Or, sad millennial woman recoups in the beaches
Until yesterday, I thought of the process of personal change as a sharpening. I channeled Meryl Streep from The Devil Wears Prada. Okay, I didn’t, but I pictured her unimpressed face and made a mental note to express my disappointment when it came earnestly. I was convinced that the best version of myself would be a little meaner and certainly more assertive.
Yesterday I created a boundary in a friendship that was drifting. Chalk it up to a little beer in my sober pandemic body, or admit it was simply time to say something.
And it went well. It didn’t…
How to support queer folks at work and beyond
Working from home this year has made us examine work life in ways we never had to before. It’s also changed how we communicate, and now so much depends on the tone of our digital messages.
As we become more sensitive to the dynamics going on behind the screen, people are increasingly looking for ways to show care and support for one another. Creating an accommodating workplace is no different, whether that’s digitally or in-person. This is where allies come in.
An ally is someone who isn’t part of the queer community, but who cares about queer people and how…
White supremacy in the covid era
The last few months, the refrain that plays constantly in my mind has been: “I have nothing to say.” How easily we are stunned into silence. How quickly we latch onto one talking point and let the others fall away. This was how covid was framed at the beginning, and for some rather uncreative news outlets, it still is: life in the covid era is “unprecedented.”
“Unprecedented.” That should be Merriam-Webster word of the year. That’s usually how these things go; a word becomes a word when the white middle class uses it. Suddenly, there’s “they.” …
a series on writing and/in social distance
Sara Ahmed has updated her blog more frequently in the last couple weeks than in the four or five months before social distancing arrived. I keep her posts open in tabs on my computer for days before I actually read them.
I haven’t had much to say in the last month or so. It has felt like a time more for understanding and acting point-blank rather than a time for thoughtfulness. I get that way: anxiety is my writer’s nemesis. It is the first place where my body cuts off circulation, and it is the last place to regain feeling…
Letting go in a world competing to have the last word
My inbox is a flux of corporate emails advising partial shutdowns of services and a commitment to specific and rigorous cleaning. Public and private spaces across the city have begun to shut down and go online for ‘social distancing,’ a globally accepted strategy to stop viral transmission. This has led me to think: in what other ways do we use social distancing, albeit on a less intense scale, to control a given social effect?
World-renowned news outlets publish articles defining ‘social distancing.’ …
Combing the depths of my writing archives, I came across this Statement of Intent I wrote almost two years ago when, you guessed it, I created a new blog. Predictably, that blog quickly went quiet, and a couple haircuts and a few months later, here we are again. (FYI, I think this one is going to stick.)
I’ve reproduced that Statement of Intent below because I like the scope, and I like the idea of acknowledgment. Acknowledgment of what came before, even if it’s something I wrote at another time in my life. Even if it was a little precocious.
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On this the eve of International Women’s Day 2020, the dust has not settled on Elizabeth Warren’s public decision to drop out of the presidential campaign. Hardly more settled is it on the 2 convictions against Harvey Weinstein.
There are confirmed cases of COVID 19 in Toronto and it’s all I hear people talk about in restaurants and cafes and on the street. The subway has become the nexus of flu anxiety. I think even more often about the tendency to touch my face as a comfort mechanism, and how I might train myself out of it.
On this the…
Many of us dread composing and replying to emails. This article shares some techniques I use that have received positive feedback.
- Channel a confident mindset. Emails are intimidating when you forget they’re just the original, more articulate, DM’s. Simply put, you’re writing an email because you need something. Compose your message with an outcome in mind and get to it immediately.
- Almost always include a salutation. The most appropriate one is the simple “Hi X.” If the person is your teammate and it’s casual, “Hey” is okay too. The only time you wouldn’t include a salutation is if you’ve been…
Ernest Hemingway is not my favourite writer in the same way that Starbucks is not my favourite cafe.
It’s obvious, and yet in a crunch you turn toward the things within your comfort zone. Even if you’re contemptuous of those things.
Sometimes on my lunch break at work I’ll take my laptop across the street to any of three Starbucks stores located within 150 metres of my building and work on my own personal projects just for the change of scenery. Why not simply close my email and work at my desk? Better yet, why don’t I set aside meaningful time outside of my workday to commit to these projects?
The answer is deceptively simple: I don’t just…
