friday october 2

today i was talking about a friend’s engagement, and referred to her as "getting hitched." the way the phrase sounded coming out of my mouth made me immediately resolve to only ever say "getting married" from now on.

thursday october 1

today i made plans to meet a friend from out of town at get well. however, i misinterpreted a text message about her estimated eta, meaning by the time she was about five minutes away, i had yet to leave my house. while i’d initially been planning to walk over, my lateness prompted me to catch a bus down lansdowne to dundas, where i intended to catch a streetcar. however, the eastbound streetcar that was due next managed to get stuck at the corner of dundas and college, just a block away from me. i stood watching it sit there for several minutes, as ttc personnel worked to get it moving, and as another streetcar came up behind it, obviously unable to pass. finally, after waiting there for probably a good six or seven minutes, i threw up my hands and caught a cab down dundas, not wanting to make my friend wait any longer. by the time it was all said and done, i’d used a ttc token (on the lansdowne bus), spent about $10 on a cab, and still showed up very late.

wednesday september 30

today i received a spam message on whatsapp. when i went to go delete it, i noticed that i had a pair of unread messages from a friend from nearly three weeks ago. they’d been sent when i was in new york, where i’d had inconsistent cell and wi-fi service, which probably explained why i never got a notification. anyway, the messages were pretty funny and they made me wonder if my friend had been fuming for the last 19 days, wondering how i could possibly have failed to acknowledge them.

tuesday september 29

today i rode a subway that was mostly empty, and found myself sitting near a group of boys who were probably 10 or 11 years old. they were entertaining themselves by hanging from the ceiling handles that run down the middle of the car, with some of them making fun of the others for not being able to reach that high.

at one point, a kid named jason said "save my spot" to one of his friends, then ran back to the other end of the subway car, where his parent/guardian(?) was sitting. before jason returned, another kid tried to grab the handrail where jason had been standing, and was told "hey, that’s jason’s spot," prompting him to dutifully let go and move to a new spot. his acceptance seemed pretty illogical to me, but i can only imagine he was thinking something like, "yeah, makes sense. we're probably gonna be doing this for the next half-hour, so i really should've made a reservation if i wanted that spot." kids are weird as hell, man.

monday september 28

today i called into td’s easyline to complain about the fact that i was suddenly unable to log in to my easyweb account, and to ask about the whereabouts of my new visa card. over the course of the conversation, the employee i was talking to became more and more friendly, literally talking to me as if we were friends -- he complained about the call he’d had before mine, with a customer in california, then commented on all the blue jays-related charges on my card recently.

while i suppose the conversation was a good one, i always find it a little unnerving when td or visa employees comment about specific charges on my credit card. i know they can see them, but i’d much rather believe that they can’t, since then i could pretend that they’re not judging me for all the just-eat.ca charges showing up on their screen.

sunday september 27

today i went to starving artist for brunch with my brother. with the weather surprisingly warm and sunny for late-september, the front window of the restaurant was open, but there was no one sitting on the front patio. we were sitting at a table next to that front window, and as i was eating, i heard newly-arriving groups ask if they could sit on the patio, to which the server replied that there were too many bees hanging out there for it to be comfortable. this was probably true, but the fact that the front window was open meant that there were plenty of bees hanging out inside too. in fact, after i used my thing of maple syrup on my waffles, a group of bees gathered on it like it was toronto’s hottest club -- six or seven of them grinding up on each other, trying to suck out the last bits of sweet syrup from the bottom of the plastic container. i wasn’t really bothered by it, but if i were a couple waiting 15 minutes to sit at the table that my brother and i would eventually vacate, i’d be sort of annoyed at all the bees hovering around that table, as if it could’ve been any worse on the patio.

saturday september 26

today i went out to oliver and bonacini for dinner with my parents and my girlfriend. my girlfriend ordered the halloumi burger, and the server went out of his way to make sure she knew there was no meat in it, since apparently some people aren't aware of that, and get upset when their food arrives. this was, of course, fine, but when the server returned with our food a little while later, my parents and i received what we ordered, but my girlfriend was handed a half chicken.

it’s totally understandable that servers and restaurants won’t get every order right 100% of the time, but this mixup seemed particularly egregious and kind of hilarious -- after having thoroughly explained there would be no meat in her order, the server brought my girlfriend one of the meatiest things on the menu, and seemed to have entirely forgotten having the discussion we'd had 20 minutes earlier about the halloumi burger.

friday september 25

today i saw john mulaney at the sony centre. at one point during the show, a woman near the very front of the theatre got up and left to go to the bathroom, which mulaney made a couple jokes about. then, as soon as she left the room, he turned off his microphone to make sure he wouldn’t be heard out in the lobby, and explained to the crowd that at some point later in the show, in the middle of a bit, he’d say "well, you know what they say in toronto..." and we’d all yell, "we want pancakes!", presumably confusing the hell out of the woman who had been in the bathroom during this explanation. while i’m sure this is a bit he’s done before, it wasn’t one i’d ever seen at a comedy show, and i thoroughly enjoyed it, spending the majority of his set thinking things like, "i wonder when he’s gonna say it? maybe now? nope, not yet. soon though, i bet. i’d better keep thinking about it so that i don’t forget what to yell."

