monday march 30

today i got a text message from a beer delivery guy letting me know he was 10 minutes away from my house. in my reply, i asked if there was any non-cash method i could use to tip him, to which he answered, "you can send an e-transfer but it's really not necessary!"

when he arrived at the door, i thanked him and asked him to text me his email address for an e-transfer, to which he once again replied that it wasn't necessary.

i felt as if i was in a "no, i insist"-type standoff and that i could get him to accept a tip if i kept pushing. after all, if he was really opposed to it, he wouldn't have mentioned the e-transfer option in the first place. but i was in an awkward spot -- the only way to actually get him that tip would be to text him back (after he'd already left my house) and to insist for a third time that he give me his personal email address.

after going back and forth on it, i ultimately decided that it wasn't worth it just to give him $10, but i came out of the encounter feeling annoyed that non-contact tipping options aren't more widely available during these times. give me this option on your websites, toronto breweries.

sunday march 29

today i was asked if i have any one "thing" that i've gotten way more into during this self-isolation period. although i didn't have a good answer at the time, i ended up accidentally watching the first three fast and the furious movies later in the day and am now figuring out how i'm going to watch the remaining six. so i guess maybe "get really into the 'fast' franchise" is a leading early candidate for "thing."

wednesday march 25

today i earnestly said the following answers out loud while watching jeopardy:

• "sigmund and roy" instead of "siegfried and roy"
• "marie curie" instead of "montessori"
• "old yeller" instead of "old faithful"

sunday march 22

today i was in the midst of excitedly telling my girlfriend about a spreadsheet i was making to track toronto breweries' new same-day delivery deals when she interrupted me to accuse me of "loving the lockdown."

friday march 20

today i ordered takeout from love chix for dinner. having not yet visited a restaurant since social-distancing rules were established, i was unsure exactly how to proceed when i arrived. should i maintain a six-foot distance from the employee? would i need to handle their terminal when paying? would he hand the food to me, or set it down and let me pick it up myself to avoid accidental hand touching?

the process ended up being fairly smooth, but i was still going to such lengths to be cautious that it sort of felt like the seinfeld scene where you see the regimented way they order from the soup nazi.

tuesday march 17

today i went for a walk after work. it seemed like a good and healthy idea, since the sun was out and it'd be one of the few times i left the house this week during this time of social distancing.

however, based on the route i took and the way i dressed, i found myself being pounded much of the way by a nasty, colder-than-expected wind that made my ears and whole head ache. by the time i got home 20 minutes later, i was extremely relieved to be back in the house where i'd spend the other 23 hours and 40 minutes today.

saturday march 14

today i saw that the two library books i'd activated holds on (in the hopes that i could pick them up before my social distancing began/continued) had arrived at my local branch. unfortunately, it happened just after the city had announced that libraries would be closed through at least april 6. at least i shouldn't be at risk of missing the new, extended pickup window.

friday march 13

today i asked my girlfriend if we could do an elbow bump, since i'd never done one before and felt like it was the right time to get some practice.

monday march 9

today i made a reservation for my parents, my girlfriend, and myself at lucia, committing to returning to the restaurant for the first time since losing a pair of winter gloves there in december.

after mistakenly leaving them there after a friday dinner, i called the restaurant on saturday and they confirmed that they had in fact found a pair of grey gloves. relieved not to have lost them for good after only wearing them about three times, i stopped by the restaurant later on saturday evening to pick them up and thanked them profusely when they handed me a pair of grey gloves.

it was about 10 seconds later, when i had left the restaurant and went to put them on, that i realized these weren't my gloves. they were the same colour, but unlike mine, which had full fingers, these ones had half-fingers, making me feel like a 'home alone' villain.

at that point, i made a snap decision to just keep them. after all, if they'd found more than one pair of lost gloves, they probably wouldn't just have randomly handed me one of them. in the following weeks though, i second-guessed that decision. what if someone had mistakenly taken my pair and wanted these fingerless things back, returning to lucia themselves to explain the mistake? should i have ducked back in and explained the situation? would they have insisted they keep the gloves that weren't actually mine?

anyway i've been wearing the replacement gloves off and on for the last three months. they're admittedly pretty good for outdoor texting.

saturday march 7

today i teared up a little while playing the end of the spider-man ps4 game. men, it's okay to show your emotions, like me.

wednesday march 4

today i left my house for the first time since last thursday. this wasn't me being overly cautious about coronavirus or anything -- just a reflection of how uneventful my life is at the moment. think i may have picked a questionable time to start blogging again.

sunday march 1

today i was expecting a co-worker to drop off a laptop at my place at 4:15pm. at 4:14pm, my doorbell rang and i got up to answer it.

