friday june 27

today i had a conversation with a friend about getting "turnt up" and was subsequently about to tweet something to the effect of "all i ever hear lately in rap songs is turnip this, turnip that. it's like, rap about some other vegetables for once." before submitting it though, i conducted a quick google search to see how many other people had made a joke to this effect, and discovered that asher roth has a song called "turnip the beet." this sufficiently shamed me into not posting my tweet.

thursday june 26

today i walked past the house of lancaster as it was shutting down for the night and heard a guy standing outside mumble "so beautiful..." to no one in particular. it was apparently aimed not at me, but at the group of dancers leaving the club at the same time i walked by. still, it made me feel pretty uncomfortable on their behalf.

wednesday june 25

today i was at hurricanes when a guy who was really nervous to sing karaoke got up and performed coldplay's "the scientist," hitting a few notes here and there and really trying his best. my friend and i decided his efforts deserved some appreciation and told our server we'd like to buy him a shot. about 15 minutes later, a girl who i recognized as a karaoke regular (she had performed a version of bush's "swallowed" earlier in the night that was a little too good) came over to our table and profusely thanked us for the shot. we nodded and said you're welcome and tried to make it seem like yeah, sure, why wouldn't the shot have been for you.

tuesday june 24

today i remembered for the first time in two days that i still had a bag of chips in my room, after having brought them to a sunday party where there was so much other food that they never got opened. while the chips themselves cost less than $5, the feeling i experienced at the moment i was reminded of their presence was awfully similar to what i'd feel if i found a $20 bill on the street.

monday june 23

today i went for a run for the first time this summer and was disheartened, upon leaving my house, to see that my next-door neighbour was sitting on his front porch. i knew that my so-called "fitness level" was at a point so low that my run probably wouldn't last more than a few minutes, which would be pretty embarrassing if he saw me coming and going. sure enough, when i arrived home totally exhausted about five minutes later, my neighbour was still sitting there. i'm sure my short-lived run was the last thing on his mind, but i still made a show of looking disgusted with the rain, which had gotten heavier during those five minutes and could conceivably have been a reason why i was forced to turn around and come home early.

sunday june 22

today i walked past a bus shelter on dundas west which displayed a google advertisement on the side. these world cup themed ads have popped up around the city lately, with information like "portugal's number 7 gets searched for three times as often as brazil's number 10." in this case though, on a bus shelter in the heart of little portugal, the ad suggested that brazil's national team is the subject of twice as many searches as portugal's team. as such, it wasn't a surprise to see that someone had graffiti'd a message over the ad that read: "thanx google real hood appropriate pr. take off eh!"

saturday june 21

today i was talking to a friend about playing basketball at the school down the street from me, prompting her to ask "is that trespassing?" i thought i'd heard her say "chest passing" instead of "trespassing," and was on the verge of explaining that we throw bounce passes as well before i figured out what she'd actually asked.

friday june 20

today i came out of adelaide hall after seeing fuck buttons and felt so good moving around after standing still for four hours that i decided to just walk all the way home. having been at the show by myself and not having talked to anyone, it took me a while to figure out just how much the performance had affected my hearing, but as i walked past groups of people and realized that everything they were saying sounded muffled, it occurred to me that the show may have been the loudest i've ever attended. this was confirmed by several accounts on twitter, as i discovered later.

thursday june 19

today i headed to adelaide hall to see one of my favourite bands. because it was a nxne show and i didn't have a wristband, i decided to get there early, not knowing how busy it would be and whether i'd have trouble getting in. as it turned out, there were only about 20 people there upon my arrival, so the rest of my night involved a lot of waiting around. fortunately, i was able to grab a prime pole not far from the stage to lean against, which helped ease the burden on my feet. however, at one point, after one of the opening bands finished, i briefly left my leaning pole to get a drink at the bar not 10 feet away, and turned around a moment later to find that someone who had been standing nearby had moved into the exact position where i'd been standing, stealing my leaning spot right under my nose. this seemed like a blatant breach of the unwritten rules of concertgoing, and i strongly let him know - with occasional frowns in his direction the rest of the night - that i wasn't pleased.

