thursday december 30

today i noticed that the christmas card i was using as a bookmark in the novel i'd been reading for the past few days had sparkles on its cover. this meant that every time i marked a page, i was leaving behind a trail of bright little specks. this also explained why i'd kept finding the occasional sparkle on my work pants, unable to figure out where it had come from.

wednesday december 29

today i passed a guy walking a dog on the sidewalk and was sure i heard him address it as "diddy kong." is that any sort of name for a dog?

tuesday december 28

today i was involved in a conversation that saw me try to recall the second-most successful singles of '90s bands who were arguably one-hit wonders. although i remembered that semisonic supplemented "closing time" with "singing in my sleep," i couldn't, for the life of me, name fastball's single that wasn't "the way." when i googled it later in the day, i recognized it instantly -- "out of my head"!

monday december 27

today i walked to the nearest bus stop in london to catch a bus downtown for the evening. the bus i hoped to catch never showed up, resulting in my waiting over 30 minutes at the stop, growing increasingly agitated and resentful of the city with each of those passing minutes.

sunday december 26

today i was in the bathroom at my big family christmas when, without warning, the lights went off. this posed an interesting problem -- for whatever reason, the light switch for the bathroom was outside the door, rather than inside, and i was immediately sure that my cousin's two-and-a-half-year-old daughter had flicked the switch, which made calling out to her to explain the situation an unlikely solution. for the next five or ten seconds, i wracked my brain, trying to figure out my next move, when suddenly outside the door i heard a shift in the topic of conversation. various family members were attempting to determine whether the bathroom door had somehow become locked with no one inside, or whether someone was in fact in there with the light off; eventually they figured out that i was inside. it was easily the most embarrassing 30 seconds of the holidays.

saturday december 25

today i was watching post-christmas-dinner football with my grandfather when, despite the fact that flozell adams was no longer on the cowboys, the dallas/arizona game prompted grandpa to make some questionable remarks on how black people with the name adams "got into the family." while the moment was slightly uncomfortable, it didn't hold a candle to christmas four years ago, which i considered a promising sign of progress.

friday december 24

today i faced the task of having to take a greyhound bus home to london from toronto for christmas. for weeks prior, i'd been psyching myself out about the amount of people who would be traveling on this day. i'd talked myself into ordering my ticket in advance, an ordeal which, when my printer ran out of ink at the last minute, had become far more complicated than simply waiting in a long line at the bus station. all of this worrying turned out to be a big waste of time, as not only did the trip go smoothly, but my bus arrived in london a half-hour earlier than i expected it to. merry christmas!

thursday december 23

today i declined an opportunity to join the rest of my coworkers in the break room at 9:30 am to get a piece of cake. while my motives for passing simply involved not being able to stomach sweets so early in the morning, this sort of thing had apparently happened often enough that the guy who works beside me had an alternate explanation -- "he doesn't do sugar," i heard him explaining to the others as they headed in the direction of cake.

wednesday december 22

today i went to pizza pizza and ordered a medium pizza, then sat down and waited the 15-20 minutes for it to be ready. when it came out, the guy behind the counter shouted "medium pepperoni?" and i lifted my head up from my book. although he was looking right at me, the order seemed so generic that i felt like i had to do something to confirm the pizza was actually mine before walking back up to the counter to get it. for some reason, this manifested itself with my briefly raising my hand in the air. while this motion received no acknowledgement from the guy with the pizza, for some reason it made me feel confident that the order was indeed mine, and resulted in my walking up to the counter to get it.

tuesday december 21

today i walked down to the fit for life in my building's food court for lunch. as i approached the counter, one of the women who works there looked up at me and amiably asked "shawarma?" knowing that i'd become a little too predictable in my routine, i decided to eschew my usual chicken shawarma meal order. "actually," i replied. "i'm gonna go chicken teriyaki today!"

monday december 20

today i stopped on the way home from work at sonic boom to buy some vinyl as a christmas present. still dressed in my work outfit, i felt weirdly out of place, as if everyone at the store was noticing my khakis and silently judging. i think i'm getting old.

sunday december 19

today i led a private karaoke room in a rendition of third eye blind's "semi-charmed life." after singing the final "doo doo doo"s, i was complimented by a friend on how well i'd hit the high notes throughout the song. it was my proudest moment of the week.

saturday december 18

today i ordered the wings at toby's and ate every single one, along with every single french fry. with no interest in the carrot and celery sticks left on my plate, i pushed it to the side for the server to clear it. however, within about two seconds, the girl sitting at the table beside ours asked "are you not going to eat your vegetables?" when i told her probably not, she asked if she could have them. when the server returned, she seemed slightly confused that my plate had been taken and was being eaten off of by someone from another table.

friday december 17

today i was napping in my bedroom when i heard some noises coming from downstairs. it sounded like someone knocking at the door and calling out "hello?" repeatedly. half-asleep, i assumed that my roommate was home and would handle things if the knocking was at our door (i thought it was at the downstairs tenants' door). however, the calls of "hello?" only got louder and i began to ascertain that my roommate was not home. as i woke up a little bit more, i realized that the person was coming up the stairs to the third floor, where my room was. still in bed, i listened carefully and heard someone fiddling with the smoke alarm in the hallway -- ah, of course! our landlord was supposed to come by and fix it. at this point, with my bedroom door closed, i could've just continued to lie there and my landlord likely would never have realized i was home, but for some reason, i become paranoid that he'd open my bedroom door and that the whole situation would feel just a little too "bed intruder." so i decided to get up, open my door, and say hi. as it turns out, this just made us both feel more awkward and creepy, as he defensively explained that he'd tried to make sure someone was home, while i quickly attempted to explain why i'd been fast asleep in the afternoon.

thursday december 16

today i attended a "festive open house" at work, after my boss sent out an e-mail insisting that everyone in the department ought to make an appearance. during the 20 minutes i spent at the open house, i shook this man's hand, stood around making uncomfortable small talk with co-workers, and regretted having eaten lunch right before i came, since i had no room for the christmas-themed snacks.

wednesday december 15

today i stopped at chito's pizza on my way home to request a take-out menu. i'd been eyeing the bloor/lansdowne restaurant and its "free delivery" sign ever since moving to the area in september, but could never find a menu online to place an order. i was excited to finally look over my options and get some cheap food delivered. after poring over the menu for about 5-10 minutes, i finally decided what i wanted and dialed the restaurant's number. "hey, i'd like to place an order for delivery," i said. "we don't do delivery, sorry brother," the guy on the other end said. "oh, for real?" i asked, looking at the takeout menu i'd procured a half-hour earlier, which advertised "FREE DELIVERY!" on both sides. "yeah, sorry," he said. i'm confused. i mean, technically, yes, non-existent = free, but COME ON.

tuesday december 14

today i went to the bathroom in 3 speed, expecting to see the usual "your cock is magnificent" graffiti written next to the urinal. however, when i stood there and looked at the phrase, i noticed that someone had filled in the second c in "cock" so that it now read: "your cook is magnificent."

monday december 13

today i had dinner at naco with my roommate. upon entering and sitting down, we noticed that everyone sitting around us in the front room seemed to be on laptops, focusing on doing their own thing, which made our chatter feel particularly loud. we decided to move to one of the two rooms at the back of the cafe. while there was one person on a laptop in the second room, we figured it was a better choice than the third and final room, which was entirely empty, out of the way, and had very dim lighting -- a bit too romantic. however, within ten minutes of sitting down in the second room, we had driven away the guy with the laptop and the server had come in to turn down the lights. romantic date it is!

sunday december 12

today i was riding the ttc home, studying an advertisement that i'd noticed earlier but hadn't really loooked closely at. it promoted anti-drug campaign sponsored by the government which featured "before," "middle," and "after" photos of a girl who had started using drugs. while the first photo you see on that site i linked shows the before and after photos, it eliminates the middle photo, which is probably for the best. because, as i was studying this ad, i realized that the girl is at her hottest in the middle photo. as if the government was saying, "don't do a lot of drugs, but don't do NONE either. moderation is best!"

saturday december 11

today i went to a beer store in london, prior to stopping at a friend's house. unlike my local toronto beer store, this one featured just a tiny front room, with no big back room in which you could browse through shelves upon shelves of beer options to decide on the right one. so, after scanning the entire wall of choices, i finally settled on a six-pack of mill st. organic. "we're sold out," the girl behind the counter replied when i made my request. "uhhhh....." i stuttered. back to the drawing board! "i'll give you a minute," said the girl, while she went to the back to get someone else's order. finally, i ended up settling on a few tall cans of tiger, but i wasn't confident in the purchase, particularly when they didn't offer me a bag. i had to carry them out, cradling them in my arms like cold babies. i missed my usual beer store.

friday december 10

today i was standing at a bus stop in london, on my way downtown, when the guy standing next to me asked me for the time. after i answered him, he took that as an opening to begin talking about other harmless topics: the bus route, the cold weather, and so on. after a couple minutes though, the conversation took an odd turn, when he announced: "i'm being watched." from there, he went on to explain that his girlfriend's house was across the street and she was peering at him through the window to make sure he got on the bus safely. then he proceeded to tell me about getting her pregnant (they lost the baby), the fact that he couldn't go to a regular high school because he had severe adhd and tourettes, and the problems he'd been experiencing in his baking classes because of a particularly annoying teacher -- "bitch put me on dishes!" he exclaimed at one point. by the time the bus arrived, my replies, which had initially been amiable, had turned into nods and grunts mixed with how-is-this-bus-so-late body language.

thursday december 9

today i went to bed at 10:30 pm. it was the first time since saturday that i'd gone to bed later than 8 pm. it's been an odd week.

