest that I join a community of writers. This led me to a state of panic; who am I compared to these “real” writers, will they judge me, and so on. I have found support and encouragement and friendship within the Quebec Writers’ Federation, and that has done a lot to fuel my creative drive. Even before I met anyone from the organisation, I threw myself into my work so that I would have something of substance to discuss with these other writers.

I have started a new novel that I have a deep emotional connection to. I have participated in a storytelling workshop and found a new way to create and express myself that is extremely gratifying. I have further solidified in my mind that I am a writer, despite having nothing published, because I write.

So what have I been writing lately?

Work on the novel continues at a satisfying pace. I am nearly at 30,000 words, and I believe I can finish a rough draft by spring. My bid for publication continues as I submit short stories to literary reviews, consequently increasing my body of work and giving me a lot more evidence to present to my impostor voice. I have also kept up writing stories and submitting them to Confabulation; I loved being on that stage and I can’t wait to feel that again.

I’m looking for work, but at least I will be able to use the extra time to my advantage.

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Moving

At one week, I managed to give myself a break. It’s one week, I’ll catch up soon.

Then one week became two, and three, and so on.

I felt so good about having posted here for several consecutive weeks, so each new date missed made me feel more and more guilty.

Let’s be honest: it’s no big deal.

My life has been swallowed by the move I’d been planning for months. There were boxes to pack, installations and deliveries to schedule, furniture to be selected. I grew more irritable. I hated being at work, and I could barely force myself to meet deadlines for my writer’s group.

The big day went by fairly smoothly thanks to the help of some friends. Over a dozen boxes of stuff, then over a dozen boxes of furniture to assemble. I had given myself a long weekend, knowing I’d need the time, and even so I ended up having a meltdown by the third night.

Months of stress should have ended once we moved into our new apartment, right? Right?!

My foolish brain, which could only focus on immediate goals, failed to clue in to the fact that the move was merely a step; there was (is) still lots to do, and that is (was) okay. It took us days to find the remote. My books are not completely unpacked. We are still a few chairs short of a set (cue rimshot).

So what if the writing and the blog have taken a bit of a backseat to life? This is an important time, I need to be in this moment and carve out time and space to relax. It is essential that I move at my own pace. Maybe someday I’ll put this into a story and laugh at how overwhelming the experience has been.

In the meantime, I’m doing my best to feel at home and slowly regain my previous rhythm. More on that next week.