wednesday june 18

today i headed to the emerson entrance of lansdowne subway station, intent on buying $20 worth of subway tokens at the machine there. when i arrived though, i found a sign informing me that both machines were out of order. irritated, i walked outside and back up the street toward the lansdowne entrance, only to find there that no ttc attendant was in the booth. while it was inconvenient not to be able to buy the tokens i'd need for future trips, the two failed efforts ensured that i didn't feel very guilty for just walking through the turnstile without paying.

tuesday june 17

today i was taking a cab from my house to the ossington when i decided i ought to stop at the bank beforehand and withdraw some money. "can we make it dundas and ossington instead, actually?" i asked the cab driver, after having originally pointed him toward queen and ossington. while this direction would've sufficed, for some reason i felt compelled to explain to him why my plans had changed, and mumbled, "... think i'll stop at the bank." predictably, he acknowledged the new destination but didn't have much to say about my errand.

monday june 16

today i tried to cut through the back entrance of the dufferin mall to get to the no frills in between 9 and 10 pm, after the mall had closed but while no frills remained open. generally the doors stay unlocked until 10:00 since people are still walking through the mall, but not tonight. by having to walk around to the other side of the mall, my trip to and from the grocery store was nearly doubled, for no good reason. can i live, dufferin mall? can i live?

sunday june 15

today i was feeling pretty good about myself after bringing a texas brisket sandwich to christie pits for lunch and presumably making everyone at the maple leafs game jealous. however, i found myself one-upped an hour later when a family of five brought a giant bag of kentucky fried chicken to the park and sat just down the hill from me. that kfc smell, man.

saturday june 14

today i was playing basketball when a family - a mom, grandpa, and two small children - passed by. the youngest of the group, a boy who couldn't have been more than two or maybe three years old, was thrilled by the sight of my basketball, and came running over as fast as his little legs could carry him. after engaging in a light-hearted game of keep-away for a minute, i let him have the ball. he had no interest in shooting it at the net, opting instead to toss it as high in the air as he could, which was about a foot and a half. this went on for another minute before the family went on their way, and even though none of us ever said a word to one another (it didn't seem as if they spoke english), everyone was smiling and laughing the entire time because cuteness knows no language barriers.

friday june 13

today i engaged in several minutes of world cup talk with the guy behind the counter at ali baba's, even though neither of us had watched any of the day's games or really had much interest in the tournament at all. i can't help but think that if we'd acknowledged that fact much earlier and focused more intently on my shawarma platter, we could've avoided a situation where he was too distracted to include the hummus and i was too distracted to notice.

thursday june 12

today i was walking home from the laundromat along college street when i heard the sound of glass breaking a few feet away from me. for a second i was quite startled, thinking someone had thrown a bottle at me or something, but when i looked over, it turned out someone in a nearby house had just accidentally smashed his basement window.

wednesday june 11

today i noticed that jose bautista finally followed the blue-jays-only twitter feed run by me and a couple friends, making us probably the last account tangentially related to the jays to get joey bats' stamp of approval. seriously, how many work hours did it take whoever is running his account to follow more than 222,000 different people?!

tuesday june 10

today i was walking home along my street at about 11:15pm when i saw an old portuguese man struggling to get an empty shopping cart up off the sidewalk and onto the walkway leading up to his house. "need a hand?" i asked, taking off my headphones and grabbing one side of the cart. with my help, we were able to easily get the wheels unsnagged from his front step, prompting him to repeatedly thank me profusely. as i walked off thinking about what a great person i am, it occurred to me to wonder what the heck he was doing bringing what looked like a no frills shopping cart up to his house at that time of night, and also to consider whether i should have stuck around for an extra five seconds to see if he planned to take it up any more stairs -- say, to his front porch.

monday june 9

today i stopped by no frills intending to just grab a couple groceries. however, since i'd have such a light load, i figured i'd also grab a six-pack of orange gatorades to make the trip more worth my while. this ultimately backfired on me twice: first, when i ran into a friend while waiting in line and my hands were so full that it turned into a hassle to get my headphones off to talk to him and then get them back on after he left. second, when i was unable to stuff the six-pack and a box of cereal into the same bag without taking an extra 30 seconds to remove three individual gatorade bottles from the packaging so i could stack them on top of one another.

