4/18/2016

thursday march 3

today i realized for the first time that the sign on the ali baba’s at bloor and lansdowne advertises the fact that they have "shawrma," which is either an alternate, little-used english spelling of shawarma, or a typo.

wednesday march 2

today i got to the front of a checkout line at a store and, instead of pausing my music when i took my headphones off, i just let it keep running. i’d never do this with a podcast - it always seems like i’d miss something and it would take me way too long to jump back into the conversation - but in this case, i managed to perfectly time it so that my least favourite song on the album played in nearly its entirety while i went through the checkout. that song was just ending when i left the store, and for whatever reason, this felt much more satisfying than it would have had i paused the album, then just skipped that one song.

tuesday march 1

today i found myself shovelling snow for the first time this winter. by the time i'd gotten around to getting out there and tackling the snow, it had really piled up, making shovelling a difficult and taxing job. still, rather than doing just the bare minimum for my shared house (ie. shovelling the area that would benefit me), i kept pushing myself to do it all, and was out there for upwards of 20-30 minutes. by the time i got inside again, my back was so sore that i had to lay down on my couch for the next 15 minutes to recover.

monday february 29

today i remembered for the first time in a couple weeks that i'm planning on not drinking any alcohol at all in march this year. although i figure i’ll make a decent effort to actually go through with this, the fact that i’d almost entirely forgotten about it makes me think that i may just accidentally have a drink or two at some point, and then remember my resolution after the fact.

sunday february 28

today i went to recycle the cardboard box of frozen meatballs i’d finished yesterday and noticed for the first time that it had an expiry date on it, which read: november 2, 2015. i was relieved that i was seeing this now, rather than before i’d eaten them — they hadn’t made me sick or anything, but if i’d seen the expiry date earlier, i probably would’ve either thrown them out, or would’ve convinced myself they were making me sick, like some sort of placebo effect.

saturday february 27

today i had a dream that i was asked to hold a baby and it was so small that it fit into the palm of my hand, but so slippery that i kept dropping it onto the ground. when it seemed like the baby was fine despite my drops, i said something to the effect of "guess the idea that you can’t drop babies is just a myth!" i can only assume the meaning of this dream is that i should never, ever have kids.

friday february 26

today i planned to meet my girlfriend in transit on the ttc, always a difficult thing to time. knowing where i’d have to be at a specific time, i left my house at exactly the right moment, and was pleased with myself for not running late at all. however, before i got on the subway, i realized i had no cash and had to make a quick stop at the bank on the corner to get some money. for the first time ever though - or at least for the first time when i’ve been there - there was a lineup at the atm at this bank, forcing me to wait for upwards of 3-4 minutes before getting a chance to withdraw any money. when i finally got out of the bank and onto the subway, i thought i was still running pretty close to on time, but only until a couple minutes later, when the subway stopped without explanation for five minutes, another rarity. by the time i finally met up with my girlfriend, i was about 10 minutes later than i anticipated, and my perfectly-timed departure from my house had been rendered useless.

thursday february 25

today i stopped at my favourite local convenience store on my way home to buy a cherry coke and a vanilla float dr. pepper. this place has the best soft drinks. as i was finishing paying, a guy came up behind me in line, but instead of putting his items on the counter next to mine, where there was plenty of room, he stood there waiting for me to get out of the way entirely.

thrown off by his weird patience, i struggled to throw my pops in my bag and put my wallet away quickly, trying to sidestep out of the way in the same motion. my quick shuffling movement caused me to step on one of my shoelaces, untying it. with me out of the way, the guy stepped forward to the counter and said to me, "hey, your shoe’s untied," to which i replied, "I SAW, THANKS!" in a tone that was hopefully cordial but almost certainly revealed my agitation.

wednesday february 24

today i got a call from fido during my work day, encouraging me to take advantage of new deals that included things like buying a land line or getting a second cell phone. although i had no interest in doing any of these things, i was reluctantly talked into letting the guy give his spiel rather than just turning him down right away. my willingness to do so must have made him think i was a real pushover, because after i continued to turn down his offers, he refused to take no for an answer, launching into another spiel and then asking me again if i was interested. this happened multiple times, and nearly pushed me to the point of just hanging up on him before i was finally able to politely end the conversation and escape without committing to anything.

4/17/2016

tuesday february 23

today i was looking at the lineup for ottawa bluesfest and noticed that freddie gibbs seemed oddly out of place on a thursday bill that features the monkees, sam hunt, and two artists that go by variations of "the [white-person name] band." the lineup made me recall seeing freddie gibbs at the pitchfork festival years ago, when he put on a great show for one of the whitest rap crowds i’ve ever seen. here i am enjoying it:


monday february 22

today i went out for drinks with a friend to catch up. we later followed up on the hangout by both sending each other memes we’d discussed during the evening.

sunday february 21

today i went to comedy bar after a friend’s show to meet up with her for a birthday drink (her birthday, not mine). the place that i chose to stand was right in front of one of the tvs on the wall, and while i was hardly in a position to keep anyone from seeing the entire screen, i felt like i may have just been tall enough to block a small portion of it. based on where i was standing, this meant blocking the bottom right-hand corner, which was where the score bug was for the raptors’ game on tv.

i could tell - based on eavesdropping - that a few people were watching this game, despite the fact that it was a rerun of a game that had been played earlier in the evening, so i spent most of my time sort of leaning forward, hunching over, making sure that i wasn’t blocking their view of the score. because i was able to do this in a way that wasn’t too uncomfortable or horrible to my back, it seemed like the easier thing to do than simply moving to a different spot in the bar.

saturday february 20

today i bought 10 ttc tokens, used one, and put the other nine in my coat pocket. later in the evening, i went to a party where i threw my coat on a friend’s bed when i arrived, grabbed it at the end of the night, and didn’t notice that six of my ttc tokens had fallen out onto her bed for her to find tomorrow. while this was annoying, i guess the silver lining is that three of them somehow managed to stay in my pocket, allowing me to get home before i even noticed most of them were missing.

friday february 19

today i decided to use spotify to listen to a few bands i hadn’t heard before, rather than listening to my usual music with itunes. because my laptop often runs slowly when i have both programs open, i closed itunes. over the next several hours, until the end of my work day, i instinctively clicked on the itunes button approximately 15 times, whenever i wanted to see the name of a song or start a new album, having forgotten i was using spotify. in retrospect, the constant opening and closing of itunes was probably way worse than if i’d just left it running in the background all day.