thursday september 24

today i went to see rhys darby at the royal theatre, and ended up in an aisle seat. before the show began, i jokingly said, "i hope he doesn’t run down the aisle and try to high-five me!", suggesting that i’d probably find a way to screw it up. somewhat surprisingly, this is exactly what happened when the show got underway — he came running down my aisle, high-fiving everyone on my side, but when he got to the row in front of mine, he ran into a girl who was trying to get to her seat. they briefly tried to get around each other while also high-fiving, and then it turned into a full-fledged hug. all the while, i was sitting there with my hand up, waiting for my high five. starting to feel awkward, i put my hand down, at which point rhys darby got past the girl and continued his series of high-fives — i got my hand back up just in time.

wednesday september 23

today i worked my second-last blue jays game of the season. knowing that the dome would be incredibly busy before my last game on saturday, i resolved to hit the jays shop early today — i still had about $50 remaining on my season ticket holders’ benefit card, which came preloaded with $200 to start the year, and there was no way i’d use the rest of that money unless i bought myself something more than just food. for weeks, i’d been eyeing one of those new white-panel hats, but had been unable to find my size in stock, so i figured i’d have to go with another style. having resigned myself to this fate, i was very pleasantly surprised when i walked into one of the jays shops on the 100 level and immediately saw a wall full of those white-panel hats, featuring several in my size. this season has been special.

tuesday september 22

today i headed over to my girlfriend’s house, and had a couple moments on my way there where it felt like my face was fatter than usual. after saturday’s pants incident, my self-esteem wasn’t at a particularly high point, so i just assumed that a fat face was something i should start getting used to. it was actually sort of relief when i arrived at my girlfriend’s place and the first thing she said was "oh my god, what happened to your eye?" and i realized, upon looking in the mirror, that the area around my eye had inexplicably ballooned up well beyond its normal size within the last hour or so.

monday september 21

today i went to take a shower after work. after turning on the water and standing there waiting for a minute or so, it started to seem like no hot water was going to be coming out of the faucet. it was at this point that i remembered getting home late last night and noticing that no warm water was coming out of my kitchen or bathroom sinks. for some reason, rather than thinking "i should look into that" at the time, i thought "i’m sure that's a temporary issue that’ll fix itself" and then forgot about it. really paid the price for that negligence today with one of the worst showers of my life.

sunday september 20

today i was walking down lansdowne toward my house when i saw my next-door neighbour wayne walking toward me. as i approached him, i pulled off my headphones and stopped to talk to him for a minute. while i was standing there, a woman who had gotten off the subway at the same time as me at bloor and lansdowne - and had been walking behind me - passed by and said something, which i didn’t hear. i was still talking to wayne and assumed she had been addressing someone else, but when i said goodbye to wayne about 10 seconds later and turned to continue heading home, i realized that there was no one else in sight.

a couple seconds later, it occurred to me that the woman was actually a friend of mine who lives several doors down from me, and she’d said "hey buddy" to me as i passed by, which i didn’t acknowledge at all. fortunately i was able to catch up to her as she was about to enter her apartment and apologize for the cold shoulder, but i still felt a little bad for ignoring her all the way from the subway station, including when she spoke to me directly.

saturday september 19

today i went to my girlfriend’s place to get changed before a friend’s wedding. armed with a new shirt and tie, i was feeling pretty good about my outfit until i went to put on my pants and couldn’t get both them done up. having last worn these dress pants in january, i didn’t think i’d put on that many pounds since then, but after fighting with them for about 10 or 15 minutes, it was clear i wasn’t getting them on.

with no backup pants to wear, i was tasked with either running out to buy a new pair before the wedding, or - the option i went with - relying on my girlfriend to call her parents, who live just a few minutes away, to ask if i could borrow her dad’s pants. although the fit wasn’t perfect, and i really heard it from my friends once they found out what happened, her dad’s pants really saved the day, allowing me to avoid what could have been a disastrous situation. it wasn’t until later in the day that i realized my dream from earlier this week had essentially been more of a prophetic vision, warning me of how this day would play out.

friday september 18

today i was having dinner at the whippoorwill when a loud, clearly inebriated girl stumbled in and attempted to sit at the bar. one of the bartenders quickly told her she couldn’t stay, at which point the girl explained that the reason she needed another drink was because a friend had dragged her from a car earlier in the day. bartender wasn’t swayed.

thursday september 17

today i witnessed a no-hitter thrown by a high-schooler at the t12 baseball tournament at rogers centre. i’m hoping that "mathieu deneault-gauthier" eventually turns into an mlb star so that i can say that i knew all along that he’d make it in the bigs.

