2am discussion with Anand about the Dream in High Park (he directs next summer), The Beatles Get Back and remounting his play where we first collaborated 20 years ago. When he then asked me, it was to be the composer but after reading it I said, if I was an actor I’d want to play such and such role. He replied then you must! I told him I’m not an actor, he said that’s fine. I said I’m not good, I would only be curious to do it because I wonder why I’m so bad at acting. That’s a terrific reason, he said. It was a great experience, costumes made of cardboard, all of us at Doris’s house painting, cutting, pasting and snacking. Yesterday, the snowstorm and neighbours send an email offering to share their snowblower. Never used one before, it was like being a kid with a free pass to the bumper cars. They’ve cornered the market on Juno for best neighbour ever. Wasn’t going to chance driving Toronto streets with all seasons, took the subway to the Tranzac. Whenever I do these last months, always one person in each car not wearing a mask. I leave at the next stop and move to another. Don’t like the odds of someone unmasked in closed spaces. I have the fantasy of asking them why don’t you wear a mask like the rest of us? But the fantasy includes them punching me in the face or whatever other hostility they choose in defense of believing me as aggressor for asking them about themselves. Easier to change cars than test my imagination for realz. At the Tranzac I recorded a brief study playing patterns that ascend and descend over a bouncy bass line that amuses me, put on Instagram and Facebook. I turn the camera so I can view myself and be certain the frame includes seeing me and piano, however everything is mirrored, my right hand appears bass clef and my left hand colours the treble. Haven’t decided whether it’s worth fussing further. When I watch it back I realize things I didn’t consider when playing in the moment, which alters my expectations and is itself a lesson about what to do next time. Similar learning all those years ago acting in Anand’s play, I got to see my bad acting stemmed from the distraction of worrying about looking like a fool on stage vs. being the role.