I meant to post an entry just under a month ago about all the things that had happened in the very busy week and a half prior. It got long, and I took a break, and never got back to it. I'll summarize a few things here:
I took my first flight, with L, to Vancouver, for our first non-family wedding, of our friends Kim and JP. It was fantastic. I will make a much more elaborate post later.
L and I moved to Toronto.
Three quarters of the way to Toronto, with L and Jenn in the car and Rhonda and I in the moving van, L called me, panicked, crying, saying that Tybr stopped breathing. We were too far ahead of them. They stopped on the side of the highway and tried to revive Tybr but really had no idea how. The vet we took him to, to destroy the body, told us it was likely a panic induced heart attack. I still imagine his face the moment he died, even though I wasn't there to witness it, as L was. Needless to say, I don't think I'm quite over it, yet.
Today marks a month since L and I moved to Toronto, and a month since Tybr's death. I still very much miss him, and think of him daily.
In the past month L and I have:
Organized and decorated the apartment, putting up all but three shelves, making the apartment feel very much like home
Opened a joint bank account
Hung out with:
L's brother Christian, who will soon be moving here too
Chris, a friend through Evan
Cody, who just moved here also
Made three batches of delicious ice cream
Watched two anime series on Netflix
Used only the six subway tokens we brought with us from Montreal
Started working on a couple of online projects which have yet to fail
Discovered a growing list of people who live here now or will soon be moving to Toronto. As far as I can remember they are:
Aly, a classmate from Concordia, moved here yesterday, and started a new job today. It'll be nice getting to know him better.
Christian. It'll be great getting to know him again.
Chris. When we first met, Chris and I spent the whole night discussing and arguing about movies. It was great. When we hung out last we played board games all night. That was also great.
Cody. Always fun to hang out with, usually revolves around video games, which is strangely rare among my friends, all of whom actually like video games.
Elena. She helped us move in here, but I haven't seen her since. Laura went to a party at her place, but I was out of town. We need to have her over for dinner soon! Her Twitter is basically an arts and news feed of Toronto, which is good for me, seeing as I don't actively search that stuff out.
Emily Paris, a friend from Concordia and Heritage. We rarely saw her in Montreal, because she was always so busy. I assume it'll be similar here, but we'll still get a chance to see her every once in a while.
Felan. I haven't seen him in years. We used to work on a comic together. He's married now, and I haven't even met his wife. Laura and he are working on some plans to hangout.
Hanna and Laurie, friends of Laura's from Concordia. I've only met them once or twice. Really nice folk, though.
Julia, who L and I ran into multiple times when we were looking for a place. We haven't heard from her since, actually.
Marko, a friend of Taigan's from school. Again, we only saw him when we were looking for a place. We ran into him coming out of the subway at our first appointment. Hope to see him more often.
My cousin Eric and his wife Natalie (well, they're in Mississauga, but close enough, closer than I've ever lived to him). We used to be close as kids, but kinda grew apart through adolescence, due to never seeing each other and having incredibly disparate interests. I've already seen him a few times since we got here, and it's good to catch up and to know each other again.
I feel like I'm missing some people in that list. I'll edit it if any more come to mind (read: L reads this and tells me who I forgot).
So I've been working a lot with WordPress lately. The latest version of it, and the latest default theme (Twenty Eleven, the one currently implemented on here) have all sorts of fantastic features that I've decided I want to take full advantage of. For one, the custom formats. The post just before this one is a quote, for example. I'm going to actually make my own layout, something simple, and implement all the custom formats I feel I'll be using. So that's coming eventually.
I started reading scary stories on nosleep.reddit, which led the MarbleHornets videos and the Dionaea House. Fun stuff!
One of the stories on NoSleep was about lucid dreaming, and I've been trying out lucid dreaming techniques for the last two days. Namely a reality check in which I press the index finger on my right hand into the palm of my left hand, with the intention of pushing the finger through the hand. If I can't do it, I'm awake, and I feel the pressure. If I manage to do it, I'm asleep. I perform the check through out the day, to get in the habit of doing it.
I've succeeded in passing my finger through my hand twice now; that is, I've performed the check while dreaming twice now, but that's actually been the extent of those dreams. I need to get to a place where I am dreaming, then perform the test, then continue the dream, in control. Ironically, I may have had more control over my dreams before I started trying the reality checks.
There's also something called sleep paralysis which many of the stories on NoSleep either are about or are actually the most probable explanation for. The accounts of sleep paralysis I've read sound terrifying. I'd very much like to experience it, but I don't think I'm of the same mind set, nor experiencing the same conditions as those who do suffer from it.
The MarbleHornets and Slender Man stuff make me want to make some Slendy art or video. The NoSleep stories make me want to make a 3D game or interactive piece that explores some of the tropes of horror stories.