sunday june 8

today i walked past a neighbourhood watch sign where the neighbourhood watch logo had been replaced by a picture of the sailor moon girls. i thought this was a special, unique thing, but apparently it's happening everywhere in toronto and this is just the first time i've noticed it.

saturday june 7

today i received a phone call from a friend while i was hanging out on the scout's honour patio at the dundas west fest. since i was standing right near the speakers, i couldn't initially hear what she was saying, so i yelled "hang on!" and walked out to the street in the hopes of continuing the conversation. by the time i got away from the noise, she had hung up, but having just made a big show of answering my phone and walking away from my friends, i felt the need to pretend the call was still happening. so i spent another 15-20 seconds out on the street, saying things like "uh huh" and "yep" into my phone, even though no one was on the other end.

friday june 6

today i came home on the subway and went to cross bloor street at my usual crosswalk, only to find that no motorists seemed in the mood to heed the crosswalk's flashing lights. at one point, cars drove by me on either side while i was in the middle of the street, and when i eventually came out on the other side, i was a bit disturbed by how unexpectedly harrowing the crossing had been -- it was as if i'd been playing a real-life game of frogger.

thursday june 5

today i went to the first thursdays event at the art gallery of ontario and enjoyed the people-watching about 10 times more than the musical performance and about 100 times more than looking at art. even watching the two pda-loving couples standing in front of me during sloan's performance that talked all the way through five songs before deciding to take their conversation someplace where annoying music wouldn't interfere with it.

wednesday june 4

today i saw a man in the beer store turn to his dog and ask the dog what sort of beer they should buy.

tuesday june 3

today i arrived at la carnita and was told a table would be ready in 10-15 minutes. while i waited for that table, and for my friend to show up, i sat down at the bar and ordered a muskoka summer weiss. after a couple failed pours, the bartender told me he had to go change the keg. okay, no big deal. while that was happening, my friend showed up, and within the next couple minutes, we were told our table was ready. however, when the host asked if i'd ordered a beer, i said "yeah, they had to change the keg" and she suggested that i wait to settle up at the bar first. this seemed unnecessary -- our table was less than 10 feet away. couldn't we just sit down, add that beer to the bill, and have them bring it over? in any case, we waited for what felt like forever but couldn't have been more than four minutes or so, then were told by the bartender that the summer weiss tap was a lost cause. "i think our table's ready anyway," i said, and ordered a different beer after we sat down.

monday june 2

today i went to put away a new thing of deodorant i'd bought and realized that, since my favourite brand had redesigned its container, it was now too tall to fit on my bathroom cabinet shelf. there was one shelf in our cabinet that seemed spacious enough to hold it, but it was already filled with my roommate's stuff. swapping in my deodorant and moving one of her things down to my shelf seemed bound to confuse matters, so it seems pretty likely that i'll just leave my deodorant outside the cabinet for the next couple months until i move out. oh right, i also turned in my notice for my apartment today.

sunday june 1

today i passed by humberside collegiate institute on my way to play basketball at another nearby school. as i walked past the building, i noticed a bench outside that had "HUMBERSIDE: home of the HUSKIES" painted on it. except above the word "huskies" someone had written "(sluty)" in parentheses, so now it looks like humberside is the home of the "sluty" huskies. while i suppose that sort of graffiti is what one should expect from teenagers, it still depressed me -- if you're old enough to accuse someone (or an entire student body) of being slutty, you should probably be old enough to know how to spell it.

saturday may 31

today i was at the very back of the streetcar when i thought i noticed a pregnant woman standing toward the front of the car. i craned my neck to look around the people standing in front of me to see why no one was offering her a seat, and realized that what i'd believed to be the pregnant belly of a shorter woman was actually the out-of-this-world butt of a much taller woman. as i leaned back into my seat, it occurred to me that "her ass is pregnant" is probably already a rap lyric, but a quick google search showed that this song was as close as any mainstream rapper has come to using that sort of imagery. i suppose, as that joe budden lyric exhibits, the synecdochical nature of the word "ass" could make it confusing.