wednesday december 8

today i found out that one of my female coworkers has an intense dislike for bananas. upon discovering this, i briefly considered bringing up the episode of maury about the girl with the pickle phobia and the widely-held view that it the phallic shape of a pickle suggests some sort of sexual trauma. i decided to stay quiet instead.

tuesday december 7

today i had a dream in which i was at a theatre, watching a movie while sitting next to donald glover of community. when the film was over, the first thing i told him wasn't that i liked his show a lot, but rather that i was a big fan of his twitter account. then, i asked if i could take a photo with him. he took a photo of me standing by myself instead.

monday december 6

today i noticed, for the first time, a sign on the wall in the men's bathroom at my work. positioned next to the sink, it provides instructions and accompanying images on "handwashing with soap and water." there are 11 steps.

sunday december 5

today i needed to find something to eat not only for dinner, but also for an overnight shift that begins at midnight. with little to choose from in the house, i elected not to go grocery shopping. instead, i walked over to the nearby pizza pizza and ordered two medium pizzas, all for myself.

saturday december 4

today i went to okcupid to message someone whose profile i'd browsed and bookmarked a couple days ago. when i went to her profile today, her orientation had been changed to "gay." guess i missed my window there.

friday december 3

today i was at toby's, sitting at a table that was unfortunately positioned directly beside the pool table. occasionally, i'd be asked to shift to one side or the other while someone made a shot with their pool cue next to my ear. one of these players was a kid who looked about 14, who we found out was named steve. after the second or third time he asked me to shift to one side, one of my friends started chanting "STEVE! STEVE! STEVE! STEVE!" as he lined up his shot. soon, the entire section of the bar was chanting along with us, preparing to erupt into cheers if steve made it. he missed.

thursday december 2

today i finished eating a thing of planters cashews. it was the second time in the last week that i'd bought something thinking "christmas gift?" (in this case, for my dad, a big cashew fan) and then ended up keeping it for myself instead. just seems too early to start christmas shopping yet, you know?

wednesday december 1

today i had a dream in which i was flying in some sort of fast-moving hover-vehicle across vast stretches of pre-historic jungleland. it was thrilling. at one point, i commented to the people riding with me that i felt like i was in jurassic park -- when my alarm woke me up a few seconds later, i had a song stuck in my head that i assumed was the john williams theme from jurassic park. it wasn't until i was well into my shower that i realized it was actually the chariots of fire music.

tuesday november 30

today i got to work and realized that i'd forgotten my office entry pass on my dresser at home. i was hoping to get on the elevator with someone who worked on my floor and could let me into the office, but this didn't happen, leaving me stranded in our lobby. for a minute or so, i stood there fishing through my pockets and my bag, pretending to look for the pass that i knew wasn't there and hoping someone would walk past and be able to let me in. finally, when it seemed like this wasn't going to happen, i picked up the lobby phone to call a supervisor. not wanting to face the embarrassment of having a supervisor walk to the front to let me inside, i took about 10 seconds to dial each number, and just as i was about to punch the last button, i heard the elevator ding and a co-worker step off. trying to hide my excitement, i casually explained "looks like i forgot my pass...." and happily followed her into the office. embarrassment averted!

monday november 29

today i was walking along margueretta toward bloor and noticed a girl walking toward me on the same side of the street. when we were still about 50 feet apart, she veered off the sidewalk and into the road, appearing to get ready to cross it. no big deal, i thought. after all, if i need to cross a street, i always do it just as i'm approaching someone, to avoid that awkward passing moment. however, as she walked past me, she didn't seem to be getting any closer to the other side of the road. a few seconds later, i turned around to glance back and saw that she'd returned to the sidewalk on our side of the street! apparently, i look threatening enough that she just wanted to give me a really wide berth as we crossed paths. i felt vaguely insulted for the rest of my walk.

sunday november 28

today i took a cab driven by a lady. not to be sexist or anything, but it's the first time i can ever remember this happening.

saturday november 27

today i met a friend of a friend for the second time. she greeted me as "trevor," having forgotten my actual name and thinking that i looked like i ought to be a trevor.

friday november 26

today i went to toby's to watch some sports and listen to "dj law" spin some good rap music. having heard him play one great rap song after another on wednesday, i was excited to stay later on in the night to see what he played. however, during the first 30-60 minutes of his night, dance songs and mediocre rap dominated the playlist. finally, i couldn't take it anymore. i approached him and, as tactfully as i could, said, "weren't you here on wednesday? weren't you playing, like.... good rap music then?" he sheepishly explained that he was trying to appease management and appeal to the weekend crowd, but from that point on, the music was noticeably better. i like to believe my guilt trip had something to do with that.

thursday november 25

today i spent much of the afternoon at work checking in on nfl.com's gametracker for the patriots/lions early thanksgiving game. the only available internet browser on my work computer, for whatever reason, is internet explorer -- and not just internet explorer, but an OLD version of it. as such, nfl.com's fancy auto-updated box score wouldn't even work, making the entire process an exercise in frustration and constant refreshes.

wednesday november 24

today i was sitting in my cubicle when a coworker came in and asked if i wanted to contribute $2. not hearing what the cause was, but expecting it to be some sort of united way fundraiser, i was surprised when she said that the money would go toward a lotto 6/49 group ticket. happily, i forked over a toonie. i'd never played the lottery before in my life, but for some reason this felt like the sort of convivial office activity i wanted to be a part of, like an amusing b-plot in an episode of the office.

tuesday november 23

today i was standing on the subway on the way to work, packed in so tightly that i couldn't even comfortably extend my arms to read my book. glancing around, i noticed an article in the "living" section of a copy of the toronto star that a nearby woman was reading. the title was something like "my cat is nothing like garfield." even as a catchy hook, this struck me as incredibly ridiculous. coming soon: "my family is nothing like jon and kate plus 8," "my garage is nothing like the bat cave," and "my president is nothing like bill pullman in independence day."

monday november 22

today i was walking back and forth between my laundromat, and noticed a slew of boxes and suitcases on our front porch. the only word i could decipher of the unrecognizable writing on the labels was: "vietnam." moments later, these packages were loaded up into a van along with our elderly vietnamese landlords, who live below us. were they going to vietnam? was this their luggage? were they just mailing some really big packages? these are the questions that remain unanswered.

sunday november 21

today i went to ali baba's and noticed that they had a weekend special on -- a discount on shawarmas, but only if you ordered two. feeling pretty hungry, i decided to go for it, and asked for two chicken shawarmas. for some reason, i felt it important to convey to the guy behind the counter that they weren't both for me, and that i was buying the second one for some unseen person. to try to get this lie across, i had the two sandwiches prepared differently, getting one with hot sauce on it and one without. when the guy was wrapping up the pair of sandwiches and writing "spicy" on the one with hot sauce, i nearly volunteered "yeah, my girlfriend doesn't like the hot sauce!" this would have been particularly inexplicable not only because it was entirely unprompted, but because i'm single.

saturday november 20

today i was planning to meet a pair of friends for brunch at the bloordale pantry. i showed up just a couple minutes after our appointed meeting time, and saw two groups of people in front of me waiting for tables. assuming i was the first one of our group there, i waited behind the other people in line, even giving my name to the hostess for when a table opened up. about five minutes later, i received a text from one of my friends, saying they were in a booth in the restaurant. sure enough, when i walked to the back of the room, there they were. if not for the text, i have no idea how long it would've taken me to figure things out on my own. likely, it wouldn't have happened until well after i was seated at my own booth waiting for them.

friday november 19

today i had an issue with an application form at work, so i went to go ask my supervisor had to handle it. on my way to her cubicle, i ran into her heading in the other direction. "ah, i was just coming to see you," i said. "do you mind if we walk and talk?" she asked. i replied "sure," waited a beat as we started walking, and then joked, "i feel like i'm on the west wing!" big laughs. it was the first moment at work this week that made me feel like i had a personality.

thursday november 18

today i sent out a flurry of texts, to at least four different people, during a break at work. after sending the messages, i imagined a tv-esque montage of all the recepients checking their phones and smiling when they saw my name. this daydream eventually evaporated when no one texted me back for the next two hours.

wednesday november 17

today i was about to go to bed when i noticed a fly buzzing around my room. not eager to turn off the light and spend the night listening to this fly buzzing around me, i decided it had to be dealt with before sleeping. this wouldn't be an easy task though. this was one of those hyperactive flies that just circles the room, never landing and stopping to catch its breath -- there'd be no chance to kill it. after some futile attempts to "shoo" it into the hall, i took another approach. turning all the lights in my room off, i opened my door and turned the hallway light on. within seconds, the fly had found its way into the hall, at which point i quickly ducked back into my room and closed the door, ready for an uninterrupted night of sleep.

tuesday november 16

today i spent a good portion of the day at work, regretting having been out late for beers with a friend last night. no more drinks until the weekend, i thought to myself at multiple times throughout the day. this vow didn't even hold up until the evening. on my way home from work, i stopped at the horseshoe tavern to buy concert tickets and ran into a friend at the bar, who convinced me to have a beer with him.

monday november 15

today i received a brief appraisal of my performance so far from my work supervisor, who said she'd "looked over the statistics" on the weekend. after she left, my imagination ran away with ideas about what sort of statistics they were tracking and compiling. although the actual stats were probably fairly basic, i imagined there being the equivalent of baseball's advanced statistics (war, fip, vorp, etc.) for data entry. i think what i'd be most interested to see would be a "splits" page that broke my performance down by time of day ("the hour before lunch," for example).

sunday november 14

today i was standing outside pizza pizza when a man came up and asked me if i could give him some bus money to help him get to newmarket. i said i didn't have any change, which prompted him to go on a lengthy, nonsensical rant that ended with him telling me, "i feel sorry for you" and storming off.