thursday february 18

today i bought toothpaste at no frills. i’m not overly particular about what kind of toothpaste i buy, but i usually end up rotating between the same two or three kinds of crest -- the ones that look the "safest" (no weird flavours, nothing that sounds overly complicated like "3d white," whatever that is, etc.).

however, my girlfriend had complained that the kind i’d bought most recently was way worse than the one i’d had previously. having not double-checked the label on my current, almost-empty tube of toothpaste before i went to no frills today, i spent about 90 seconds surveying the toothpaste rack, trying to remember which kinds i’d bought the last two times. after plenty of deliberation, i made my choice and was pretty confident about it, so it was a bit of a bummer to arrive home and discover that i’d ended up with the exact same kind i'd bought last time.

wednesday february 17

today i was scheduled to meet three of my co-workers at 10:00 am at the rogers centre to do some setup and maintenance work for the coming blue jays season. having arrived at 10:05 am, i was briefly concerned about my tardiness, but it turned out i was the first person there — not only that, but i was the only one there until about 10:30, with everyone else arriving so late that i had a moment of panic where i became convinced that i’d shown up on the wrong day. nope, still just the only one of us to actually live in the city and not have to take forever coming in from the outer gta.

tuesday february 16

today i was going to wish a friend in vancouver a happy birthday shortly after i woke up, but when i realized it would still be just 6:00 am on the west coast, i decided to wait until she might actually be awake. a couple hours later, i noticed someone had written a happy birthday message on her facebook timeline. because her birthday date wasn’t actually listed on facebook, i had been hoping to really show off my bona fides as a good friend by sending my birthday message without any prompting, so i was a bit annoyed that it now looked like i was only doing it after being reminded by someone else’s message. should have sent it at 6:00 am after all.

monday february 15

today i came out of my house and was a few seconds away from "merging" onto the sidewalk when i noticed a passerby walking in the same direction that i was about to. if i’d walked to the sidewalk at a normal pace, i would have ended up almost exactly in line with him, so i was faced with a snap decision: rush out to the sidewalk to get out there ahead of him, or take my time and let him get a bit ahead of me, so i wasn’t right on his ass when i started walking. i opted for the latter, making a concerted effort to struggle to get my gloves comfortable while standing in my front walkway before making it out to the sidewalk. of course, i ended up passing him about 60 seconds later, so maybe i should’ve just rushed to get ahead of him from the start.

3/08/2016

sunday february 14

today i discovered, a week after the fact, that the super bowl bet i’d made on "viva la vida" being the first song coldplay played during their halftime set had paid out, despite the fact that i’d assumed it was a loser, since chris martin opened the show by singing a couple bars of "yellow." my reaction to this realization was three-fold:
  1. hmm, i guess that makes sense, since technically the bet was on the first song coldplay played, so maybe chris martin a cappella doesn’t count.
  2. still, i’d be pissed if i’d bet on "yellow."
  3. i can’t believe i bet on this and made $50.

3/04/2016

saturday february 13

today i stopped in at the eaton centre to quickly buy a couple things, and was on my way out when i noticed a huge lineup of people outside champs sports. since it’s nba all-star weekend, i assumed there was some sort of nba-related appearance happening, but the throng of teens was so thick that i didn’t really feel like stopping and trying to peer through the crowd to see if could spot a player. after arriving home 45 minutes later, i looked up the day’s itinerary on champs' twitter and realized that i had most likely been within yelling distance of boogie cousins.

friday february 12

today i celebrated my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend, and for the first time in the 365 days that we’ve known one another, felt like the more worldly one at a restaurant, when i talked her into trying ceviche.

thursday february 11

today i went to hang out with a couple friends who were dj’ing at unlovable. when i arrived, i warned them that i couldn’t stay past midnight, since that’s when i’d turn into a pumpkin, which in retrospect i don’t think is right. need to brush up on my cinderella.

wednesday february 10

today i bought three different kinds of radlers at the beer store. just really need to find out which radler is my favourite so i’ll be ready for the summer, you know?

3/02/2016

tuesday february 9

today i received an email from mlb advanced media informing me and my co-workers that the company intends to issue us work apparel for this year's mlb season, in the form of polo/golf-style shirts. the email asked for our shirt size, which sent me into internal deliberations for about the next 15 minutes.

on one hand, i pretty much always wear medium shirts, but i also buy most of my shirts from the same two or three stores, and what if these ones fit a little smaller and i have to spend the entire 2016 season wearing these tight polo shirts around the skydome like an out-of-shape version of john cena’s character from trainwreck? on the other hand, what if these shirts fit normally and i ask for large ones, then spend the season walking around looking like a kid wearing his dad’s clothes?

ultimately, i finally went with medium instead of large, figuring it was an aspirational choice. like, in my mind, i’ll spend the next two months trying to stay fit to ensure that i fit into this polo shirt, as if it’s a wedding dress or something.

monday february 8

today i was walking along richmond street behind three real slowpokes. this college-age group of two girls and a guy was hogging most of the sidewalk, making it impossible to pass them until no one was coming the other way, at which point we managed to sneak by them. less than a minute later, they suddenly decided that now they wanted to walk fast, abruptly speeding up and prompting my girlfriend to loudly ask "are you serious?" as they re-passed us.

sunday february 7

today i had a conversation with a friend in which we both hilariously misidentified kato kaelin’s role in the o.j. simpson saga, with me wondering if he was the guy who was in the car with o.j. during the bronco chase and my friend suggesting that he was one of o.j.’s defense lawyers. just a couple of misinformed millennials who really need to watch american crime story and/or made in america.

3/01/2016

saturday february 6

today i found out that one of my best friends, who moved to london, england a year and a half ago, is getting married there later this year. when i heard the news, my first few thoughts, in some order, were:
  1. oh no he’s never coming back.
  2. hmm, i hope he schedules the wedding for when i was planning to visit, even though i haven’t told him yet when that will be.
  3. wow great news, so happy for them!

