wednesday december 30

today i attended a matinee showing of invictus. i was sitting beside an elderly couple, and the husband seemed to have a hard time understanding the south african accents employed in the film. after each piece of dialogue that drew chuckles from the audience, he asked his wife what was said, and she repeated the line for him. i can only assume that, in the case of any line that DIDN'T produce laughs, he either inexplicably heard them fine, or just didn't want to force his wife to repeat EVERYTHING, and figured that the funniest lines were the most crucial ones to hear.

tuesday december 29

today i was sitting in my room at about 4:25 pm, debating whether or not to take a nap before my 6:00 pm work shift. i usually prefer my naps to at least last an hour, preferably 90 minutes. because i work from home though, i'd still be able to squeeze that much sleep in, so i was leaning toward going for it. at that moment, i got a text from my roommate, saying that she'd be home in a half-hour and would need a hand bringing things into the house. with only a half-hour until then, and not quite an hour after that, before my shift, this made my decision easier: i didn't nap.

monday december 28

today i got a ride to toronto from london in a van that some friends had rented for the week. when i got into the van, i didn't close the door properly, but didn't realize it at first and couldn't fix it because of the childproof-lock feature. the end result was us making the two-hour drive to toronto with the door slightly ajar, which didn't cause any problems but also seemed like it probably shouldn't be done.

sunday december 27

today i spent the day watching football with a friend who i was facing in the championship game of one of my fantasy football leagues. it was the first time i'd ever been able to sweat out a championship in person with my competitor, but the process was a bit anticlimactic compared to the action depicted in, say, the league. although i was happy about winning, i was hoping to do it in more dramatic fashion than just slowly pulling away until it became clear that my score was out of his reach.

saturday december 26

today i was assigned control of the television remote in a room with various relatives while we waited for christmas dinner to be served. with no sports on tv, unsure of what would have the broadest appeal, i finally settled on exactly what i'd choose if i were at my house: reruns of the office. i'm still not entirely sure that my grandpa was as receptive to the choice as my roommates and friends would have been.

friday december 25

today i went downstairs to, as usual, wrap the last of my christmas gifts for my relatives at the very last minute. when i arrived downstairs, i found that my mom had noticed them left out and already wrapped them, thinking i'd forgotten to do it. thanks mom!! the fewer wrapping-paper corners i fold, the better.

thursday december 24

today i worked a nine-hour shift without a break, marking the only day all year where i was working harder than the majority of the north american public.

wednesday december 23

today i had a dream in which approximately a dozen of my friends were arrested in a crystal meth sting. i escaped in the nick of time, when i was tipped off by the code word, "godiva."

tuesday december 22

today i went to the dentist for the first time since march of 2008. although dentist trips are usually rather unpleasant, this one was particularly brutal, given the layoff. for a half-hour, it felt like the hygienist was deliberately poking sharp objects into my gums, with no other objective. by the 20-minute mark, the overwhelming thought running through my head was: "i could never stand up to torture." i wanted to tell her everything i knew.

monday december 21

today i went to jewel of india for dinner with a friend. when we arrived, we were the only customers in the restaurant, which lasted for about 5-10 minutes, before a few more parties arrived. although the silence was a little off-putting at the start, i actually was disappointed when more people arrived, since we'd been enjoying a level of personal service i'd never experienced at a restaurant before.

sunday december 20

today i realized, by the time the second backhanded joke occurred, that my parents were unaccustomed to my usual sunday routine of watching football, staying in my pajamas and not showering all day.

saturday december 19

today i visited a friend at her house. for some reason, i was concerned about the presence of a driveway -- i had never noticed one before, and couldn't even remember one being there, but she assured me there was. when i drove up to her house, i turned into where i thought the driveway was, and promptly rammed into the curb. when i eventually parked in what, to the best of my knowledge, was the driveway, i was still unconvinced that i wasn't parked in a walkway, or on the lawn.

friday december 18

today i stood in line for approximately 20 minutes at the greyhound station, waiting to buy my bus ticket home. the woman standing in line behind me happened to be the chattiest person in the entire crowd. at one point, she informed me that the recorded voice informing people of a bus to new york city had gotten that "new dance song about new york" stuck in her head (she was referring to "empire state of mind"). she went on to opine that at least it was better than "thong song", which prompted her to exclaim "oh no, now i have it stuck in my head!" and laugh uproariously.

thursday december 17

today i exchanged gifts with my roommates before we went our separate ways for the holidays. the gifts were hugs.

wednesday december 16

today i went to the lcbo. my roommate had informed me that there were a lot of "attractive young girls" working there recently, presumably as seasonal staff. curious to find out for myself if this was true, i decided to buy a couple of beers. when i went to check out, there were two lines open -- one manned by the curmudgeony old broad who is always working there, and the other manned by one of these "attractive young girls." unfortunately, the latter line was two people deep, while the former had just cleared out entirely. i went to the old broad, as usual.

tuesday december 15

today i was upstairs while my roommate had an at-home interview for youth assisting youth. in order to make a good impression, we'd cleaned the house and moved the empties from our party out of sight. however, once the interview was underway, i was unsure of how to act. should i also stay out of sight the whole time? should i stroll by and look surprised at the company, then act really charming upon being introduced? and most importantly, would it be inappropriate to blast the new gucci mane album from my room?

monday december 14

today i played in my last dodgeball game of the season. the night started out with each of the two teams getting testy and agitated. at one point, before i realized a game had started, a player from the other team whipped a ball across the gym and hit me in the face with it while i was looking the other way. overcome with a rage i hadn't felt in months, i picked up the ball and threw it back at him as hard as i could, hitting him in the chest and getting him out. the game ultimately ended up being my best-played of the year, making me wonder if it'd be possible to channel that rage into dodgeball every single week.

sunday december 13

today i worked my usual 10am-2pm shift at mlb trade rumors. as i always do, at 1:00, i moved downstairs to the couch in front of the tv, so i could watch football while i did my last hour of work. generally, news has slowed by then and i only need to update a post with another link or two. however, in this case, multiple signings happened between 1:00 and 2:00, leaving me scrambling to try to get the news up as soon as possible and distracting me entirely from the football games on tv.

saturday december 12

today i woke up and surveyed the aftermath of the house party we'd had the night before. stains, empties, and dishes were strewn everywhere throughout the house. however, what distressed me most wasn't anything that had been spilled or broken, but rather the fact that my half-bottle of cherry dr. pepper was missing from the fridge.

friday december 11

today i was tasked with a grocery shopping list, in preparation for a party that my roommate and i were hosting in the evening. the list included six items, none of which i'd ever bought in a grocery store before. it wasn't until i'd been in the store nearly 20 minutes that i found them all.

thursday december 10

today i went to the laundromat to do a load of laundry. when i arrived, all of my usual washing machines (the regular size) were in use, leaving me to use a more expensive, double-size one. while the extra two quarters i had to pay bothered me a little, more problematic was attempting to remember how to operate the double-size machines. i ended up getting my detergent and clothes in fine, but when i went to start the machine, my clothes remained in place. i looked at the machine for about a half-minute, trying to figure out what i'd done wrong, until finally i fiddled with the door handle and realized i hadn't locked it in place properly. the rest of the cycle went off without a hitch.

wednesday december 9

today i worked a 1am-9am shift. over the course of the night, the temperature in my room slowly dropped, until i was pretty much an ice cube by 9:00. eager to blame the inconsistent heat in my house, it wasn't until the afternoon that i noticed neither of the vents in my room were open properly. with these two vents open and having borrowed my roommate's space heater, i warmed up my room so much that by the time i went to bed, i was sitting at my computer in short sleeves and shorts and was still sweating. it felt like goldilocks without the "just right" step.

tuesday december 8

today i was looking back through my msn conversation history with a friend, trying to find a url that had been shared in a monday conversation. while reading our discussion, i noticed that i'd made a blatant typo while telling a story, essentially butchering the point of the anecdote entirely. although the mistake drove me crazy and made me want to clarify my meaning to her, i ended up not saying anything. i figured that revealing i was re-reading the log would make me seem a bit obsessive, as if i was attempting to relive our conversation. still, the miscommunication nags at me.

monday december 7

today i played an amazing game of dodgeball. i made at least one catch in nearly every game i played, was often on the floor at the end of wins, and helped my team win in a blowout, 24-11. however, in the brief, "fun" game at the end of the night when everyone switches sides, my aim totally left me. i ended up hitting two of my teammates in the face with throws and generally marred the memory of my performance in the games that actually counted.

sunday december 6

today i experienced my second straight day of someone else having to order my food for me in restaurants, since i felt too self-conscious speaking english at french-speaking places with french menus.

saturday december 5

today i went to montreal and stayed with a friend. shortly after i arrived at her place, i excused myself to use the bathroom. she pointed me in the right direction, then vaguely instructed: ""be careful when you flush the toilet... you'll see."

friday december 4

today i went out to eat at utopia with my roommates. i ordered a beer with dinner and had drank a good chunk of it by the time our food arrived. given utopia's large portions, this meant nursing the rest while i ate my dinner. as i prepared to finish up my food, i saved one last sip to wash the last bite down. this turned out to be a problem for the wait staff there. first, our waitress came by and grabbed it, took three steps, then realized there was a sip left. she brought it back to me and apologized, much to my relief. however, two minutes later, another server came by and cleared it before i'd had a chance to drink it. apparently it was really playing with fire, leaving that barely noticeable final sip at the bottom of the glass.

