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!