bone in sub

twice in the last couple weeks i’ve walked past construction workers using handheld circular saws (?). the sound of them moving up or down their harmonic series as they spin respectively is really, really cool.

today at school i made a drumstick explode. i attribute this to 2 months of working out:

i walked for about 3 hours today - a lot considering i usually bike. i did it for fun - school to bank (needed a new card) to chipotle (delicious) to queen st. to chinatown back to school. at chipotle some girls showed up dressed like burritos and got free food. i forgot about this and wished i had brought some foil with me. on queen st. i didn’t find any suitable hats at either black market, but in active surplus i found both fridge magnets AND a perfect handset/old cell-style phone. it was $25 but i talked him down to $10 because i didn’t need the base or the battery. sick. on my way to kensington market i just happened to walk past a street kiosk selling….burgundy ski masks. good enough! 13 dollars later (the ski mask was THREE DOLLARS) i had a complete costume.

came home, bought some beer and here we are.

i’m still way backlogged in updating my dream journal (i have a pre-journal to write down the rough ideas of the dreams before i write down the whole things now, so silly) but i just had the best dream.

i had a never-ending wrap. it was normal sized, like maybe 8 inches long, but somehow i never got past the halfway point. it had a nice flour tortilla outside and the inside kept changing to all these ’sandwiches’ that i love - tuna melt, chicken salad, turkey & cheese, salmon handroll, chicken caesar, reuben, burrito - as i ate more of it. it was always the appropriate temperature (tuna melt & burrito were hot, everything else cold) and it never went bad so i had a custom case made for it and kept it in my backpack.

yep, that’s pretty much a best-case scenario for my life. i woke up really hungry and made a pound (precooked weight) of spaghetti, what a let-down.

still don’t know what i’m doing for halloween…which is in 12 hours. woop!

i’m weirdly competitive about cycling. i’m in great shape and i ride a lot, so i’m faster than almost everybody when i’m riding casually, but when someone is going about the same speed as me i’ll make a special effort to pass them. or if someone’s about to pass me i’ll “floor it”.

last night i was going down harbord at maybe 11:45, when i would almost always be alone on that street. i saw someone else’s shadow right behind me, and it was kind of startling - i looked back, and yeah, there was someone on a bike about to pass me that i somehow hadn’t heard. the weird thing though is how i instantly knew that shadow wasn’t mine without even thinking about it, even though i was casting like 5 shadows (headlights both directions, streetlamps).

when derek was here he bought a weird little book that had a section on stuff like that, and it was fascinating. the ’sixth sense’ of body heat, how you can tell someone’s in the room just by their radiated heat and how subconsciously you know whether leftover body heat (in clothes/chairs/beds) is yours or not, and if it’s not yours it’s undesirable.

i looked after dove again today. whenever i put him to bed he tells me he’s “making mini bed” and he puts a pillow and a blanket on the floor beside his bed so i can have a nap there while he’s going to sleep. i think his dad started this. he also puts his hand through the bars of his crib and says “my hand is there” expecting me to hold it. he does both of these every time, so it’s not remarkable anymore, but the last couple times i put him to bed i was really sleep-deprived so i actually fell asleep on ‘mini bed’ BEFORE he fell asleep. this time he wasn’t going to let that happen, once i held his hand he shook it really hard and said “wake up tyler”. this kid is 2 and a half, so funny.

there was a rehearsal today for a group my friend will is starting, “will snodgrass’ boomwhacker orchestra”. boomwhackers are pitched plastic tubes that you play by hitting things with them - the floor, your shoes, your knees, your head - made for kids to learn music on, but a bunch of music students can make hilariously out-of-depth-complicated stuff on them. first rehearsal, and only six people showed, but i think we’ll be able to get more to come after a little promotion. we played two “arrangements” of mine, piano phase (insane) and ‘my girl’ by the temptations. so much fun.

i just had my first real long day in a good while - rehearsal, a bunch of practicing, another rehearsal, a floornap, a concert, and a couple hours at a bar. i am REALLY TIRED! i don’t feel this tired very often.

