Hello Friend,
It’s that awkward shoulder season between summer’s chaos and autumn’s order—the part where the weather turns crisp, the school lunches start again, and every parent realizes that the “new routine” feels less like a fun challenge and more like survival.
If you’re anything like me, the change of seasons hits a little harder this year. Maybe it’s the world feeling unsteady, maybe it’s the quiet comedown from long, full days of family life, or maybe it’s just that freelance life has a way of mixing rejection and self-doubt into your morning caffeine. Some days the weight of it all sits a little too comfortably on my chest.
Still, in the midst of it—while trying to remember which kid needs what form signed and why the world feels permanently in flux—I’ve been finding a few small things that make me feel okay again. Sometimes even good.
1. Collecting Vinyl Records
Yes, yes, I know. A middle-aged dad collecting vinyl records is the stuff of parody—right up there with getting super into bowties, crossfit or sudden expertise on coffee beans. It’s a cliché, but it’s my cliché.
There’s something genuinely comforting about flipping through a dusty box of old LPs in a church gym, fingers blackened with the soft grime of history, and finding a record you didn’t even know you’d been looking for. I already collect too many things—post-1986 Superman comics, DC action figures, baseball cards—but vinyl has been a quiet, undemanding little pastime, which so far hasn’t really broken the bank.
It’s tactile, deliberate, imperfect. You drop the needle, hear the first scratch, and suddenly music isn’t a background stream—it’s an experience again. I sit in my dim little basement studio, the air faintly damp, a record spinning, and I feel connected to something simpler. Something slower.
For those twenty or forty minutes, I’m not a guy scrolling through discouraging headlines or unanswered emails. I’m just listening.
2. Falling in Love With New Authors
There was a stretch where I honestly thought I’d already met all my favorite writers. That the books that truly thrilled me—the ones I’d carry to a desert island—were all behind me. I could always reread Steve Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company, Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, or Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, but it started to feel like the magic was gone.
And then, one after another, new voices found me.
On an endless train ride to Manitoba, I read Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, its fragile hope tucked inside a broken world. On cold mornings at the horse stables while waiting for my daughters’ lessons, I chipped away at Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, its knotty technical brilliance unfolding like a puzzle I didn’t want to finish. And at my father’s palliative bedside, in the quiet rhythm of his breathing, I read Sally Rooney’s Normal People, relieved for the distraction.
Each book cracked open a window I hadn’t realized was sealed. They reminded me that great writing isn’t all in the past—it’s being written now, by people who understand the strange ache of being alive in this century (and in all three cases, keep making interesting works.) There are still new voices worth discovering, new stories that will meet you exactly where you are.
There are still books ahead that might save me a little, if only for an afternoon.
3. The Toronto Blue Jays
My devotion to the Jays is hardly breaking news, but this year has been something else. Over ninety wins. Ninety little jolts of joy scattered across my summer, each one cutting through the fog like sunlight through blinds. In a year where Canada itself feels under attack, having a team worthy of our pride has felt wonderful.
This team has been the perfect antidote to the heaviness of everything else. They’re scrappy and generous and, above all, fun. Whether it’s the $500 million superstar or the rookie just trying to hang on, someone different steps up every night. They play for each other, and it shows.
As of this writing, they’ve taken a 1–0 lead over the team I hate most in the world—yes, those Yankees. (Sorry Rays and Red Sox, you’re terrible too, but it’s not the same.) Watching the Jays beat the Yankees in October is a joy so pure it probably qualifies as therapy.
Add to that the whole country rallying behind Buck Martinez—who fought his way back to the broadcast booth after cancer—and you’ve got something bigger than sports. It’s joy, perseverance, and belonging, all wrapped in blue and white.
So that’s where I am. Trying to keep my head above the waves, to notice the small joys when the larger picture feels unsteady. It’s not always easy. Some days the world feels like it’s unraveling faster than we can patch it. But there are still records to discover, still authors who can make you feel seen, still games that remind you life can be simple and fun.
Take heart, even when your confidence feels bruised or your spirit dulled. Better days—or at least better evenings—are still possible. Sometimes, that’s enough.
Stay tuned: I have one more convention announcement coming up soon (my final show of 2025), plus a recap of my Winnipeg trip for PCF last month.
Thanks for reading, I love you.