tuesday january 27

today i was walking along bloor street when i noticed two or three cops gathered on a street corner, talking to a black guy, their police car parked on the street. as i passed by them, i heard one exclaim, rather jovially, "i'd like to bring your stupid ass in!!"

monday january 26

today i received a telephone call from the t-booth store in dufferin mall, informing me that my broken cell phone was ready to be picked up (though it was, in fact, still broken). as such, i had to return the phone that they'd loaned me while they sent mine in for repairs. i had just gotten this loaner phone back a day earlier, after having lost it a week earlier and only getting it back through some extreme good luck and the kindness of others. while it was a relief to not have to pay for losing this temporary replacement, the fact that i had to return it only one day after our joyous reunion was pretty sad.

sunday january 25

today i was standing in a very busy 'express' line at no frills with a few groceries, waiting to check out, when an older lady randomly stepped into line about three spots in front of me. having already waited about five minutes, and with about ten more people now lined up behind me, this seemed wrong, even if she did just have one carton of juice. a few seconds passed, as the two gay guys in front of me suddenly realized what had happened. they immediately began loudly making comments to her. "did you grow up in a barn, lady?!" one yelled, while the other threw the word "bitch" around a lot. they made an ally of the woman in front of them, who'd been usurped in line. by the time the cutter had gotten to the front of the line, the cries of protest were so strong from all sides that the cashier had to turn her away, pointing out that others had been waiting far longer than her and she had to be fair. the woman stood there aimlessly for another minute or so before storming off and muttering profanities at the guys in front of me, who triumphantly waved after her and exclaimed "sorry princess!!"

saturday january 24

today i came across the movie being john malkovich on television in the evening. after watching it for a while, i decided to check to see who was hosting saturday night live. incredibly, the episode was a repeat of the recent one hosted by john malkovich. even more incredibly, toward the end of the snl episode, while browsing through the guide to see what was on next, we came across dangerous liaisons, another malkovich film which snl parodied in its final skit. malkovich malkovich malkovich!!

friday january 23

today i had a dream in which i got annoyed with actor don cheadle for trying to sell me a ron gardenhire toronto blue jays jersey, when i knew that gardenhire had never played for or coached the blue jays.

thursday january 22

today i earned my first laugh from the class in my radio seminar, when we were discussing obama's inauguration and i joked that, following his speech, i half-expected him to break out five loaves of bread and two fish and feed the 1.4 million attendees. biblical humour. i'll take it.

wednesday january 21

today i tossed our christmas tree off of the second floor balcony. it felt briefly like i was on muchmusic in the 1990s.

tuesday january 20

today i went to school to buy a textbook i needed; it was sold out. on my way home, i stopped at the dufferin mall t-booth store, to see if my cell phone had been fixed yet; it hadn't. in all, the trip took over two hours, and accomplished nothing. good thing it was only -14 degrees out!!

monday january 19

today i resorted to another edition of "another thing i did on these days"...

wednesday january 7
today i had to go to campus for the first time, for a brief orientation session. accustomed to always taking the subway eastbound from my stop at ossington, i entered the terminal and automatically headed for that side, without thinking. with a train parked at the station, ready to depart, i quickly grabbed it just in time, then realized approximately three seconds later that i needed to go westbound to get to school. i briefly considered taking the subway for two or three stops, so as not to let my fellow public transit-goers in the packed car guess that i was, in fact, going the wrong way by accident. fortunately, i quickly realized this idea was ridiculous and got off at the next stop, throwing that unseen judgment to the wind!!

saturday january 10
today i was at a bar, when they inexplicably began playing darude's "sandstorm," a song fairly inconsistent with most of the other selections during the night. it was at this point that i received a phone call from some friends, who were unable to hear me over the pounding techno beats of darude. some time later i called them back and, at one point in the conversation, when they inquired as to my whereabouts, i was unable to tell them even the name of the bar i was at, having just tagged along with friends. it was only later that i realized that the combination of the background music and my apparent reluctance to reveal the bar i was at sort of made it seem like i was secretly at a gay club looking to pick up or something.

wednesday january 14
today i woke up slightly after 6:00 am in order to make the earliest class i've had in my academic life. when i checked the weather online before leaving the house, it informed me that the temperature was -21, and "felt like" -30. i blame these two factors for my being so out of it that i left the house and walked for about 20 seconds down the sidewalk towards the subway before realizing that i was not, in fact, wearing my backpack with all my supplies and notes in it.

wednesday january 14
today i was sitting in class, in between taking notes, when a classmate sitting beside me nudged me and asked if she could borrow my pen. i, of course, let her borrow it to take a few notes. when she asked at the end of the class to grab it for another quick second, she embarrassingly explained that she'd left hers in the library. wanting to appear affable and friendly, i casually said, "oh no problem, i should've brought an extra one!" immediately i realized that the way i'd strung words together made it nearly impossible to hear the "i" and made it seem as if i'd been lecturing her on the importance of always being prepared.

