Happy 2025, everyone.

I did not maintain this while I was working on my applications. I kept thinking I should, but I didn’t want to divide my attention: I can get monomaniacal about writing projects, and I didn’t want the distraction. Which was a good instinct: it had been so long since I’d been working on anything academic that I needed as much time I could gather just to get myself back in the headspace—and I’m still not sure if I did it right. There was more than once that I had to basically start everything over because I didn’t know what I was doing. But I think I got it; everything got in on time.

And it was nice to have a break from obsessive scribbling. I got to live a little without trying to make art out of it. I wrote a couple of lovely poems about New Orleans while I was there, and that’s most of what I did that wasn’t to do with applications. But I’m back into it as of this new year—I booked a week and a half off started December 29th and got back into projects. Slowly. Plus, I was sick for most of that time and so concentration wasn’t at its best. But I started.

I don’t know about the quality of this entry, either. I need to ease back into it; these are muscles that have not been flexed for some time.

Reading, I need to get back into that too. I’ve fallen out of the practice of reading as regularly as I like, these past few months. In the words of Charles Bukowski, you can’t shit if you don’t eat—I need to eat more.

New Orleans: I want to write about that. The first city I’ve genuinely fallen in love with since Montreal. A decade between these events. I went there at the end of November for my cousin Makenna, who was graduating from med school. I sat in the bleachers of the Jefferson Performing Arts Center and watched her take the Hippocratic oath. I could write a book about that trip—I was in California, too, at the end. Thanksgiving in Orange County. All in good time. Maybe later tonight. Now is between coming home from my first day back at work and making dinner. I have maybe ten minutes left I can spare, I’m already hungry. But doesn’t it feel good to let the words FLOW again?

I lied when I said all my applications are in. Not completely. McGill still wants a research proposal and two references. But I have a week left.

I had also thought of applying to Tulane, in a semi-drunk flurry of sentimental enthusiasm—I wouldn’t actually go to Tulane, but I wanted to say I’d applied—but I don’t think I’ll follow though. I don’t even like the program: I want to write a thesis paper and theirs is non-thesis. Plus, it’s three years long.

What can I include right now that’s narrative-ish? How did today go? Well, I woke up a bit early because I thought I might need extra time to deal with the cough I’ve had—it was so bad yesterday that I couldn’t even comfortably lay in bed in the minutes after waking, or focus on anything. But it was not that bad this morning, so I went back to sleep for half an hour. Until eight o’clock. I got up, had a slice of pie for breakfast, sat and had my coffee—I mostly remember that the morning was just slow and relaxed, which was pleasant on this the first day back. Then the bus ride, then the shift—which was blessedly uneventful. There was a ridiculous training video that misspelt Sauvignon (“Sauvignan”) Blanc and tried to make a joke about pica. I also accidentally spilt a co-worker’s energy drink, but I bought him a new one and all was well. A weirdly pleasant day given the level of hatred and contempt I’ve felt for the place lately. I’ll clarify why I’ve felt that way later. In the kindest words possible, since I still want to be able to post this online.

Perhaps I’ll eventually get back into the practice of writing consistent and lucid entries in here.