saturday november 13

today i unexpectedly had beer poured on me. although the experience was rather unpleasant, leaving me wet and reeking of booze, there was one silver lining: i got the chance to pretend that i was on a sports team that had just clinched a playoff spot.

friday november 12

today i was watching the raptors/magic game at a bar with a friend, when we were asked by the bartender if we could shift down a couple seats to make room for another group. after moving down the bar, we were sitting next to black guy who was also watching the game and was enthusiastic about making conversation with us. after some harmless small talk and joking, he got serious during a commercial break. "i don't mean to be racist," he said. "but what the raptors need is more black guys."

thursday november 11

today i was thinking about the clever names of hearing clinics that i've come across at my job while handling paperwork for hearing aids. "hear after" and "sound ideas" are among the clinic names i've seen already. my thoughts turned to what sort of punny name or slogan i'd concoct if i were starting a hearing clinic, and after thinking for about 30 seconds, i settled on "here today, hear tomorrow." though i was initially pleased with this brainstorm, the more i considered it, the more problematic a slogan i found it. i feel like the question it immediately inspires is: "if you're here today, why do you have to wait until tomorrow to hear? why doesn't it happen right away?"

wednesday november 10

today i opened a bag of "fun size" peanut m&m's left over from halloween. while i wasn't expecting much, i was shocked to see that the small size of the bag and large size of the peanut m&m's meant that there were only three in the bag. how is that fun?

tuesday november 9

today i realized that, despite working there for nearly a week and a half now, i had never seen the outside of my office building. if someone showed me a photo of it, i'd have no idea whether it was my workplace or some random building across the city.

monday november 8

today i forgot to put on a belt before i went to work. while it's not like my pants were in danger of falling down, i still felt self-conscious the entire day for not wearing a belt with dress pants and a tucked-in dress shirt. whenever i was forced to walk around the office, i was convinced that every person i passed was taking notice (unlikely -- i've been there over a week and STILL no one has asked about my awesome arm scar). it got to the point where every time i got up and walked around, i'd carry a handful of papers at waist level in an attempt to at least partially cover up the fact that i was beltless.

sunday november 7

today i was walking home from the dufferin mall when i approached a house where a mother and two small children were in the yard. as i passed by on the sidewalk, the boy appeared to be heartily booing me, the way toronto sports fans would boo vince carter or a.j. burnett. slightly shaken for a moment, i ultimately surmised that he either just enjoyed the sound he was making, or was aiming his vitriol at someone else.

saturday november 6

today i began to doubt that i knew what the word "irreverent" meant. i couldn't remember ever using it, but for years i'd had a general idea in my head of its meaning and when to use it. i looked it up on dictionary.com and made a disheartening discovery: not only did i have the meaning wrong, but it's not like the word's etymology had even made it difficult to figure out.

friday november 5

today i went to the food court in my office building to get some lunch at fit for life. after i placed my order, the girl behind me in line ordered a chicken salad wrap. a moment later, she second-guessed her decision, and asked a different woman behind the counter if she could change her order from chicken salad to a chicken shawarma wrap. watching the employee not fully comprehending the request, i could tell that both wraps were destined to be made, and sure enough, 20 seconds later, it began to happen. it was at this point that the girl in line turned to me and asked if i could tell the original employee to stop making the chicken salad wrap. this struck me as an insane request, since the girl was literally standing right beside me and could have got the employees' attention just as easily as i could have -- perhaps even easier. i don't like to yell! this wasn't a job for me! so, instead of helping her, i pretended not to understand what or who she was talking about, making confused faces and saying things like "sorry, who?" the girl ultimately ended up with a fully-made chicken salad wrap, halting the making of the shawarma wrap in progress and resigning herself to the chicken salad. i didn't feel bad about it.

thursday november 4

today i walked behind, alongside, and ahead of a father and his four-year-old (maybe five-year-old) son on my way home from the grocery store. for as long as i was in earshot of the pair, they discussed "lego kids": whether they existed (the father had never seen them, but the kid was sure they must be out there), where to find them, and how small they'd be compared to "normal"-sized lego people.

wednesday november 3

today i got called "the man of many colours" by a co-worker who opined that i always wear bright clothing. i was just wearing a lime green shirt and khakis. i didn't think it was too out there.

tuesday november 2

today i kept a used napkin in my pocket for over five hours because i was unsure where the office garbage cans were and forgot about the napkin whenever i actually passed one.

monday november 1

today i worked my first day at a new office job. the office required a keycard to enter, which i of course didn't have yet. so when i went for lunch, the girl who had been training me wrote down her phone extension so that i could call her to let me in when i returned. the only problem was that she couldn't remember the first number of her extension; she thought it was either 7 or 2. when i got back from lunch, i tried it with a 7, and an unknown woman answered my call. thinking that even though it was a wrong number, this woman could at least come to the door and let me in, i continued talking to her for about 30 seconds before finally realizing that not only did i not know her, but she worked for an entirely different company on an entirely different floor of the building. embarrassed, i apologized and hung up. before i could try the extension again with a 2, the elevator opened and another co-worker arrived back from lunch. i let her bring me in with her keycard.

sunday october 31

today i was about to board the dundas streetcar when i noticed someone lurching toward me and toward the stop. at first glance, i assumed that the figure, with its stringy white hair, was someone dressed up in a scary halloween costume. as she got closer though, i realized that it wasn't a costume -- it was just some booze-soaked woman with wild facial hair muttering to herself and pushing past me to board the streetcar.

saturday october 30

today i was walking down my street when i heard a kid calling "excuse me!" off to my left. from across the road, he was imploring me to toss back the tennis ball that had escaped from the fenced-in schoolyard he was standing in. eager to help, i picked up the ball and heaved it from the opposite sidewalk -- immediately, i realized two things. first, that this was my first full-fledged throw since that fatal january toss. second, i'd need to build up my arm strengh. my throw came up short, bouncing off the fence and back toward the street. "don't worry, i'll get it!" the kid said, hopping out of the schoolyard and onto the sidewalk. real nice, luke. real big help.

friday october 29

today i woke up at 7:00 am, despite the fact that this was the last weekday i'd be able to sleep in for at least the next month. luckily, i went back to bed by 7:45 and slept for four hours, a luxury i won't be granted in the coming weeks.

thursday october 28

today i was walking along college street and saw a homeless man about 20 feet in front of me. he was standing on the sidewalk, holding a baseball cap out for money, but didn't seem to be talking to passers-by or doing anything to solicit donations. to my surprise, however, as i passed him, he lunged forward slightly and shouted "BOO!" as if to scare me into giving him money. though the strategy didn't work (i kept walking), i nearly burst out laughing, and later thought that maybe i should've given him some change to reward one of the most original and bizarre homeless-guy tactics i'd ever seen.

wednesday october 27

today i bought some halloween candy in preparation for potential trick-or-treaters this weekend. unsure whether or not we'd actually get many kids ringing our doorbell, i decided to make sure to buy candy that i liked, just in case i ended up having to eat leftovers. i bought a pack of 95 mini-skittles and mini-starbust. i've already eaten four. looks like it'll be the trick-or-treaters who are getting the leftovers!!

tuesday october 26

today i returned in toronto from windsor at about 3:00am. after parking my rental car outside my house, i scanned the other cars on the street and noticed that they all had permits on their front windows, meaning i probably wasn't able to leave my car on the street overnight. instead, i drove around the neighbourhood until i found a nearby pay parking lot, and spent $5.50 to keep the car there until i could return it to discount in the morning. it wasn't until later in the day that i realized it probably would've been easier, or at least cheaper, to just park the car in the discount lot, regardless of whether or not the building itself was open yet.

monday october 25

today i was required, as part of my election-day job, to drive back and forth between the towns of amherstburg and lasalle. both towns were near the u.s. border, and at one point during the drive, my phone company seemed to think i was actually in the united states -- i received multiple "rogers welcomes you abroad!" texts at the same point in the drive. one time, when i was passing this specific point, i received two texts from a friend at nearly the exact same instant as rogers' message came. the timing was concerning, since it makes me wonder whether those texts from my friend will be charged as out-of-country, roaming messages on my next phone bill.

sunday october 24

today i drove from toronto to windsor in a rental car. after a few minutes of adjusting to the new car, the drive seemed to be going smoothly for the first couple hours. once i passed london, however, i ran into the worst thunderstorm i'd ever driven in. even with my windshield wipers on the highest possible setting (they were really flying), i could barely see the road in front of me. still, i decided it was better to keep driving, rather than pulling over, as other cars had done; i trusted myself more to continue in a straight line (using the taillights of the car in front of me and the yellow line to my left as a guide) than i did to get over to the right shoulder from the left lane. it turned out okay, but it was probably one of the most terrifying five-minute periods of my life.

saturday october 23

today i went to a coffee place for the second day in a row. for the second day in a row, i ordered a lemonade while my company ordered coffee(s), and for the second day in a row, i felt like i was 12 years old.

friday october 22

today i wore a pair of shoes that i hadn't really worn extensively until now. much to my chagrin, when i walked for a few minutes in them, the back of the left shoe rubbed against the back of my foot, causing an unexpected and uncomfortable amount of pain. when i finally arrived at my destination, i glanced down at the back of my left foot, and noticed that there was a blood-red stain visible through my black sock! although the fact that i had to do more walking in these shoes was both irritating and painful, it kind of made me feel like i was curt schilling in the bloody sock game, which made me feel all right about it.

thursday october 21

today i googled "jewbacca" just to be sure that i wasn't the first person to think of it. i got over 15,000 results.

