wednesday july 30

today i checked out another no frills after yesterday's futile attempt to collect boxes and was met with a similar lack of options. still, as was the case on tuesday, i managed to find a few things to buy, and went up to the counter to pay. after ringing my items through, the cashier stood there and looked in the other direction while i held out my cash. at least two or three awful seconds must have passed where i held out two $5 bills, slowly leaning over to try to catch her eye. finally, i happened to glance down at the debit machine, which was waiting for me to touch its screen. "oh.... sorry... i'm paying cash," i said to the cashier, who finally turned around and took my money, ending what was an ominously uncomfortable first visit to my new local grocery store.

tuesday july 29

today i went to no frills in the hopes of grabbing a few boxes for my upcoming move. however, the area at the front of the store where the boxes usually sat was empty, for the most part, with only about three or four not-very-useful options there. still, having come all the way to the store, i felt weird just turning around and walking out, so i ended up buying three or four grocery items before leaving. come to think of it, i probably would've done the same thing if there had been boxes, simply because i would've felt guilty about walking in, taking their boxes, and leaving -- like going into a business to use their bathroom and not buying anything.

monday july 28

today i realized i had no idea whether or not a friend who borrowed some money from me seven months ago had ever repaid the loan. i assumed that if the debt remained unpaid, i wouldn't have just forgotten about it, but after checking my email and message history, there was no record of us settling up. plus, maybe i'm just the sort of chill dude who would entirely forget about something like that, since it's just money, man. still, at this point, it's not even about the money -- it's the not knowing that's killing me. it'd be great to find out whether this loan is ancient history (paid) or whether it's still pervading every interaction my friend and i have (unpaid).

sunday july 27

today i watched as a bartender mocked a very inebriated patron who had made an oxymoronic request for a "plastic glass" while i waited to order a drink and hoped i wouldn't say anything so dumb myself.

saturday july 26

today i decided to order a pizza i've been very into lately, a buffalo chicken one that features crispy chicken bites, bbq sauce, and ranch dressing drizzled all over the entire thing. yeah it's a little disgusting, but it's really been hitting the spot lately. this time, however, i was disappointed to see that rather than spreading the ranch dressing all over the pizza, they just threw in a little thing of ranch dip  in a plastic cup on the site. not only did this make it trickier to evenly disperse the ranch sauce, but it also meant i only had enough to use it on about half the slices. kinda think i'm over this pizza now.

friday july 25

today i signed a lease to rent an apartment on my own for the first time, meeting my new landlord at second cup to finalize the agreement. so i guess i'm just the kind of human adult who has his own place and spends time at coffee shops now.

thursday july 24

today i got to an apartment showing a little early and had to make small talk outside with the landlord's husband while someone else looked at the place. although i'm no small-talk expert to begin with, this was a particularly difficult conversation for me, since it seemed like all he wanted to talk about was cars. i'm not one of those guys who knows things about cars, so the discussion was mostly one-sided, with me nodding and grunting a lot. finally, when he asked me what i did for a living, i was excited at the opportunity to turn the topic of conversation to football. within 20 seconds though, he had declared that his favorite team was the detroit lions and somehow managed to bring the conversation back around to cars by extensively discussing the lions' owners (the ford family).

wednesday july 23

today i was having a beer at the ossington when my fingers got caught on the edge of the glass, causing me to spill it all over the bar. one second, i'm sitting there feeling like a cool guy just having a pint on his way home from the jays game. the next second, i feel like a terrible drunk who's embarrassing himself and those around him.

tuesday july 22

today i stood at the bar at comedy bar for several minutes, watching as the bartender served at least five or six people who had walked up to the bar after i'd already been standing there. worried that i was somehow blending in with the scenery, i asked a friend to stand next to me to try to order our drinks, and was unsurprised when she also got served before i did.

monday july 21

today i attempted to skype with my parents, and though the picture and sound seemed mostly fine on my end, it was choppy and basically untenable on their end. after a few minutes, they were asking me to type my replies into the skype chat box, which seemed to defeat the purpose of the endeavour. we cut the conversation short after a minute or two of that, and i sent them an email later in the evening, assuming that if they just wanted to watch me type, they could look at a photo of me while reading my email.

sunday july 20

today i was outside the ossington after trivia talking to a couple friends about a group of non-trivia-players who had showed up halfway through the night making too much noise and generally disrespecting the event. "i knew they were trouble when they--" i started to say, before getting self-conscious about the fact that i was inadvertently quoting a taylor swift lyric nearly verbatim. "... came in," i finished, deliberately switching at least one word so that no one noticed.