2/29/2016

friday february 5

today i went to use the bathroom at spirits bar and grill. having sat in a booth seat that made it sort of awkward to get out, i’d put off the bathroom visit for a little while, and really needed to go by the time i got to a urinal.

as i was standing there, i noticed a sign above the urinal that read: "caution please! the handle is leaking and may splash when flushing." not wanting to deal with this possibility, i resolved not to flush the urinal when i finished, or at least to wait until i could easily jump away from the splash zone. however, halfway through my pee, much to my dismay, the urinal suddenly auto-flushed. the handle initially seemed fine following this flush, but sure enough, a couple seconds later, little drops of water began spurting out of the handle toward my shirt, leaving me to try to lean away from the leak while continuing a pee that would have already been finished if i hadn’t put it off for so long. what a nightmare.

thursday february 4

today i went to the blue jays’ state of the franchise event - rebranded this year as "the leadoff" - for the fourth consecutive years as a season ticket holder. for the first time, i felt like i’d truly "figured out" the evening, arriving just in time for the doors to open, making the most of the hour of free food and beer, snagging a table to stand at so i didn’t have to walk around trying to eat food with one hand while holding a drink with the other, and then leaving about 10 minutes into the never-revelatory panel/q&a portion of the night.

wednesday february 3

today i liked a friend’s facebook comment on my wall from seven years ago, having seen it again thanks to facebook’s memories/on this day feature. although the comment hadn’t gotten any likes or comments when it was initially posted, my like today presumably showed up on some friends’ feeds, creating a chain reaction that resulted in it getting nine more likes besides mine, seven years after the fact. not sure how many of those friends even noticed how old it was.

tuesday february 2

today i went to bed at about 9:00 pm, intending to nap for three hours and then get up and work for three or four hours, figuring there’d be far fewer distractions during those morning hours when no one was online. when my alarm went off at midnight though, i hit snooze, then proceeded to either hit snooze or move the alarm back 30-60 minutes at a time, until it was 7:45 am and i’d just ended up sleeping through the entire night instead.

2/19/2016

monday february 1

today i planned to meet a friend for drinks. in the afternoon, i asked if we could meet a little later in the evening, citing my need to get groceries and get some work done, though actually my top priority was squeezing in a post-work nap. having not heard from my friend for a few hours by the time i finished work, i assumed a later meet-up time would be fine, and settled in for the nap, setting my alarm for 6:55 pm.

moments later, before i'd fallen asleep, i received a text message from my friend, who apparently hadn’t seen my facebook message from earlier, asking if we could meet at 7:00 pm. giving up on my dream of napping, i said sure, got up, showered, took care of a couple things, and then walked over to three speed to meet her. halfway there, i heard an odd, faint melody playing, and realized it was coming from my pocket, where my phone alarm from my planned nap was going off. a real reminder of what could have been.

sunday january 31

today i went to clean a section of my shower using a vinegar solution and ended up spilling vinegar all over the place. pretty concerned that my bathroom will never not smell like vinegar again.

2/18/2016

saturday january 30

today i placed a domino’s order from my girlfriend’s place. following along with the live progress tracker, we saw after about 25 minutes that the order was out for delivery, but after about another 15-20 minutes passed, there was no sign of - or word from - the delivery guy. concerned that perhaps he had missed the instructions about calling us when he arrived, i went down to the entrance of the condo building to make sure he wasn’t futilely waiting there.

when i got to the building lobby, i didn’t see anyone out front, but decided to stick around for a few minutes just in case — no point in going up and down if his arrival was imminent. a minute later, i saw a girl get out of a car across the street and come up to the entrance of the building, where i let her in. as we both stood there in between the building entrance and the door to the lobby, i became increasingly convinced that there was a possibility she was the domino’s delivery person. she had a ton of bags and packages with her, had just got off the phone before she entered the building, and had said she was waiting to meet someone.

not wanting to stand there indefinitely if it turned out that the person she was waiting to meet was me, i finally broke the silence by saying, "sorry, who are you waiting for?" confused, she looked at me and then back toward the lobby (which was out of sight from where i was standing) and said, "uh, it’s fine, he’s right here," gesturing to a guy who was walking up to the door to let her in.

in retrospect, it was quite obvious that she wasn’t the delivery person — none of the bags or packages she was holding were remotely pizza-shaped. so, in an effort to try to avoid creating awkwardness with someone who might be delivering my food, i had in fact been extremely awkward to someone who was just waiting for her boyfriend to let her in, with my "who are you waiting for?" question making me look like a nosy resident who was a little too concerned with building security. never talk to anyone, that’s the lesson here.

friday january 29

today i called visa to activate a new credit card. before i keyed in visa's phone number, i opened up my most recent bank statement, with the intent of going into the call fully prepared to prove my identity. in the past, i’d been asked to name the amount of a recent deposit into my account, and was totally caught off guard, not able to remember the exact amount of my pay cheques and offering only vague details.

for the first time ever though, the process for activating my credit card didn’t involve talking to a human at all. after just entering a couple numbers into my phone, including my date of birth (child’s play compared to deposit amounts), the automated voice let me know my card had now been activated. i hung up pretty disappointed that it was so easy.

2/17/2016

thursday january 28

today i was leaving the walmart at dufferin mall through the outdoor exit, and as usual, a cavalcade of grocery carts had piled up just outside the entrance, making it tricky to navigate through them. as i tried to sneak through one gap, i was blocked by a woman who was taking a huge box out of her cart in preparation for grabbing a taxi. the box looked heavy and awkward — some sort of electronics product, i think.

as she struggled to remove the box from her cart, i went to push the cart out of the way, thinking this would be helpful for both of us — i’d get my opening to escape the walmart entrance, and she’d be able to hoist the box up and out of the cart, since it looked like the box was getting sort caught on the side of the cart when she tried to lift it. although this made sense to me in the moment, i soon realized that it would have made way more sense if i’d simply helped her lift the box, rather than moving the object she may have been using for leverage.

while it ended up working out fine, i’m not entirely sure how she felt about my move. i mean, she definitely said something to me, to which i replied, "no problem," but i had headphones on and didn’t really hear what she said. it could have been "thanks." it could have been "uh, could you not?" it could have been anything, really. there are a lot of possibilities that make my "no problem" seem like a perfectly acceptable answer, and just as many possibilities that make it seem like a sarcastic, dick-ish rejoinder.

2/16/2016

wednesday january 27

today i went to wise bar to meet up with my book club. there are five of us in the club and the table we sat at had enough room to comfortably seat two on either side, even though there were technically enough chairs for three on either side, as this blogto photo shows:


having arrived third, i ended up in the middle seat on one side of the table, and when the fifth member arrived, he sat next to me, making me the only one at the table sitting between two people. as such, it was a big relief when he asked a minute later if he should swing around to the end of the table, a question to which i immediately replied "yeah." the head of the table probably isn’t the most comfortable seat and it sort of puts you in the way of all the foot traffic coming through the bar, but it’s only fair if you show up last that you should have to deal with that and i should be able to move my elbows around without worrying about hitting anyone.

tuesday january 26

today i saw the animated charlie kaufman film anomalisa. while i was bracing to be hit hard by the film’s themes/message/etc., the thing that instead stuck with me most as i left the theatre was how accurately and realistically it detailed the minutiae of hotels.

monday january 25

today i did a grocery shop and bought a bunch of things i’d need to make a penne pasta dish later in the evening. while i was in the grocery store, i stopped and did a mental inventory to make sure i had everything for it — pasta sauce, meat, vegetables, parmesan cheese, etc. it wasn’t until a few hours later, after i’d already prepared nearly every aspect of the dish, that i went into my cupboard and realized that i’d forgotten to buy the actual pasta.

fortunately, i still had some leftover spaghetti in cupboard, which i used in place of the penne, but the exercise ultimately just proved why it’s not worth putting more than meatballs in a spaghetti dish — real hard to pick up small vegetables along with a forkful of spaghetti.