wednesday october 20

today i received a phone call from an unknown number around 11:00 am. not entirely into the idea of having a conversation with what i assumed would be someone from the bank or cable company, i considered not answering. knowing, however, that my curiosity would eat away at me if i ignored it, i picked up. this turned out to be a good decision -- the unknown caller was someone from the ministry of health and long-term care offering me a job.

tuesday october 19

today i watched game 4 of the yankees/rangers alcs in a bar with friends. for most of the game, i debated whether or not to take advantage of the bar's special on wings (half price), finally deciding against it. however, i was into the idea of getting a shawarma at ali baba's on my way home. unfortunately, as it happened, ali baba's wasn't exactly on the way home, but rather past my house. as soon as i decided to stop in at home and use my own bathroom, it was over. i wasn't leaving the house again. sorry, hunger. you're welcome, gut.

monday october 18

today i was finally revisited by the mouse/mice that first made an appearance in my house over a month ago. after seeing one dart through the kitchen and behind the stove, i decided it was time to set some traps. unfortunately, the only bait we could find was organic peanut butter, which i don't think will be as appealing to a mouse as, say, kraft chunky.

sunday october 17

today i accidentally left a cloth shopping bag with a bottle of wine in it at a friend's house party. while i wasn't overly concerned about the wine, which belonged to another friend, i was upset at having forgotten the bag, which i'd been relying on for grocery runs. i'd become very familiar with its size and capacity, and have no idea if i'll achieve that same level of comfort with another bag.

saturday october 16

today i was tasked with buying cauliflower at the grocery store. having not eaten this particular vegetable for years, i wondered aloud if i even knew what it looked like, and was instructed to look for the "white broccoli."

friday october 15

today i was walking home from the dufferin mall beer store at about 4:00 pm when i passed kevin beaulieu on the street. though he surely didn't recognize me from the housecall he'd paid a few weeks ago, he was in campaigning mode and said hi as we crossed paths. given how our conversation ended the last time we spoke (refer to the linked entry), i briefly thought about how funny it would be, probably only to me, if i showed him the bag of beers i'd bought and yelled "it's friday night!!!"

thursday october 14

today i had a dream in which i was walking through a schoolyard and passed multiple guys dressed as characters from the wizard of oz for halloween. while many of them were dressed as the tin man, none were dressed as the scarecrow. when i woke up, i had no idea how to interpret what this dream said about my heart and brain.

wednesday october 13

today i was the guest on a st. louis-based show called "united cardinal blogger radio hour," which discusses the st. louis cardinals. i talked baseball with the hosts for about 30 minutes, and after i was let go, the show continued on for a few minutes without me. after i hung up, i loaded the page that streamed the show and glanced at its chat room, where listeners could discuss the on-air goings-on. while the chat only displayed the ten most recent lines of chat, the tenth-most recent message made reference to a jeff foxworthy joke about people's accents. though i had no concrete proof, this made me assume that the conversation leading up to that line, in messages that had since been pushed out of the window, consisted of the show's listeners mocking my canadian way of speaking.

tuesday october 12

today i saw a license plate that read "CYANCRT." it took me a good ten seconds to realize it meant "see ya in court" rather than "cyan cart."

monday october 11

today i was asked by my brother and mother (separately) how much i weighed. then my mom offered to pay for my first month if i joined the y. thanksgiving family fat-ervention!

sunday october 10

today i earnestly explained to a friend the irony inherent in the murphy lee song "wat da hook gon be," a track whose chorus claims not to "need a hook on this beat."

saturday october 9

today i took a london city bus downtown while sitting across the aisle from two mind-numbingly annoying teenage girls. at one point, attempting to determine how far along they were in their journey, one girl looked out the window and announced "we're at springbank." "i thought we got on at springbank!" the other replied, confusion ensuing. the bus was the 5-springbank -- a good chunk of its route, in fact, ran along springbank.

friday october 8

today i went to the library to pick up a hold i'd placed there. i scanned the shelf for a minute, looking for #1148, my four-digit library number under which the hold would be filed. finally finding it, i picked up the book i thought was mine, and noticed it felt unusually thin. i looked at the title, which read, in a funny font: why do cats have whiskers? confused, i looked back at the shelf and back at the number, and realized that i'd picked up #1138 rather than #1148.

thursday october 7

today i threw together an itunes playlist of 17 songs that i considered my absolute favourites. songs that i could listen to indefinitely without getting sick of them. songs that i never wanted to skip over if they started playing. of the 17, 16 were released since 2001.

wednesday october 6

today i bought a trash can at walmart and had to carry it under an arm all the way home. the only upside of the situation was not having to remember to bring my own bag to the store, or to feel guilty about getting a plastic bag.

tuesday october 5

today i planned to meet a pair of friends at 3 speed. when i showed up, they had yet to arrive, and i was concerned to find that a small two-person table was the only place to sit in the bar. when they arrived ten minutes later, the timing was perfect -- a table of four guys was just paying their bill and leaving. while i was happy not to have cram around a too-small table, i was ever so slightly annoyed that their tardiness had been rewarded.

monday october 4

today i received a warning from rogers that our house had used 75% of its monthly bandwidth allotment. at my old house, when i had no idea when the "month" began and ended, this would always be concerning, since i didn't know whether i had a day or a week to coddle that last 25%. now that i'm living in a new house and control the internet, i knew that the current month ended tomorrow. so rather than cutting back following the warning, i took it as a sign that i should cram as much downloading as possible in before midnight tomorrow.

sunday october 3

today i came into the kitchen briefly to put some used dishes in the sink. while i was doing so, my roommate's boyfriend asked me whether i liked coffee, and seemed surprised when i turned up my nose and said i didn't drink the stuff. "why would i need coffee?" i joked. "i wake up at 11:00 am every day." this response resulted in what seemed like a disproportionately large laugh from my roommate and her boyfriend, which i interpreted as an opportunity to pull a george costanza and leave the room on a high note.

saturday october 2

today i was walking home from nuit blanche festivities when i came about one step away from being hit by a cyclist. considering last nuit blanche was the only time in my life that i've ever been run over by a bike, i'm going to be exercising EXTREME caution next october.

friday october 1

today i was working an evening shift for mlb trade rumors and was dreading the 7:00 pm red sox/yankees game. more than any other team's beat writers, the red sox and yankees writers clog up the mlbtr twitter feed with tweets about what's going on in the game (not exactly useful info for mlbtr). when i saw that the game had been delayed due to rain, i was initially delighted, but that was quickly wiped away when the beat writers began tweeting about everything that was happening during the rain delay. killing me, guys. killing me.

thursday september 30

today i went to opera bob's to watch the blue jays/twins game with a slew of other jays fans. the bar was so crowded that, right before the game began, a stranger asked if he could sit at our table, rather than taking up an entire table on his own. for the next three hours, we sat and watched the game and talked baseball with adam, who we eventually found out had a wife and kid(s?). you're welcome for the guys' night out, adam!

wednesday september 29

today i went to the final blue jays home game of the season for "farewell cito" night and fulfilled my season-long goal of sitting in the very top row of the 500 level. it was just as awesome as i'd anticipated.

tuesday september 28

today i had plans to meet up with a couple of friends at 3 speed before the kitchen closed, so i could try their food for the first time. as such, i ate a very light early dinner in anticipation of going all-out when we met up at 10:00. unfortunately, after first postponing our meet-up until 10:30, my friends had to cancel, leaving me with no dinner plans and no groceries. i ended up walking to ali baba's and getting a shawarma there for the third time in four days.

monday september 27

today i saw an advertisement for this weight wise expo on the subway. when promoting its celebrity appearances the ad suggested that they were from: the "biggest loser." for my entire subway ride, it bothered me that "the" wasn't included in the quotation marks, since it's clearly part of the show's title.

sunday september 26

today i had a first date during which i drank two pints of beer while she drank a half a bottle. though the disparity was sort of funny on its own, it would have been even funnier if she hadn't moved our meet-up time back a half-hour, to 8:30. if we'd met at 8:00, i may not have had time to eat dinner beforehand, meaning i would've been ordering myself a full meal while she sat and nursed a lone corona.

saturday september 25

today i was about to head out for a quick grocery run when i heard the doorbell ring. i quickly threw on my shoes, grabbed a bag, and headed downstairs, thinking i could answer the door and then just leave without coming back up. at the door was a candidate for ward 18 councillor, kevin beaulieu. after introducing himself and giving me a brief spiel, he said "well, it looks like you're heading out so i'll let you go. i know it's saturday night!!" i had to hide a grin at the way he made it seem like i was heading out to party, since it was about 5:30 pm and i was carrying shopping bags with me.

friday september 24

today i had a couple drinks with friends at ciro's. by about 1:15 am, the bar's patio had cleared out to the point that we were the only ones left on it, which apparently was a signal to the creatures of the night that it was fair game. for the next half-hour or so, we watched in alternating horror and amusement as three raccoons ambled over the fence into the patio area and tried to get at the garbage bins that were positioned between us and the entrance. finally, our server came out to see if we wanted anything for last call and was so terrified at the sight of two raccoons in her path that she got a guy from the kitchen to come out and scare them off with a broom.

thursday september 23

today i had a dream in which i was studying in a library with the characters from the west wing. it marked the second vivid dream involving television characters that i'd had this week, probably a sign that i'm watching too much tv.

wednesday september 22

today i went to the blue jays game to see kyle drabek's career home debut. going on my own, i decided to treat myself by using one of the vouchers for 100-level seats i'd received due to the cancelled phillies series. at the ticket window five minutes before the game started, i asked for a seat "as close to the jays dugout as possible," assuming that my voucher couldn't be used for the BEST seats, and that i'd get something a couple sections away. instead, i ended up getting a seat three rows directly behind the jays dugout, by far the best spot i'd ever had at a baseball game. after each inning, it felt like the jays were all running directly toward me!