i played bass marimba on a really great new piece for the fall composition concert - two marimbas, violin, and cello. playing chamber music with strings is always awesome. the piece was maybe 3 minutes long, and it was excellent. everyone i talked to after agreed, and the composer (he’s like 18!) was super happy about it.

it was below freezing, pretty windy, and snowing when i had to walk back to my bike and then ride home. pretty terrible ride. HOWEVER, it was the first time (in my life?) i was really elated to be home. seriously, what a good feeling. up there with getting in a warm bed when i’m really tired.

when i lived with my parents it was nice to get home after a long day in the winter….but i lived at home. it was nicer to get in the car in the morning and crank up the heat and go on a long drive by myself. in my first year of university i lived in residence, so i shared my room with someone. even though we got along really well and he’s an awesome dude, it’s hard to be satisfied with sharing a room with someone. i guess it was a similar idea when i went over to visit the girl i was dating then - getting somewhere warm and comfortable after a really cold commute is nice, and better in a way than when the commute is more enjoyable. second and third years i did have my own room in a house, but it was insanely cramped and i lived with idiots. now i’ve got a really comfortable place where it feels great to walk in the door!

tomorrow i have the first rehearsal of the “boomwhacker orchestra” which is either going to be a flop (attendance issues maybe) or hilarious. i also have to check out queen st. and kensington and value village and 69 by the pound to find a very specific type of hat for my halloween costume. i don’t even know what i’m doing on halloween, i just already have such a perfect jacket and sunglasses that i have to finish this costume. i better find a good party or two.

between rehearsals today, i had a bunch of time to kill at school after i learned my part for the concert. i practiced as much as i could stand, checked my email, hung out with some acquaintances, and slept on the floor, but i still had time to kill…so i did a ton of pushups in the practice room. intense.

i had a hilarious conversation at work yesterday. i’m not sure why it’s so funny, but it stuck in my head. earlier on in the day, we were talking about the documentary series bumfights. nobody else had seen them, so i was describing them a bit.

later on, we were discussing dating. i mentioned how i didn’t really go out with anyone for the last couple months of the summer, and as a result i had SO MUCH extra money. this guy who is pretty funny agreed and said something about “you just have to do cheaper stuff with girls, like have them over and watch bumfights.” that was funny enough, but i fake-asked a girl: “hey, want to come over to my basement apartment and watch bumfights? not on a tv though, just on my computer because i downloaded it. i have a big box of assorted chips from costco.”

that was definitely the funniest thing all day, in my mind.

today someone else gave me the idea to shotgun coffee. of course that would be horrible, but it would make an AWESOME video!

this weekend, a lot of people bought gift certificates. i thought about it for a while, and guessed (out loud) that it’s the 9-months-after-valentine’s day baby boom coming up. a customer overheard and said “yep, i’m a november baby, and i have two november children. my family likes valentine’s day romance!” it’s a tradition!

i just went to the fridge and saw half of an extra large pizza i had forgotten about. bonus

SO, i forgot about it because some other stuff happened on my way home, but on thursday i walked by a CHIPOTLE!!! i went to extreme measures to eat there on my (15min) break today at work. it’s at dundas square, a 10 minute walk from my store, so i got there on my bike in about 90 seconds.

when i lived in the states, chipotle was pretty new (or at least it was in richmond) and just starting to get really popular. every time i go back to the usa, i eat there once every other day (at least). the burritos are like 3/4lb and one of the most delicious things in the world. i joked to my mom that i never need to go back to the states again. i know where i’m eating every single saturday at 2pm for the rest of this school year.

coincidentally, when i walked into the restaurant, the cal tjader tune from verve remixed 2 was playing. i love that track!

tonight i saw ron (and don) play massey hall. it was a fun show with an awesome atmosphere, ron was in a great mood. he said some hilarious stuff, he sat down at the piano and played a couple bars of eine kleine nachtmusik and pointed at the string section and quipped “you guys know that one, don’t you?”. very fun.

in the box office line about 20 minutes before the show, it was basically all friends and family of the musicians waiting for the guestlist to show up. one of them who i hadn’t seen in about a year said hi, and commented that i looked like i had gained 30 pounds. it’s actually 15, but that is a huge compliment because it was completely candid, and it’s what i’ve been trying to do for 2 years! i only started trying last month, and now i can feel my chest bounce when i go down stairs. that’s definitely a new feeling.