2/10/2016

sunday january 24

today i ordered a meatball sub from subway and was way too chill about it when the sandwich artist realized halfway through the process that he’d made the sandwich on nine-grain bread instead of italian. probably could’ve gotten a free mini big of ketchup doritos or something out of it if i’d been a little more upset about his mistake.

saturday january 23

today i was reading fifteen dogs at my girlfriend’s place when she (a real dog lover) insisted on taking the book and reading to me from it. the first paragraph she read involved one of the dogs being mounted by all the other members of the pack, then trying to fight back by mounting one of them himself, which led to a power struggle that resulted in two of the other dogs attacking him and "leaving him half-dead by the side of the pond." it was at this point that she gave the book back to me and showed no further interest in reading it.

2/07/2016

friday january 22

today i went to see the first screening for a short film that a friend had written. the film heavily focused on issues related to rape culture, so even though it was very well done, it wasn’t exactly a crowd-pleaser or a laugh-a-minute riot. as such, when i found my friend after the screening to congratulate her, i sort of wish i’d just stuck to my initial "that was great" compliment rather than also adding "i really liked it," which was meant to show that my praise was genuine but in retrospect felt a bit creepy.

2/05/2016

thursday january 21

today i came across a thread on a friend’s facebook wall joking about how the blue jays losing munenori kawasaki meant losing a "mascot," which was followed by a discussion of classic jays mascots that had been replaced over the years. no one involved in this discussion mentioned my favourite mascot, domer, a turtle who is technically associated with skydome rather than the jays themselves. domer made an appearance during the 2014 season for the skydome’s 25th anniversary, and stole the show — one especially hilarious gag involved the "world’s fastest grounds crew" at the dome, with domer trying to help them but only making it about eight steps onto the field (he’s a turtle) before they finished and ran back off the field past him.

anyway, remembering my fondness for domer, i decided to do a little research to see if i could find out when he stopped doing regular appearances at the dome (i assumed it was sometime around when it became the rogers centre). during my hunt for this information, i happened to stumble upon one site that cited the illustrator who created domer back in the 1980s. incredibly, this illustrator happened to be the dad of one of my good friends, shocking and impressing me to such an extent that i immediately sent that friend a text message full of incredulous expletives about my discovery.

wednesday january 20

today i realized for the first time that a friend who i follow on twitter doesn’t follow me back. this discovery was an odd one, since i recalled him @-mentioning me in a tweet last month when he asked several friends what their favourite albums of 2015 were. in fairness, it did explain why he never acknowledged the great list of my 2015 favs that i tweeted at him in response from my locked account.

2/04/2016

tuesday january 19

today i decided to re-attach the hood to my winter coat. when i started wearing the coat several weeks ago, it was still warm enough out that i’d decided to take the hood off, since i didn’t need it, but the declining january temperatures have made me miss it a couple times within the last week or so.

i’d been reluctant to tackle this mini-project, since i’d been thinking that the hood had been attached to the coat by a ton of little buttons that would be a hassle to do back up, but when i picked it up today i saw that it was just a zipper attachment. thinking to myself that this should be an incredibly easy task that would take about five seconds, i was predictably punished by fate for my hubris, as the teeth of the zipper immediately came apart behind the zipper "slider" as i tried to zip it up. due to the weird, curved angle of the hood’s zipper, it ended up taking me upwards of five minutes to fix the problem and finally get the hood back onto my coat. i knew it would be a hassle.

monday january 18

today i saw people on facebook tagging their friends in the comments of a post about an apartment rental becoming available, and debated with myself for about the 60th time whether or not i should let them know that people who aren’t friends with the original poster can’t see that person’s friends-only posts, even if they’re tagged in the comments. didn’t do it though. probably will never do it.

2/01/2016

sunday january 17

today i brought my christmas gift card to the beer store again after forgetting to use it last time. it was almost a certainty that i would have forgotten to use it again today, if not for the fact that while i was waiting in line to pay i happened to look at a display of available gift cards on the front counter and thought, "oh yeah, i have one of those!"

saturday january 16

today i got together with seven friends to re-watch game 5 of the blue jays/rangers alds from three months ago in its entirety. it managed to be even better than all the times i’ve re-watched the seventh inning over and over by myself.

friday january 15

today i went to the mall to buy a few things, including dish sponges. i could’ve gone to any number of stores to splurge on some nice sponges, but instead ended up in the dollar store, looking at a package of 10 sponges for $1.25 and thinking to myself, "why am i still so determined to live like a student with $100 to his name rather than the successful urban professional i am?" ultimately though, the voice that won out was the one that thought, "i might as well just buy them. i can always get new ones if they’re garbage. but i’m sure they’ll be fine."

1/29/2016

thursday january 14

today i went to fringe to get my hair cut and was twice asked before i sat down if i wanted my coat hung up. i’ve noticed that this is common practice at fringe, and normally i’d just agree to let them do it, even though it makes me feel like a diva to have someone else hang up my coat when the coat rack is right there, not behind a counter or anything. today, however, i was carrying so much stuff - headphones, gloves, scarf, etc. - that i knew it would take me a minute to get everything organized, and i didn’t want to rush through it, so i politely turned down the two people who asked if they could hang my coat up.

when i was finally ready to do the hanging myself, i realized, after struggling with it a couple times, that the little loop on the back of my coat, which i usually use to hang it up, wasn’t quite big enough to fit over the giant hooks on this particular coat rack. instead, i’d have to just sort of toss my entire coat over one of those hooks.

after having done this, i noticed that my coat was so heavy - weighed down by my scarf and gloves in addition to just being heavy to start with - that it made the entire coat rack shift its weight in a way that made me feel uneasy. i ended up spending the first two minutes of my haircut thinking about how embarrassing it would be if my amateur-ish coat-hanging job made the whole rack tip over, after i’d twice turned down help. i think it ended up being fine though.

wednesday january 13

today i typed an email address into my gmail search bar to look for an email that was literally the fifth-most-recent one in my inbox. i didn’t even have to scroll down to see it.