tuesday september 21

today i went to the bank to deposit my pay cheque. since the cheque is mailed to me from america, i generally take it up to a teller to have it converted to and deposited in canadian funds. while i'd become accustomed to this routine at my old bank, my recent move west meant that i was visiting a new branch for the first time. i was so thrown off my game by the change that, while making a withdrawal afterward, the cashier asked "how" i wanted the money and i replied "oh, in canadian." "uh, i mean like... twenties, fifties, hundreds...." she said. "ah," i said, embarrassed. "twenties are good."

monday september 20

today i had a dream in which i was playing a game of baseball with actors from it's always sunny in philadelphia. the game was going well until we got into a heated debate about how the rules for "ghost-fielders" should work.

sunday september 19

today i went to price chopper with a friend who was returning some bad eggs. the return process was easy enough; we made our way quickly through the line and she got her money back. after this was done, she announced that she still had a few groceries to buy, so we re-entered the store, she picked up four items, and we got back in line. as we got to the front of the line, she received a text message from her roommate suggesting that they also needed a cheese grater. so, after we paid for the original four items, we left the store, re-entered, found a cheese grater, and got in line AGAIN (with the same cashier we'd had the first time). it was the only time in my life i've ever stood in line at the same grocery store three times within ten minutes.

saturday september 18

today i finally took advantage of a far-too-complex guide to toronto restaurants/venues that i'd created in a spreadsheet last year. it was 3:45 am, and we wanted a pizza. consulting my spreadsheet, i discovered that the pizza place roma was open until 4:00 am. we made the call, and by 4:30 in the morning, were enjoying a delicious thin-crust pizza. thanks roma!

friday september 17

today i had one of those dreams when you're half-asleep and half-awake that seems like it's really happening in your bedroom. in my dream, i saw three mice on my desk, trying to get at a bag of peanuts that i'd left there. i awoke in a panic and immediately threw out the peanuts.

thursday september 16

today i was walking home from a friend's place along bloor when i saw a tiny object dart across the sidewalk in front of me. after taking a second or two to digest what i'd just seen, i realized it must have been a mouse. "weird," i thought. "glad we don't have those in my house!" i arrived home about 15 minutes later, and about ten minutes after that, i was sitting at my desk when i saw a mouse in the hallway dart by my door. ugh.

wednesday september 15

today i was roofied, turning a 20-minute walk home from the bar into a confusing three and a half hour trip during which i was convinced that i was dreaming and would wake up in my bed any minute. after eventually boarding an unknown streetcar at an intersection i didn't recognize, i finally arrived home at 7:00 am.

tuesday september 14

today i went to the drake to see sasha grey do a dj set. while we waited for her to arrive, i met a girl who declared herself sasha's biggest fan, and added that she'd learned how to give a blowjob from watching sasha's films.

monday september 13

today i attended the toronto film festival's gala screening of black swan. the film's star, natalie portman, was present, making it the first and only time i've been sitting 30 feet from an actress while watching her character masturbate on screen.

sunday september 12

today i watched the packers/eagles game in a sports bar with a couple friends. for most of the first half of the game, the feed on the tv closest to us was about 5-10 seconds behind the live feed that was on the rest of the televisions in the bar. since the audio was also synced to the live feed, we'd generally here what was going to happen during a given play, then watch it unfold on our screen a few seconds later. it was weird.

saturday september 11

today i was cleaning up the last of the barbecue supplies on our balcony when i noticed two giant raccoons waddling along the roof two doors down. from now on, i'll probably be a little too cautious when stepping out onto our balcony at night.

friday september 10

today i was on the rogers centre jumbotron for the third time this season. it's become such a common occurrence at this point that i didn't even notice and had to be told after the fact by a friend.

thursday september 9

today i went to do laundry at a new laundromat for the first time. after packing all my clothes into the double-load washing machine, i pulled out some quarters and started to insert them into the coin tray, only to realize that there were just two opening for coins -- the rest were closed off. worrying that i'd picked some sort of out-of-order machine, i glanced around at the other units, but ALL of them had just the two openings. "okay," i said to myself. "maybe you just insert two quarters at a time until you've put in enough." i inserted two quarters and tried to push the tray in, but nothing happened. baffled now, i stood there trying to figure out what the problem was. finally, i noticed a sign indicating that these washing machines accepted loonies, not quarters. this made a lot more sense, considering the cost was $2.

wednesday september 8

today i went to wal-mart intending to buy cutlery for our new house. when we'd brainstormed the things we needed to buy, i was given this lone task, while my roommates had four or five items on their to-do lists. after scouring the kitchenware section in wal-mart up and down at least three times, i gave up, unable to complete even my one chore.

tuesday september 7

today i was grocery shopping at no frills when i heard one employee tell another, "fuck you."

monday september 6

today i attended the blue jays' labour day afternoon game. sitting in front of us was a group of four high school students who spent the game singing along and dancing to the between-inning songs, talking about their school schedules, and complimenting themselves on being "real torontonians" because they'd come to the rogers centre and cn tower.

sunday september 5

today i solved my problem of forgetting which of my keys opened which door to my house by creating an acronym: SOGI (pronounced "soggy"). silver (key) outside (door), gold (key) inside (door). i was pretty pleased with it.

saturday september 4

today i was sitting in my bedroom while our landlords worked on repairing or replacing various household appliances downstairs. at one point, i heard someone coming down my upstairs hallway, and glanced over in time to see a vietnamese woman in her pajamas shuffle past my doorway. the woman was the grandmother of our landlord, and lived downstairs. why she was wandering through the house in her pajamas to take a look at our living room, i have no idea.

friday september 3

today i was on gmail when i noticed that a friend named "missingtreestar" was on gchat. vaguely recognizing the username as someone who was rarely online, i was racking my brain trying to determine who it was, when suddenly, i was receiving a video-chat request from missingtreestar. it turns out it was my best friend.

thursday september 2

today i took my first walk along bloor in my new neighbourhood. after stopping off for a shawarma at bloor and lansdowne, i started the walk home and had my attention drawn to the street. in the middle of the westbound lane, two cyclists had surrounded a car; a guy on a bike stood in front of the car, blocking its path, while a female cyclist stood beside the curb, yelling into the passenger-side window. as i continued to walk past and glance back, the couple showed no signs of moving, to the point where traffic on bloor was backing up significantly, and a passerby on the sidewalk yelled "run 'em over!" to the driver.

wednesday september 1

today i forgot to bring a frozen can of blueberry watermelon fruitopia with me from my old house to my new place, amidst the franticness of moving day. it was quite disappointing -- it was the one frozen food i had that wouldn't have been affected by being out of the freezer (since it needed to be defrosted anyway), and i really would've enjoyed a glass of blueberry watermelon juice tonight.

tuesday august 31

today i dedicated most of the day to packing and preparing for tomorrow's move. for the most part, the packing process went as expected, with few surprises. the most unusual thing i came across while clearing out my room was a girls' hairbrush under my bed.

monday august 30

today i coped with the lack of groceries in our house by eating "hot dog burgers" for lunch. hot dogs chopped up and put inside hamburger buns, eaten like a hamburger. they were pretty good.

sunday august 29

today i threw on a pair of shorts shortly after waking up, intending to head downstairs to use the bathroom and grab a glass of water. when i made it about halfway down the stairs, i heard my roommate in the kitchen, which i wasn't expecting it. after a second's consideration, i returned to my room and threw a t-shirt on, before heading back downstairs. two years living together and i'm still not at a no-shirt comfort level.

saturday august 28

today i ran into a friend's roommate at the lakeview. since he lives three doors down from me, i commented on the fact that we'd only be neighbours for a few more days, before i "moved west." "oh," he replied. "are you heading out to b.c.?" "err, sorry," i chuckled. "by west i meant lansdowne."

friday august 27

today i was at the blue jays game when my attention was drawn to a woman sitting a few rows in front of me. she was taking photos with the camera held out in front of her, the viewscreen clearly visible. so even from four rows back, i could see that she had zoomed in as much as possible on the windows of the hotel rooms above the outfield and was taking photos of them.

thursday august 26

today i brought a can (tube?) of bbq pringles to the blue jays game. i'd never tried the flavour before, and after eating the first chip, i realized i didn't really like them. nonetheless, my friend and i ended up eating the entire can (tube?) by the time the game was over, for lack of anything better to eat.

wednesday august 25

today i saw a sign in the window of a nearby store advertising world cup memorabilia. it read: "buy 1, get 1 free or 50% off!" the message seemed redundant -- wouldn't "50% off" have sufficed?

tuesday august 24

today i was walking down the street when i heard someone complaining about how long a bus ride had taken. over the course of what should have been a 10-minute trip, he said, he'd had time to listen to "all of 'dogs' and half of fucking 'pigs.'" consulting my copy of pink floyd's animals later, i was able to deduce that his ride must have taken approximately 23 minutes.

monday august 23

today i went to communist's daughter for a couple drinks. having finished my first, i was hoping the bartender would come by so i could order a second, but i sat there for about ten minutes with no sign of him. finally, i decided to go up to the bar to secure my drink. i stood up and walked over, only to find that he was no longer behind the bar. i scanned up and down the counter before turning around to survey the rest of the place. oh, there he is, finally at my table.

sunday august 22

today i got a ride from london to toronto. on the way, i passed this bus overturned in the ditch, which made me rethink my previously-held assumption that any bus ride i took would almost certainly be accident-free.