saturday july 19

today i tried to find my umbrella before walking out into a rainy london day, but had no luck. my first assumption was that i'd somehow managed to lose it, even though i remembered packing it a day earlier and hadn't touched it since then. as it turns out, i was just looking in the wrong compartment of my bag. still, about 10 hours later, i managed to leave the same dumbrella at a friend's house when i went home for the night. umbrellas and i are like magnets (both with the same charge, repelling one another).

friday july 18

today i spent more time than necessary debating whether i should take the subway or the streetcar to the bus station for my trip to london. eventually i decided on the streetcar, but halfway through the ride, i recalled that the dundas/spadina intersection is a total write-off these days, meaning the dundas car made a lengthy, painfully slow detour up to college and eventually back down. since i'd already been cutting it a bit close, the delay ultimately meant that i arrived at the station at the exact time my bus was supposed to be leaving -- fortunately, this wasn't one of those days when buses were leaving on time, and i managed to board about two minutes before it pulled away. thank you bused god.

thursday july 17

today i spent 25 minutes on the phone with rogers working out a new internet plan, since my old promotion expires at the end of july. although i mentioned multiple times during the call that i'd be moving on september 1 and that this would be a very temporary setup, the service rep still seemed very enthused about sealing the deal on a plan i'll be using for a single month.

wednesday july 16

today i was eating some pizza while watching an episode of nathan for you and was so caught off guard by how funny one segment got that i burst out laughing with a mouthful of pizza so that a bunch of bits flew all over my laptop and desk. i was finding and cleaning up little pizza pieces for the next half hour. it's disgusting in here.

tuesday july 15

today i used the last of a box of kleenex that i'd bought on sunday night before stocking up on junk food. there were 78 tissues in the box, so you can imagine what my garbage can looks like now. there are at least two layers of kleenex in there right now and these things are 3-ply, so i'm pretty sure a small animal could jump out of, say, a third-floor window into my garbage can and have a safe landing, albeit a gross one.

monday july 14

today i was informed by my new roommate that he'd bought a transparent shower curtain and intended to replace our old one, which you can't see through. i didn't object to the change since i only have a few weeks left before i move out, but the fact that he expressed a strong preference for the transparent curtain piqued my interest. as far as i could tell, there was no obvious reason why this would be the case. when i searched yahoo! answers later in the day to see if other people had strong feelings about transparent vs. non-transparent shower curtains, i discovered the most commonly cited reason for preferring transparency was that you avoided a norman bates-type scenario -- you can see what's coming. during my first time with the new curtain, i found this increased awareness a little annoying (for instance, i could see my phone light up with a text message across the room 20 seconds into the shower). but if that's what it takes for my roommate to feel safe, i'll do my best to adjust.

sunday july 13

today i went to trivia at the ossington even though i was pretty sick. feeling a lot of self-pity on my walk home, i decided to reward myself for my herculean effort by stopping at a variety store to grab some chips or some skittles. when i got to the store, i reconsidered -- why not get BOTH? i'll probably be feeling miserable for the next couple days. i deserve it. i wasn't even all the way through the transaction when i started to feel a lot of shame about the decision, but i ultimately walked out of the store with $7 worth of junk food.

saturday july 12

today i decided to grill up some food for lunch and went out to our deck to get the barbecue going. before i turned on the propane tank, i started cleaning the grill, but stopped short when i heard a rustling sound directly below me. i stepped back and looked around the back of the barbecue, and found myself face to face with a raccoon who had been hanging out underneath the grill -- had i reached in to turn on the propane tank right away, i may have found my hand touching raccoon and given both of us heart attacks. as it was, i was able to steer him off the deck and managed to snap a couple candid shots in the process:

friday july 11

today i rode the college streetcar from dufferin to bay with an elderly man - he appeared to be a veteran - who was transporting a giant teddy bear and was the most cheerful ttc passenger i'd ever encountered. for the entirety of his ride, he loudly sang songs, including seemingly self-invented selections about how great toronto is ("this city is your city / this city is my city / from pickering boundary to mississauga / from lake ontario to steeles ave," etc.) and about the great work ttc drivers do. he greeted everyone who came onto the streetcar with a rousing "welcome aboard and thank you for taking the ttc!" he told young people to enjoy their time in the greatest city in the world (toronto, which he likened to new jerusalem), and pointed out several times that 266 different languages are spoken here. when a woman with grey hair sat down near him, he exclaimed, "i like this young girl sittin' down next to me!"

he was a tour-de-force.

while my ideal ttc ride typically involves everyone minding their own business and no one talking, i was in a fantastic mood by the time he got off the streetcar at bay.

thursday july 10

today i was led on a wild goose chase when i tried to find tan-colored shoelaces to replace my broken ones. employees at every store i visited in the dufferin mall directed me to a different store, until finally the fourth or fifth one tried to send me back to the one i'd visited first. none of them even had any good brown ones, let alone tan. all black everything.