thursday december 3

today i had a terrifyingly intense dream, in which i visited my grandmother's house. the grandmother i expected to be there was nowhere to be found, but my OTHER grandmother was there. unfortunately, she seemed quite insane, acting strangely and babbling menacingly. finally, suspicious, i went up to my grandmother's bedroom (the one that was supposed to live there) and found her dead, having been killed by my other grandma. i woke up in a sweat with my heart racing, wondering what was wrong with my subconscious.

wednesday december 2

today i saw a poster near my house soliciting help to find a lost cat named "turkey."

tuesday december 1

today i set up a meeting time on skype with my parents. before the appointed time, i made a list of discussion topics to refer to during the conversation, since normally when i catch up with them, i struggle to think of life updates. it was a huge success -- our conversation lasted twice as long as normal!

monday november 30

today i earned my first dodgeball win of my brief career, a 12-7 victory. it was our team's seventh game of the season.

sunday november 29

today i got groceries at the nearby metro. when i'd picked up everything i needed, i headed for an open line. when i approached the line, i noticed that there was a full grocery cart positioned behind the last person lined up. unsure of whether i should stand behind the cart or push my way ahead of it, i hesitated for a minute behind the cart, until its owners (two dudes) came back with a couple more items and took their place in line. this perplexed me. had i been in a rush, or if i were a little more combative in general, i would've had a curb your enthusiasm moment with these guys. i mean, first of all, an unattended grocery cart shouldn't suffice as a line-holder -- if you need to pick up no groceries, you're not ready for the line! take your cart with you! if you do need to just grab one or two more things that you forgot, well, there are two of you there. have one stay with the cart while the other gets the food. the way these guys handled the situation was just ridiculous. however, with nothing on my plate the rest of the day and no desire to get into it in line at the metro, i held my tongue, waited an extra three minutes, and avoided a confrontation.

saturday november 28

today i had brunch at disgraceland with a friend. during the course of the meal, i commented on how attractive our server was, and we joked about which of us she liked better. it was going really well and we were being ideal customers until we got up from the table after eating and started to leave. as we were heading out, i faintly heard the server's voice saying goodbye to us. however, by the time i realized it and turned around to return the comment, she had turned away and was heading to her next table. a disappointing final impression.

friday november 27

today i was talking to a friend of my roommate about music, when it somehow came up that she'd been a reader of the wedge's message board on muchmusic.com back in the day. i had been an avid poster at the same form. through a trip down memory lane, she came to realize that i'd been responsible for helping to sculpt a good chunk of her music tastes when she was younger. i'd never felt more proud of anything in my life.

thursday november 26

today i was so aware of the american thanksgiving holiday (due to the internet and the constant stream of nfl games) that i felt like i should be celebrating it and taking the day off.

wednesday november 25

today i worked two shifts at mlb trade rumors: 9-1 and 6-11. in between, i mostly napped and ate. ultimately, all i did all day was work, sleep, and eat. it was a sobering glimpse at what my life could be like if i actually worked more frequently than i do now.

tuesday november 24

today i went to my first toronto raptors game at the air canada centre. while my seats were in prime territory, five rows behind the basket, two of my other friends were sitting in the third level, approximately two rows from the top of the building. when we spotted them at halftime, i couldn't help but appreciate the moment, since that's generally where my seats are sporting events are.

monday november 23

today i witnessed two shopper's drug mart cashiers get into a tiff while i was the lone person in line. the older woman asked the young guy about the whereabouts of another employee, to which he replied "how should i know!" when she got annoyed at his flippant attitude, he was apologetic, explaining that he just meant he didn't know, and didn't intend to be rude about it.

sunday november 22

today i co-hosted a potluck. we had so many guests and their respective dishes that we ran out of cutlery. this prompted us to remember that my mother had bought us cutlery over a year ago that we'd never opened.

saturday november 21

today i experienced one of the most bizarre predrinks of my life at my house. our guests included a friend of my roommate's that she hadn't seen in five years, a friend i'd hung out with twice since moving to toronto, and two friends-of-friends that none of us had ever met. i made everyone watch BET now for a while.

friday november 20

today i received multiple text messages from my roommate, while she waited to get into the theatre to see new moon on opening night. one text informed me that a security guard had told her to "calm down." the next relayed that she'd witnessed two teenage girls get into a fight after one ignored the other, instead loudly singing a justin bieber song. although i was fairly bored, home on a friday night, i replied that i wouldn't trade places with her in a million years.

thursday november 19

today i had a dream that i was playing a mario-kart-esque video game with my brother. however, our attempt at playing a two-player race was foiled when the game refused to show each of our racers in a split-screen view. i paused the game and scrolled through the camera options, which included about 10 different angles and features, but not one was the simple, default split-screen mode. it was a very frustrating dream video game experience.

wednesday november 18

today i got a few groceries at the nearby metro. while at the checkout, i began putting my items into the bag i'd brought along. after i only got about three things in the bag, the cashier announced my total and i began to rummage through my wallet for the right amount. she volunteered to take over bagging my groceries, and finished packing the bag. after i paid and left, i noticed that she'd reorganized my initial three items entirely, making me question my grocery-bagging abilities, which i'd previously assumed were fairly solid.

tuesday november 17

today i spent a good chunk of my morning in my room being annoyed by the loud buzzing of a fly hovering near my window. finally, around noon, i reached my breaking point and searched out the thing, killing it quickly. the ease with which i was able to finish off the fly made me a little embarrassed that i hadn't done it sooner.

monday november 16

today i struggled through another dodgeball game with a bizarrely sore throwing arm, my hand even reaching the point where two of my fingers felt vaguely numb. after the game, however, an explanation for the disproportionate amount of soreness occurred to me: the arm and the numb fingers were the same ones that had been injured in a previous incident. perhaps they'd just never quite healed properly! although potentially more serious, this explanation made me feel much better than just assuming i have an incredibly weak arm.

sunday november 15

today i was watching the patriots/colts sunday night football game, when bill belichick made a controversial fourth-down decision that ultimately cost the patriots the game. wanting to share my opinion on the move with someone, i experienced one of the few moments where i was bummed out about living with two girls. i ended up coming online and talking about it to my brother, who hadn't even seen the game, and who i hadn't talked to on msn for weeks.

saturday november 14

today i celebrated the three-year anniversary of one thing i did today.

friday november 13

today i had my first real-life sighting of a degrassi actor/character (marco), when i walked by him in kensington. although i didn't notice at first and had to be told by a friend that it had happened, i still felt that it was a crucial event for my becoming a true torontonian.

thursday november 12

today i went to shopper's drug mart to buy a few items i needed. my total was $28.27. i pulled out a $20 bill and two $5 bills, and then went to grab 27 cents of change from my wallet. unfortunately, after i pulled out a quarter and a penny, i couldn't find a second penny. this unexpected hiccup threw me for a loop and nearly resulted in the cashier giving me 99 cents worth of change, until i threw a nickel on the counter and took my penny back. still, the exchange left me so flustered that i forgot to pile my items into my bag until she'd given me my receipt. when i finally finished bagging all of them, i tried to make up for my slowness at the counter by walking briskly out of the store, but ended up knocking something off the shelf as i attempted to squeeze past another customer. all in all, it was an embarrassing sequence of events triggered by my only having one penny in my wallet.

wednesday november 11

today i slept off and on all night, ultimately not feeling well rested at all when i got up in the morning. the reason: my (dodgeball) throwing arm was so sore from this week's game that the pain kept waking me up.

tuesday november 10

today i went out for dinner to a pub on yonge, near davenport. upon leaving, i was immediately greeted with a lineup that stretched down the block, outside the mtv building. i later learned that this lineup must've been for mtv's aftershow for the hills. while i'd seen this show in passing before, i'd previously just assumed that it took place in some sort of alternate universe rather than anywhere in my own city.

monday november 9

today i went to the bank to deposit my most recent pay cheque. since the cheque comes from america, i prefer to deposit it with a teller, rather than in the machine, so they can tell me the total amount (after the currency conversion) on the spot. however, i'm not a big fan of withdrawing money from a teller, since i find they often work slower than i could if i was using the ATM's buttons myself. so, after she made my deposit and asked if i needed to make any other transactions, i said "no thanks!" and walked 20 feet to the bank machine.

this turned out to be a poor decision. in what i can only assume was an act of karma, the bank machine spit out my five $20 bills and then maintained a death grip on them. i tried to pull the $100 out like i normally would, but the money was stuck in the machine. not wanting to rip the bills, i struggled for approximately a minute with them, wiggling the bills back and forth individually in an attempt to free them from the ATM's jaws. finally, i managed to pull them all out, but not without slightly ripping each $20 down the middle. in future visits to the bank, i intend to never again turn down a human to interact with a machine.

sunday november 8

today i realized that i'd been accidentally using someone else's internet network for the last three days, even though ours is now working perfectly fine.

saturday november 7

today i followed text updates of a poker tournament for four hours and then listened to a radio broadcast of it for three more hours.

friday november 6

today i stopped at a variety store with a couple friends on our way to a house party. while the purpose of our stop was so one of them could buy a drink, i happened to notice all the bags of chips along one well, and suggested we buy some. we agreed to buy a big bag of all-dressed, but to selfishly eat them all ourselves, rather than making them available to the entire party. when we arrived, however, this was harder than we anticipated. although i kept the bag in my hand from when they were opened until they were finished, plenty of other hands kept reaching in and grabbing chips. i just didn't have the heart to pull them away and yell "no, they're all for us!"

thursday november 5

today i attempted to give a friend a tutorial on the basics of twitter. although it had its bumps in the road, including a tweet that had to be attempted multiple times, i felt like it was ultimately successful. when she was retweeted, and earned a new follower or two, i felt awfully proud, as if i were an actual teacher who saw his student accomplishing things.

