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Jess Driscoll

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from ❤️‍🔥 Jess: love will show us how

The last time I wrote, I told you I was going to a concert. These tickets had been in limbo since April 2020. It was a fantastic show: Joel Plaskett and Mo Kenney playing side-by-side, each taking turns to sing their own songs, rather than doing the regular opener/headliner routine. But it was also a hot show. Summer went long this year, well into October, and I was sweating before I got into the crowded venue. A handful of us were wearing masks. I kept mine on as long as I could. Then I sat...

over 1 year ago • 1 min read

Tonight, I’m going to a concert. I was supposed to see Joel Plaskett in April 2020. It was rescheduled for November 2020, then held in pandemic limbo until I got an email notification last week. This is the last piece of the beforetimes. The last bridge between then and now. The album being promoted is more than two years old now. It was the first vinyl I bought during my year of music, the year that forced me to buy a turntable just to bring more voices into my quarantine life. I’m gonna go...

over 1 year ago • 1 min read

It’s just before 6am, and I’m waiting for the light. That’s the thing about video. Unless you have a full studio set up, you can’t film until the sun is up. You can’t work to get ahead whenever you want. You have to wait for good conditions. In that sense, video is the perfect medium for us procrastinators. We love waiting. We love a credible excuse not to work. “Sorry, it’s cloudy; I can’t make a video today.” But the truth is that I could’ve made a video yesterday or the day before that....

over 1 year ago • 1 min read

2022 is the year I decide I’m a content creator. It’s the year I decide I’m OK with the word "content." (I’m content with content lol) What else to describe all that I do? I’m not only a writer. I’m an editor; I make videos; I publish and stream and blog. I make content. Something that helped me come around to this was looking for ways to find a rhythm that works for me. And the people who write about this topic are content creators. I’ve read a lot of blogs and scrolled a lot of Instagram...

over 1 year ago • 2 min read

There’s something in the air. Two YouTube channels I follow recently posted videos about making friends. I recently had a breakdown in the group chat about making friends. We’re all reaching out for something. My group chat came through for me, like I know they always will. We got each other this far through the pandemic, and we’re still here, every day, checking in, co-working over video chat, making plans for some tentative future. I know these two will have me when I fall. Actually, that’s...

over 1 year ago • 1 min read

None of my old comforts work anymore. Remember when all I ate was salad in a bag? Remember when I listened to Ringo (1973) on repeat? Remember when I watched the whole run of MASH 3 times in a row? Every year of the pandemic has its own feeling, its own coping methods. 2020 was Fine Line by Harry Styles. 2021 was getting back on Twitter. For most of 2022, I have been watching Griffin McElroy play video games with weird rules. When he used to write about games for Polygon, he also made video...

almost 2 years ago • 1 min read
orange plaid pocket sewn on an orange background. the title text reads The Magic of Pockets: why your clothes don't have good pockets and how to fix that by Jess Driscoll

First some news: my book is done. As in, it’s been sent to the printers, and I cannot change anything anymore. It’s done, and you can pre-order it now! my book cover! When everyone asks, I have the same answer: I’m feeling excited and terrified. It’s real, and pretty soon, everyone will be able to read it. That’s where the anxiety comes in. I didn’t understand, even as someone with an anxiety diagnosis, just how all-encompassing it would feel. I’m also feeling stuck. Now that the book is...

almost 2 years ago • 2 min read

I don’t go to work on Wednesdays anymore. This is the kind of thing that happens when you're a teacher. Kids go on vacation; you teach fewer hours. But financially I’m OK right now. I’m still living off that Covid money the government gave us back in 2020. And because I’m OK financially, it frees me up a little bit to do something else and that something else, I think, is going to be two videos a week Yesterday, I was up early as usual--that’s one of the good side effects of my medication. It...

almost 2 years ago • 1 min read

Every week, I tell myself I'll write this letter early. I tell myself to write it on Wednesday so it's ready to go on Thursday. Then Thursday arrives, and I have no words written. Writing has been hard this year, harder than usual. I think that's why video is so appealing at the moment. It's something new and challenging. It's where I am in the ever-spinning cycle of interests. The other day, I finished a notebook. Looking for the next one, I found instead an old one, not yet filled. It had...

almost 2 years ago • 1 min read

Today, I’m heading out to my parents’s house for the day to do some sewing. Over the course of the pandemic, my mom cleaned up their basement and started using the sewing room as a sewing room (as well as a laundry room). Having that dedicated space is what we all dream of; for me, it’s three buses away instead of in my own house. I spent Sunday cutting all the paper patterns my dad had printed for me at his office, folding and organising. Today, it’s time to cut the fabric, and maybe even...

almost 2 years ago • 1 min read
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