tuesday january 12

today i came outside in the evening to find my upstairs housemate shovelling the back walk, using a shovel that he'd taken from right outside my apartment entrance. he explained that he had recently asked our landlord to supply a shovel and some salt for us this winter, and that our landlord had since let him know that they'd left a shovel out back -- he assumed this must be it.

this piece of information, along with the shovel he was holding, left me extremely confused. since i've lived here, there has always been a shovel outside my basement apartment door that i've used to clear the snow off of our walkways in the winter, but the one he was holding didn't look likethat shovel. had our landlord come and replaced that shovel with this new one? had the old shovel disappeared, leading to the landlord needing to provide this new one? was i just misremembering what that shovel looked like?

this last possibility seemed like perhaps the most plausible one, since the shovel my housemate was holding didn't exactly look like a new, state-of-the-art model. however, this explanation didn't account for why our landlord would say that the shovel situation had been fixed, if in fact it remained unchanged.

hopefully it doesn't snow much this winter and the entire issue is rendered moot.

1/26/2016

monday january 11

today i had a conversation with a couple friends, in the wake of david bowie’s passing, about which celebrity’s death i’d be most devastated by if it were to happen, say, tomorrow. after some deliberation, i concluded that my answer was undoubtedly drake.

sunday january 10

today i went out to get groceries on a very windy evening. on my way back from the grocery store, i was standing at the corner of dundas and lansdowne waiting for the light to change when all of the sudden a scarf flew past me, heading toward the road. my first thought was to rightly assume that it came from someone else waiting for the light, but i’d been so caught up in the podcast i was listening to that i wasn’t entirely sure of that, and my second thought was a wild "wait, is that my scarf?!"

no matter whose scarf it was, it needed to be stopped, so i lunged after it, managing to corral it on my second try before it blew into the road. having ascertained by now that i was still wearing my own scarf, i turned around and was met by a middle-aged woman who was laughing and thanking me and saying "i guess i need to tie it up!" yes this is the windiest day in months, you're welcome but please don’t just loosely drape it around you again.

1/25/2016

saturday january 9

today i had a dream that before i went to see star wars episode vii: the force awakens, someone spoiled a major plot point for me, telling me that a specific character died in the movie. i’d done a great job avoiding spoilers in real life to this point, so i had a bit of a chuckle when i woke up at the fact that my subconscious felt the need to fill that hole with a fake spoiler. i wasn’t chuckling so hard a few hours later though, when i finally saw the force awakens and the spoiler from my dream turned out to be extremely accurate.

friday january 8

today i was at a house party for my girlfriend's best friend's birthday when i felt my phone vibrate three times in the span of about a minute. while i was loathe to be the person at the party who pulls out his phone and becomes engrossed by it, i could tell, based on the feel and the duration of the vibrations, that these weren’t text messages or facebook messages, making me wonder what was going on.

succumbing to my curiosity, i pulled out my phone and discovered that i’d received notifications from three different websites about the blue jays’ trade of ben revere for drew storen. considering i was trying to socialize with people rather than stare at my phone, this was the worst possible outcome, since i immediately wanted to text all my jays-loving friends about the trade and get on twitter to see every possible reaction.

in an inspired effort to be a good party guest while simultaneously reading up on the trade, i managed to find the other person at the party who i knew would get wrapped up in the news, informed her of the deal, and then spent the next few minutes occasionally (distractedly) talking to her about it as we both scrolled through our phones for the latest updates.

1/22/2016

thursday january 7

today i saw this tweet pop up on my timeline and misread "ossington’s newest salon" as "ossington’s newest saloon," which raised a handful of questions - where are ossington’s other saloons? why doesn’t this photo look like the type of place that would have swinging doors at the entrance? etc. - before i realized my mistake.

wednesday january 6

today i received my annual season ticket holders gift from the blue jays. part of the package sent by the team was a set of commemorative tickets for 2015's alds and alcs playoff games at the dome. my first thought when i saw these was, "oh, good idea to placate all those people who complained about only having paper tickets and how paper tickets don’t make very good souvenirs." but after taking a closer look at them, i realized that these tickets - while they looked and felt nice - didn’t include:

  • the dates of any games
  • any seat numbers
  • the price
  • what game of the series each ticket was for (one was identified as alds home game 3 rather than alds game 5, for instance)
  • nearly anything else that would make them seem like real tickets

not all of these things were necessary, and i don’t really even care (i'll probably throw them out!), but would dates and seat numbers have been so hard? seems like a pretty easy fix.

anyway, the package also featured a personalized blue jays 2015 al east champs banner, which was way more dope than the tickets, so whatever.

tuesday january 5

today i went to the shawarma place around the corner from my girlfriend’s apartment for the first time. although i referred to it as "king shawarma" before going there, it’s actually called shawarma’s king, a name i find more confusing.

despite the fact that i was the only person in the restaurant for the duration of my time there, and the guy behind the counter appeared to be giving me his full attention, he still seemed to forget things i had just told him. he had to double-check what exactly i wanted in my shawarma, and then after i asked for it "to go," he handed me the shawarma on its own and nearly let me walk outside before calling after me, "oh, did you want a bag for that?" hardly the behaviour of a shawarma king.

1/20/2016

monday january 4

today i began to play nba 2k16's "my career" mode, in which you follow - and control - an up-and-coming basketball player on and off the court as he advances through high school, college, and the nba. having apparently been written and directed by spike lee, this story was extensive, featuring my character and his family growing up in harlem.

while this was all quite entertaining, i was a bit taken out of the narrative during every family scene, since my character was one i’d previously created in an effort to emulate my likeness, using the palest skin tone possible for realism — in spike lee's story, however, my family members - including, most ludicrously, my twin sister - were all black.

sunday january 3

today i went to the grocery store and, despite yesterday’s concerns, bought several groceries i’d never bought before, with the intent of using them in recipes that i’ve never tried before. i was so excited about all the new, healthy meals that i was going to be making and eating soon that i decided to treat myself to a foot-long meatball sub on my way home.

1/19/2016

saturday january 2

today i skimmed through a cookbook i’d received for christmas, reading at least a couple dozen recipes that i might be interested in making. although it’s supposed to be a beginner’s cookbook, i gradually realized that literally every recipe i was looking at featured at least one ingredient i’d never bought, or at least one cooking technique i’d never done. often a lot more than one, if i'm being honest.

friday january 1

today i ate nothing but domino’s pizza and parmesan bites. a wonderful start to 2016.

thursday december 31

today i went to bmb karaoke to sing some songs with my friends. about halfway through the night, one of my friends accidentally queued up "hold on, we’re going home" by drake literally 12 times in a row. when it came up, we managed to slowly delete 11 of them one by one to make sure there was only one left, but i had a real good laugh to myself thinking about what anyone outside of our room might have been thinking if they’d just heard us do the same song over and over again for an hour.