wednesday november 4

today i watched jeopardy with my roommates. at one point, i ran the table in a category called "number patterns," answering each question in about 0.8 seconds, displaying math skills that my roommates never knew i had. it was a pretty proud moment for me, even considering the fact that it was the teen version of the show.

tuesday november 3

today i was watching veronica mars on dvd with a friend, when we decided to take a break to pick up a pizza. we brought it back with us, and while we watched the next episode, we sat on the same couch, making it easier to share the pizza and dipping sauce. when we finished eating, i gently suggested that she could move to the other couch, masking my desire to stretch out as a concern for her viewing angle. apparently, however, my intentions were too transparent, and she decided to sit in the same spot until the episode ended, just to annoy me.

monday november 2

today i intended to wake up to keep an eye out for the filming of this movie, which was set to occur outside my house. however, not only did i not make it out to attempt some celebrity spotting, but i ended up sleeping through all of the filming and only leaving my house after it was over.

sunday november 1

today i had a dream in which i could throw a dodgeball with an insane, unpredictable spin on it. when i woke up, faced with an upcoming dodgeball game and much fewer skills than in my dream, i was a little bummed out.

saturday october 31

today i went to the dufferin mall and twice past setups where old people (perhaps veterans) were accepting donations for remembrance day poppies. both times, i had my hands full of groceries, making me feel slightly less guilty about avoiding eye contact and walking past as quickly as possible.

friday october 30

today i went with my roommate to a burger joint on ossington. it was nearly full when we came on, and we lucked into the last empty table in the place, one that seated four people. after we'd been sitting there for a minute or two, three things happened:

1. my roommate went to the washroom.
2. a couple at a two-person table behind us finished and left.
3. a group of four came into the restaurant.

seeing what was happening, i anticipated the next move; sure enough, the waiter came up and asked me if we'd mind switching tables, so we could optimize the table usage. having readied myself for this scenario, i quickly agreed, and moved my coat to the other table. however, with my roommate still in the washroom, i had to move her stuff as well, which i was unprepared for. to my surprise, she not only had a coat, but her phone sitting on the table, and TWO different bags. as i struggled to figure out how to move all of her belongings in one smooth move, the waiter swopped in and took half of it, saving me some potential embarrassment.

thursday october 29

today i was tasked with buying new hand soap for our bathroom. before leaving for the weekend, my roommate had instructed me to buy something that "smells nice." after grabbing lunch with a friend, i stopped at shopper's drug mart on my way home and perused the soap section. each choice seemed to combine two scents, and in most cases i was only familiar with one of the two, making it impossible to guess what the two scents would smell like together. finally, i settled on "coconut papaya." when i got home and used it for the first time, i was a bit unsettled by the aroma that rose from my hands, but it's growing on me.

wednesday october 28

today i was connected to the internet most of the day through a network that wasn't our own. ours has been off and on lately, and a rogers visit isn't expected until friday, but i found that if i sat in certain parts of the house, i was able to get a strong signal from someone else's connection. i didn't think much of this until i went to close my itunes for the night and received a notification that i was sharing my library with someone. confused, since my roommates were both out of town, i looked at the shared libraries and saw one entitled "sara's music...is awesome." i don't know where my internet is coming from, but now i know it's sara's, and i know she's onto me.

tuesday october 27

today i had a dream in which i used my visa card for a purchase. when i pulled it out of my wallet, though, instead of my usual visa card, this one was all white, and drew a few oohs and ahhs from the people i was with (in the dream). when i woke up, i wondered if this notion of a white card had come from listening to the clipse and jay-z rap about the powerful black card one too many times. and if this was the case, had my subconscious turned it into a white card for me because i lacked their v.i.p. status, or was it a race thing?

monday october 26

today i was leaving the central commerce school's gym following my weekly dodgeball game. walking away from the school, i suddenly realized that my wallet wasn't in the back pocket of my jeans, where it had been when i'd arrived a couple hours earlier. having taken off the jeans to change into athletic gear and then having left them unattended, i immediately became convinced that my wallet had been stolen. my mind began racing through the faces on the other team, wondering which of them would be the most likely to have stolen my wallet. it was around the time when i thought of their lone black player (wondering if it would be more offensive to consider him a prime suspect or to rule him out entirely), that i realized it was entirely possible that the wallet had slipped out of my pocket while the jeans were in my backpack. i reached in and found it right away. embarrassed by my thought process, i decided to blame my instinctive mental accusations on the fact that i was a sore loser (the other team had beat us at dodgeball).

sunday october 25

today i was prepared to watch mad men at 10:00 at my parents' house. however, shortly before it began, i found out that my mother was using the vcr on this tv to record the second hour of the so you think you can dance canada finale, rendering the other channels unwatchable.

saturday october 24

today i visited my grandmother in the hospital (don't worry, loyal readers, these weren't our last words after all). when my brother and i arrived, the nurse asked my grandmother if we were her grandsons, and she answered "my great grandsons!" after a moment's pause, she was corrected, but to avoid the discomfort of confronting her fading memory, i interjected: "i think she was using 'great' as an adjective!!"

friday october 23

today i got a ride back to london for the weekend. because i was traveling via car and not bus, like usual, i entirely forgot to bring my ipod and headphones. although this wasn't a huge factor on the ride to london, it had me dreading in advance the eventual bus ride back to toronto.

thursday october 22

today i rode my first toronto subway car with puke all over its floor. seminal moment.

wednesday october 21

today i listened to my 100,000th track on last.fm.

tuesday october 20

today i was having trouble with our internet connection for a good chunk of the night, before it finally stopped working altogether around 9:30. annoyed, i came downstairs to find my roommate watching being erica and having similar problems with the television (indicating that the problem must lie with our entire rogers connection). however, it turned out to be far more entertaining to watch her frustrated reactions to a choppy broadcast than it would have been to watch being erica itself.

monday october 19

today i was walking down bloor street toward the laundromat when a tall beer can fell out of the sky and landed at my feet, about three feet in front of me. i can only assume the gusty winds blew the empty tallboy off some sort of balcony, rather than it actually raining from the sky, but the fact that it was a brand that i'd been drinking lately was unnerving.

sunday october 18

today i took a 45-minute nap, during which time tom brady threw five touchdowns.

saturday october 17

today i downloaded an alternative to microsoft messenger for mac, called adium. my issue with msn had been its recent habit of no longer alerting me to people signing online. however, adium posed another problem: it didn't keep me updated when i received new e-mails at my hotmail address. when deciding which of these two evils was lesser, the tiebreaker turned out to be adium's presence at the bottom of my screen -- when the program was open, this bird(?) studied me intently. when i closed the program, he turned around, his back now facing me. quite frankly, both of these poses made me very uncomfortable and resulted in my return to msn.

friday october 16

today i bought a bag of reese's peanut butter cups while grocery shopping, under the guise of "being prepared for halloween, in case we get any trick-or-treaters." in actuality, i'll probably have eaten them all by the end of the weekend. not halloween weekend. this weekend.

thursday october 15

today i asked my roommate if she was watching the office on our west coast global affiliate (meaning we could watch it three hours later than its usual 9:00 airtime). she had forgotten about it, but did intend to watch, which was slightly disappointing to me, since i'd secretly wanted to watch the world series of poker at 12:00, saving the office for later. so, at 12:30, when the office finished, i decided not to ask if she'd be watching 30 rock too, instead flipping to poker and chasing her out of the living room.

wednesday october 14

today i went to a friend's house to drop something off and to say hi. still feeling sick (though not nearly as bad as i had been yesterday), i suggested, upon arriving, that we just stay in the lobby area inside the door so i wasn't bringing my germs up into the house. when i suggested this, i anticipated a brief visit, maybe ten minutes. we ended up spending approximately an hour standing right inside the door, twice having to awkwardly move out of the way for people coming in and out of the house.

tuesday october 13

today i had what genuinely felt like the sickest day of my life. i spent most of the day in bed, since lying down was the only position that wasn't entirely uncomfortable and painful. ultimately, though i was only able to sleep for about nine hours, i spent approximately 17 hours of the day in bed.

monday october 12

today i had one of those dreams where you think that you wake up. within the dream, after i fake-"woke up," i went on to describe to my dad a dream that i'd had about fantasy baseball. when i woke up for real and realized that i'd just dreamt about retelling a fantasy baseball dream, it caused me to seriously worry about the lack of excitement in my life these days.

sunday october 11

today i received my first bona-fide insulting comment on one of my mlbtraderumors posts, when a commenter wrote: "this luke adams character...doesn't know a baseball rumor from a fart."

saturday october 10

today i headed over to rotate this to buy tickets for the upcoming raveonettes show, worried that it was on the verge of selling it. during the last block of the walk along queen street, i was stuck behind a slow-walking couple, unable to pass them because of heavy sidewalk traffic. when we finally arrived at rotate this, they walked into the store ahead of me and immediately made their way to the counter and asked for two raveonettes tickets. i instantly regretted not being more aggressive on the sidewalk, but luckily there were at least another two tickets available for my purchase. if they'd gotten the last two, it would've turned me into a maniac on the streets. sidewalk rage galore.

friday october 9

today had a girl invite herself over to watch baseball with me for the first time in my life.

thursday october 8

today i went to the nearby post office to pick up a package that had arrived for me. the notification i'd received suggested bringing both identification and address verification (my address on my driver's license being different than where i'm living now). this resulted in my sorting through my garbage can trying to find my last phone bill from rogers, which was the only thing i could think of that would have my address on it. i was unsuccessful. i decided to take our lease instead. when i got to the post office, not only was i not asked for address verification but i didn't even have to show any ID. given my level of preparation, it was a bit of a letdown.