as i approached the front door, i could see him setting something on the ground outside, then turning around and walking away, which i was not expecting at all. my co-worker was just going to leave the laptop sitting outside, not sticking around to say hi or to even confirm that i got it? truly bizarre behaviour.

i quickly walked up to the door and swung it open to make sure i caught him before he was gone, realizing as he heard me and turned around that this was actually the delivery guy who was dropping off my goodfood box for the week. my co-worker arrived three minutes later and, as expected, stuck around for a chat rather than just nicky-nine-doorsing me.

thursday february 27

today i went to pick up a package at the canada post counter in shoppers drug mart. when i arrived and told the employee my name, handing her the pickup notice that had been left in my mailbox, she enthusiastically exclaimed, "i've been waiting for you!"

this was a little surprising, but in my head it made sense -- my package was a big, heavy one. maybe she'd been looking forward to getting rid of it.

"oh yeah??" i replied as she headed to the back to find my package. as i stood there, waiting for her to come back and explain further why she'd been eagerly anticipating my arrival, i glanced to my left and realized a canada post truck driver had shown up for his end-of-day stop-in, and she'd definitely been talking to him, not me.

tuesday february 25

today i decided to resume blogging. not every day, but every now and then, when something good(??) happens.

after making this decision, i recalled that i still had a bunch of draft entries from march 2016 that i never published. for some reason, i decided to re-read these to see if any would still be worth posting, which meant i got to relive these two moments of embarrassment that i hadn't though about in years and would have been happy to have forgotten entirely:

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tuesday march 22, 2016
today i went scrolling through a friend's instagram feed in search of an old photo from a year or two ago that i was in. on my way back through her photos, i ended up accidentally liking one of them from about nine months ago. mortified, i sat there frozen for a few seconds before clicking it again to unlike it. if it had just been a matter of me liking a random photo from months ago, it would be bad enough, but the fact that it was a selfie made it exponentially worse, since i expected that if/when she saw my like, she'd immediately assume i was sitting there jerking off to this old photo of her. to top it off, she ended up not even having taken the photo i was originally looking for — i found it on another friend’s instagram.

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sunday april 3, 2016
today i went to duffy’s for the blue jays home opener. when our server came to get my drink order, we had the following conversation:

me: "are there any drinks specials today?"
her: "cool."
me (confused): "sorry, i asked if there are any drink specials today?"
her: "yeah. cool."
me: "..."
her: "cool beer."
me: "oh, haha, okay, i’ll have one of those then."
me (thinking): she couldn’t have said "cool beer" or "cool is only five bucks" to begin with instead of just saying "cool" like some sort of agent of chaos?

thursday march 3

today i realized for the first time that the sign on the ali baba’s at bloor and lansdowne advertises the fact that they have "shawrma," which is either an alternate, little-used english spelling of shawarma, or a typo.

wednesday march 2

today i got to the front of a checkout line at a store and, instead of pausing my music when i took my headphones off, i just let it keep running. i’d never do this with a podcast - it always seems like i’d miss something and it would take me way too long to jump back into the conversation - but in this case, i managed to perfectly time it so that my least favourite song on the album played in nearly its entirety while i went through the checkout. that song was just ending when i left the store, and for whatever reason, this felt much more satisfying than it would have had i paused the album, then just skipped that one song.

tuesday march 1

today i found myself shovelling snow for the first time this winter. by the time i'd gotten around to getting out there and tackling the snow, it had really piled up, making shovelling a difficult and taxing job. still, rather than doing just the bare minimum for my shared house (ie. shovelling the area that would benefit me), i kept pushing myself to do it all, and was out there for upwards of 20-30 minutes. by the time i got inside again, my back was so sore that i had to lay down on my couch for the next 15 minutes to recover.

monday february 29

today i remembered for the first time in a couple weeks that i'm planning on not drinking any alcohol at all in march this year. although i figure i’ll make a decent effort to actually go through with this, the fact that i’d almost entirely forgotten about it makes me think that i may just accidentally have a drink or two at some point, and then remember my resolution after the fact.

sunday february 28

today i went to recycle the cardboard box of frozen meatballs i’d finished yesterday and noticed for the first time that it had an expiry date on it, which read: november 2, 2015. i was relieved that i was seeing this now, rather than before i’d eaten them — they hadn’t made me sick or anything, but if i’d seen the expiry date earlier, i probably would’ve either thrown them out, or would’ve convinced myself they were making me sick, like some sort of placebo effect.

saturday february 27

today i had a dream that i was asked to hold a baby and it was so small that it fit into the palm of my hand, but so slippery that i kept dropping it onto the ground. when it seemed like the baby was fine despite my drops, i said something to the effect of "guess the idea that you can’t drop babies is just a myth!" i can only assume the meaning of this dream is that i should never, ever have kids.