.
Thursday

1. Get out of work at 1:00 p.m. because your work is awesome and always gets out early before a long weekend. Celebrate in style with some beers with colleagues at The Wheat Sheaf, one of Toronto’s oldest pubs, because it is so chill that you can learn the waitresses’ names, if you are so inclined.

2. End up leaving around 5:30, which is way longer than you planned on staying but you were too busy making jokes about the myriad silly things customers say that you have to deal with diplomatically on a daily basis.

3. Take the bus home. Take what you and The Minkus think will be a short nap, and end up waking up at midnight with that strange, disorienting “ohmygod what time is it, and why is it terribly dark outside?” feeling.

4. Get a slurpee from the corner 7-11. Try to avoid eye contact with the cashier who sees you way too often, and usually between the hours of midnight and 4:00 a.m. Grin back when he says to have a good night. Yep, he definitely remembers you and your slurpee flavour preferences.

5. End up watching How I Met Your Mother until 3:00 a.m. because of that weirdly long nap you took.

Friday

6. Wake up early, walk to a café to get coffee and spend a few hours editing the draft of that book you wrote back in the fall. Consider emailing your supervisor to ask if there is an actual deadline involved for this project; decide on a coffee refill instead. Watch people try to control their children in public.

7. Turn around, startled, when an older gentleman with a grey ponytail and a leathery, wizened face complains in a Quebecois accent, “The people, they are not polite in Toronto.” Try to follow his reasoning while not becoming one of those rude people to which he is referring, and commiserate with him in a vague but hopefully convincing manner.

8. Go home, take a nap. (You deserve it! Long weekends are hard!)

9. At 6:30, take advantage of the lingering sunlight by walking to Prospect Cemetery, which is conveniently close to your apartment, to take photos of gravestones like a weirdo. Notice two hawks keeping an eye on things in the trees, and the first fragile buds appearing on branches. Avoid eye contact with the people visiting their people. Realize that this is the first time you’ve taken pictures in months.

10. Get ready to go out. Eat the best grapefruit in the world, which you got from the grocer down the block. Drink a bit of whiskey called Writer’s Tears, which was a preemptive and extremely appropriate gift from your boyfriend for editing that book you’re supposed to be editing (oh, right, that).

11. Visit Mink, and watch Grease for the millionth time because it’s always on TV. Receive Easter chocolate. Also watch a strange reality show about gypsies in England; be weirded out that this form of passive voyeurism seems to have taken the place of watching relatively innocuous sitcoms.

12. Go to Wrongbar around midnight to meet your new friend from work, Steven, and his friends. Wait in line amongst amicable strangers. Be reminded of the good old days of dancing in The Village in Montréal with your grad school posse. Drink PBR like a hipster champ. Be suitably impressed by a charismatic, bearded figure who is well over six feet tall but dressed in stilettos and a revealing black dress. Dance frenetically to Beyoncé. Watch drunk people try to be suave and pick up.

13. At 2:00 a.m., venture into a nearby takeout place to buy a falafel and strike up a conversation with a guy wearing flannel who has also ordered falafel wraps for himself and his girlfriend. Agree with him wholeheartedly when he claims repeatedly that “We’re in this together” and “I’ll see you at this place next week for falafel.” Ask another dude carrying a plastic baby pool why he is tenaciously dragging said pool through the streets. Apparently he has a large dog that will be quite pleased with this addition to his summer routine. Wait for the night bus that will take you home.

Saturday

13. Wake up feeling a little… under the weather. Walk to the grocery store to meet Mink, Paige and Pete and buy snacks. Drive to the beach – be impressed that Toronto actually has a decent beach – lay on the beach for several hours in the sun. Listen to a Calvin Harris mixtape on speakers. Eat a lot of Doritos.

14. Around 3:00 p.m., walk to Mink’s parents’ house, which is only 5 minutes away from the beach. Discuss the awesome implications of this fact for the summer. Drink some red wine. Discuss Canadian and American politics and living in Toronto.

15. Go to Adam and Chelsea’s apartment downtown for Easter dinner. Be sure to arrive only a couple of hours late. Rally a little once you actually have delicious potatoes and maple-syrup-soaked ham and lemon meringue pie in your system.

16. At 11:00, venture out to a bar nearby called The Underground Garage, and proceed to wait in line for the better part of an hour. Have Adam’s friends convince you that this place is worth it. Once you finally get inside, realize that it really is worth the wait, since there is nowhere else in this city where you have been able to buy a beer for $3.00. Rejoice about beer thing and the awesome music and the bar’s dorm-room décor of bras and band posters and strings of lights. Dodge abrasive drunken females in stilettos – those always leave the worst bruises on your feet if you are not spry enough.

Sunday

17. Sleeeeeeeeep in. Read PostSecret. Watch America’s Next Top Model to make yourself feel better about your super useful Masters’ degree in English Lit. Eat chickpea salad and grapefruit to revitalize your poor, exhausted body. Talk to your parents; make embarrassingly high-pitched comments to your dog in the hopes that she will remember your voice. Consider putting on pants; reject the idea as being too ambitious. Make a meta-comment about writing a blog post because you’ve been lazy about that recently.

18. Dread that the upcoming week is going to seem extra long because of this long weekend. Suddenly remember the chocolate! Feel a little better about things.

Happy Easter and Passover (and such)!