wednesday october 7

today i was walking to shopper's drug mart on bloor when i looked across the street and noticed a man sprawled out, unmoving on the sidewalk, with a few people gathered around him. one was on a cell phone. morbidly fascinated, but figuring there was nothing i could do to help, i continued to shopper's. after buying what i needed and leaving the store, i saw a fire truck drive by with its siren blaring to the spot where the man was laid out, followed closely by an ambulance. when i passed by on my way home, four firefighters had gathered around the man but didn't look all that urgent to jump into action. i still have no idea whether it was a routine unconscious guy or if i saw my first real-life dead body.

tuesday october 6

today i referred to an episode of the o.c. as "the rapeisode" and immediately felt sort of guilty about it.

monday october 5

today i dreamed that i was a player on the football team from friday night lights (tv version) and that on the bus on the way to the game, the team and i sang a song whose lyrics were about me. although the song was clearly a bizarre concoction of my own subconscious, i had it stuck in my head for about 10 minutes after waking up.

sunday october 4

today i was walking out of trinity bellwoods, across the intersection at dundas and shaw. with the light about to change to red and no cars coming southbound on the one-way street, i started to cross the road. it was at this point that i noticed a cyclist fly past me heading northbound, against the one-way street. i looked over and noticed two more coming my way, so i decided to stop walking and stand in place, allowing them to fly past me with no danger. this turned out to be a poor decision. one of the cyclists slammed into me, leaving me bruised and unable to feel my right hand (which hit the pavement first), for the next hour.

saturday october 3

today i headed to a friend's new house for a housewarming celebration. walking along the dark street, i was mostly staring at the hard-to-read house numbers, attempting to figure out which house was his. it wasn't until i was almost on top of him that i realized he was standing over the curb outside his house, attempting to pick up a bag of change (mostly pennies) that had fallen into the rainy street. at first i just assumed this was a homeless person.

friday october 2

today i wrote up my first breaking news story at mlbtraderumors.com, experiencing a curious balance of paranoia about getting facts wrong and urgency about getting the story up as quickly as possible.

thursday october 1

today i was walking along college street when i heard music that appeared to be coming closer and closer. i glanced around, attempting to figure out what restaurant or bar or store it was coming from, but the noise seemed to be moving at a much faster pace than i was walking. i then noticed that someone was biking past me with a jukebox in tow, blasting "dangerous" by kardinal offishall, featuring akon.

wednesday september 30

today i was walking down ossington when a girl on a bike pedaled up and stopped me. she introduced herself in what sounded like an australian accent, telling me she was a writer who was writing a story about hand sanitizer. "have you ever heard of anyone...eating the stuff?" she asked me. "um... no," i replied, after some thought. there was a pause in the conversation and i added: "is that... all?" she cheerily replied "yep!" and biked off. i probably didn't contribute enough to make the acknowledgements section on that one.

tuesday september 29

today i was watching 90210 on tv and heard a song from the new dizzee rascal album that i really enjoyed on the show. i wasn't sure whether to be pleased or to be embarrassed for dizzee (and myself).

monday september 28

today i decided i wanted to become the most followed and most popular "luke adams" on twitter. i'm already crushing the deaf luke adams from the amazing race, but there was still one california actor who had a 30-follower lead on me. help me pass him! follow me!

sunday september 27

today i was given a ticket for the sold-out hold steady show at lee's by a friend. i didn't have any money on me at the time, so she said to pay her later. i assumed the ticket would be the same price that i paid when i picked mine up at soundscapes -- $21.50 plus a $1 service charge. however, when i passed the ticket on to someone else and she asked what she owed me, before i could answer concretely, she noticed the ticketmaster price of $27.50 on the ticket. this prompted her to pay me more than i was expecting, in both cash and drink form. i wasn't about to argue.

saturday september 26

today i walked to a house party that was approximately 10 seconds away, three houses up the street. it was raining when we left, meaning that i had to decide whether it was worth bringing an umbrella and staying dry for those 10 seconds. i decided it was worth it.

friday september 25

today i walked down to the lcbo to pick up some beer. upon arriving, i realized that, just as they had last weekend, the store had none of the cardboard beer holders that i enjoy so much. i'd assumed that it was just a one-time thing when it had happened before, but here it was, a week later, and still they hadn't been replenished. having no bag and not wanting to be forced to get a big paper one, i ended up walking out of the store. it was maybe the first time i'd ever gone in an lcbo and not come out with alcohol. it's not really a just-looking place.

thursday september 24

today i did my laundry. while waiting to be able to move it to the washer to the dryer, i popped into the nearby shopper's drug mart and bought a carton of milk, a frozen pizza, and a box of corn flakes. having not expected to make this stop, i hadn't brought my own bag, and the cashier neglected to ask me if i wanted to buy one. not realizing this was happening until after i'd paid and the next person in line was approaching the counter, i took my items in hand and walked down the street back to the laundromat, bagless. feeling sort of ridiculous without having a bag to hide my purchases from the world, i moved my wet clothes to a dryer and then shoved my shopper's items into my laundry bag. during the entire walk home, i was concerned that the milk would leak and that i'd notice two weeks down the road that my clothes smelled weirdly milky.

wednesday september 23

today i was about to go out for the night when i got a phone call from my mother telling me that she'd heard from my grandmother's doctor today that my grandma may only have a few more days left to live. after i spent a few minutes thinking about this, i remembered that, when i'd visited my grandma last week (seeing her for what could be the last time) the last exchange i could remember us having before she fell asleep was my describing how i like to wear some shirts with a couple buttons open to "show some chest hair." she replied "that's gross." i guess there are worse last words to share.

tuesday september 22

today i made a grocery run to the no frills in dufferin mall for the first time since the school year began. over the summer, i'd forgotten how irritating it was to visit the mall right as the nearby school was letting out and pretty much every single student gravitated over to the mall. note to self: try to avoid 3:00 pm grocery runs until next june.

monday september 21

today i was faced with a crucial downside of working evenings, on the night the new fall tv season officially began. while working, i missed out on watching the how i met your mother premiere and an exciting monday night football game that won me a fantasy football matchup.

sunday september 20

today i slept for approximately five hours, in four different places throughout my house -- two couches, a futon, and, finally, my own bed. i felt sort of like goldilocks, except i knew from the start which i'd like best.

saturday september 19

today i helped a couple of friends find a place to park in my neigbourhood while they were in town for the weekend. the confusing payment structure ultimately resulted in us paying $5.75 more than we needed to for the necessary time parked in the lot.

friday september 18

today i got poutine with a friend around midnight, then sat and ate it outside the sammy's souvlaki booth on richmond, near queens. while sitting there for no more than 15 minutes, i witnessed a plethora of richmond row sights that i hadn't seen in ages: a guy giving a drunken girl a piggyback ride, countless people going to and from formal events, and a girl leaning out of a limousine window yelling "WOOOOO!"

thursday september 17

today i hung out with a friend for a couple hours and then ended up taking the same ltc bus home with them, since we live in the same neighbourhood. before we got on the bus, i expressed some concern about a potential goodbye hug, which would be really awkward on a bus. we agreed to do it before getting on the bus, but ended up forgetting when we arrived right on time and had to run to catch it. this resulted in one of the five most awkward hugs of my life (even though i knew it was coming), standing up on a moving bus and leaning over the seat to complete the hug, all the while trying to keep my balance.

wednesday september 16

today i took the greyhound bus home to london. while waiting in line in toronto to board the bus, i was chatted up by an elderly woman whose ability to talk incessantly inspired me to want to check the time every 30 seconds to see how much longer i'd be stuck with her. after discussing my t-shirt, foreign languages, and how many inuit words there were for "snow," we were finally ushered onto the bus. upon boarding, i immediately made a beeline for the back seats, a spot i normally avoid (just to play it safe), terrified that she'd want to keep talking, but rightly assuming that she'd sit near the front. at one point later in the ride, she walked from her seat at the front of the bus to the bathroom at the back and talked to four people along the way. i pretended to be asleep.

tuesday september 15

today i did my first shift for mlb trade rumors, which involved sitting at home and working on my computer. excited about this work-at-home idea, i decided to go outside and spend some of the shift sitting on our balcony, just because i could. after about a 20 minutes of this though, i realized that not having a mouse was severely slowing down my progress and that it was much chillier outside than i thought; i quickly moved back inside.

monday september 14

today i went to the victory cafe to meet someone for a drink. unsure of whether we'd meet outside the bar, inside the bar, or maybe on the patio, i decided in advance to show up early (or at least on time) and wait outside, just to avoid any confusion. when i arrived, however, i noticed during my quick peek inside that the monday night football game had just gotten underway; i decided to buy a beer, sit at the bar, and watch what i could of the game before she arrived. it was much more fun than waiting outside.

sunday september 13

today i went to the ryerson theatre to see the loved ones, as part of the toronto film festival. prior to the screening, i had to pick up my tickets from the box office. having ordered them on a credit card that i didn't yet have in my possession (it had been mailed to my parents' house to replace my recently expired visa), i had written down the necessary information, just in case. though i went in not expecting to have any problems, my lack of the credit card itself in addition to my uncertainty about which address i used in my order (my own or the one where the card had been sent) led to a humiliating process which included the guy at the ticket window wondering aloud if my mom had bought the tickets for me.

saturday september 12

today i met a girl who told me she wanted to change her name to "blithe," explaining its pronunciation by referring to it as "bliss with a lisp." i told her that, if it were me, i wouldn't want people feeling like they were talking with a lisp whenever they said my name, but it didn't seem to dissuade her at all.

