~*fall vibez*~

how to back-to-school when you aren't going back to school and there's a snap election

Hello, hello!

It doesn’t matter which hemisphere I’m in, today — the Tuesday after Labour Day — will always mean back-to-school for me. It also doesn’t matter that this Tuesday hasn’t actually meant back-to-school for me since the Fall of 2011. For some reason, September always has me itching for some sort of transition in an effort to really embrace those ~*fall vibez*~

In an effort to chase that feeling (and imma chase that feeling), this week I am:

• prepping to start a new career (and telling myself that I’m going to meal prep for real this time);

• attacking every unwitting surface in my house with a fresh coat of a *slightly different* shade of white (it’s called chalk white FYI);

• browsing online courses I don’t need and can’t afford to take (this goes hand-in-hand with my semi-annual existential crisis and wondering ‘should I go to law school/get an MFA/get an MBA?’ — the answer to which is a hard no);

• booking a hair appointment (which after four years going to the same guy in Toronto shouldn’t feel like cheating on the inimitable goddess who did my hair in Vancouver, and yet it does? Maybe just because she’s more fun. You should probably book in with her because I can’t);

• joining a writing group with a bunch of strangers because there’s nothing like critique to make me question all of my life’s goals;

• preparing to plant a plant a Fall cover crop of rye in my gardens so that I can rehydrate that thirstay soil, have spooky default Halloween decor, and make some BS artisanal moonshine or bread or something in the spring;

• I’m search for sweaters on Poshmark to the point of being advertised truly heinous full-body fair isle sweater dresses (et tu Brute?);

• and setting an overly ambitious goal to finish the first draft of my novel by the end of the year (LOL).

Are you embracing that back-to-school autumnal git’r’done feeling? Or are you preparing for another winter of hibernation?

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The best thing I’ve heard lately

“My parents weren’t, like, amazing, but they definitely weren’t bad. But these yoga culty people sucked me in by convincing me I had trauma that I, like, definitely don’t.”

— Overheard at a café on Bloor.

It’s been so long since I’ve been out in the wild, it was truly fascinating to hear snippets of people’s lives. The gossip in me is desperate to know what happened next. (She seemed fine now BTW. She also looked like she might vacation at the White Lotus.)

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I’m reading

Perusing Lap-See Lam’s incredible art that blurs the lines between digital and installation through Stockholm’s Chinese restaurants. A preview of the US without Roe v Wade (AKA wtf is happening in Texas. On shrooms and mental health. What we lose when we try to assimilate into Canadianness (whatever that is).

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CANCON election edition

Saving my thoughts on snap elections for another time, I just want to share a little love for two shows that are deeply ingrained in my psyche and refuse to be dislodged. They’re tucked away beside Possum Lodge and the Tickle Trunk, and are the reason I can remember happenings during the Chretien years and the only thing I know about Preston Manning is that he loved ‘Refooorrrrrrrmmmm’.

I mean, of course, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the late, great Royal Canadian Air Farce. 22 Minutes has (somehow) been running since 1993, and while it is admittedly not what it once was since the departures of Rick Mercer and Shaun Majumder (who is now officiating sand castle races?), it still fills an important position in the Canadian media landscape. Shows lampooning politicians should be treated as national treasures — and for better or for worse, 22 Minutes is one of the only ones we’ve got left. I also have a little bit of aloha for what is clearly a writers room full of people saying ‘will the CBC let us do this?’ and probably having it watered down by the CBC every time.

From last election (which was really not that long ago):

Oh, also — don’t forget to vote.

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Regardless of what happens on Monday, September 20th — whether O’Toole is in a position to bring back assault rifles, Singh gets the house of commons to do a TikTok together, or Trudeau keeps doing whatever it is that he has been doing for the past six years (Bueller?) — I hope the autumnal vibez treat you well and that you have a very happy sweater season to come.

Your pal,

Trish