sunday december 30

today i turned onto a side street in my neighbourhood, and saw, about a block ahead of me, four children playing in the street. when they saw my headlights pointed at them, they immediately sprung into action; three of the kids jumped away from the road and hid behind snowbanks near the sidewalk (two on one side, one on the other), while the last of the four held his ground in the middle of the street and pointed his fingers at my oncoming car as if he was shooting a gun. it was quite thrilling and felt very briefly like i was in a movie.

saturday december 29

today i passed by the eastern star temple. i glanced at the outdoor sign and noticed that the plastic covering for it had been hit with some serious vandalism. though i couldn't see if something was written there, or if it was just one of those 'tags', i was still able to read the sign itself, which said: "the morons who did this are a waste of skin."

friday december 28

today i felt more festive than i had during any day before and including christmas itself, when i ate mint m&m's and drank candy cane flavoured hot chocolate while watching the extras christmas special.

thursday december 27

today i dreamed that i was playing a game of scrabble against someone and becoming infuriated because they kept putting roman numerals with lots of x's, v's, i's, and some letters that i don't think are actually roman numerals at all on the triple word scores.

wednesday december 26

today i skipped a day.

tuesday december 25

today i played euchre with my family and was talking a lot of smack. this went generally unreciprocated until, after i noted once again how amazing i was at the game, my mom commented: "well, at least you're good at something." ultimate burn.

monday december 24

today i had the following exchange with my brother:

him: "do you ever think what it would be like if we had a sister?"
me: "sometimes i feel like we do have one... jessie." (important ed. note: jessie is the name of our dog).
him (incredulous, laughing, sarcastic): "oh yeah, she's really someone you can talk to."
me: "what, just because she doesn't talk back??"
him: "... i guess that's the end of this conversation."

sunday december 23

today i saw a van driving along fanshawe park road with a license plate that appeared to read: "rape." as i got closer, i realised that it, in fact, read "fape." for a brief moment though, my mind sketched a quick image of what someone with the license plate "rape" might look like, concluding that the only plausible explanation would be if the driver was a hardcore environmentalist who was determined to have his anti-auto emissions message heard.

saturday december 22

today i was eating dinner with my family when my mother asked something to the effect of "is it supposed to rain tomorrow?" instinctively, having listened to the remix of fat joe's "make it rain" far too much as of late, i was overcome with the urge to blurt out "i make it rain on 'dem hoes" but stopped myself at the last second.

friday december 21

today i compiled a 24-page comprehensive guide to my dvd collection for my brother (christmas present!), so that he'll never again have to ask for a recommendation for watching in a specific situation. until i buy more dvds, at least.

thursday december 20

today i went to campus to do my weekly radio show. i arrived early, coming straight from another appointment, and was shocked to find that campus was a bona-fide ghost town. looking to kill time, i was unable to find the latest copy of the gazette to browse (the stands were all empty), unable to grab a bite to eat (everything was closed), and unable to even hang out in weldon library (also closed)! left with no other options, i sat silently and played with my phone until my fellow radio participants arrived.

wednesday december 19

today i went to my periodontist to get a couple of x-rays done, in preparation for my impending oral surgery. during this x-ray process, i had such a hard time sufficiently opening my mouth, which was still recovering from strep-related soreness, that the periodontal assistant briefly mulled using the 'kids size' mouth device, immediately prompting me to fight through the pain and open wide enough.

tuesday december 18

today i turned down meeting up with friends to go to the bar in favour of drinking by myself in a freezing house, and watching back to back episodes of a shot of love with tila tequila.

monday december 17

today i was eating some tostitos with salsa when i had a nice combination of the two for one particular bite. i prepared to dig into it, and brought my teeth together for a big bite, but much to my dismay, the tostito was positioned awkwardly in my mouth, and a sharp corner of it dug into the gum behind my upper front teeth. this was the most painful experience i'd had eating anything for a while, and i spent the next five minutes worriedly running my tongue over that area of my mouth, wondering if i'd impaled myself with the tostito and it had stuck in there deeply. it hadn't. as far as i know.

sunday december 16

today i saw my empire extend.

