Therapy. Counseling. Mental health. Talking doctor.
Whatever your choice word for it, that seems to be where I've landed. BEFORE THE PANIC SETS IN, I'M FINE. Well... that's a relative term, but there's no need to worry about me. I've been feeling depressed and uncertain about my future for a long time now, and it's getting in the way of my work.
It's not what I thought it would be. For one thing, I don't come close to fitting on the damned couch. My person seems to like cognitive beha
First off, apologies to everyone who wondered where I wandered off to. I went home this weekend to go curling in a local bonspiel (tournament) with my team from two years ago. We just lost on the A-side semifinals, and it feels bittersweet to me.
First the good. I'm so proud of the four of us. We can back together after a season away from each other and we took a perennial provincial qualifier right into the last shot of the extra end. We made the semifinals and to get there we beat
So, this is it. In ten hours I'll be on a plane to my new home in Prince George, five hundred kilometers away from everyone and everything that I've grown up with for the last twenty-seven years of my life.
I wish I could say I was excited, because I should be, and on some level I suppose I am. This is a chance for a new start and to erase all of the mistakes I made in Vancouver. No one knows me in Prince George; I don't have to face the stigma of all of the things that people think
Let's play the what if game. I should point out, there's a reason behind this, for once. I've started going to life coaching, a program put on by a local gay men's health organization. Normally, life coaching is meant to help clarify your goals and give you a few tools to achieve measurable, concrete goals. By sheer happenstance, my life coach has some psychology training and we seem to have delved off into actual therapy instead of just life coaching. Which is fine by me, apparently I need it.
On may 9th, 2017 British Columbians voted for change. Today, they have finally gotten it. The Legislature voted 44-42 in favour of the NDP amendment to the Throne Speech expressing no-confidence in the Clark government. Because of that vote, Premier Clark and her cabinet have resigned. Later today, after meeting with both Premier Clark and Opposition Leader Horgan of the NDP, the Leftenant-Governor has invited John Horgan to form a government and Cabinet, accepting the resignation of the Clark g
This past weekend I had the singular privilege of being able to attend Denver Pride weekend. This was to be my first Pride Parade outside of Vancouver, and indeed my first Pride events outside of Canada at all. Naturally, this means it didn't happen because I got super sick and had to leave before the parade. Before I departed early and fled back to a climate that could support my biology, I was able to re-learn a number of things that we should never take for granted as LGBTQ people and allies.
For those of you who read my #BCPoli election blog, thanks. It was fun, never doing it again.
This is a postscript for those of you who read through everything. The BC Liberals nominally won the election with 43 of 87 seats. However, the NDP won 41 seats and the BC Green Party won 3 seats, and they have agreed to a written accord (not a coalition, which is a formal governance agreement in Canada) whereby the NDP will govern with the tacit and supporting votes from the BC Greens to achieve
In two months, my home province of British Columbia will be heading to the polls. I'm looking forward to the campaign, and hopefully in displacing the long-ruling BC Liberal government, which has had a continuous legislative majority since the 2001 elections that obliterated the BC New Democratic Party. Now, politics in British Columbia are different from the rest of Canada, so here are the important players.
BC Liberal Party - Their leader and the current Premier is Christy Clark, who becam
I'm going to go back and get my Master's degree. I already have Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Education, and a diploma in Adult Education. The MA in Political Science is a bit of unfinished business, one that I swore I'd go and finish up. It's been years since I wrote an academic essay, but such skills don't usually atrophy over time. I... I want this. Not just for the sake of having an MA, but because politics is something I've grown to love from both the outsider's drama of it, a
A lot has been said about how sex sells. There’s no doubt about that; sex and sexuality are hugely important to many marketing and advertising campaigns, and the fact that companies continue to experience commercial success after using sex as a marketing tool proves how well sex sells.
But, I’m not a marketer, or an advertising executive. I’m just a guy who writes young adult novels. Which leads me to wonder how much sex is too much sex for a novel, or even a series of novels. We’re all taug
Prompt #526 may become a one-shot from me soon, but for now it serves as a perfect way to start my stream of consciousness today.
“Damn, where the hell am I supposed to go now?”
I have no idea where I'm supposed to go. None at all. I still haven't found a full-time job. I'm lost and beginning to lose hope for my career prospects. Which I suppose makes me like most millennials. I've definitely given up hope for finding a teaching position where I live right now. Biggest city in the provin
Do you ever get the feeling like you're not good enough? Yeah, that's me. This guy. The one with more awards on his shelf than he knows what to do with, who's helped shaped and pass legislation in the face of bitter and personal opposition and who's repeatedly distinguished himself academically and politically. I know what I've done with my life so far, and right now all I can muster is a "so what?"
I'm still dangerously underemployed. I'm 26 and live with my parents. I have no immediate pr
In eight hours, I'll be inside a science classroom, watching my new patron teach and taking copious notes about how to do the same when my turn comes. The main thought I've been having during all of the long spring break is "how did this happen?"
Not the teaching part. I gathered that would happen when I went to teacher college and graduated with a bachelor of education degree. That part makes sense. But how did I go from being a political scientist, political activist and former candidate t
Many of you will probably know that outside of my writing here and the small pile of pseudo-educational jobs I do, I'm also a political activist and one-time candidate. This is not a blog post to go on and on about my politics, but simply to set the context for everything else. Five years ago I helped pass an anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia school board policy, and since then I've had the distinct pleasure of watching people become less worried about anti-LGBTQ discrimination in my hometown
Wow. Earlier today I posted chapter 18 of The Last Out, which is amazingly the final chapter of the story I've spun around Devin and Alex. I'm writing this and it feels surreal to me to have finished it (again, actually) and to have it published on a site like Gay Authors. I can't help but think 'what a strange, magical journey this story and I have gone on together'. The Last Out was never meant to be published. Not originally anyways. This was meant to be a guilty pleasure and escape, somethin