friday september 11

today i had a dream that i was playing one of those carnival-type games that requires you to toss a ball and knock over milk bottles. instead of milk bottles, however, the objects i was aiming at were beer bottles. and instead of a giant stuffed animal, my prize for knocking over the bottles was the bottles themselves. this seemed somewhat counterproductive, considering that each time i knocked one over, they smashed to the ground, spilling all the beer.

thursday september 10

today i called our landlord to arrange a plumber to come by our house after the toilet broke. the landlord vaguely told me that the plumber would be by sometime "by the evening" (it was noonish) and indicated that she might come with him. since we've had a fugitive cat in our supposed no-pets apartment for a year, i had to hide any sign of him, just in case she did happen to stop in. when the doorbell rang a couple hours later, i grabbed digby and ran upstairs with him, throwing him into an empty bedroom, much to his consternation. i ran back downstairs and answered the door, only to find the plumber by himself. he then proceeded to spend approximately 90 seconds in the house, rendering most of my efforts fairly unnecessary.

wednesday september 9

today i was sending someone a link via facebook message when, as per usual, a captcha word verification box popped up. the two words i was required to type in read: "aa boners." what?

tuesday september 8

today i got a job working at mlb trade rumors.

monday september 7

today i was faced with the prospect of what to do on a holiday monday. having been out of school for a couple weeks now, and not yet working every day, each day had had a holiday feel lately anyway. an actual holiday meant nothing different, except that most places would be closed. not able to think of anything to do, i decided to have a nap, and slept off and on for two hours in the afternoon while the cne air show happened outside my open window.

sunday september 6

today i was listening to the javelin album jamz n jemz in my room, while talking to my roommate. after we'd been talking for a few minutes, the song "std fury" came on, a jarring change from the rest of the record. we attempted to keep the conversation going, but kept feeling compelled to stay silent and listen to the lyrics of the song, which eventually got weird enough to chase her from my room.

saturday september 5

today i went to the lcbo in the evening, in preparation for a party we were hosting later in the night. a female busker was standing outside, playing guitar and singing. at one point, when a potential lcbo customer attempted to enter through the exit door, she helpfully injected the line "other door, sir" into the middle of her lyrics without breaking a stride.

friday september 4

today i set my alarm for 6:50 am in order to wake up in time for toronto international film festival tickets to go on sale at 7:00. i then proceeded to spend until about 7:40 attempting to navigate through its too-busy website or call its always-busy phone lines and order tickets. finally, i just went back to bed, periodically waking up and trying again for the next couple hours. eventually, i got through at about 10:00 AM, only to find that the film i most wanted to see was now sold out.

thursday september 3

today i was browsing dvds at hmv when i noticed that a two-disc special edition of space jam was on sale for only $8. having a soft spot for the michael jordan/looney tunes mashup, my favourite movie when i was 11, i briefly considered buying it, but couldn't pull the trigger. after leaving the store though, i kicked myself for not even looking to see what sort of special features could possibly be on two discs of space jam. i thought about it the entire walk home.

wednesday september 2

today i arrived at squirly's to meet a friend for a couple drinks. i arrived about 20 minutes before he did, and spent that time sitting at a table near the bar by myself. although i didn't mind this, the bartender seemed to be dying of embarrassment for me. she came over every five minutes or so, asking me if i wanted anything, or if i'd checked the back patio to see if my friend might be there. finally, i accepted her third offer of a drink, if only to alleviate some of her pity.

tuesday september 1

today i saw the following advertisement when i was browsing the internet:



the fictional 'chat' between zack and jo materialized in front of my eyes over the course of about 15 seconds. however, when i first glanced at the ad, i was convinced that jo's first line read: "have u always been a moron?" for about five seconds, i was confused as to why the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints was using this invented internet troll to advertise themselves.

monday august 31

today i presented another installment of "another thing i did on these days."

friday august 14
today i went to campus, completed an assignment, came home, took my laundry to the laundromat, and washed and dried it. when i returned home from the laundromat, one of my roommates was just waking up. it made me feel more productive than i had in months.

thursday august 20
today i had my last class, ever.

tuesday august 25
today i passed by boom, a brunch/lunch restaurant on college. a large banner was hung outside the building, welcoming the 2009 "miss teen canada contestants." this led to my spending the next couple minutes of my walk along college wondering how old exactly these "teen" competitors would be and debating whether or not it would be creepy to walk past boom slowly on my way back to see if any of them were in there right now.

thursday august 27
today i felt my phone vibrate and realized i was getting a phone call. i looked at the call display, which read: "insta tax corp." groaning, i assumed i was being called by some sort of telemarketer and debated letting it just go to voice mail. not wanting to deal with having to listen to a voice message though, i picked it up and half-heartedly said "hello?" the female voice on the other end mumbled something i couldn't hear, prompting me to repeat my "hello?" in a more aggravated way and debate hanging up. "hey, just a sec," the voice said again, and i suddenly realized that it wasn't a telemarketer but an actual friend, putting me in a much better mood.

sunday august 30
today i watched as my roommates, surely influenced by my incessant recent talk about thai food, placed an order from the exact same restaurant that i had the previous two days. when the delivery guy came, he asked if he'd been to our house the day before, finally calling us out for being stuck in a rut.

sunday august 30

today i talked to my uncle for the first time in months. rather than catch up, however, i e-mailed him to ask if he wanted to swap spots in our upcoming family fantasy football draft.

saturday august 29

today i was watching tv at home with a friend when we decided, as i had yesterday, to order food. with her craving thai and my being very agreeable, we ended up calling and ordering the same place as i had just one day earlier. after getting my phone number from me yesterday, the restaurant now had it in their database, and for the entirety of the phone call i was irrationally paranoid that their records also showed that i'd ordered from there two days in a row after never ordering from there before. would they think i was going to order from there EVERY day now? were they chuckling behind my back about my lack of dinner-order creativity? all of these thoughts crossed my mind throughout the call, though the girl taking my order (who sounded very much like the girl who'd taken my order yesterday) gave no indication of judgment.

friday august 28

today i was hanging out with a friend and we decided to order thai food. we decided on a restaurant, browsed their online menu, and picked out what we wanted to order. when i called the restaurant to place the order, i let it ring approximately 13 times, to no avail. i called again; again, no answer. getting worried now that i'd have to go through the entire process of agreeing on another restaurant, finding their menu, and picking out a new order, i tried one more time to call this thai place. they answered on the second ring as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

thursday august 27

today i had a dream in which i was registering for classes and the first class i chose to take was one which was entirely dedicated to studying season 5 of the wire.

wednesday august 26

today i stopped by dollarama while i was in the dufferin mall, to grab some envelopes. although i found the envelopes with little trouble, the buying process became a bit confusing while i was in line. the cashier seemed to have a system in place where she rang through multiple people simultaneously, and told me my total despite the fact that there were still two people in front of me in line. despite my place further back in line, when i was hesitant with pulling out my money, she repeated the total irritably as if i was holding up the whole process.

tuesday august 25

today i was approaching my house when i saw two kids skateboarding in front of the house next door. one of the kids was attempting to grind along the ledge between the sidewalk and the yard while the other one ran alongside him with a tiny video camera, filming his feet. when the skateboarder lost his balance and couldn't complete the grind, they both seemed disappointed, but were gearing up to try it again by the time i went inside my house.

monday august 24

today i went to canada's wonderland with a friend. at one point, we rode shockwave, a 'thrill ride' whose five-person cars are tricky to get out of at the end of the ride -- the weight shift of everyone leaving sends the car leaning back and makes it difficult for the last person to exit without either leaping out or banging their crotch on the seat. having waited in line for a while and observing this happen to multiple people, we were prepared, and immediately jumped out of the ride as soon as the restraints were lifted. as soon as we did this, we heard a girl (approximately eight years old) further down our car make a guttural noise and exclaim "OHMYGOD!" as her attempt to jump out of the car was foiled by the weight shift throwing it backwards. oops.

sunday august 23

today i went downstairs at 9:45 pm, intending to wash all the dishes in our kitchen before watching mad men at 10:00. however, once i started the process, i realized that both clocks in our kitchen had been reset due to a power outage earlier in the day. not wanting to stop washing, dry my hands, reach into my pocket for my cell phone, check the time, and then go back to washing dishes (if i saw i still had a few minutes to spare), i decided to just guesstimate when 10:00 would roll around and call it quits at that point. i ended up stopping at 9:57, which i felt pretty pleased about.

saturday august 22

today i attended a mad men themed party and, lacking in the appropriate wardrobe myself, was given a blazer and khakis to wear upon arriving. the blazer, in particular, was a size or two too big, and made me feel a little like i was a 10 year old trying to wear my dad's clothes.

friday august 21

today i ordered pizza delivery. when the delivery guy arrived at my house, there was an old italian woman standing just behind him, to the side of our porch. as i tried to take in my food and give him his money, she attempted to pepper me with questions that were either in italian or in such a thick italian accent that i could only make out about 10% of her words. she kept gesturing toward the house next door and asking where "five" was. this line of questioning distracted me from paying the delivery guy for a little while, and when i finally did, he made a beeline to get away from the awkward situation. meanwhile, i kept remorsefully saying "i'm not sure!" and "i dunno!" to the italian woman as i slowly closed my door on her.

thursday august 20

today i went with my roommate to the restaurant 'grace' to try their thursday bbq+beer $10 special. we drove to a nearby street and got out of the car to make the two-minute walk to the restaurant, and immediately were greeted with a torrential downpour, part of maybe the worst storm to hit the city this year. after attempting to wait it out in the car for about 10-15 minutes, we eventually decided to make a dash for it. this involved getting soaked from head to toe (despite having umbrellas), witnessing a streetcar appear to get hit by lightning about 40 feet from us, then being turned away at the restaurant because (of course) they couldn't possibly barbecue in these conditions. it was a demoralizing evening all around.