saturday december 15

today i went to a party. it was my first 'outing' for a while, since contracting strep throat. and while i was pretty sure i was no longer contagious, i was still a little self-conscious about it. this made it awkward when, at one point, i reached for my empty glass to get a water refill and found that it was gone. it's possible that one of the hosts just took it out of the way upon seeing i was finished, but, in my mind, far more likely that another partygoer mistook it for his glass and refilled it for himself, then drank from the same glass as me. oops!

friday december 14

today i resorted to dumping out my bottle of penicillin and counting the individual tablets, then backtracking my daily totals, to figure out how many i'd taken so far in the day, and whether or not i was due to take another.

thursday december 13

today i became so bored from days of sitting around doing nothing while i recovered from strep throat that, when baseball's mitchell report was released at 2:00 pm, i began to read the 400+ page document, rather than just waiting an hour or so for news outlets to summarize the interesting bits.

wednesday december 12

today i turned off the season finale of america's next top model halfway through, after i became so invested in a specific contestant's winning that her elimination in third place made me lose all interest in the outcome of the rest of the episode.

tuesday december 11

today i spent upwards of 50 minutes in a car, driving back and forth across the city for a doctor's appointment which took approximately three minutes.

monday december 10

today i was picking up a 12-pack of alexander keith's beer from the beer store. the girl behind the counter suggested that i get the special deal that includes three additional bottles of keith's red for only 30 more cents. 10 cent beers! however, i was already feeling so weak and dreading the prospect of carrying the 12-pack for multiple blocks, that i declined the offer, since i didn't want to deal with carrying 15 instead.

sunday december 9

today i was apparently so excited to watch the afternoon nfl game between the steelers and patriots that i dreamed about new england overnight. not anything special, like hangin' out and pickin' up chicks with them or anything. just watching them on tv. the first play was a two-yard run, the second play was a six-yard pass to randy moss. the third play was a run for a first down that got called back for a logan mankins holding penalty. given the fact that the patriots were, generally speaking, much more efficient offensively during the real game, i wasn't all that pleased with this dream. boring.

saturday december 8

today i made ten dollars an hour for a few hours of painting, leaving me with a bit of an achy arm from holding the paint can, and a slightly sore back. later in the day, i made more than the painting gig had netted for a single hour of relatively routine computer troubleshooting, reminding me again why not to pursue a life of physical labour.

friday december 7

today i was standing outside a bar with friends, debating whether or not to enter it, or go to another bar. when we finally arrived at a consensus to keep moving, one of the two middle-aged patrons of the bar, who were outside smoking, audibly muttered: "thank god."

thursday december 6

today i found a lump on the back of my neck. my mother insisted that it was nothing to be worried about, and didn't find it very funny when i told her: "goodnight forever."

wednesday december 5

today i rubbed my eyes intensely and a shape materialized in the darkness of my eyelids that looked like a group of rice krispies. the surprising vision made me strongly crave a rice krispies square, something i haven't eaten for probably about two years.

tuesday december 4

today i approached the bus i was about to board, and noted with some dismay that it had parked itself right next to a snowdrift, making the front door nearly impossible to reach without wading through it. after attempting to carefully plan my approach to the door, i had to resort to the only option: stepping in the snowbank and drenching my jeans over halfway up to the knee. when i entered the bus, i expected the driver to apologize for the poorly planned entry point, or feign like he was about to move the bus up a bit to make for an easier entrance. instead, he disinterestedly exclaimed "oh you made it!" unimpressive.

monday december 3

today i watched the patriots/ravens monday night football game, and multiple times during the final quarter let out audible yells, shouts, and exclamations, despite the fact that i was watching the game by myself.

sunday december 2

today i shoveled the snow in my driveway. instinctively, in preparation for the grueling task, i made sure i was wearing a hood and gloves, and bundled myself up excessively. it was only later that i realized that the temperature was, in fact, above freezing, and by task's end i was sweating a lot.

saturday december 1

today i was walking along richmond street to a friend's house, listening to "wham city" by dan deacon. it was a really good music experience, but i thought to myself that it would be perfect if there was a little more snow falling. two and a half hours later, as i trudged through a blizzard wasteland to get to the bar, i truly understood the meaning of be careful what you wish for.

friday november 30

today i went into work so early that i finished my tasks and left before 9:00 am.