friday july 15

today i googled "what to put on a meatball sub."

thursday july 14

today i received an excited text message from a friend about the fact that the blue jays' eight-run first inning even involved a "bonk." not knowing what the heck this meant, i ignored the text until much, much later, when i found out that it had been a hilarious misspelling of "balk."

wednesday july 13

today i was walking through the produce section of no frills when i heard a guy on the phone ask someone on the other end of the line exactly how many berries he should buy: "telling me to get you a lot of berries is like telling a banker to give you a lot of cash," he said.

tuesday july 12

today i was sitting on the subway on my way to work when a guy sat down next to me and started fanning himself with a newspaper. i thought this was a little rude. it was already a perfectly reasonable temperature on the air-conditioned subway, particularly if, like me, you've been on it for a half-hour already. i mean, sure, fine, if you're sitting by yourself, fan away. but the breeze from his makeshift fan was giving me a chill. good thing it only went one for a single stop.

monday july 11

today i was walking home along margueretta when a girl stopped me and asked, with some confusion, how to get to 468 margueretta. i could immediately see why she was confused: my section of the street ends at bloor, around 340 margueretta. it then continues north of bloor, but only after you walk a half-block east. i could have easily explained this to someone who spoke fluent english, but, sadly, this girl didn't. still, i did my best, with a lot of pointing and gesturing, and when she eventually thanked me and walked off toward her destination, i was at least 40% sure she'd make it.

sunday july 10

today i spent a solid 20 minutes at the laundromat watching a show called splat-a-lot!, which is ytv's version of shows like mxc or wipeout. while i felt a little weird watching adult commentators mock a bunch of children as they tumbled and fell (often in slow motion replay), i can't say i wasn't entertained.

saturday july 9

today i got off the college streetcar at about 2:30 am, on my way home. as i walked along college toward my street (margueretta), i noticed a guy on the opposite side of college, across from the margueretta intersection, getting ready to cross. while this wouldn't be a problem at, say, 6:00 pm, nothing is more uncomfortable than walking alongside the only other person on the street late at night. so i made a concerted effort to speed up, hitting margueretta well before this guy crossed the road, and getting a good lead on him. upon getting home, i'd been in the kitchen for about 30 seconds when my front door opened and someone came in. as it turns out, the guy i'd been working so hard to avoid in the street had been my roommate.

friday july 8

today i went to the blue jays box office to pick up tickets i'd ordered online for next weekend's series against the yankees. i handed over my credit card and photo id, and after a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard, the girl at the window handed me a pen and receipt to sign. upon signing, i had my cards returned and she passed me the tickets. this left me with a handful of stuff to put away at once -- the cards into my wallet and then the tickets and wallet into two different pockets. in my struggle to do all this quickly, i didn't realize right away that i was still holding onto the pen that i'd used to sign. "can i get my pen back please?" she asked tersely, about a second after handing over the tickets. embarrassed, i apologized and passed it back through the window, thinking that her tone was a little unnecessary. i just needed a couple seconds to sort everything out, lady. did you actually think i was gonna walk away with your pen?

thursday july 7

today i was at work when i overheard a coworker ask someone what time it was. she got her answer, then a few minutes later asked what day it was (wednesday or thursday). if she'd continued to pursue this line of questioning and asked what year it was, i would've pretty certain there was some sort of jennifer-garner-in-13-going-on-30 scenario at work here.

wednesday july 6

today i was picking out some bananas at no frills when i realized a guy off to my right was talking to me. i pulled off my headphones and asked him to repeat himself. he then proceeded to talk for 20 seconds about the trick to finding the "sweetest" bananas (it involves thickness). i thanked him and put my headphones back on, wondering if he shared that knowledge with someone in the fruit section every time he went grocery shopping, or if i just looked particularly indecisive choosing my bananas.

tuesday july 5

today i made a slew of new discoveries about the rogers centre while exploring various websites attempting to determine when and where to pick up will-call tickets. of the new things i learned, my favourite was finding out that there were windows at the jays' box office where you could leave tickets for friends to pick up later. could've used this at least a handful of times over the course of the 50+ games i've attended since the start of last season.

monday july 4

today i was working at my desk, minding my own business, when a middle-aged coworker passed by. she stopped outside my cubicle, walked in, put her arm around my shoulder and said "you're such a nice young man." as if this wasn't uncomfortable enough, she hung around for about 30 seconds, repeating at least four times what a nice young man i am, while i nervously laughed and said "thank you" a lot. it was weird.