wednesday august 19

today i had a dream in which i could routinely converse with animals. in the dream, i was living with three dogs who would frequently fight with one another; so much so that the first request i got from one dehydrated dog was to watch his back so that he didn't get jumped while he drank some water.

tuesday august 18

today i drank three beers in class.

monday august 17

today i sat in my non-air conditioned bedroom and complained about the heat on msn to my roommate, who complained, from work, that her air-conditioned office was too cold. the world is so unfair!!

sunday august 16

today i was trying to get to sleep in my unfathomably hot bedroom. i was shifting in bed and readjusting my pillow when i felt something unexpected underneath the pillow. i flipped on my light and realized that it was, in fact, a pair of girls' underwear.

saturday august 15

today i went swimming at 3:00 am in a community pool with approximately 100 other people.

friday august 14

today i went to sweaty betty's. the bar was participating in the ossington street blackout anniversary party, which meant that it was lit only by candlelight. this was particularly noticeable in the bathroom, where my usual routine was thrown off a little by the fact that i could barely see anything.

thursday august 13

today i saw a billboard advertisement that read: "COORS LIGHT IS ICE COLD. UPDATED 8 SECONDS AGO." facebook jokes. great.

wednesday august 12

today i was sitting on the subway going home, when it stopped at keele station. the doors opened and a woman that had been waiting on the platform darted into the car, grabbed a copy of the free subway "metro" newspaper that was sitting on the seat in front of me, and quickly ran off the car before the doors closed again. the sight was sort of surreal, and raised many questions: how long had she been waiting for a subway to come? if there hadn't been a copy of the paper lying in sight, what would she have done? why did she need to read it so badly anyway?

tuesday august 11

today i went to the beer store with my roommate to return our empty bottles and cans. the excursion turned into an ordeal which included multiple trips from our house to the car and then the car to the store. we held up lines, sorted bottles wrong, and brought a swarm of fruit flies with us from our house to the beer store. ultimately though, the $27.90 made the embarrassment worth it.

monday august 10

today i went to post a one thing i did today entry for sunday and remembered that i'd already updated with my special 1000th post for that day. though usually not having to put in that extra effort is a good thing, in this case i was sort of disappointed. it meant not being able to share the awkward story of the dirty version of akon's "i wanna fuck you" playing in the restaurant where my mother and i went out for dinner.

sunday august 9

today i celebrated my 1000th day of one thing i did today entries with a super-sized version of "another thing i did on these days." thanks for reading.

thursday may 14
today i went to soundscapes to buy a few tickets for shows. one of the shows was a band called au revoir simone. for some reason, i'd had immense trouble pronouncing this name. it was so difficult that i'd practiced a few times out loud before going to the store, in hopes that i'd be better prepared and not be totally tongue-tied when i requested tickets. when i finally got to soundscapes and pronounced the band name, i stumbled over it so badly that on my way out of the store, i double-checked my tickets just to make sure that the guy working there had heard what i was trying to say and given me the right ones.

friday may 22
today i was getting ready to head home after my last class of the week when a girl in our class stood up and asked to make an announcement. she revealed to the class that she was leaving our program, having received a full-time job offer elsewhere. she then began talking about how much she'd miss us, and how successful she knew we'd all be, and started to cry. as she struggled to gain her composure, our class waited awkwardly, with a couple students close to her offering pats of sympathy, or "awww"s. when she eventually finished her speech, the class let out for good, and i immediately put on my headphones and took off, realizing as i passed through the door that everyone else in the class was stopping and saying goodbye and good luck to her on their way out. while this made me look and feel like a gigantic jerk, this only bothered me for a minute or two before i got over it.

saturday may 23
today i went to the nearby cibc to withdraw some money. the outdoor atm was out of order, so a lineup had formed at the indoor one. while we waited, a woman behind me in line asked if anyone was parked on the street right outside: their car was being ticketed. the guy in front of me gasped and ran outside to tend to his car. while he was trying to get out of a ticket, the person using the atm finished; i was next in line. not wanting to cut ahead of the guy outside, but also not wanting to leave the atm empty while plenty of people waited, i quickly moved up and began to withdraw my money. about 10 seconds later, the guy came in and announced that the parking attendant had agreed to give him not a ticket for the next minute or two, but that he had to be quick. feeling horribly guilty now, i plowed through the rest of my withdrawal process, pushing the appropriate buttons faster than i ever had before, allowing him to use the atm as soon as possible. happy ending: he avoided the ticket.

tuesday may 26
today i saw a license plate that read: "o my dog."

friday may 29
today i was in my effective speaking class when the instructor introduced an exercise: we were to pull a random object out of our pocket or bag and assign that object a unique 'voice,' speaking as if we were that object. with very few people in front of me, i had little time to think about what sort of voice i could assign to the various objects in my pockets or wallet. i pulled out a rewards card from taco del mar and thought: "okay, i'll just do a mexican accent. no big deal." i have never spoken in a fake mexican accent before, but i was under pressure and had to say something. when i got up and began to speak, i realized almost immediately that what was coming out of my mouth was not, in fact, a mexican accent, but rather an indian one. unable to change accents in mid-performance, and surrounded by awkward laughter, i plowed ahead, wondering the entire time if i was being borderline offensive, or if the class assumed that i thought tacos were an indian food.

monday june 8
today i casually referred to someone as "a good facebooker" without further explaining the phrase. i wasn't called out on it.

tuesday june 9
today i made my first book-borrowing trip to a toronto public library. when i arrived, i went to enter the building, only to be foiled by a locked front door. confused, i looked over at the library's hours, posted on the side of the building, and discovered that it didn't open until 12:30 pm on tuesdays -- it was slightly before noon at the time. i hadn't expected toronto's libraries to have to work very hard to eclipse my opinion of the london public library system, but this was an ominous beginning.

monday june 22
today i had a friend in toronto who i was supposed to meet up with. she insisted i meet her as soon as possible, so i made sure to get all the errands i needed to get done finished quickly and met her earlier than i expected. even just before i left to meet her, she was still insisting i come as fast as possible, so we could have more time to hang out. when i finally met up with her, she was in a walk-in clinic, where i subsequently waited 15 minutes for her to get in to see a doctor and then another half-hour in the waiting room by myself after that. what was the rush?!?!

saturday june 27
today i was watching an episode of keys to the vip, featuring one contestant who kept bragging that he owned a bar. a few minutes into the show, after seeing shots of him at this bar, and hearing girls give out phone numbers that began with toronto area code 416, i realized that the bar he owned was the beaconsfield, one that i'd frequented multiple times. it made me lose a little of my fondness for the place to see that this was the guy who was profiting from my buying beers there.

saturday july 11
today i received text messages from three different people within the span of 12 seconds. it was one of the more exciting moments i've ever had with my cell phone.

thursday july 16
today i was sitting on the subway while it stopped on jane station. as it was pulling away after letting passengers on, another woman made her way down the stairs of the station, having just missed the train. as the train passed her by, she appeared to be talking to herself. simultaneously, a smudge on my window passed across her lips, creating the illusion that she'd been cursing the fact that she'd missed the subway and that the smudge was acting as one of those television blurs that censors inappropriate language.

friday july 17
today i was crossing the border to go to chicago for the pitchfork music festival. when the border guard asked what the purpose of my trip was and i replied "a music festival," he seemed to roll his eyes and grunt in disgust, which begged the question: did he hate music festivals, the kind of dirty hippies who'd attend music festivals, or maybe just music itself?

tuesday july 28
today i went to shopper's drug mart to buy a small pair of scissors for trimming facial hair and so on. the only place i could find any, however, were in the women's cosmetics section. embarrassingly, the most ideal-looking pair came packaged with some sort of eyebrow brush. hoping i could find something more manly, i asked an employee if there was anything "better" than this eyebrow-brush/scissors package, when what i actually meant was if there was anything less girly. there wasn't.

saturday august 1
today i finished off a bag of tostitos so thoroughly that by the last few crumbs, i was getting more salsa on my fingers, when i dipped, than on the chips themselves.

friday august 7
today i operated and then read from a tv teleprompter for the first time in my life.

saturday august 8

today i experienced a very strong craving for chicken wings while on my way home from the bar. i stopped at the 24-hour metro near my house and headed to the frozen wings section. browsing through the options, however, i couldn't find any with microwave instructions on them -- i was hungry NOW and didn't want to have to wait 40 minutes for them to cook in the oven. ultimately, i bought some and decided that they could probably be easily microwaved in the same way that others i'd bought before were. this proved...wrong. i microwaved them and i ate them, but it was not at all the wonderful experience i was hoping for.

friday august 7

today i went to shopper's drug mart to buy a new bottle of body wash. perturbed to see that the brand i'd bought last time was no longer stocked, i perused the shelves for another potential winner. curiously, when i came across the axe products, i was turned off of them entirely because of their advertisements, which of course depict its male users immediately becoming irresistible to women. my logic was twofold: the first concern was that potential prospects would recognize the axe scent, sniff out my motives, and shoot me down out of principle. the second concern was that if it did happen to work out like in the commercials, i'd feel like i wouldn't be able to take any of the credit for the victory myself.

thursday august 6

today i ate at a nearby vietnamese restaurant. when i got my meal, i realized that i only had chopsticks and no fork. despite my usual reluctance to eat with chopsticks, i decided to give it a try this time. this experiment, however, was short-lived, when i immediately picked up the chopsticks upside down and attempted to eat my food with the wrong end.

