Damnkeeping, June 2024
Otters,
Happy June! Five months into 2024. Crazy. I have to start asking my network for New Year’s Eve party leads.
I swear, one ever invites me to their New Year’s Eve parties!
Well. Except my parents. Always seem to have room for me.
ANYWAYS. Welcome back to Damnkeeping, the… well, I seem to change the definition every time I do these, as I myself don’t even know what these columns are…
but I guess for today I will refer to it as an unscheduled and spontaneous couple-times-a-year column here on Things You Otter Know wherein I, for absolutely no reason other than I feel like it, talk about my life in general, and also things you otter know related to Things You Otter Know.
I know that was a mouthful. Sorry. Otters have big teeth. Google it. It’s true!
My life!
I like writing these posts because it reminds me of the way I used to write these posts when I started this Substack. Just saying absolutely nothing interesting about my uninteresting life, without any form or flow, and sending it out into the world. Like any good writer would do!
Scroll back far enough in the archives and you will eventually come across some actual polished writing, I swear.
But yes, May 2024. It was a pretty good month, all things considered. You’ve heard about most of the exciting stuff already. The Leafs losing in 7 to Boston. Me missing out on Death Cab for Cutie in Toronto. And…I think that was it.
But the rest of it has been nice! I haven’t been this relaxed and not stressed in a long time. Probably not since before the school year started. Being off school can do wonderful things for my mental health, apparently. I essentially have the next 6 months to just…write?! It is a wonderful feeling.
I’m slowly seeing friends again, I got dinner with who I affectionally refer to as T the other night and we had a really great time (and also pizza and ice cream).
Toronto is getting a WNBA team in 2026! You bet I am going to try to catch a game. Especially one featuring Caitlin Clark, but I’m not gonna be picky. Been watching the league regularly since the season kicked off a few weeks ago, and it’s actually very good. Way less flopping and way more rule-following, competitive and physical as hell, and because the pace of play is slower than the men’s it’s much easier to follow. Go Fever! Until this Toronto team comes into existence, that is.
I got a cool part time job?! I don’t get onboarded until July so I’ll tell you about it then, but I’m very excited.
My hometown of Mississauga is holding a by-election on the 10th to determine its next mayor and I’ve been out and about with New Majority, the non-partisan non-profit I volunteer for, getting out the youth vote and poll-walking and all that. Lots of fun with some of the best human beings around.
I relatedly went to two mayoral debates and met so many awesome new people. A couple fancy pants political people recognized me! It is very cool to have become a Z-list celebrity in my hometown.
And I was interviewed by two CBC reporters (which was a dream come true, not gonna lie).
We also did a big depuation in… Caledon of all places?!
I’ll tell you all about all of that one of these days. So much to tell you, I swear. I abandon this post for a week and literally everything happens.
TLDR; This Substack!
Thank you for reading all of the above mess, if you did. So here is the meat and potatoes of what you actually want to know about. Which is the next little bit of the future of this Substack!
I am gonna be away from socials and email and basically the world for the next…week or so? Maybe two weeks? Or maybe even…the month? Nah, that’s overkill. I won’t be long, or even that absent. I’m just getting surgery. It’s hard to classify—it isn’t major nor a minor one—but yes I will be fine, and hopefully I will get to writing about it eventually, but if you never hear from me again you should be able to put the pieces together as to why, lol.
But the best part is you won’t even notice I’m gone because I have a bunch of posts locked and loaded and ready to go. Lots of things that y’all otter know, I should say. (Though Substack has given me issues with scheduled posts in the past, so we’ll see how this experiment goes.)
Two of these posts are Significant Otters related (one is an actual Significant Otter interview itself). I’m so excited to bring one of my favourite parts of Things You Otter Know back after much delay and hiatus and whatnot. I’m also excited to explain what Significant Otters is to all of the new and newish Otters who have joined over the last few weeks and months. And we will go over all of that ridiculousness on Friday! Including an announcement of 2024’s FIRST Significant Otter! Aah!!!
And as you can likely gleam from my overuse of exclamation points, I am *so* excited. I know lots of y’all are here for and perhaps because of these interviews and trust me I am as hyped as you are, if not more so.
Down the road I would like to recap the NBA and NHL finals once their respective trophies are awarded later in the month. Also the Copa America and Euros soccer tournaments but those aren’t over till mid-July.
Then we have a couple of album retrospectives that I’ll be spreading out over the course of the next little bit. So many anniversaries for perfect albums that are legit days apart from each other. But I’ll spread them out to make your life a little less miserable.
But yeah. Apologies for everyone here who does not care about music at all, because this Substack is going to be very musically inclined over the next few weeks.
Though if you really hated me you would’ve already un-subscribed after my last post. Which…ICYMI! Last week’s post was pretty good and yes I am totally biased in saying that.
I will end here because I need to sleep! But thanks for being here and thanks for caring. 180 of you! What the hell!!!