saturday august 21

today i went to the gap intending to buy some jeans, a task i'd been putting off since last fall. after briefing looking at the selection, i picked out a pair i thought were my size and took that single pair to the change room. five minutes later, i was at the checkout counter paying for them. the speed with which i'd purchased the first pair of pants i tried on left me wondering why it had taken nearly a year for me to get around to the task.

friday august 20

today i ordered a pitcher of sangria at a bar and became confused when the server asked if we'd like "normal" sangria or "boozy" sangria. was there a standard form of sangria that didn't have alcohol in it?? to play it safe, i requested "boozy." as it turned out, this was just a more expensive version of alcoholic sangria that incorporated a cooler into its recipe rather than citrus juice.

thursday august 19

today i was standing in line waiting to buy a greyhound ticket for a 12:30 bus to london. with the clock on the wall reading 12:20 and me second in line, a woman two spots behind me in line started to panic about making a 12:30 bus (the same one as mine). she rushed to the front of the line and asked the guy standing in front of me if he was catching a 12:30 bus (he wasn't), then took his place at the front of the line. i wasn't sure whether to be offended that someone taking the same bus as me had jumped ahead of me, or amused that she was so concerned about missing it when i felt like i still had a ton of time to spare.

wednesday august 18

today i looked into why two library holds i'd made last week hadn't come in yet. after all, in the case of at least one of the books i'd reserved, there had been copies available in a few libraries -- it should've been delivered to my branch by now! after some brief research, i discovered that, because there'd been a fine on my library card for more than six weeks, a block had been placed on my card. for some reason, the website didn't notify me of this $0.60 obstacle when i'd actually placed the holds.

tuesday august 17

today i had a dream in which i was a major league pitcher. my line in my big league debut was 1 ip, 1 h, 0 er, 1 k.

monday august 16

today i found out that my brother broke his thumb and may need to have an operation to have a pin put in it. imagine if we both had metal put in our right arms/hands in the same year!

sunday august 15

today i noticed that my shawarma place of choice had a new soda in stock: cherry crush. fascinated by this flavour that i'd never seen before, i had to buy one. although it didn't immediately become my favourite soft drink or anything, i was happy i made the dollar investment. i also couldn't help but think back to the years of little league baseball when one parent would bring a cooler full of 24 cans of soda for the team to drink after the game: six each of root beer, crush cream soda, purple crush, and orange crush. having cherry crush in the mix back then would've changed everything.

saturday august 14

today i went to the scotiabank theatre to see scott pilgrim vs. the world. except, instead of going to the scotiabank theatre, i went to the varsity cinema, mixing them up in my head. scott pilgrim was NOT playing at varsity.

friday august 13

today i waited in line at the packed, about-to-close lcbo for approximately 15 minutes with a friend who was buying a bottle of wine. she ended up not even drinking a sip from the bottle, instead leaving it unopened at my house.

thursday august 12

today i was throwing a couple burgers on the barbecue when an old man yelled from the sidewalk across the street: "call me when dinner's ready!"

wednesday august 11

today i piled up my dirty dishes slightly precariously in the sink, intending to come back to them later. i walked out of the kitchen to dispose of some recycling and when i returned about 20 seconds later, my dishes had begun to slide off the pile. quickly, i sprinted across the kitchen and grabbed them just before the cutting board atop the pile fell onto the floor. my timing was so perfect and my execution so effective that i felt like it was something straight out of an action movie. a really boring, low-budget action movie.

tuesday august 10

today i bought a pair of beers at the blue jays game. one was for me, while the other was for my friend who had failed to bring any form of acceptable identification. unbeknownst to me, while she was waiting off to the side of the beer line, an usher came by and asked if she was, in fact, waiting for beer, which she denied. when i got the beers and went to hand one to her, she made no move to take it, instead whispering "don't give it to me." i walked with both drinks in my hands until the usher was clearly out of sight and no longer interested in us. the moment made me feel like i was taking part in some sort of drug deal out of the wire.

monday august 9

today i was in the shower when i absentmindedly read the label on a dove product sitting on the edge of the tub. i did a double-take when i was convinced i'd read the phrase "intensive despair" on the side of the bottle. after wiping the water out of my eyes and off the bottle, i realized it actually said "intensive repair," which made more sense.

sunday august 8

today i attended the best pitching performance of my life, when brandon morrow took a no-hitter into the ninth inning and struck out 17 rays. still, as much fun as i had at the game, the experience was ruined slightly by a rogers centre crowd that got really into the wave in the bottom of the 8th, then wouldn't stand up during the 9th. when a friend implored our section to get on their feet with one out in the 9th, one nearby fan replied, "i stood up for the wave." thank you toronto, for making me wish i grew up in boston or new york.

saturday august 7

today i slept through my alarm after a late night. when i randomly awoke, my clock read: 10:00. this was the exact time that i was to start my mlb trade rumors shift. was this the karmic reward i'd been hoping for after yesterday's moment of truth??

friday august 6

today i was buying a mickey of rum and three sapporos at the lcbo. however, when i checked out, the cashier charged me for just one of the three sapporos. before i could stop myself, i pointed out to him that i actually should be paying for three. the lcbo employee didn't even understand what i was referring to at first, and when he realized, seemed surprised that i would have said anything. "an honest man," he chuckled. i'm hoping that the extra $6 i charged myself will be repaid in karma down the road.

thursday august 5

today i was planning on making social plans for the evening, but found out around 5:00 pm that robyn's body talk pt. 2 had leaked. i decided to just stay in for the night instead.

wednesday august 4

today i realized, after a particularly intense mario party minigame, that when my doctor told me not to play any sports that involved contact or throwing until next spring, his instructions probably weren't thorough enough. the dull pain in my right arm suggested that he also should have cautioned me against playing wii games that involved violently shaking my arm up and down.

tuesday august 3

today i heard loud noises coming from outside and felt the house shaking a little. upon closer inspection i realized that, unbeknownst to me or my roommates, a group of workers was putting new eavestroughs on our house. at one point, this process resulted in a long-time fear of mine being realized, when the workers placed their ladders at the front of the house and made their way up onto our second-floor balcony. given that we never lock the balcony door, i've long considered, in the back of my mind, the possibility of someone coming up via ladder and easily entering the house. i decided to lock the door just to be safe.

monday august 2

today i was sitting at my computer in my room while our landlord showed our house to potential september tenants. thinking that people were done touring the house, i'd turned the volume back up on my music (bun b), and nearly fell out of my chair when i heard a girl's voice ask behind me, "can i come in?" the next 60 seconds or so made up the most embarrassing moment of my day, as she attempted to make friendly small talk and ask routine questions about the place, while i, still recovering from the initial surprise, answered pretty much every inquiry in the most awkward and roundabout way possible.

sunday august 1

today i was heading to a friend's place and realized i was out of subway tokens. this is always an unfortunate predicament. usually, i like to try to re-stock on tokens when i still have one or two left. that way, i don't have to worry about buying them when i'm running late somewhere, or having to wait in a long line of ttc customers. sure enough, when i approached the subway station, i saw the ttc attendant putting up the "back in a few" sign, though he continued to stand there. would he still sell me tokens? would i be able to sneak through when he left? a lot of questions were running through my mind as i walked up to the window. when i got there, i made eye contact and sort of gestured toward him with my wallet. to my surprise, he just smiled and waved his hand, indicating that i should just walk through. in retrospect, i'm not 100% sure "walk through without paying!" was what he meant, but when i did just that, no one stopped me.

saturday july 31

today i came out of the lcbo and saw the usual busker playing her guitar outside the entrance. knowing i was heading to the laundromat shortly and had no change, i briefly considered giving her a five dollar bill and asking if she could make change. i quickly eschewed this idea though, assuming that even if she got the better end of the deal (ie. i gave her $5 in exchange for two toonies), it would've just felt really wrong.

friday july 30

today i watched the final half-hour of free willy on television. the film, which i probably hadn't watched since about 1994, was much different than i remembered. while i, of course, recalled the iconic image of willy jumping over that kid to freedom, and the michael jackson song that highlighted the soundtrack, that was about the extent of my memories. things i'd forgotten included:

• willy responding to casual conversation with headshakes or nods, like a human.
• willy's overnight road trip.
• michael madsen as the stepdad who comes through in the end.
• any of the actors in the movie.
• that the villains were trying to off willy to collect the insurance policy -- one million dollars.
• that the michael jackson song ("will you be there") didn't even play over the jumping-into-the-ocean scene, but rather during the end credits.

thursday july 29

today i agreed to take an mlbtr shift that began at midnight and went until 4:00 tomorrow morning. in order to make sure i was able to stay awake for the entirety of the shift, i napped twice today. a double nap! it was so intense! what does it mean??

wednesday july 28

today i went to see my new place to check room sizes again and take some measurements, now that we knew we'd be leaving there come september. about three minutes before i left the house, it began to rain for the first time all day, inspiring me to ask my roommate to borrow her metropass. it felt a little weird to take an 18-minute ttc trip for a walk that would've taken maybe 22 minutes, but it was definitely worth it.

tuesday july 27

today i was washing a couple dishes when i saw my roommate about to leave the house. "where you headed?" i asked, only to have her reply entirely drowned out by the running water in the sink. after a split second of internal debate, i said "ah," nodding and pretending i'd heard the response, since i figured her destination probably wasn't of much consequence to me anyway.

monday july 26

today i went to canada's wonderland with a pair of female friends. when we took a break for dinner, discussion turned to the drink prices, and the fact that only 20 cents, or "two dimes," separates small from medium and then medium from large. at this point, i racked my brain trying to figure out how to turn the phrase "two dimes" into a joke/compliment about my present company, but couldn't do it quickly enough. when i chuckled to myself thinking about how clever it would've been if i'd pulled it off, they thought i was laughing at something else. nope, just the jokes in my head!