wednesday august 5

today i was required to deliver a thank-you speech to our class's guest speaker troy mccallum. after wrestling with what exactly i was supposed to say in such a speech, and how i could possibly make it longer than just a few sentences, i eventually elected to just keep it simple. my speech ended up being three sentences, beginning with one in which i thanked him for his time and ending with one in which i reiterated the thanks.

tuesday august 4

today i delivered a little mini-speech in class about my experience at the pitchfork festival in chicago last month. at the end of my spiel, a classmate asked what the best band i'd seen over the course of the weekend was. my first thought was to tell the truth and say that i'd really loved the japandroids' set. this thought, however, was immediately erased by the concern that no one would have heard of japandroids, and that i'd look like a pretentious jerk. thinking fast, i decided to tell the class instead about the flaming lips, a more well known band. the only problem was that the flaming lips' set was perhaps my least favourite at the festival, and i didn't want to do wayne coyne and company the favour of saying that i actually enjoyed them. this led to my answering the question about my favourite band of the weekend by disjointedly replying: "the flaming lips.... put on.... an interesting show."

monday august 3

today i went to the greyhound station in london to take the bus back to toronto. while i was buying my ticket, a guy at a pay phone about ten feet from the ticket counter was yelling into the phone, creating a pretty significant distraction. at one point, the guy at the pay phone screamed "that sick fuck molested me while i was sleeping and you think he's a good friend!" just as the ticket agent was asking to see my student card. i had to ask him to repeat the question.

sunday august 2

today i went to call the office in london. all told, i spent about an hour there. this time was split into approximately 15 minutes waiting in line, 35 minutes looking for friends, and 10 minutes hanging out with friends.

saturday august 1

today i spent nearly an hour waiting for two different city buses in downtown london, because i'd forgotten the schedule of each route. considering i'd been taking these buses since i was about 12 years old, this isn't something i thought would ever happen, and wasn't sure if i should feel disappointed in my ineffective memory or happy that london transit schedules weren't taking up as much space in my memory as they once did.

friday july 31

today i took the subway from my place to the end of the line, at kipling station. for the entirety of the ride, which was longer than usual because of a couple delays, a couple sitting across from me was engaging in some of the most heavy pda i've ever witnessed. this wasn't just a couple kisses, but full-blown making out, neck kissing, near-straddling, etc. i tried to distract myself from the scene by holding a constant conversation with my roommate, but i ended up frequently glancing over at them just to make sure they weren't having sex.

thursday july 30

today i had my usual thursday morning class taught by alan cross.

wednesday july 29

today i was working late in the production studios on campus when i noticed three guys in the studio adjacent to mine. despite the soundproof doors and windows surrounding each of our studios, i could still occasionally hear bass-heavy beats bumping from their studio, and saw one of the three delivering lines from a notebook into the mic in a very animated way. i'm pretty sure they were recording a rap album and i was very excited about it.

tuesday july 28

today i was needling a friend for not sending me text messages very often, when she decided to send me a retaliatory text that read: "you stupid slut." a phone number mix-up, however, saw her send this message not to my cell phone, but to my parents' home phone, resulting in my dad picking up the phone and hearing a robo-voice call him a "stupid slut."

monday july 27

today i was inspired by a shopper's drug mart visit to concoct a get-rich plan to coincide with the new five-cent fee on plastic bags in ontario. if i worked at such a place, i feel like it would work to add five cents to everyone's bills, charging them for a plastic bag even if they didn't ask for one. if i were a customer and i were to actually read my bill (a large 'if' to begin with) and see that five-cent charge there, there'd be no way i'd go back and ask for that five cents back. i'd feel ridiculous! but as a cashier, if you did that all day.... HUGE MONEY! go for it, cashiers.

sunday july 26

today i exchanged six text messages with a friend who was on the second floor of my house, while i was on the third floor.

saturday july 25

today i attempted to watch a region 2 dvd (garth marenghi's darkplace) that a friend had brought for me from england. although my dvd player was uncooperative, my laptop obliged. its only condition was that i could only change my region preference four times. this initially struck me as a difficult requirement and made me think that i'd have to plan really carefully when exactly to make the changes. it then occurred to me that since buying the laptop over a year ago, i've watched maybe two dvds on it, and it probably wouldn't be a big inconvenience to just have it permanently as a region 2 player.

friday july 24

today i had three or four major errands to run, but had to coordinate them so as not to be stuck out in the rain while doing any. the closest call came when i was debating whether or not to get groceries; after a few minutes of wavering, i decided to just go for it. on my way back home, the rain began to come when i was about 30 seconds from my front porch. a little wet, i wasn't sure if i should be happy to be getting home just as the rain was starting, or annoyed that if i hadn't wasted the time on the decision to begin with, i wouldn't have gotten wet at all!

thursday july 23

today i was in class, with a laptop's display being broadcast on the screen at the front of the classroom for all to see. at one point, the teacher decided to use it to google "BBM" -- in canadian radio, the bureau of broadcast measurement. this acronym has multiple meanings, however, and there were some stifled chuckles around the class when google's first sponsored link that appeared on screen when he tried to find the bureau's website advertised "gay chubby dating: find local gay chubby men near you!"

wednesday july 22

today i brainstormed an idea: toilet paper with celebrities' faces on it. they would most likely be hated celebrities, ones most disliked by the public; ones for whom you'd feel okay about using their likeness as... well, toilet paper. the product would be called... wait for it.... hollywood squares.

tuesday july 21

today i was coming back across the border from port huron to canada. as we approached the border, my friend, remembering having crossed the other way a few days earlier, when an ornery border guard had forced her to roll down the back passenger window, exclaimed "i'll be prepared this time!" and rolled her window down. as we approached the first of the booths and, after a brief stop, continued through it, her face went blank with confusion. i had to inform her that that had, in fact, been the toll booth, and that the border guard was yet to come.

monday july 20

today i was hanging around at a friend's place without him around, waiting until i had to catch a train back home from chicago. with a few hours to kill, i decided that i'd like to play mlb the show '09 on his playstation 3. first, though, i'd have to navigate his myriad remote controls and figure out his tv and entertainment centre setup. i was able to turn on the speakers, the television, and even turn the tv to the appropriate display setting for playing video games. however, i was stymied by the last step: actually turning on the video game system. i never did figure it out and eventually gave up, embarrassed and feeling like i was someone's out-of-touch mom.

sunday july 19

today i approached a pitchfork music festival volunteer to show my id, verifying that i was in fact 21 years old, to acquire a wristband for the day. she studied the driver's license for a minute and then asked me a question i didn't catch. as i asked her to repeat it, i became convinced that she'd asked me some sort of tricky question to confirm when my birthday was, like what my astrological sign was, and that my asking her to repeat it was a sign of my unsureness rather than of my poor hearing. when she repeated herself again, i heard her: "three first names," she said. i looked at her blankly. at this point, she turned the id towards me and pointed to my name. "jonathan. luke. adams. three first names!" finally realizing what she meant, i chuckled and nodded, unsure of why she'd felt the need to point this out in the first place, but glad that i was getting my wristband after all.

saturday july 18

today i claimed a spot, along with two friends, near the stage for the headlining act of the day (the national) at the pitchfork music festival. the spot was pretty prime real estate, about three or four rows from the stage in a crowd of thousands. however, we had to stake out this spot about an hour before the national's set actually began. by the time the wait was over and they actually started playing, my bladder was becoming so uncooperative that i could only last five songs before having to give up my spot and find a bathroom. after i left them, my friends ended up finagling their way backstage and meeting various musicians, while i was probably peeing again. a failure on a variety of levels for me.

friday july 17

today i took the amtrak train from port huron to chicago. the train ended up being nearly three hours late. the longest delay of the ride came near michigan city, when people had spotted train-hoppers hanging off the side of a freight train ahead of us. this incident was made worse by the fact that convicts from a prison escape in the area were still at large, leading to the police swarming the freight train and clearing it out before our train could begin moving again. while the delay was irritating, the general consensus was that the story may have been worth it.

thursday july 16

today i was waiting in the ossington station for the subway when i noticed a couple of guys skateboarding through the station, next to the tracks, while waiting for the train to arrive. for a moment, i was wildly convinced that one of them was going to ollie onto the tracks themselves and grind all the way through the station, before transferring to the outer lip, like they were in tony hawk's pro skater.

wednesday july 15

today i saw an advertisement in the subway station for the movie coraline, which was marketed by promoting the 3d aspect. the image of those cheap, cardboard 3d glasses on the poster prompted me to think that maybe there was a huge invention opportunity here: comfortable, non-disposable 3d glasses. later, curious, i checked google to see if this was already a thing, and found that, predictably, i'd been beaten to it.

tuesday july 14

today i loaded a streaming episode of the big bang theory to watch online while i ate lunch. while multitasking during the credits, my computer froze up, and refused to respond to any sort of troubleshooting measures, eventually turning the screen entirely black. however, the episode kept rolling throughout this predicament, meaning i heard the entire thing happen without actually seeing any of it. when it finished, i wondered if i'd actually end up watching this episode again, or, having heard all the important bits, just skipping over it and watching the next one; i skipped it.

monday july 13

today i read an online parental review of the movie bruno. the laundry list of offensive scenes listed was to be expected, but it made me chuckle to see, mixed in with the truly offensive moments, warnings such as: "paula abdul shows cleavage."

sunday july 12

today i found out that a close friend from when i was 10 years old had passed away. r.i.p. liane, you were the first girl i really had a crush on.