saturday january 17
today i used the phrase "drop a deuce" casually in conversation for the firs time in my life. another check mark on the 'things to do before i die' list.

sunday january 18

today i waited for a subway late in the evening, coming back to toronto after taking a late greyhound bus from london. while i was standing there waiting, i heard a voice nearby start ranting angrily. i quickly glanced to my right and saw an intense-looking latino guy pacing near the phone booth, saying things like "this is the ONE guy i'm not gonna let off the hook for this shit!" and "i'm gonna fuck him up if i have to" and, when his phone call went unanswered, "yeah, turn your phone off like a pussy!" not wanting to get caught up in the middle of what i immediately imagined was some sort of situation straight out of the wire, i tried to maintain a a casual demeanor; i didn't want to look like i was trying consciously to ignore him, but also didn't want to encourage him by acknowledging his rants, even when he hissed "i'm so fucking furious right now, guy" and i was the only "guy" in the area.

saturday january 17

today i ordered a single pizza that cost over $40.

friday january 16

today i left my light switched on when i went to bed, in the hopes that the power outage that had started at 10 pm on thursday night would end sometime shortly after i fell asleep and that the lights coming back on would wake me up. when i woke up, it was 10:00 am, my light was still not on, and i was freezing cold. our power didn't come back on until nearly 12 hours later, 24 hours after the initial outage. i was long gone by this point, but still... not impressed, city of toronto.

thursday january 15

today i had my first session of a class in which we're meant to improve our public speaking skills. in the first of two exercises of the day, we were implored to get up and "tell everyone about ourselves." given the often unfortunate first letter of my last name, i went first, with little time to prepare and no previous examples to get an idea of what we were expected to say. in the second exercise, we were to practice "ad-libbing." the instructor asked a question ("who was the biggest influence on your life and why") to the person at the front of the class, then proceeded to ask the same question to the next nine, giving them a chance to prepare material and make it not so much an ad-lib. when he came to me, he posed a new question to discuss ("what was your favourite toy growing up") for the only time during the session, rendering my carefully prepared words on my life's influences moot. the remaining 20+ people behind me also received my question. the upshot was that for two of the three times someone was actually put on the spot to talk with no time to prepare, i was that person. i felt like this was a personal attack on me, and it has resulted in it being my least-anticipated class to return to next week.

wednesday january 14

today i was in class when, a few minutes in, the teacher decided to introduce an icebreaking excerise: we were required to describe something "good or new" that had happened to us in the last 24 hours. for a brief second i felt a little nervous about being put on the spot like this, but i quickly realized that this exercise was, essentially, something i'd done 792 days in a row on this very site. i ended up just using what i would have used here!!

tuesday january 13

today i made my first semi-lengthy small talk with someone in my radio broadcasting program that started this week. we talked for two or three minutes while waiting outside our next class. when we went in, there were only about four people in the class so far. he went in first and sat down. unsure of whether it'd be weird if i sat down right next to him, after only a couple minutes of perfunctory chatting, when there were so few people in the room, i sat elsewhere. i still have no friends.

monday january 12

today i was at the laundromat, reading a book while i waited for my drying to finish. an older man who had loaded up a couple of the 'double-load' washers got my attention and began mumbling questions about why his washing wasn't starting, even after he'd loaded up the machines with quarters. being unfamiliar with the double-load washers, i had no idea what the problem was, but didn't want to just blow him off entirely. as such, i spent a solid five or ten seconds standing there studying the machine, looking for a solution, until finally another nearby guy came over and pointed out that the door handles hadn't been closed and locked all the way. it's possible that i would still be there, pretending to attempt to figure out the problem, if he hadn't bailed me out.

sunday january 11

today i watched the golden globes with my roommates. each of us were intermittently making jokes or sarcastic observations about various celebrities or awards, and generally enjoying ourselves. after anna paquin won a globe for her role in true blood, i jokingly remarked, "well, hopefully this will inspire more actresses to show their breasts in the future!" and was met with dead silence, leaving me feeling awkward and fairly lecherous.

saturday january 10

today i went to a toronto show at which four bands were playing. when we arrived, we were surprised to find that three of the bands had already played, but we stuck around to see the last one. while we waited, the venue was filled with music that sounded truly awful, inspiring comments about what it reminded us of (the consensus: whale noises). this music just kept going and going, leaving us to wonder how long exactly we'd have to wait for the final band to play. finally, it came to a merciful end, at which point the venue began clearing out, and we were informed by someone that the whale noises had, in fact, been the final performance.

friday january 9

today i borrowed a roommate's monthly ttc pass and required a coaching on which direction to hold and slide it before actually using it, so it looked entirely natural and comfortable when i reached the subway station. it was a huge success.

thursday january 8

today i received the following private message from "maisha hoque" on windows live:

"hi luke yr not 23 yrs old or am i talkin 2 the rong person that has excatly the same name as my boyfriend
jus makin sur do ya no me mashxx ansa me bac wiv a yes or no "

i didn't even know you could get private messages on windows live. not an e-mail. not an msn message. a private windows live message. what.