sunday july 25

today i signed a lease for a new place to live in september. see ya later, ossington!

saturday july 24

today i was walking along harbord street when a woman and child sitting on a stoop stopped me. this was the conversation we had:

her: "are you from around here?"
me (gesturing toward ossington): "yeah i guess so!"
her: "where are we?"
me (slightly confused): "like.... this street?"
her: "yeah."
me: "uh, this is harbord. harbord and ossington is a little ways up there."
her: "what's this intersection?
me (looking at the street sign that's about 30 feet away): "uh, montrose and harbord."
her: "ah okay, thanks. we ordered a pizza!"

at this point, i'm about to smile and walk away, but then her child starts talking to me:

him: "what's 16 up to 40?"
me: "sorry?"
him: "like, you already have 16 and you're going to 40."
me: "uh, you mean 16 plus 40?"
him: "no, like it's been 16 minutes out of 40 minutes."
me (finally understanding): "ohhh, 24!"
him: "thanks!"

as i walked away, i ascertained the following: they ordered a pizza that was going to take 40 minutes to deliver, and it had been 16 so far. during those 16 minutes, they still had no idea where they were. i can only imagine what they told the pizza place on the phone about where to send their dinner.

friday july 23

today i watched two episodes of deadwood in my room while my roommates hosted a party downstairs. i had to turn the volume up slightly louder than usual to drown out all the yelling coming from below me.

thursday july 22

today i went to see a nearby house showing, in search of a new place to live. it was one of the more unusual tours i'd been provided to date, as the following things happened:

• rather than the landlord himself showing up, his son, who wore braces and looked about 19, met me.
• the house's tenant, an old man named mr. clark, was home and watching tv in his living room as we maneuvered around him.
• the tour itself was so whirlwind that i couldn't have spent more than 30 seconds total in the house.
• after being led out to the back balcony area, the kid suggested i just take the fire escape stairs down and let myself out the back alley, like i was some sort of embarrassing one-night stand that he didn't want anyone to see come out the front door.

wednesay july 21

today i was hanging out with some friends at the victory cafe, when two of them headed to the bathroom. although i really needed to use the bathroom too, i decided to wait until they returned to do so, so as not to clear out too much of our table at once. at about the 15-minute mark of this wait, i couldn't take it anymore, and made my way to the bathroom. note for the future: never base your bathroom trips on when two friends will return from the bathroom, in case they decide to have a half-hour heart-to-heart in there.

tuesday july 20

today i was telling one of my friends about major lazer's pitchfork set, expecting to have to share my newfound knowledge about what daggering was. as soon as i mentioned it though, she proved herself to be an expert, even citing a specific comment someone left on a major lazer video that she'd come across during one of her "black holes" of youtube-browsing.

monday july 19

today i checked out of the inn of chicago, where we'd stayed the last three nights. for some reason, the guy that helped me check out made me very uneasy -- although the words coming out of his mouth were helpful and friendly, something about the tone in which he said them seemed unsettling and vaguely threatening. as such, after checking out, when he kept asking things like "mr. adams, do you need a taxi?" and mr. adams, how about some driving directions?" i declined all his offers and left the hotel as quickly as possible. we did need driving directions, it turns out.

sunday july 18

today i was at the final day of the pitchfork music festival, watching major lazer's late afternoon set. about 15 minutes into the performance, a middle-aged hippie-looking guy in front of us turned around and asked my friend and me: "who is this?" it was an odd question, considering the group had already announced their name at least ten times, complete with a call-and-response ("MAJOR..." "...LAZER!"), but my friend told the guy who was on stage. after a beat, the guy asked, "where's here we go magic?" i suggested they were probably on the smaller side stage and pointed him in the right direction, at which point he said thanks and walked off. later, i noticed that here we go magic had started playing nearly 45 minutes earlier, meaning this guy probably missed their set entirely. although i felt bad for him, i had to chuckle at the fact that he'd stood through 15 minutes of major lazer's insane costumed-dancing, daggering, hennessy-swigging set before thinking, "this doesn't seem like here we go magic."

saturday july 17

today i was at the pitchfork music festival in chicago when i saw a woman walk past me. she was carrying two full beers, one in each hand, while precariously balancing her sleeping child on her shoulders.

friday july 16

today i was grilled at the u.s./canada border by a surly border guard. her name, according to her nametag, was stanley.

thursday july 15

today i had a dream in which, for some reason, i was sitting in on what appeared to be some sort of lecture for adult film stars. at one point, i brushed against the "actress" sitting next to me and she commented on how ice-cold my legs were. there's meaning in here somewhere, i think.

wednesday july 14

today i was walking home along roxton road when i heard a child's voice call "hi!" off to my left. i turned to look for the source and saw a girl who looked about two years old sitting on the front step of a house, alongside a nanny or babysitter who looked about my age. except when i first looked over, i only saw the nanny, making me briefly wonder why this fully-grown girl had greeted me in a toddler's voice.

tuesday july 13

today i had a job interview. while the interview itself went fairly well, the part i felt best about after the fact was the brief post-interview conversation, when the interviewer and i had agreed that the new big boi album is awesome.

monday july 12

today i went to bed at 11 pm, setting my alarm for 5 am tomorrow morning, so i could wake up in plenty of time to do last-minute research and preparation for my 10 am job interview. this closely paralleled how i'd studied for exams in university. for some reason, in each case i'd feel very uncomfortable doing my research, then sleeping, then waking up and taking the test. perhaps this is out of some irrational fear that i'll forget everything i learned while i'm sleeping.

sunday july 11

today i saw my pre-tournament prediction come true when spain beat the netherlands to win the world cup. my decision to pick spain was not one i researched heavily, but rather one i'd made shortly after watching this sick passing sequence on youtube last month:

saturday july 10

today i thought about what a fun experiment it would be to mix up the phone numbers and names of everyone in my phone's sim card, so that they no longer matched up. i could then exchange texts and make plans with a friend while having no idea who i was communicating back and forth with. when i showed up for our hang-out, i'd be totally in the dark about who was going to come walking through the door to meet me! i probably won't do this. it was just an idea.

friday july 9

today i sat with three friends in a private box, complete with a curtained entrance, right next to the stage at an aziz ansari show. the fact that i'd completely misinterpreted the seat listing on my ticket and had no idea our seats would be this good made the experience even better, though it also made me suspicious that we'd been mistakenly seated there and would be kicked out by the real ticketholders at some point. this fear lasted well into opener todd barry's set.

thursday july 8

today i decided to embrace the heat wave by drinking an ice-cold smoothie and listening to ccr, while i sat outside in the sun and watched the sweat pool on my arms. it was awesome.

wednesday july 7

today i was taking the crowded streetcar home from the blue jays game when i heard someone behind me say "good game!" i had really only half-heard the guy, in the way you hear something that you aren't really listening to. a couple seconds later though, i felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. "good game!" the guy said again, apparently directing this assertion at me. "yeah!" i agreed, while silently debating whether i ought to wear my jays t-shirt to games in the future.

tuesday july 6

today i was so hot that i had to move a second fan into my room from our guest room, since it was positioned better to blow air directly on me 24/7.

monday july 5

today i noticed that the world series of poker main event had gotten underway in las vegas. after thinking about it a little, i concluded that if i ever won the lottery, one of the first things i'd do with the money would be to use $10,000 of it to enter that year's wsop main event.

sunday july 4

today i needed to print off four pages worth of tickets for the upcoming aziz ansari show. since i rarely use my printer, i always have to specifically load it with paper anytime i'm printing anything. so, i counted out four sheets, loaded them up, and printed the tickets with no problem. after finishing the job though, i noticed that there was still some paper in the printer tray. i grabbed it and, to my surprise, counted FIVE additional blank pages that had gone unused. so not only had i loaded extra sheets by accident, but they'd somehow totaled NINE rather than four. i have no idea.

saturday july 3

today i walked down to college st. along ossington to pick up a take-out order. during the walk there, i approached dewson st., and a woman who was pulling two small children in one of those plastic toy wagons hit the crosswalk button on the opposite side of the street. since i needed to cross to the other side of ossington at some point, i decided to take advantage of the crosswalk and started walking through the intersection myself. but as we passed each other in the middle of the road, one of the children in the wagon dropped his hat into the street! "uh!" i called back. "i think you dropped something!" already on the other side of the road now, the woman looked back as i picked up the hat and carried it over to her. she thanked me profusely and i felt like i'd done a good deed, but i was also now back where i started, on the original side of the street -- and cars, tired of waiting for us to cross, had resumed passing through the intersection. mildly irritated, i continued walking on my side of the street, deciding to cross at the next light instead.

friday july 2

today i received a voicemail from a friend. normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason, after the LAST voice message i'd received, my phone had kept the "new voicemail!" logo stuck in the top of my display screen, even though i'd listened to and deleted them all. when i listened to the new voicemail today, that logo finally disappeared. this was a relief, since it had been an annoyance for the last month or so, often pushing the time out of the display screen. i don't know why i never once in the last few weeks just asked a friend to leave me a nonsense voice message to get rid of it. would've been pretty easy.

thursday july 1

today i was working a shift for mlb trade rumors when i came across an article by an mlb.com beat writer in which he mistakenly referred to padres relief pitcher luke gregerson as "luke adams." my theory is that he's been seeing my byline on mlbtr too much.

wednesday june 30

today i watched all 12:37 of a three-song music video by the-dream in which essentially nothing happens.

