wednesday march 30

today i went to ali baba's to get a couple shawarmas. although i knew wednesdays were the days when there was a discount on two beef shawarmas, i really wasn't feeling like beef today, so i went in hoping that i could apply the deal to chicken shawarmas instead. incredibly, when i came in, they had just run out of beef, meaning they had no choice but to give me a discount on chicken! saving that dollar or two was by far my highlight of the day.

tuesday march 29

today i walked into a nearby bar for the first time and sat down. a minute later, the bartender came over and asked if i wanted a drink. after a brief chat about the beer selection, he looked at me quizzically and asked, "are you from the u.k.?" surprised, i replied, "uh, no," which prompted him to explain, "it sounds like you have a british accent!" we continued talking for a few seconds, which i thought would prove to him that i had no accent after all, but when he walked away, he looked more convinced of my accent than ever, as if i was lying to him when i said i was just "plain old canadian."

monday march 28

today i received a call from my old employer, offering me a five and a half month contract to come back and work for them. it's been three and a half weeks since they had to let me go.

sunday march 27

today i had a dream in which i wished a friend a happy birthday, but forgot to actually do it in real life. thanks for trying to look out for me, subconscious.

saturday march 26

today i was listening to the new pusha t mixtape at the laundromat, and tried to conjure up a mental image of what pusha t looked like. for some reason, i could only picture slim charles from the wire.

friday march 25

today i was considering texting a friend to see if she wanted to get a drink when i finished my work shift at midnight. while i was mulling, she tweeted the following: "two cats and hgtv - what else does a gal need on a friday night?" i didn't end up sending a text.

thursday march 24

today i played a game of nba2k11 in which vince carter crumpled to the ground in pain in the fourth quarter, grabbing his ankle. while jermaine o'neal's inexplicable domination of me in recent weeks had me questioning whether 2k11 is truly the most realistic sports game i'd ever played, seeing virtual carter writhe around on the court reminded me that yes, it absolutely is.

wednesday march 23

today i was heading out the back entrance of the dufferin mall when i stopped to send a text message (it was snowing and i didn't want to use my phone outside). glancing up from my phone, i noticed an unusually large gathering of people in the alley behind the mall, including three security guards and a bunch of high schoolers. curious to see what was going on, i took an extra long time sending my text, then sauntered outside. while nothing particularly exciting took place as i walked by, the indignation with which one kid cried "why are you always hassling us!" to one of the security guards made it worth it.

tuesday march 22

today i had a dream in which i was the size of gulliver when he visits brobdingnag in gulliver's travels. or perhaps more accurately, the size of the kids, post-shrinkage, in honey, i shrunk the kids! while i've long lived in fear of this experience, having been traumatized years ago by the scenes involving giant bees in honey, i shrunk the kids!, i woke up feeling okay about it. of course, in the dream, there were only harmless giants ants; no bees.

monday march 21

today i took on my new roommate in a friendly game of nba2k11. with the significant edge in playing experience, i won rather easily, prompting him to demand a rematch. sure, i thought -- might as well play one more before calling it a night. four games later, my winning streak had reached six and i couldn't believe it was already midnight.

sunday march 20

today i headed out to opera bob's to meet some friends. i intended to give them their tickets for the blue jays' opening day game, but realized about 90 seconds after leaving my house that i'd forgotten to bring the tickets. since i was in no rush, i turned around and headed back home to grab them. during those initial 90 seconds of walking, however, i'd passed a group of about five 10-year-old boys heading in the opposite direction. as i walked back to my house, i was very self-conscious about the fact that i had seemingly randomly done a 180 and started following them.

saturday march 19

today i helped my roommate pack up her stuff in a moving van. the last thing we loaded was a box of items to be donated, which included a big, cat-themed clock whose ticking had annoyed me for months. "i was hoping we'd just SMASH this!" i exclaimed. before i could react, a friend, thinking the clock was plastic and not realizing i was joking, picked the thing up and hurled it toward the ground, where it landed with a crash. we spent the next five minutes cleaning glass up off the sidewalk. but at least i'll never hear that ticking again.

friday march 18

today i approached the food court entrance of the dufferin mall, as i'd done dozens of times before. however, in this instance, a group of intimidating, cool-looking teenagers were hovering around the doors. their presence rattled me for a minute and as i headed for the door, my mind totally blanked on whether it was a push-open or pull-open entrance. i quickly scanned each door for some sort of indication, but there was none. suddenly, i was at the entrance and had to make a guess. i pushed, and of course was met with resistance. i couldn't bear to look at the kids as i angrily pulled the door open and walked into the mall.

thursday march 17

today i felt, for the first time, like i really nailed the best way to "celebrate" st. patrick's day. while i dislike the holiday and resent all the drunks it brings out, i was happy that it meant the bars opened early, so i could go out and watch march madness games. i ended up having some beers at opera bob's and seeing three terrific endings before calling it a "night" at 7:00 pm. i spent the rest of the evening at home, insulated from all the craziness on the streets. perfect.

wednesday march 16

today i had plans to meet up with a friend for dinner and a michael showalter show at the horseshoe. i also intended to bring her a purse, which my roommate had gotten rid of during her pre-moving day purge. this raised the question: how would i carry the purse downtown? would it look fine if i just shoved it under my arm like it was a thick book or something? should i put it inside a bigger, more masculine bag? should i just go all-out and carry it like an actual purse? ultimately, my internal debate proved moot when i left my house having entirely forgotten to bring the purse.

tuesday march 15

today i did my first offseason in nba2k11 and was surprised to see that one of the offseason events was a "white house visit" where the championship team visited barack obama. it showed a bunch of images of virtual obama shaking hands and taking photos with the team. it was a fascinating thing to see in a video game. i laughed out loud, home by myself, for a good 15 seconds.

monday march 14

today i was in line at subway behind a guy talking on his phone. when he was asked whether he wanted his sandwich toasted, it didn't seem like he replied, though the subway guy put it in the toaster, so maybe there was a barely perceptible nod. they also had to ask him three times what else he wanted on the sandwich before he noticed (he didn't want anything else on it). then, about 15 seconds after he had paid and left, he came running back to the counter, all "i forgot to get a drink!" that guy was the worst.

sunday march 13

today i had in dream in which i tried to plan a bank heist that involved hiding senor chang (ken jeong) from community in a cardboard box in order to sneak him past security. we hadn't figured out how to make it work by the time i woke up.

saturday march 12

today i made my way to my front door just once, in order to pick up a dinner order i'd placed. while i held the door open for the delivery guy, i glanced outside and noticed, with some disgust, that there were five bags of garbage on our front porch -- most of them unable to fit in the garbage bin itself. since most garbage days involve our house putting one or, at most, two bags to the curb, the excess this week was baffling. it was as if someone else in our house had been piling up their trash for most of the winter and finally decided to put it all out at the same time.

friday march 11

today i was given free reign of the remote control at opera bob's. while my decision the first time around was easy enough, since i wanted to watch the raptors, things got trickier when that game ended. the bar had filled up a little more at that point, so i didn't want to take too much time browsing through the guide to choose something. but after over a minute of searching, i'd yet to find anything interesting amidst a slew of uninspiring options like ohl, wwe, ufc, and curling. finally, shortly after breaking into a sweat, i stumbled across a college basketball game (sec tournament quarterfinals) that seemed okay. i settled there, relieved that i hadn't totally panicked.