June 9th, 2023

These Days Are Numbered Is Coming

It’s wild to say but sometimes I go out without a mask and my book about the pandemic will be out in five days, two things that imply that the pandemic is–if not over–certainly somewhat on the wane. The book is actually out in small ways right now–I have had copies in my home for a few weeks and it’s just gorgeous, and a couple weekends ago I did a little signing at Toronto Word on the Street, which felt appropriately unglamourous (my signing stand faced away from the street, onto a patch of grass and nothing) and also ultra glamourous (somehow people found me anyway and eventually the stand sold out of my book!) And next week, TDAN hits the world–I’m so proud and pleased with it. You can see the full writeup, with description, blurbs and buy links, on Books page of this site, or just go over to the Linktree for purchasing options.

OR you could check out this playlist I made of songs I listened to around the writing of the book.

I always see writers releasing playlists to go along with their books, sharing all the songs that inspired the work, and I always want to do that, but the truth is, I can no longer do long, complex tasks requiring deep concentration to music. I used to–if you wanted a playlist of music I wrote my undergrad thesis to, I could sort that right out–but now I find it too distracting from anything hard. Music is for relaxing, easy things, or sometimes just doing nothing but listening to the music itself. I told this to my much-younger colleague, who was horrified–I told this to my mother who said just wait, she can’t even focus on an easy task if there’s music on. SO!

BUT this most recent book was pretty easy to write, because I didn’t know I was writing a book–I just wrote little nibbly posts whenever I felt like it and didn’t worry too much about them, so sometimes there was music on and generally throughout the pandemic there was a vibe of music on often to cheer myself.

SO at long last I was able to make a book playlist and here you go–enjoy! There’s a story behind a few of the songs–the first and last are specifically about counting, and I believe the Alan Parsons one was where my friend Shannon drew the inspo for the title (Shannon came up with the book’s title). A number of the songs are just upbeat bops–Underdog is from the first season of Ted Lasso and A Better Son/Daughter is from the first Hannah Gadsby special, so there’s some tie-ins. Basically, anything that made me feel good. There’s tonnes more of this on my phone–I cut it off at about an album’s worth, though I may pad it out later… Listen when feeling sad or boxed in, and let me know your lockdown jams!

And finally you could…come to the launch! The book launch for These Days Are Numbered will be July 18 from 6-8 pm at Queen Books on Queen Street East and I think it will be just lovely–hope you can come. But if you can’t, please let me know where I should try to come–I do hope to organize more events, though I have been a little slow to do so as yet…