tuesday june 29

today i walked over to shawarma flames in the evening to buy a chicken shawarma. when i arrived, i noticed that the employee working tonight was the new guy -- he was being trained when i'd come in last time. the first time i'd seen him behind the counter, he had exhibited both an eagerness to make small talk and a real lack of speed when it came to putting together a shawarma. not a good combination. sure enough, after i placed my order tonight, he was at it again, asking me how my day was. this is not what i come to a shawarma place for. i replied "oh not too bad," and debated whether to continue talking, maybe about the soccer games or something, but decided against it. the small talk fizzled out quickly.

monday june 28

today i was walking home from the hospital when i arrived at college and bathurst. a big jones soda truck was stopped at the light, and a guy waiting for the streetcar at the corner called up to it: "hey! can i have a free soda? it's so hot, i need something to drink!" someone inside the truck must have heard him and given him the okay, because i heard him exclaim "really?!" and turned back to see a window open and a girl lean out to hand him a bottle of blue bubble gum jones soda. the light turned green at this point, meaning there was no time for me to try to pull off the same move, but i was happy for this guy and his free drink.

sunday june 27

today i watched this youtube video about seven times, fascinated that it took place at an intersection i often frequent.

saturday june 26

today i had a nightmare in which i accidentally posted a pornographic link on the wrong tweetdeck account, sending it to @mlbtraderumors' 31,000 followers instead of my personal account. why my dream had me posting porn to my twitter in the first place, i have no idea.

friday june 25

today i got dressed up nicely, boarded the subway, and headed to the 10:00 am job test i mentioned in yesterday's post. when i transferred to the streetcar and it pulled out of the subway station, i received a text message clarifying that the test was, in fact, online, and i could complete it from the comfort of my own house. upon receiving this news, i immediately got off at the next stop, caught a streetcar heading in the other direction, retracing my steps and arriving home with two minutes to spare before the test began. although the mix-up was embarrassing, i took solace in the fact that no one had witnessed it, and that if i'd known all along that i wouldn't have to dress up, i never would've ended up buying an $11 pair of shoes.

thursday june 24

today i was running a couple errands on college street in the evening when i suddenly realized that i had no dress shoes. this hasn't been a huge problem in the past, but i have a "test" for a job tomorrow that i'll need to look nice for, which means not showing up in my adidas kicks. so i wandered to the dufferin mall and went into the first store that looked like they might have some shoes. i found a handful of nice-looking pairs and decided to ask about one on the "clearance" shelf. "ahh, we usually just have a pair or two of the clearances ones," the employee told me, but in a stroke of luck, one of their remaining pairs was exactly my size! at only $49.95, i figured i could do worse. when i got to the checkout, the girl rang them through and commented: "wow, this is a GREAT deal!" i nodded and agreed, not entirely sure how much this sort of shoe went for typically, but assuming $50 was pretty okay. it was at this point that i looked up at the price displayed on the cash register, which read: $11.29. oh yeah, pretty good deal.

wednesday june 23

today i was walking out of our living room when i felt the house shake a little. "what was that!" my roommate exclaimed, clearly more concerned about the shake-up than i was. "i dunno," i replied. "someone was working on the house downstairs this morning... maybe he did something." we went out on the balcony, checking to see if anything was happening below us, but nothing seemed to be awry. "maybe it was an earthquake," we joked, neither of us believing that that was a real possibility in toronto, ontario, canada. when i checked twitter a few minutes later and saw my feed filled with "earthquake?" tweets, i realized that's exactly what it had been.

tuesday june 22

today i was waiting for the subway with my roommate. suddenly, the old guy standing a couple feet from us started repeating a phrase that sounded like "she language." uncomfortable and hoping he wasn't talking to us, we avoided eye contact with him for a few seconds, but he kept talking until finally i glanced up. "she language!" he said again. i chuckled and nodded, which seemed to please him. i still have no idea what he was talking about, but i doubt it was this.

monday june 21

today i was awakened by someone outside my window yelling "PORTUGAL!" repeatedly and blowing what sounded very much like a vuvuzela.

sunday june 20

today i had a dream in which tiny fey and i co-starred alongside one another in a movie adaptation of a novel we'd co-written about the struggles one faces in one's late-30s.

saturday june 19

today i was at the blue jays game when the giants brought in hard-throwing relief pitcher santiago casilla. "look at how fast he throws," a mother behind me exclaimed to her young child. casilla tossed a fastball across the plate and the stadium's radar gun flashed a reading of 99 mph. "that's the same speed our car goes on the highway!" the mother exclaimed, leaving me silently thankful that i'll never be in her car while she's behind the wheel.

friday june 18

today i headed to a friend's karaoke birthday party not intending to sing. an hour later, i was leading a spirited rendition of miley cyrus's "party in the usa."

thursday june 17

today i was writing something that included the phrase "he is not." debating between whether to shorten the line to "he's not" or "he isn't," i wondered why there wasn't some sort of rule for instances where back-to-back contractions could be used. rather than having to decide between my aforementioned options, it'd be much easier to just write "he'sn't."

wednesday june 16

today i was retweeted on twitter by porn director lee roy myers.

tuesday june 15

today i was waiting in line at foot locker while the guy in front of me was being rung through. while i waited, a sean kingston/justin bieber music video played on the televisions over the counter, inspiring the foot locker employee to point out that there was a certain girl that appeared in every justin bieber video. "she must be his girlfriend! i see her in every one!" she exclaimed to the guy ahead of me in line, who politely nodded and mumbled assent, but looked like he couldn't possibly care about anything less.

monday june 14

today i was discussing the halloween setup at canada's wonderland with a friend, as she tried to talk about how scary the corn maze was. what came out of her mouth instead of "corn maze" was "corn rape," which injected a whole new level of scary into the discussion.

sunday june 13

today i had the television to myself, with no roommates in sight, for a tremendous 8-11 pm run of lakers/celtics game 5, white sox/cubs dueling no-hitters, and the incredible season finale of breaking bad. it was easily one of the highlights of my week.

saturday june 12

today i was standing on my own, sipping a beer at a 90s party at neutral, waiting for my friends to come in from outside. suddenly, a girl i didn't know grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor. while i tried to be enthusiastic about this stranger wanting to dance with me, the fact that she tried to spin me around twice within about ten seconds was a bit of a turn-off -- i hate being spun, and resisted her attempts, forcing her to spin instead. within about 20 seconds, she'd lost interest and wandered off.

friday june 11

today i watched the first volume of kill bill. even though it was my second time seeing it, i was still fully engrossed, perhaps even moreso than the first time around. still, watching the dvd by myself, i paused the film, which isn't even very long, on three separate occasions to check various things (baseball scores, e-mail, etc.) online. this is exactly why i have so much trouble watching movies anymore. no attention span.

thursday june 10

today i placed a take-out order at one of my most-frequented restaurants, phil's bbq. when i arrived and saw the total price of my order, i was pleased -- it came to $9.04, which meant i could pay about $10 and leave my standard 10% take-out tip. i handed the girl behind the counter at phil's a $20 bill along with a dime, intending to pocket the $10 and leave the $1.06 in change that i got back. "there's your change," she said, handing me a $10 bill, a nickel, and a penny, with no loonie in sight. "thanks," i replied cheerfully, secretly very concerned now about how to handle the situation. as far as i could tell, these were my options:

• fish through the rest of my change to try to find a dollar to leave, which would essentially meaning leaving a TWO dollar (20%+) tip. more than i'd leave a waiter!
• calling attention to the forgotten dollar, only to just give it back to her anyway -- so not only would i be suggesting she was an idiot for forgetting all my change, but i'd be doing it just so i could get the RECOGNITION of handing it back to her.
• leaving the nickel and penny, in hopes that when she took the bill back she'd notice her mistake, but risking being viewed as the guy who left a six-cent tip.

i elected for the final option. i hope they don't remember me next time.

wednesday june 9

today i lay in bed before falling asleep, thinking about how often i have a really good dream, but wake up before i see how it ends. the disappointment that comes from being denied closure usually cancels out any enjoyment i get from the dream itself. at some point during this brainstorm, i fell asleep and eventually had a dream in which i was playing for a baseball team. in the dream, we were playing against our hated rivals, and emotions were running high, not only between both teams, but also between our team and the umpires. at one point, i belted a home run over the left-field wall, but was called out when the umpire ruled that i'd missed touching second base during my home run trot (i had missed the base, but the fact that the umpire alerted the other team of this fact, getting them to appeal, made me livid). finally, after seven innings, we'd taken a narrow 13-12 lead and were poised to take care of business in the final two frames. it was at this point that i woke up. typical.

tuesday june 8

today i went to the laundromat to do some laundry. while my clothes were being washed and dried, i ran a few errands, meaning i had to walk back and forth between my house and the laundromat about four different times. normally this wouldn't have been problematic, but today there happened to be two groups of 20-somethings with clipboards on the sidewalk along the way, attempting to stop passers-by and preach about some cause or other -- probably about the environment, but i wasn't about to find out. after barely being able to turn down the spiel the first time i walked to the laundromat, i planned my course more carefully on subsequent walks past. although the two groups were on opposite sides of the street, they weren't directly across from one another, which gave me a gap of about a block in which i could cross bloor st. without running into either group. needless to say, regardless of the amount of traffic in my way, i took advantage of that block every time.

monday june 7

today i heard my new favourite line on the bachelorette, when one guy poetically declared: "it's just my heart.... jump in. stay a while."

sunday june 6

today i observed a house party happening across the street. songs like david guetta's "sexy bitch" blasted loudly from the house, and its interior was lit up by a pulsing red light. when she passed by, my roommate reported that it seemed like there was even a bouncer standing at the front door with a clipboard -- possibly a guest list? when i took another look a half-hour later, it was impossible to tell whether the front patio was just packed with people wanting to hang out outside, or if this alleged "bouncer" was holding a line.