1/18/2016

wednesday december 30

today i went to a raptors game with my girlfriend, who didn’t eat dinner beforehand and didn’t have interest in getting arena food. during the game, she decided that, given my love affair with ali baba’s, she wanted to try it for the first time on her way home.

throughout the game - and during the subway ride home - we had a running joke about who would pay for it — ie. "if the raptors win, you pay," "if the yonge subway comes before the university one, you pay," etc. when we finally got out at lansdowne and started walking toward the ali baba’s on the corner, i noticed something on the sidewalk — a $10 bill!

shocked, i grabbed the bill and sort of held it in the air for a second, turning around toward the subway station to see if anyone had dropped it and was coming back for it. when no one came to claim it, i turned back toward lansdowne. my girlfriend, meanwhile, noticing for the first time what i’d picked up, made the decision of who would pay for the food by snatching the money out of my hand and shouting "free ali baba’s!"

tuesday december 29

today i planned to run some errands, including stopping at the beer store to buy some drinks for new year’s eve. i’d received a beer store gift card, which i intended to use today. however, i accidentally left my house without it, a fact i noticed about 45 seconds into my walk, forcing me to go back to grab it.

about fifteen minutes later, i bought my beers.

about a minute after that, i realized that i’d paid with cash and had forgotten to use the gift card.

1/16/2016

monday december 28

today i planned to make a quick grocery run in the evening. having not left my house or really even looked out a window all day, i was shocked to find when i stepped outside that there was snow on the ground and in the air. quite a lot of it, in fact. so much so that after i struggled to shovel out my walkway, i took one look at my near-deserted street, wind and snow whipping into my face, and decided i could wait another day to get groceries. didn’t even make it to the sidewalk before turning around and going back inside.

sunday december 27

today i watched old home movies from my childhood at my parents’ place. in one of them, from august 23rd, 1992, i said to the camera, "the blue jays lost today.... but so did baltimore and milwaukee!" there were certainly funnier moments in the clips that we watched, but i think that one was my favourite, since it was a reminder that even at age 7, i was the type of person who’d be watching the mlb scoreboard and standings in august.

1/15/2016

saturday december 26

today i celebrated christmas with my family, eating plenty of food and opening all the gifts we’d exchanged. during our gift-opening session, i picked up one addressed to me from my parents and opened it up. it was a box filled with those little things of stylistically-shredded paper for packing purposes, but when i reached down through that paper to the bottom of the box, there was nothing there.

"keep looking," my mom said, and for about 20 seconds, i frantically tried to sort through all those tiny papers to find the gift. having still not found anything, i looked back to my mom in confusion, at which point she had a realization — this was a box with nothing in it that she’d wrapped for decorative purposes and then mistakenly labeled as one of my gifts. while she was pretty embarrassed about this and felt bad about it, everyone else - including me - agreed that it was a pretty hilarious prank and she really got me good.

friday december 25

today i went to my girlfriend’s mom’s place to celebrate christmas. my girlfriend’s aunt was also in attendance, and at one point she said something i couldn’t hear that i assumed was meant for me, since i was the only human in the vicinity. "sorry?" i said, to which she replied, "oh, i was talking to the dog. i don’t know you well enough to call you ‘sweetheart’ yet!"

of course, i hadn’t heard her say "sweetheart," but i liked the idea that she believed i had heard that part, despite missing the rest. like i was just sitting there not paying attention until she said "sweetheart" and i perked up and turned around all like, "did someone say my name?"

thursday december 24

today i was unsure about whether or not my recycling and compost bins were scheduled to be picked up, as is typically the case on thursday nights, so i tried to track down the pickup schedule online. according to the schedule i found, my area’s pickup date is typically friday, but was getting pushed back to saturday this week. this seemed a little odd, but i assumed that, since my garbage and recycling is generally picked up very late on thursday night, that counts as friday morning. in any case, i figured i had an extra day to put everything out to the curb.

several hours later, i was sitting in my apartment and happened to hear what sounded suspiciously like a recycling pickup truck outside. i ran to my window, looked out, and saw that it was picking up the recycling on the other side of the street, which was a relief — apparently the schedule change i’d found online had been wrong, but at least i hadn’t missed the pickup entirely. i put together my recycling and compost for the week, and headed outside with a load of it, only to see that the truck on my side of the street was out there as well, only about five doors down from my house. i quickly threw my stuff in our bins, wheeled them out to the curb, ran back in and picked up the last of my recycling, and got it out to the curb when the truck was just two houses away from mine. a real christmas miracle.

1/13/2016

wednesday december 23

today i brought christmas presents across town to my girlfriend’s place for our gift exchange. one part of my gift consisted of several similarly-themed items wrapped in tissue and put in a christmas gift bag, and the package as a whole was heavier than i expected. for the entirety of my excursion to her place, as i walked to and from the subway, and switched subway lines at bloor/yonge, i fretted about the possibility of the bottom of the gift bag just giving out, and my gifts spilling everywhere. i even indulged in the nightmare/fantasy a little by imagining the worst spots where it might happen, such as in the middle of major intersections. it felt like a real victory when i finally arrived at her place without incident.

tuesday december 22

today i accidentally cleaned my toilet without noticing that a piece of toilet paper was in the bowl already. the toilet paper broke apart into a ton of smaller shreds and mostly stuck to my toilet brush, putting me in the unpleasant position of having to peel the wet pieces of paper off the brush by hand. real dark times in my bathroom today.

monday december 21

today i wrapped all the christmas gifts i needed to wrap this year. having not had any wrapping supplies up until a few days ago, i’d bought a package of eight gift wrapping sheets at the dollar store, then thought to myself, "hmm, will eight be enough? should probably buy eight more just in case." i also bought three things of scotch tape.

by the time i finished wrapping all my gifts today, i had used three of the 16 sheets of gift wrap, and was about halfway through the first roll of tape. so, should be good to go through 2020 or so.

sunday december 20

today i placed a pizza delivery order within 10 minutes of getting out of bed in the morning.

