Every Friday as we wait for our ten o'clock English class, a group of us sit around and review the week in reality television. There's the Bachlorette (who knew the sweetness of Ryan would beat out the archetypical good looks of Charlie?), Joe Millionaire (said the women's study major about our Neanderthal He-man: "I'm surprised he doesn't grunt.") and so and and so on. The ring leader is this wavy-haired girl, who wears stripy t-shirts and rainbow belts and doesn't so much seem to enjoy the conversation as she does listening to herself take part in it.

Not only would I have disliked her in high school, I probably would have designated her as the enemy of all that is right and holy.

The Bachlorette is over, so there was a five minute lull that we had to fill with a bit of reality of our own. Eventually we start talking about giving our seats to people, and I told her about that time an obese woman stepped onto the crowded bus, stood in front of a row of seats filled with individuals and growled, "I want to sit down!" as if her out-of-breath huffing and puffing entitled her to the same rights of the handicap and elderly. This seemed to strike a chord with Rainbow Brite, and she started on about how it was fat people's faults that they were fat, and if they only stopped stuffing their faces with Cheetos and washing it down with bags of pure sugar then they could get on their way to re-assimilating with the rest of society. Then she brought up Dr. Phil (what is with people bringing him up when it comes to personal tragedy? I hate, hate, hate Dr. Phil.), and systematically tore into each tearful explanation the obese guests had to offer. "I mean, I know they say it's genes, but I find it really hard to believe that genes make you eat your way to 400 lbs. Take some responsibility."

I wanted to knock her lollipop head off that too-skinny body, or at the very least push her off her soap box with a great argument, but instead I just sat there, smiling and nodding, eating my Rold Gold's salted pretzels for breakfast and wishing I had a drink.

Today on the subway, before we hit Woodbine, I whispered a short prayer to you. All I asked for was a good looking fellow, perhaps in his mid to late twenties, dressed in a wool coat and drinking coffee, to board the subway and sit across from me. I wasn’t even going to try to talk to him. I only wanted something aesthetically pleasing to discreetly stare at for an hour.

Why you felt the need to punish me along with rejecting my request, I do not know. You know how much I hate riding the train with children, especially the ones going downtown for the first time, staring at the map and shouting, “Are we there yet! Are we there yet!”, wiggling in their seats beside me, nodding off and nearly resting their sticky cheeks on my really nice coat sleeve. You know I absolutely hate the way they stalk the train, pole by pole, like mini Tarzans and Janes, the way their tiny bodies get thrown around from the momentum of the train at every stop, and the way they exaggerate the motion and shriek with laughter afterward, every time.

But I get it, God. No more trivial requests.

When I’m bored, I sometimes read blogs randomly in hopes of finding a real gem. I love it is when I hit a site that started in December and already has like, three thousand hits. It gives me all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings towards search engines and Meta Tags. And the content - don't get me started. I live for the sub-literate entries about the killer time seventeen year old Kyle spent playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at Tommy’s house, and how Travis is a total asshole for not appreciating the different between this game and the original. Since, as any true gamer would know, the former is far superior in it’s ability take out the enemy to eighty’s theme music because, dude, what other game lets you do that?

And here I am troubling myself with things like grammar and punctuation when all along I could have written it like an IM conversation and no one would care.

Apparently, not -- at least, not the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, who took it upon themselves to 'randomly' reassess my income tax return from last year. Now they’re saying I earned three thousand more dollars than I claimed, and they want their money (my tax return) back plus another $74.02 they say I owe them. And like a noxious ice cream sundae, they've sprinkled interest on top.

Really, I don't even care who's right (they are though, I think) or wrong (Dad made an honest mistake). I would just like to meet the young chap who decided it would be clever to tax academic scholarships. Because, you know, it's not like any of us smart kids were actually needy in the first place. No, no, no. We just like to collect scholarships the way some do stamps and butterflies. That's right, the three grand is in a giant safe and I'm swimming around in it like fucking Scrooge McDuck.

Nothing good ever happens on Tuesdays. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the last few seasons of Who's the Boss aired on Tuesdays. I also used to have piano lessons on Tuesdays. Of course there were no actual pianos involved, just these dusty, full-sized keyboards without rhythm makers or MIDI functions or demo buttons. This really sucked since my keyboard at home had like, 200 different rhythms and I could play Jingle Bells in "orchestra004" or "hand-clap" if I wanted, and pressing the demo-button elicited a full-length version of Paula Abdul’s "Straight Up Now Tell Me" "The Way That You Love Me". For real. My cousin and I used to choreograph dances and let ourselves dream that one day I'd play as good as that demo-button. But I never did - not even close.

I think if I were to kill myself, it would most definitely be on a Tuesday.

Oh my God. If I wasn’t already convinced that Jon Stewart was my neo-sexy old man celebrity soul mate, today would have sealed it for sure. Why? Because he watches Trading Spaces! And oh my god, he knows that Hilde is a crackpot designer! And he just used the word “wainscoting” in a sentence! Wainscoting!

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