the afterparty was weeeird. it was a combination of people i know through my uncle, some important canadian musicians, and all their families. it also ended at midnight. what kind of rock and roll party is that. i guess about half the people were over 40 though!

this is fascinating. i want to go to the library and check out a bunch of waldo books now. also (note to self) i need to buy house of leaves.

figured out something awesome on tuesday while counting rests in orchestra. i had an itch on the inside of my elbow, and instead of scratching it i accidentally pinched myself with newly-cut fingernails. i got an insanely visceral flashback to every time i ever gave blood or got an immunization (which was a lot when i was 15/16). it was one of the most distracting things i’ve ever experienced - not painful enough to be really unpleasant, just incredibly mind-numbing. i put that to great use, i was approaching the tight pants feedback catastrophe. i look forward to trying this on the subway or during a horrible conversation i have to endure. this was a totally new experience; synaesthesia really only manifests itself for me with music and smells, and occasionally taste or an aesthetic.

i love my synaesthesia. if i hear a salient enough song from more than a couple years ago, it seriously hits. sometimes i smell something i haven’t smelt (i love this past participle so much) in months or years, and i get a flashback to something mostly forgotten which blows my mind a little bit.

i had a nap on the sofa while i was babysitting for my aunt & uncle tonight. i woke up when claudia got home, and i ate some falafel while walking home (it was delicious). for some reason it took me about 45 minutes to wake up all the way, even though i only slept for two hours. it was an altered state i don’t think i’ve ever felt before. weird!

my good friend derek was visiting for the past 5 days, and it was a ridiculous 5 days. we had barely hung out since he went to university 4 years ago, and even less since i moved to canada 3 years ago, so it was over-the-top.

thursday: a look back on the third presidential debate
friday: i had an awesome lesson, followed by MAX PAYNE which was amazing, and then real-life valkyr. hilarious!
saturday: obviously we were awake all night, so saturday morning started with Schrödinger’s Breakfast. there is an amazing video of this that i will upload at some point. another look back on the third presidential debate, at 8 in the morning.
sunday: the green room, followed by some stuff that is so ridiculous i’m not going to write it. actually, “things happening that are so ridiculous i’m not even going to write them down” is a pretty good summary of the last five days.
monday: live sitar and really incredibly delicious indian food

a great time, but exhausting. i think i might be getting sick now, but that’s what i get for 5 days of partying.

i’m not sure how it started, but since i can remember, every time i see a movie with my family we stay until the end of the credits. occasionally there’s something cool, like the breathing noise at the end of episode I, or some sequel thing at the end of one of the x-men movies. i guess romantic comedies have outtakes. since i stopped living with them, and subsequently going to movies with them, i’ve kind of stopped doing that. the people i go with always have to pee or i’m there with a bunch of people who start leaving anyway.

at max payne i told derek i want to stay until the end and he was cool with it - good thing, because there was a relatively long secret scene about a possible sequel! yes! the bad thing was that this was the 4:30 screening on the friday that it premiered and there were maybe 30 people in the whole screening. this is at the paramount, downtown toronto. it did reach #1 movie this week, though. what a fun movie.

i rode to school yesterday morning without gloves because it was still about 10°, according to the weather report. i didn’t realize it was quite windy, so i had a very unpleasant bike ride. definitely the worst of the season so far. i got out of school eight hours later to find that it’s still windy, below freezing, and SNOWING. that morning’s ride was immediately topped as the worst ride so far this year.

i have a great ski jacket, and cold legs isn’t a problem that i have, so the only issues with winter i have are cold face and cold hands. cold face is more of a motivational problem - knowing i won’t be able to breathe for a second after going outside is an issue when it comes to going to class, but comfort-wise it’s not too bad. cold hands, though, is one of my least favorite feelings of any type. if i were to make a list of my “top five least favorite feelings, physical or otherwise”, cold hands would be in the top three. yesterday was the last day of the year that i will get on my bike without gloves.

beep boop

i took this picture with my panasonic gs320. and a lot of postprocessing! i’m still impressed, i had no idea i could make stills taken with a dv cam look decent.