contrary to popular belief, root canals don't hurt. of course, if your endodontist is a hack then yeah, you'll feel it. but really, if they know how to use anaesthetics properly and it's not amateur hour with a drill and the files, it's like having a cavity filled. an hour and a half of filling mind you, but aside from a stiff jaw and several hundred dollars it's not any worse.

the best thing about my dentist, though, is the cockiness. the line between confident and cocky is pretty well-defined usually, and sometime in the last two years my dentist leapt over that line and hasn't looked back. case in point: he made the assistant take extra x-rays for the sole purpose of "appreciating [his] work because it's just so good." and good he is. he likes to call himself out as he's doing the procedure, and goes out of his way to make it perfectly clear every time he does something better than your average endodontist would. it's like ron burgundy went mad oriental and got his D.D.S.

all root canals should be so entertaining.

jh..

i've missed summer, for a long time. the last summer that really felt right for me was 6 years ago now. life was relatively simple, if only because i was pretty much care-free. i worked a job with good friends, golfed with best friends, went on trips to the mountains and the okanagan, had countless parties and campfires with the old riverbend/scona crew, and enjoyed the freedom of being accountable only to myself. it was a very formative time for me - that summer and the schoolyear before it. it's one of the times in my life that i look back upon with the most fondness.

things aren't the same any more. friends have moved away, "grown up", entered the work force, and left the lazy days of summer in their pasts along with the memories of what life used to be. of course, there are still some with whom it seems things never really change. my very best friends, despite changing in the ways that are truly inevitable with the passing of time and the coming of age, still make me feel like life is as good as i remember it being then. if not for them, i'd be more lost than i feel i am anyway. afternoons with them still stretch on until the sun is long below the horizon, and for a modicum of time those days of summers past aren't any further away now than they were then.

the great thing about change, it seems to me, is opportunity. for the most part, we have a lot of power in the direction of lives. even now, looking back i can see that i've had an inordinate amount of opportunity in my life. i lose sight of it from time to time, but with age the feeling grows stronger whenever i do have a chance to step back and take inventory of my history to date. in short, i'm blessed more than a person could reasonably ask for. that's not to say that i haven't gone through trials and tribulations in life as well, because i have. perhaps more than many. but that aside, i've survived any adversity that i've been challenged with, and i've grown to be a more whole person from it. as i've said before, i'm nowhere near where i hope that some day i will be, and i don't know where i'm headed, but i feel good about the direction that i'm moving. it seems to me that i couldn't ask for much more.

the list of things i'm thankful for is long, but the people i'm surrounded by - through choice and chance, likewise - are one of the things i'm most grateful for. i'd be nothing without the people that i'm with every day on eldon foote's blue mondo surface who drive me to find my limits, and then to push them beyond anywhere i thought i could go; the best friends - across the sea, sitting in lecture beside me, in our Capital City, watching the o.c., logging mad hours at twoods or the 4th GT, and the others whose connections don't rhyme with such ease; the pater, who's given me everything i could justifiably ask for or need to be whatever and whomever i might choose to be. for all of them, i'm forever grateful.

"these unpredictable stumbles leave me constantly humbled."
jh..

"Al Hirt + Sugar Lips = Honeyed Horn Listening"

it's off of the record sleeve, i kid you not.


i've been making beats like a crazy man tonight. things are flowing again, and it's like i'm waking up from a musical coma. maybe i've let go of the reservations that i didn't want to admit that i have; that i need to make music that sounds a certain way, or that someone might not like how certain notes sound, or that it's been done / is clicheed / is repetitive / isn't the style that i "should" be creating.

so fuck it. i'm sampling al hirt's "sugar lips" and it sounds hilarious. but my god, does it drop the funk when it's chopped and flipped.


"let your god self get wild" - afrika bambaata
jh..

send me a million throwbacks, i still won't want to go back.

a friend asked a favour of me today, and following through for her meant filtering through a dozen or so hours of old miniDV footage that was shot anywhere between one and five years ago: skiing, skating, and causing a ruckus.

the result is that in only an evening it feels like i've relived those four years of my life all over again. to be honest, it kind of makes me feel sick. that time is an important part of who i've grown to be, and there were countless great moments experienced, but those aren't the things that came rushing back. it's who i was. i can't help but be thrown right back in the same person when i watch all of these images from my past. i can't help but feel exactly as i did then, think exactly as i did then. it makes me feel ill because that old me is so very uncomfortable to me now.

i wouldn't give up my past for anything, but i also wouldn't give anything to go back there again. there's more in those years than i had allowed myself to remember, and it's not a place that i'm comfortable with any more. i'd relive any number of the great moments and memories, but only if i could do it as i am now.


it's a strange thing to realize that the least pleasant part of your memories is yourself. what makes it okay is that just maybe it means that you really do appreciate who you are now.

jh..

sometimes it's the smallest bit of a song that grabs me and pulls me in. when it does, it makes the rest of the song at the very least bearable, if not good itself. i've bought entire albums (as opposed to 12"s) for single chords. maybe i'm nuts, but when i hear something that strikes me, it consumes me until i own it and it's a part of me.

an example? erik satie's gymnopedie no.1. the piece is amazing as is, but the D major chord that ends the first half of the movement is enough to make the entire work. you could curl up and fall asleep in that kind of warmth. when it's played in context, it's a chord to which i could die happily.

and there are many more. i listen to some songs in ignorance for much of the time, just waiting for that part that i know is coming. the part that lights me up.
sometimes it makes days. sometimes it inspires. sometimes it catalyses. sometimes it comforts. it always satisfies, but just enough that i want to hear it just one more time, every time.

if i had to lose four of my senses, i think sound whould be the one i'd choose to keep. i'd be lost without it.

jh..