sunday july 3

today i went out on my deck and found it was so hot on my bare feet that i couldn't even stand on it for more than a few seconds. i'm a huge summer apologist, but this could be an issue.

saturday july 2

today i was at the st. lawrence market with my roommate, looking for food to bring to an evening barbecue. while i settled on the fairly safe choice of corn on the cob, i decided to encourage him to be a little more adventurous. as we listened to one of the merchants try to sell us on the merits of camel meat, i pointed out that it "could be the hit of the party." we ended up walking away with six camel sliders. to be fair, if it wasn't the hit of the evening's food options, it was at least the most-discussed.

friday july 1

today i sat in row 33 in the 500 level at the rogers centre. our seats had an obstructed view and were so high up that occasionally i forgot i was even at the game. it was the first time i'd sat that high since my uncle had taken me to a game in a jays' world series season (either '92 or '93) and we sat in about the same spot. on that day, he joked that if they closed the roof, we'd be left on the outside. it sorta felt that way again.

thursday june 30

today i was hanging out with a friend at toby's. our bill came to about $23, and we each threw in a $20 bill, intending to get some change. when the server returned to our table, she put down a $10 bill and two toonies, and was fishing around for more change when i stopped her. as she walked away, we left one of the two toonies on our table, bringing the total tip to a pretty generous $5. of course, given that we'd given the tip in two parts - $3ish in the change that she hadn't given us and $2 in what we left on the table - it occurred to me as we walked out that, at that moment, we probably seemed pretty cheap both to her and to anyone who looked at the toonie on our table.

wednesday june 29

today i was sitting outside gate 10 of the rogers centre, waiting for a friend to meet me for the blue jays game, when i noticed another friend walk past. while we'd gone to the game together yesterday, he was with a different group of friends today -- a group i didn't know. as i watched, they settled in about 15 feet from me while they waited for the rest of their group to come and tickets to be picked up. i could've gone over and said hi, or even just called his name from where i was sitting. i was that close. instead, they eventually got everything sorted out and headed into the dome, while i continued to wait for my friend and felt super-creepy about having observed all that without saying anything.

tuesday june 28

today i ran into the same coworker on three consecutive trips to bathroom. either our bathroom schedules were perfectly in sync or he was pretty much just hanging out there all day.

monday june 27

today i watched the true blood season four premiere. after the opening "previously on..." sequence reminded me of all the season three ridiculousness, i paused the episode and strongly considered just cutting my losses and giving up on the show right there. i didn't. i hit play. it may have been the wrong call.

sunday june 26

today i was walking home with a friend when he stopped at the lcbo. although i didn't need to buy anything, i went in with him and glanced around while he grabbed some beers. as i was walking to the checkout, something caught my eye -- tall cans of mill street organic?? having never seen these before, i excitedly grabbed four and took them to the counter. my enthusiasm waned a little when i saw the price, which i barely had enough change to cover. $2.75 per 473ml can?? For a local beer that's 4.2% alcohol? c'mon guys.

saturday june 25

today i woke up a little on the early side and cracked my bedroom door open so i could hear the living room door. a friend was crashing on the couch in there, and my general rule is that when they open the door, that's when it's cool to go in and hang out. so when the door opened a bit later, i got up and went in to say hi. as it turned out though, she hadn't opened the door -- a cross-breeze coming from the open windows had forced it open. turns out that woke her up anyway though, so win-win!

friday june 24

today i went to say goodbye to a coworker who was working her last day in my office. in the few minutes i talked to her, i learned that one of her aspirations after leaving involved starting up her own porn production company. she already had cameramen lined up and everything. i walked away wondering if the conversation was so eye-opening because i'd never really talked to her in-depth before or if that was the sort of thing she only would've shared on her way out.

thursday june 23

today i didn't drink a beer for the first time in 17 days.

wednesday june 22

today i endured the third day of my week-long training session on our new software system at work. by this point, i'd realized that, given that the training focused more on other people's roles and less on mine, i could come in nearly an hour late in the morning, leave a half-hour late in the afternoon, take an extra-long lunch, and do very little for the rest of the day. in other words, this week is the best.

tuesday june 21

today i was getting on the subway at finch station after work when my attention was drawn to a shouting match between two passengers who had just gotten off. each guy was yelling at the other to stop pushing -- a lot of "you were the one who was pushing!" calm down, y'all.