thursday april 29

today i ate a hamburger topped with an onion ring and didn't feel nearly as gluttonous or unhealthy as i anticipated.

wednesday april 28

today i studied a planet pizza flier that had arrived in our mailbox a couple days earlier. the brochure prominently advertised a "family meal deal," which it said came "with choice of dessert." curious about what sort of dessert options a pizza place might offer, i browsed through the entire menu, looking for that category. although i came across a slew of specials, appetizers, salads, and pastas, there were NO desserts listed anywhere in the flier. also curious: the section entitled "salads and subs" listed three things: caesar salad, mixed salad, and greek salad. the entire experience was one of my more confusing recent food-related encounters.

tuesday april 27

today i was on the streetcar when i overheard two 20-something girls talking about directions. despite living in the city, one girl just couldn't figure out where north, south, east, and west were. this led to her friend giving her advice like "if you know one direction, you should know them all!" and quizzing her on which direction our rogers-centre-to-bloor streetcar was heading. she said south.

monday april 26

today i attended baseball's longest nine-inning game to date this season, then on my way home encountered a subway that wasn't running. the outing ended up taking over six hours in total.

sunday april 25

today i went to a friend's house to play the final world (9!) in super mario bros. wii. although we'd been at it for a while and could've easily called it a night, i became obsessed with getting a certain gold coin on one level that we just barely kept missing out on. i plotted strategies and gameplans, and uttered phrases like "i'm not going home until we get this" and "i won't be able to sleep tonight if i don't get that coin." it took over an hour to do it, but finally on one inspired run through the level, we got that gold coin and tasted sweet victory.

saturday april 24

today i was talking with my roommate when the conversation shifted to the website drunk jays fans. she casually mentioned that when she'd been browsing the site, she'd noticed an article about "punching kittens." i stared at her for a second, unsure of whether she understood the euphemism or whether she was taking it literally, and burst out laughing when i realized it was the latter.

friday april 23

today i went to the laundromat, threw my laundry in the washing machine, started the load, and left. i usually do some errands while waiting for the 25-minute cycle to complete, and after about 24 minutes, i returned to move my wet clothes to the dryer. as soon as i walked into the place, i noticed an odd rumbling, banging sound coming from my machine. it was quite annoying and noticeable, and i felt embarrassed about the fact that it must have been going on the entire time i was gone. i tried to remember if i could have left any sort of objects in my pockets that would be making noise inside the washer, but drew a blank, and had to conclude that it was just an unlucky machine. it was a huge relief when the cycle came to an end about 30 seconds later, without my earning any judging glances from anyone else in the laundromat. i can't imagine how uncomfortable i would've been if i'd stuck around the whole time, sheepishly standing next to my noise machine.

thursday april 22

today i wrote my first story that was linked by espn.com.

wednesday april 21

today i attended the afternoon game at the rogers centre between the blue jays and the kansas city royals. every time the royals came to bat, the man sitting by himself next to me yelled "COME ON KANSAS!" at the top of his lungs, like clockwork. he didn't say anything else for the duration of the ten-inning contest.

tuesday april 20

today i was buying groceries at the metro while wearing an NYPD t-shirt i'd bought at value village for a couple bucks. before she started checking my items through, the cashier paused and examined the shirt before asking (probably rhetorically): "you're not REALLY police though, right?" i chuckled and said no, and she remarked "i thought you looked a little young!" i was thankful that was the deficiency she had picked out, rather than my hardly policeman-esque physical stature.

monday april 19

today i decided to take advantage of the beautiful afternoon weather before the sun went in, by taking my ipod onto the balcony and sitting outside. i browsed through the ipod's playlists as i walked downstairs, and my distracted state caused me to miss a step on my way down. as my ipod went flying out of my left hand, i was unable to grab onto the banister, and ended up landing directly on my right elbow -- the one that had been steadily recovering for the last three months and was now all bloodied and quickly swelled to the size of an egg.

sunday april 18

today i co-hosted a new moon-themed party. it was either the highlight or the lowlight of my party-throwing career.

saturday april 17

today i took the spadina streetcar twice and both times blamed it for arriving late to my destination: the second inning of a blue jays game and, later, a song or two into a tallest man on earth show.

friday april 16

today i casually used the term "t-girl" in conversation and had to explain what it meant.

thursday april 15

today i went to the blue jays game with a couple friends. we sat in the 500 level for the first half of the game, but around the fifth inning, vowed to head down to the 100 level, where there were a ton of empty seats. we made our way down one of the ramps to the main concourse, but upon arriving at the 100-level entrance saw a yellow-vested security guard blocking the way and looking at us. not knowing how to proceed, we all slowed down, very unsure of ourselves for a few seconds. it was at this point that the pacing security guard turned around and faced the opposite direction, essentially allowing us to walk past her, behind her back. after this fortunate turn, we faced the obstacle of getting past the ushers into a specific section of seats. we were worried we'd be asked for our tickets. after a couple minutes of planning the timing (and debating whether it would be better to walk in with full hands), we made our move, and faced no resistance as we walked down to about 15 rows behind the first-base dugout. though it was a good feeling scoring the prime seats that we did, the whole process felt slightly embarrassing, like we were underage kids stressing about getting into a bar that never checks IDs.

