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.