wednesday september 16

today i was blocked on twitter for the first time. tweeting from a blue-jays-only account that i share with a couple friends, i participated in a discussion about why the jays gave season ticket holders and flex pass holders two separate windows to buy playoff tickets. i suggested that season ticket holders and flex pass holders are generally among a team’s biggest supporters (ie. they spend the most money on the team — literally "supporting" it), and mentioned that often people share season tickets, meaning some of them may have been shut out during the first window. the guy i was chatting with conceded a couple of my points, retweeting one of my tweets, even though he didn’t fully agree, and we had a nice, civil little discussion about it.

it wasn’t until much later that i noticed someone i don’t follow had quoted one of my tweets and replied "so i’m not a big blue jays supporter because i’ve only been to one game this year?" he had then proceeded to have a lengthy discussion on the subject with someone else i don’t follow, which included him tweeting that he’d "had to block two people" today who said he can’t be a big jays fan if he’s not at every game. sure enough, by the time i went to reply to him, he had blocked me.

this was hilarious for a number of reasons. first of all, even if we assume that "supporters" and "fans" are synonymous (which i'd dispute), let’s say you were presented the phrase "season tickets holders and flex pass holders are generally among a team’s biggest supporters" and asked which of the following statements were true, based on this assertion:

a) all STHs and FPHs are big fans of the team
b) only STHs and FPHs can be big fans of the team; people who aren’t STHs or FPHs can’t be big fans of the team
c) a and b
d) none of the above

this guy who blocked me would’ve answered (c), apparently, when quite obviously the answer is (d). anyway, his irrational strawman argument was bad enough, but the idea that he “had” to block me for it was my favourite part. as if - despite the fact that i didn’t follow him and had never seen a tweet of his before - he’d be risking me tweeting at him during every game saying things like "why aren’t you at THIS one, ya fake fan!" if he didn’t block me.

tuesday september 15

today i had a dream that i went to my friend’s wedding this saturday and was wearing a suit that was maybe two sizes too big for me, as if i was a kid wearing his dad’s clothes. everyone made fun of me. for some reason, my subconscious is more nervous for this wedding than my friend - the groom - is.

monday september 14

today i went to post a photo from my new york trip on instagram. before i could choose one and publish it though, i had one of those moments where you see something and then can’t unsee it. because i’d been wearing a hat when most of our pictures had been taken, and i’d had it sort of pushed back on my head, you couldn’t really tell where the brim ended and the rest of the hat began. if you weren’t looking at a high-def version of the photo, you could mistake the hat for a huge, afro-ish hair style. i mean, anyone who knows me at all wouldn't see it that way, but for some reason it still made me hold off posting any photos. like this one, outside of yankee stadium:

or this one, in times square:

sunday september 13

today i went to a show at the comedy cellar, where my girlfriend and i were seated across from another couple in a four-person booth. because we were turned to face the stage, which was off to our left, we barely even noticed the other couple for the majority of the show. however, about an hour in, during one comedian’s funniest bit, i felt something splash on my right arm, and looked over to discover that the guy sitting across from us had laughed so hard - and so unexpectedly - that he’d done a legitimate spit-take, and was in the midst of trying to clean up the mess he’d made on the table.

saturday september 12

today i went to yankee stadium to watch a doubleheader between the blue jays and yankees. during the first game, the yankees took an early lead, but the jays came back and tied it up on a two-run home run by edwin encarnacion, at which point the yankees fan sitting in front of me became infuriated. while i wasn’t able to catch the majority of his rant, he appeared to refer to the yankees as "mental midgets" for giving encarnacion anything to hit when cliff pennington was on deck. a little later in the game, when jose bautista hit a home run to make the score 5-4 for the jays in the 8th inning, this guy just got up and left, never to return, despite the fact that the yankees soon tied the game, and there was a whole second game still be played.

friday september 11

today i flew from toronto to newark. early on in the flight, my girlfriend noticed a spider climbing on the back of the seat across the aisle from us. i'm not an arachnophobe or anything, but i have to admit this was a creepy-looking spider -- real thick legs. while the flight was a fairly brief one, wrapping up in less than 90 minutes, it also took place in the evening, meaning that shortly after we saw the spider, the cabin lights went off and there was no way to see if it would make its way across the aisle. still, any uneasiness i may have had about the whereabouts of the spider was alleviated significantly by how much enjoyment i got out of imagining it as a debonair jetsetter, probably first off the plane to pick up its tiny luggage when we landed.

thursday september 10

today i went to the mall to buy a new dress shirt and tie, having felt the need for some variety after wearing the same shirt-and-tie combo to the last few weddings and other formal events i'd attended. tasking a tip top tailors employee with helping me find the proper size and fit for my shirt, i listened as he described me as "broad-shouldered" and "barrel-chested," identifying the 'modern' fit as the one for me. when i asked him "will it accommodate this beer gut though?" and gestured to that gut, puffing it out a bit for emphasis, he didn't even chuckle in response. all business.

wednesday september 9

today i was in the bathroom at 3030, and after washing my hands, i noticed that my hair had gotten a little messy on my way over, so i ran my hand through it a couple times to fix it. as i was doing this, a guy walked in, saw my standing there looking at myself in the mirror and playing with my hair, and reassuringly exclaimed "you look beautiful!"