So I've been trying to promote a crowdfunding campaign for a community event. It's not going too well. I mean, it's probably at least as good as a bake sale. But watching the numbers not tick up is driving me bonkers. I can feel my muscles tensing up to the point where I'm basically just a ball of anxiety. I didn't realize how many people were ( Read more... )

When you smile for real, you're so beautiful it's like a heart stopping and the zap of electricity that makes it beat again, too.

You have to understand, in Cape Breton we don’t used hyphenated identities. There are no French-Canadians in Cape Breton. There are plenty of people whose first language is French. They’re just not French-Canadian. That’d mean they were from Quebec. In Cape Breton, they’re just the French. We’ve got the French, the Scottish, the Mi’kmaq, the Dutch ( Read more... )

I should have known much earlier. The time he got up after sex and started buffing his nails; I should have known then. Or the day he informed me that he sure missed my breasts. Or the night he told me to leave his house at 2 a.m. because he was tired of me.

Go now, he said. I'm tired. I'm tired of you.

I laughed.

Why are you laughing? It's true ( Read more... )

Whiners. Malcontents. Brain-dead. Hillbillies. Hypocrites. Stuck in the past. Bitter. Stupid. Ridiculous. Nonsensical. Squabblers. Daft. Insular. Paranoid. Petty. Foolish. Complainers. Grumpy buggers. Irrelevant ( Read more... )

I don't get the big deal about long hair ( Read more... )

It's best not to want anything from the kitchen when my father is cooking. He slams the cupboard doors and clangs the pots and stomps on the brown linoleum flowers underfoot. He fills up the whole room with a fug of irritability. If you go to the sink, it's bound to be just when he needs water. If you open the fridge, he'll trip over you. Wherever ( Read more... )

The thing about jokes is, they're context dependent. Like, there's this story I tell that goes like this: A certain fellow, let's call him Donald, went to a dance one night, in the summer presumably, when the night is warm and big black junebugs clack through the air like flying prunes, as unloved but not as high in fibre, and fireflies and drags ( Read more... )

I have just come home after 3 days of teaching at a March Break camp for kids. I am tired and sleep-deprived to the point of silliness but my heart is full. I was also part of the organizing team, so my day began whenever I came down for breakfast and ended when the kids went to bed at 10, leaving me time to slip off for some socializing with the ( Read more... )

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