1/12/2016

saturday december 19

today i was walking west down queen street, when i spotted a friend walking east, toward me, still about five or six seconds away from passing me. quickly recognizing that this was going to be one of those situations where it’s not clear if a stop-and-chat or a walk-by-and-hi was in order, i stared at her until she made eye contact with me a couple seconds later. the timing of her noticing me was so perfect that i was able to do a walk-by-and-hi (with a brief turnaround after we’d passed one another) that included a "how’s it going?" and a "good to see you" in addition to the "hi," and i didn’t even break stride.

friday december 18

today i went to get myself some cereal for breakfast, and was tipping the box to pour it by the time i realized that i had gotten out a plate instead of a bowl. stopped myself just in time. no idea how my brain planned to pour milk onto the plate.

thursday december 17

today i planned to meet my girlfriend on the subway, or at jane subway station, telling her i’d be on the front of the back car. "should i clarify what i mean by that?" i asked myself after sending the message, but i ultimately decided it didn’t need clearing up. a half-hour later, i was waiting at jane station when a subway arrived and my girlfriend got off at the far end of the platform, having been on the front car. yep, should’ve clarified what i meant, my first instinct was right all along.

1/10/2016

wednesday december 16

today i was working at about 2:45pm when there was a knock at my front door. after hurriedly getting dressed, i opened the door and saw my next-door neighbour wayne standing there with an open cardboard box.

"this was addressed to you," he said. "i found it open next to my house, looks like someone got into it."

after thanking him and expressing optimism that everything was still there and it had just been opened mistakenly by someone, i took the box into my house and inspected it. it was an order i’d placed recently with indigo — christmas gifts for my girlfriend and her mom. although the handful of books that i’d ordered seemed to all be there, two candles that were also part of the order were missing.

i went back outside to the front of my house to double-check, but all i found were a couple pieces of the plastic packing material that had been in the box, strewn about on the front lawn. sure enough, as i feared earlier this month, the mailman had simply left a package on the front step and someone had had the audacity to stroll up, open it, and take two candles out of it.

it was such a bizarre thing to happen that i obsessed about it for most of the rest of the day. i had meant to go outside an hour or so earlier to see if the package had arrived, but had gotten caught up in work and forgotten to do it. if i had remembered, would i have walked out on the person going through the box? also, why did they just take the candles, which were only worth about $15 apiece, rather than a couple of the books, which were easily worth $30+ each? more of a pain to carry those books, i guess? i had so many questions and had never wanted so badly to have a security camera trained on the front step of our house. would’ve been some fascinating footage to watch.

tuesday december 15

today i unthinkingly cut my ristorante pizza into six slices instead of my usual four. while this was a mistake, it turned out to be a fortuitous one — not only were the slices easier to handle, but the two pieces also sort of tricked me into thinking that the pizza was bigger than it actually was. gonna do this from now on, i think.

monday december 14

today i took the day off and spent most of the afternoon in various toronto bars having beers with a friend who was back in town from england. on my way home, around 7:30pm, i decided to stop at the dufferin mall to buy a few things i needed — groceries, christmas wrapping supplies, maybe a christmas gift or two, etc.. over the course of my whirlwind mall trip, i ended up stopping at walmart twice, having neglected the first time to buy a couple supplies i needed.

during my first time checking out at walmart, i ended up at express checkout #14, with a cashier i’ve had before, one who is particularly pushy when it comes to trying to sell you on getting a walmart card. this card is a thing that maybe i should have by now, but which i keep declining out of principle (what principle? who knows). anyway, this guy makes you feel guilty about not taking him up on his offer, and i’m not interested in being guilt-tripped at walmart. so when i returned to the express line the second time, i resolved to let the person in line behind me go first if i ended up getting checkout #14 again. not only would this allow me to avoid the unlikeable cashier, but it would also eliminate the possibility of being a spot where he recognized me from a half-hour earlier and made the argument, "how are you not gonna get this walmart card? you come here twice an hour!"

fortunately, i ended up getting checkout #10 instead.

sunday december 13

today i went to la cubana with a group of friends. after some deliberation, i decided to order the pork belly medianoche. my last experience with pork belly had gone extremely poorly, when i ordered a pork belly dish with plums at whippoorwill, which ended up making me nauseous and unable to finish it. however, i was fairly certain the problem there had been the plums. don’t need hot plums in my life.

when my sandwich arrived today though, i had nearly as hard a time eating it, overwhelmed by the unappealing smell and taste. i’m still not sure if the problem was that the smell strongly reminded me of how little i enjoyed the last dish i ate that included it, or if i just don’t like pork belly, but either way, it was a real disappointment, since there were literally about five other things on the menu i would have liked to try. today will be the last day i ever order pork belly, it’s decided.

1/08/2016

saturday december 12

today i went to roux for dinner and decided to go a little extravagant, ordering the chicken and waffles. when it arrived to our table, i heard the people at the table beside us whispering to each other about it. while some of their comments were fine ("wow it smells good," "we should order a second round of food," etc.), i feel like they should have made a better effort to avoid me hearing them when they made certain other comments ("so many calories though").

friday december 11

today i checked my mail and saw that i’d received something from the blue jays. having been waiting for weeks for them to mail a playoff ticket refund cheque to me, this was pretty exciting, but as i ripped it open, i realized it wasn’t my cheque — it was a season ticket holder reminder package for 2016, encouraging me to renew. so instead of giving me back the money they’d owed me since october, they were asking me to spend more. smh, jays.

thursday december 10

today i noticed that the bag of frozen fruit i had bought and used for a few smoothies so far came with a warning on the back that reads "cherries may contain pits." even though i was already halfway through the bag and hadn’t run into any pits yet, it still made me a little uneasy. wasn’t i warned as a kid that cherry pits are poisonous or something? are pits hard enough that i should worry about them messing with the blades on my blender? why is there even a chance that cherries in a bag of frozen fruit could have pits in them? aren't we all using frozen fruit for smoothies? seems dumb.

1/06/2016

wednesday december 9

today i received a visit from a friend, one who lives in my old apartment and who is in my book club. i had a couple copies of our current book for her and one of our other members, which she was stopping by to pick up. as i handed her the books, she took out a couple of beers from her bag and passed them to me.

"are these erin’s beers?" i said, referring to my old roommate - and our mutual friend - who still lived at my old apartment, and brewed her own beers in bottles that looked like this.