wednesday july 9

today i was walking down the street with a friend and had to ask to stop because it felt like my left shoelace had come undone. when i knelt down and pulled up my pant leg, i discovered that the lace had actually broken in half, the second time this had happened, meaning the remaining piece was about a third of its full size. after struggling with it for a couple minutes, all i could do was thread the tiny remaining shoelace through three total eyelets and then knot it a couple times to ensure it stayed together. it actually ended up feeling more comfortable than usual.

tuesday july 8

today i phoned a friend, who answered after one ring by earnestly asking, "hello? is this a pocket dial?" considering we had been exchanging messages a few minutes earlier and i had called her several times in the past, there was no reason to think it was a pocket dial, but i really liked the idea that that's just how she answers every call.

monday july 7

today i was walking toward the subway when i passed a group of three girls who were headed in the other direction. one had been talking on the phone but ended her call as i walked by and announced to her friends, "ALEX IS COMING! I HAVE SOMEONE TO HOOK UP WITH TONIGHT!"

sunday july 6

today i attended an evening screening of a league of their own in christie pits. although i sat so far back that i couldn't see the screen without standing up, i could at least hear the sound pretty well. so that was a refreshing change from the last outdoor screening i attended (jurassic park in trinity bellwoods), where i couldn't hear anything but could see the screen just fine.

saturday july 5

today i played some three-on-three basketball with a couple friends against some guys we met at the court. after two games (one win, one loss), i was feeling pretty good at the way i was playing, particularly on defense, where i'd made a few steals and blocked some shots. my enthusiasm about my performance dimmed a little, however, during our conversations before the third game got underway, in which i found out the kid i'd been guarding was 13 years old.

friday july 4

today i ordered a chicken shawarma platter at ali baba's and had the guy behind the counter try to charge me extra for including a salad (tabbouleh/greek/chickpea/house) in the platter, when everyone knows the extra charge only applies to the second salad. "yo is this guy new here? this ain't my first ali baba's rodeo," is a thing i didn't say, but which i think i conveyed in the confidence with which i corrected his mistake.

thursday july 3

today i was looking forward most of the day to a post-work nap, having been out a little too late last night. however, this plan took a real hit when i got a text from my landlord in the afternoon announcing he'd be by at 7:00pm to fix our oven. i get off work at 6:00 and generally like a nap of at least 90 minutes, so this really threw a wrench into my plans. i ended up taking a 55-minute nap, getting up to greet him and let him in, debating whether i could go back to bed while he was working on the stove, and ultimately not doing it. the rest of my evening was noticeably less satisfying than i feel like it would have been had i been able to sleep at least another half-hour.

wednesday july 2

today i debated ordering a green apple pilsner at the ossington since they were only $2.50 and i was curious to see what they'd taste like. still, even at that price, i was uneasy about committing to a whole tall can when it could very well be terrible -- i really didn't want more than a sip. as i weighed my options, a girl fortuitously stood next to me at the bar, ordered a pilsner, asked me if i was drinking the same thing, then offered me some of hers when i explained my aforementioned quandary. as it turned out, i was right to be concerned about getting a whole can -- not so great.

tuesday july 1

today i went to see obvious child at varsity, and sat near the back of the theatre, with two seats open next to me at the end of our row. a few minutes before showtime, a woman sat in the aisle seat, and her husband joined her several minutes later, complaining about where he had to sit (i got the impression he wanted the aisle rather than having to sit next to me). about 45 seconds into the opening credits, i overheard him tell his wife how much he hated the movie, to which she replied "give it 15 minutes." about 10 minutes later, he chuckled at something and commented about how that was the only thing he'd liked so far. a few minutes later, they both walked out of the theatre.

monday june 30

today i noticed i was getting awfully close to the point where i'd need to do laundry, meaning i'd have to start wearing shirts that don't typically get regular rotation. upon realizing this, i wondered where my iron was (some of my out-of-rotation shirts need it), and suddenly recalled seeing it on display at my roommate's yard sale over the weekend. somehow, while i'd registered seeing it on saturday at the yard sale itself, it hadn't really hit home until now that it was mine. well, it's someone else's now.

sunday june 29

today i was settling up my tab at bar neon when i overheard a girl expressing concern that she had raped her boyfriend because she had started giving him a handjob while he was still asleep. she was worried he may have grounds to press charges.

saturday june 28

today i was shooting hoops at the school down the street when i noticed that a teenager and his younger sister had stopped in the path next to the schoolyard and were standing there watching me. not wanting to tip off that i was overly aware of their presence, i kept playing as i normally would, but tried to throw in some more impressive shots here and there for their benefit. it wasn't until about five minutes had passed that i began to wonder if they weren't actually interested so much in watching me as they were in taking over the lone hoop at the school once i finally finished.