saturday july 11

today i went to h&m, hoping to find a new pair of shorts. instead, one of the first things i came across was a $7 rack, which featured a shirt that i'd paid over $20 for a couple months earlier. this irritated me so much that even though i saw a pair of shorts that i sort of liked, i decided not to pony up the $29.99 for them because who knows how cheap they'd be selling them for next month.

friday july 10

today i spoke in class in the following accents that i had never attempted in public -- or, in some cases, at all -- before: japanese, irish, italian, russian, german, and indian.

thursday july 9

today i was asleep not once but TWICE, at different parts of the day, when friends tried to get in touch with me to hang out. the first time, a phone call woke me up and i salvaged the hangout. the second time, i just missed out altogether. neither instance took place at an hour of the day when i should've reasonably been sleeping.

wednesday july 8

today i received a message from a girl on okcupid. it was the second time she'd instigated a conversation with me and the icebreaker she used was the exact one she'd used four months earlier. i'm beginning to worry that she's like leonard from memento and will just keep periodically messaging me talking about peep show indefinitely, not realizing it's happened before.

tuesday july 7

today i had a radio production class at the q107/edge 102.1 studios for the first time. this event had a damper put on it slightly by the fact that former edge dj martin streek had committed suicide a night earlier. he had been fired from the edge earlier in the year. the mood at the studios was fairly morose and awkward.

monday july 6

today i had a dream in which i was attempting to sell two franz ferdinand tickets outside the show. i found a taker, but after giving him the tickets, he informed me that he could only pay $4 for them. unimpressed, i took the tickets back and said i'd find another buyer, which didn't sit well with him -- he lunged forward with a knife, attempting to stab me. at this point, i woke up in a sweat and the thought flashed across my mind that my subconscious was trying to send me some sort of message, discouraging the idea i'd recently had about buying excess tickets to popular shows and selling them for a profit.

sunday july 5

today i was in the kitchen, when my roommate came in and said "hey." seeing our cat on the kitchen table, she turned to him and exclaimed "heyyyyy!" in a much more excited voice immediately after greeting me, which i found mildly offensive.

saturday july 4

today i was walking home with my roommate when an older man sitting along the sidewalk gestured back in the direction we'd come and asked us if we'd seen the butterfly. unsure of whether to reply to him as if he were a crazy, babbling drunk or a relatively normal human, we chuckled nervously and failed to offer a definitive answer one way or the other. he then launched into a spiel about the beauty of the white butterfly and its relation to love, eventually stopping to confirm: "... you're in love, right?"

friday july 3

today i bought a few beers at the lcbo. after i paid and as i was about to head out, the cashier, who i had not previously thought to be british, said: "cheers, mate." after a moment's hesitation, i replied "cheers," and immediately felt awkward about it, like i was a wannabe brit. when i considered the exchange on my way out of the store though, i realized that this was really the only response available (besides maybe "thanks") and felt better about it.

thursday july 2

today i made myself a big breakfast and realized that i had nothing to watch while i ate it. i rely on the eating/viewing multitasking combo, and, having just finished two tv series and with our cable box not working, i had few options. i ended up taking ghost town off my roommate's dvd shelf and watching a 100-minute movie, despite the fact that my breakfast took about ten minutes to eat.

wednesday july 1

today i was taken to an empty (but fully equipped) bar and given the opportunity to serve myself as many pints as i wanted from an assortment of 15 taps. it was like a fulfillment of the dream of owning a bar, but, with no concern for any customers or turning a profit, even better.

tuesday june 30

today i was walking down a busy street when i passed a guy who laughed and remarked: "what's with the hiked socks, dude?" while he was almost certainly talking to someone else, i had a moment of nervousness when i thought my reluctance to wear shorts in tandem with normal socks (as opposed to ankle socks) was finally being validated by this mocking stranger.

monday june 29

today i returned from the laundromat and, a couple minutes later, heard our doorbell ring. i walked down the stairs and to the door, only to find no one there. knowing that my roommate and a couple other people had been sitting on our second floor balcony, i walked back upstairs and outside. hoping to nail someone, i asked them if they'd seen anyone walk up to our door and then leave in a rush; no dice. this failure to identify a potential nicky nine doors participant, even with watchful eyes from above, bothered me for the next hour or so.

sunday june 28

today i was watching a season one episode of the o.c. for approximately the 7th or 8th time. however, with this viewing, i noticed an allusion i never had before, to the book the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay, which i'm currently reading. the fact that i could still appreciate new aspects of the show made me feel slightly less guilty and unproductive about watching it as much as i had.

saturday june 27

today i went to the nearby metro to buy groceries. in the span of the 90 seconds or so that it took me to check out, the cashier referred to me as "darling," "dear," and "sweetheart" at least twice each, and confided that she hadn't been sleeping well since "the accident."

friday june 26

today i was at a bbq when the subject of the girlfriend experience, the new steven soderbergh film starring sasha grey, came up. i jumped in and offered an anecdote about how grey had appeared on an episode of oprah. immediately, i felt self-conscious, less about knowing the goings-on of a porn star and more about knowing details about an episode of oprah. later in the night, when i got home, i looked up the clip on youtube to verify what i'd said about it. i was weirdly relieved to see that i'd mistaken oprah for tyra, and wasn't nearly the expert on daytime talk shows that i'd seemed.

thursday june 25

today i watched the nba draft on television until the toronto raptors made their pick at #9 overall: demar derozan. when interviewing derozan, espn's mark jones, who hadn't offered any commentary on any of the other teams' cities to this point, opined at the end of the interview: "you're going to love toronto's transit system. their streetcars are very, very efficient." while this declaration struck me as questionable, what was more odd about the comment was the implication that an nba player would spend any time in toronto riding the streetcar around.

wednesday june 24

today i turned the fan in my bedroom off for the first time in days; i was up early watching an episode of the shield and didn't want to have to crank up my volume to hear it over the noise of the fan right behind me. by the time the 45-minute episode finished, my room had gotten so hot that i was drenched in sweat from doing nothing more than sitting in my chair and looking at my computer screen.

tuesday june 23

today i contributed, in small part, to the lcbo's most successful business day ever. while the fear of impending strike was the main reason for my purchase, being able to take part in a new record makes me feel like i was a part of something special.

monday june 22

today i finally went to an ice cream shop that i'd been meaning to visit for weeks. when i got there and went to place my order, i realized that i was much more in the mood for a smoothie than ice cream. i ended up ordering a smoothie, despite the fact that the entire purpose of the trip was supposed to be to taste their ice cream.

sunday june 21

today i saw the gza in yonge dundas square. towards the end of his set, some rough-looking dudes walked by me talking about how someone "got shanked." while i didn't see anything happen, the bevy of police cars parked on the corner after the set lent credence to this claim, which i confirmed later in the night.

saturday june 20

today i had two friends crashing at my place for the night. during the day, i parted ways with them early. when they returned to my place in the evening, they had replaced the clothes that they'd been wearing earlier in the day with matching red track suits that made them look like ben stiller's family in the royal tenenbaums (though less jewish).

friday june 19

today i decided that i couldn't put off laundry anymore and, despite my reluctance about doing laundry on a friday night, figured it was time to get it done. when i came back to the laundromat to move my clothes from the washer to the dryer, i forgot to bring my laundry bag (to throw the line-dry items in) back with me. this resulted in my carrying wet clothes in my hands down bloor street on a bustling toronto friday night.

thursday june 18

today i saw an advertisement on the subway promoting vegetarianism. it contrasted photos of a dog and a cow (equally sized) and asked: "why LOVE one and EAT the other?" it then went on to list all the good qualities of cows, including: "cows are smart and curious animals who enjoy intellectual challenges and sometimes even jump with excitement upon solving a problem." this resulted less in my wanting to avoid eating meat and more in my imagining cows doing sudokus and jumping up and down when they complete the puzzle.

wednesday june 17

today i went and saw my first movie in a toronto theatre since moving here. it was my 233rd day living in the city.

tuesday june 16

today i was sitting on campus with my laptop in my lap when a pair of middle-aged women walked by me, immersed in conversation. suddenly, one of the women cut herself short and directed her attention to me. "you know you shouldn't sit with it like that," she said, gesturing at my laptop. "electromagnetic waves." i thanked her for the tip and shifted my weight as if i was going to move the laptop somewhere else. when she walked off, i returned it to its original spot, electromagnetic waves be damned. an example of the kind of danger i look in the eye on a daily basis.

monday june 15

today i worked on a project at school in the afternoon. the project is due tomorrow morning, and requires an on-campus studio to finish, but when 6:15 rolled around, i felt uncomfortable being at school so late, and decided to head home, despite not yet being finished.

sunday june 14

today i directed two friends to college street, to find post-bar food. while they were there, they were hit on by the guitarist from default, using perhaps the worst pickup line ever conceived: "i'm in the band default."

saturday june 13

today i experienced, for the first time, what it feels like to be punched in the face. while it wasn't as strong a blow as i would've liked, it was enough to cross it off my 'things to do before i die' list.

friday june 12

today i participated in a mock interview in my effective speaking class, in which i was grilled about my sex life. not feeling like talking about my actual sex life in front of my class, i created a fictional character and answered each question as this hypothetical interviewee would. it was only later that i realized, despite my flippant tone and outrageous answers, most of the class had no idea i was doing this, raising questions about some of my personal decisions.

thursday june 11

today i was sitting on the subway at the lansdowne station when i noticed that one of the "LANSDOWNE" signs on the wall had a small "of the lost" scribbled in black marker after it. thinking about it, i had no idea if this was the result of some kid having fun with graffiti, or if it was subtle marketing for the new will ferrell vehicle.