"aaron’s beers?" she said, referring to our mutual friend in the book club who had bought the copies of the books i was currently handing to her. "i guess they should be for him, huh? maybe you guys can each have one."

while my friend was talking, i looked at the beers and realized that they were from bellwoods brewery, where she worked. these clearly weren’t "erin’s beers." because of homonyms though, my friend hadn’t even noticed my mistake, and in fact, i’d probably looked like a really nice guy, offering to give these free beers to someone who deserved them more, when i never would’ve done that otherwise.

tuesday december 8

today i realized that the huge package of toilet paper (16 double rolls) i’d bought over the weekend was "ultra-soft." really spoiling myself to wrap up 2015, even if it’s by accident.

monday december 7

today i received a call from the canada revenue agency. as soon as the woman on the other end of the line identified herself as a cra employee, i remembered that i’d received a piece of mail from them several weeks ago that required a response — i’d skimmed it at the time and then completely forgotten about it.

immediately after i remembered this, my demeanour on the phone changed, and i started acting like i was a kid who had been called into the principal’s office. when she asked me if i’d received the aforementioned letter, i said "no," spinning a yarn about how my mail delivery had been unreliable for a few weeks. this was actually true, but i was so unconvincing in my delivery that there’s no way she could’ve believed me.

of course, from her perspective, she didn’t really care whether or not i’d seen the letter — she was just calling because there was one small detail that needed clearing up, and now they were trying to get it settled the phone rather than my relying on me to mail them back. i wasn’t in trouble at all, and when i shakily answered the one question that needed to be answered, she announced "okay, that’s it!" and i let out a burst of nervous, relieved laughter. she must have thought i’d never used a phone or spoken to anyone in a position of authority before.

1/05/2016

sunday december 6

today i was waiting for the westbound streetcar at dundas and ossington after trivia at the ossington. as the streetcar approached and i prepared to board it, a woman who had just come off the ossington bus approached me and the other person waiting at the stop, and asked, "are either of you using tokens?" i glanced at the other guy, who had headphones on, and when i saw he was ignoring her, i turned back to her and said yes, i was using a token, at which point she handed me a ttc day pass. "wow, thanks!" i called after her, feeling good about the fact that i could now avoid using that token.

it was such a nice gesture that i really felt like i should pay it forward by giving it to someone at lansdowne when i got off the streetcar, but i didn’t really see any candidates there, so i took it home and threw it out instead. i think the role i played in making her feel good about paying it forward was satisfying enough.

saturday december 5

today i was walking up dufferin street when i was stopped by an old man asking for money. after i turned him down and we started heading in opposite directions, he gestured to my blue jays hat and remarked, "the jays are gonna be good next year, even without david price!" having been exposed to so many negative opinions on the jays in recent weeks, based on the team's offseason moves, i was so appreciative of the optimism that i regretted not having been more willing to give him some money. at that point though, it seemed like it was too late to go back and admit that, oh, yes, i actually do have change, just because he’s a blue jays fan.

friday december 4

today i placed an order with indigo.ca, arranging to have three christmas gifts that i ordered from the site wrapped and shipped to my parents’ place in belleville. an hour later, i received a phone call from indigo, and while i was initially worried that something was wrong with my order, it turns out the indigo rep just wanted to confirm that i actually intended to have the package sent to belleville. presumably this was just a fraud-prevention measure, but i enjoyed her somewhat incredulous tone, which made it sound like she was just asking, "belleville, of all places?!"

1/04/2016

thursday december 3

today i was scheduled to work at 3:00pm and saw in the morning that the playstation 4 i’d ordered from amazon last week was scheduled to arrive sometime today. since i assumed this delivery was the sort i’d have to sign for, this presented some issues — when i work from 3 to 11 instead of 9 to 5, i generally run a couple errands before my shift begins. but today i was too scared to leave my house in case the delivery came while i was out and then got taken to a pick-up location when i wasn't around to sign.

by 2:00pm, with no knock on my door yet, i decided to make a quick run to the corner store to pick up a couple things i needed. when i walked around to the front of my house though, i saw a big amazon package sitting on my front step, having presumably been left there by the mailman at some point within the last hour or two, despite the fact that i’d specifically said "basement / back door" on the package, which was worth in excess of $400+. while i was excited to see that my ps4 had arrived, and relieved that it seemed untouched, i was still a bit miffed that it just had been left there — i mean, it would’ve been out in the open for hours if i had a real 9-5 job at some sort of office and didn’t get home until 5:30 or whatever.

wednesday december 2

today i went to the toronto christmas market in the distillery district with a few friends. at one point, my girlfriend and i decided we wanted to ride the ferris wheel and broke away from the rest of our group to do so. there was no line, and we got on the ride pretty quickly, but it then took about another 15 minutes for our ride to actually get started — the ride operator was replaced by a new one, and riders in other cars slowly got off and on until the ferris wheel was finally filled up with new riders. by the time we eventually did our rotations and got off, it ended up being so much later that the chimney stax booth we’d wanted to hit up before the end of the night had closed.

tuesday december 1

today i returned to opera bob’s to pick up the pair of gloves i’d left behind yesterday. in the 20 or so hours since i had the phone conversation regarding what i hoped were my gloves, i hadn’t come up with any better theories about how the bartender could’ve known me as jonathan, which is technically my name but not the one i go by. i was half-expecting the gloves i picked up not to be mine, or assuming that i’d somehow misheard something in our conversation (maybe he said his name was jonathan, for some unknown reason?)

when i asked tonight’s bartender about the gloves though, hesitantly identifying myself as jonathan instead of luke, he was able to quickly find them in a cupboard behind the bar with a big "JONATHAN" label on them. so, ultimately, i have no explanation for how this all played out, except that last night’s bartender either:

  1. thought i was someone else
  2. thought he knew my name and somehow coincidentally/magically got it sort of right.

1/02/2016

monday november 30

today i went to opera bob’s with a friend to meet up with a larger group for a couple drinks. when i left the bar at the end of the night, i’d taken the streetcar all the way to my stop by the time i noticed that i no longer had my gloves with me. as i walked home from the streetcar stop, i decided to call the bar, figuring that my best chance at getting my gloves back was to call right away and make sure they were found by the bartender who had just seen me 20 minutes earlier.

sure enough, the bartender that had been serving me picked up the phone, and when i asked about the gloves, he had already found them. when i said i wouldn’t be able to return to the bar tonight to pick them up, he said he’d store them behind the bar and label them with my name. "jonathan, right?" he asked. this caught me a little off guard, but my first name is indeed jonathan, so after hesitating for a split-second, i said yes and we hung up.

in the moment, i’d been thinking that i’d used my credit card with my first name on it, and he’d just remembered that, but after hanging up, i quickly recalled that i had paid with cash. it didn’t make any sense that he’d know me as jonathan, and now i was worried that someone else named jonathan had left his gloves behind and i’d be handed those gloves when i return tomorrow.

TO BE CONTINUED.

sunday november 29

today i received good afternoon wishes from facebook. it made me very uncomfortable.