wednesday april 14

today i stood outside a coffee time for about 15 minutes with a friend, waiting for one of his friends' moms to meet him to pass along a video camera. not knowing what she looked like, both of us scoured the middle-aged women that passed us by over the course of those 15 minutes, wondering if any given one could be the woman we were waiting for. when she finally arrived, i realized that all the women i'd been scoping out for the duration of our wait had been foreign, even though she was white and there had been no reason to assume otherwise.

tuesday april 13

today i was doing a physiotherapy exercise that requires i bring my injured arm back behind my head. while i was performing the maneuver, i noticed that the arm was still tight and sore, which made me feel like my progress was slow and was slightly discouraging. out of curiousity though, i tried doing the exercise with my other, healthy arm and experienced the exact same amount of resistance and soreness. it was at this point i had to consider that maybe the problem, for this particular exercise at least, was less the injury and more my general lack of fitness.

monday april 12

today i arrived at the fracture clinic in toronto western hospital at 12:09 for my 12:15 appointment. after checking in, i had a seat in the waiting room, unable to listen to my ipod (in case my name was called and i missed it) and unable to use my cell phone (no reception). at 1:13, i was taken in for an x-ray, which took approximately three minutes. i then waited until 2:45 to be called into an exam room, eventually seeing the doctor at 3:00. in less than a minute, he told me that everything looked good and to come back in two months. i ended up leaving the hospital at 3:07, three hours after i'd arrived.

sunday april 11

today i was taking a shower when i noticed one of my roommates' herbal essences bottles on the ledge next to me. on the back, it read: "i act like a conditioner, but i'm oh so light." for some reason, the personification of this shower product made me feel very uncomfortable.

saturday april 10

today i received a phone call from a group of my friends who were "lost in mississauga" and needed me to use myttc to get them directions back to the subway station. after i used the trip planner to give them instructions that would take nearly an hour, they dejectedly thanked me and hung up. two minutes later, i got another phone call from them, asking if i could look up the number for a cab company.

friday april 9

today i experienced one of the more bizarre naps of my life. i woke up after about 75 minutes of lying down, entirely unclear how much of that time i'd actually spent sleeping, since my sleep had been so light that it felt like i was still awake.

thursday april 8

today i was at my physiotherapy appointment when, toward the end of the session, my physiotherapist asked me if i had any rubber bands at home. i said yes, assuming he meant the small elastic bands that are used to roll up newspapers, tie off bags, etc. what he actually meant, as he demonstrated in the gym a minute later, was a piece of rubbery material that was about three feet in length. the exercise he assigned me involved standing with my foot on one end of this "rubber band" and pulling its other end up and down with my arm. why the average person would have this sort of thing lying around their house is beyond me.

wednesday april 7

today i planned on getting a ride from london to toronto with a friend. i was dropped off at her house and was unclear enough about our plan (ie. whether she would be ready to go, whether our other friend who was coming would be at her house yet, what the vehicle we'd be driving looked like, etc.) that a running car in the driveway gave me pause. as i approached it, it looked to me as if the two people in the driver's and passenger's seats were my two friends, already set to go and waiting for my arrival. given that traffic had made getting to her place take longer than i expected, this made sense to me. so, i attempted to open the door to the back seat and climb into the car, only to find it locked. at this point, the passenger-side window rolled down and i peered into the vehicle. the two girls in the car were decidedly not who i thought they were, and in fact looked like terrified 16 year olds that i'd never seen before in my life. embarrassed, and feeling creepier than i have all year, i apologized profusely, explaining: "i thought you were someone else...."

tuesday april 6

today i made an evening stop at the lcbo to buy a couple beers for the night. when i was about to pay for them, i pulled out an lcbo gift card that i'd been given as a birthday gift, and mentioned to the cashier that it was my birthday. "oh, happy birthday!" she said. "how old are you turning, 19?" she seemed genuinely shocked when i told her i was actually turning 25.

monday april 5

today i tagged along with two friends driving back to chicago from toronto, getting dropped off in london along the way. although the drive ended up going fairly smoothly, the trip's opening minutes made me a bit nervous. before we had even left toronto, my friend had already missed a turn and driven through a stop sign.

sunday april 4

today i ordered at drink at the boat and handed the bartender a $10 bill. she studied the money for about 20 seconds, holding it up to the light at various angles, before eventually asking me if i had any other bills. i handed her a $5, which she looked at for about two seconds before giving it the okay.

saturday april 3

today i was walking through kensington market when i passed miss cora's kitchen. written on their sidewalk sign in chalk was the following note: "FREE GUCCI MANE."

friday april 2

today i turned down a friend's invitation to socialize, in favour of blogging, for the second consecutive night.

thursday april 1

today i had planned for months to pull an april fools blog prank with my roommate. we were going to swap writing styles for a day -- she would post a blog entry using my writing style, while i'd post one using hers (a lot of references to "my city," descriptions of the weather, sentences with six instances of the word "and," etc). when i asked her today if this plan was still in effect, she sort of turned up her nose and said "nah." although i was fine with this decision, i suspected that she thought she was too big-time for me now; that she thought writing a single entry in my style could compromise her ever-growing popularity and confuse her 72 followers.

wednesday march 31

today i brought up the "notes" section of my cell phone, a place where i often "jot" down ideas for blog entries when i'm worried i'll forget them later. while browsing these notes, i noticed one that read: "exploring the striking convergence of the georgian bay and canadian shield. nature." this was from weeks (maybe months) ago, and was clearly intended to inspire some sort of amusing post for this blog. for the life of me though, i can't figure out what it was referring to or how it was supposed to be funny.