Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. Her first book, a humor collection called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better, is available in Canada May 13th and in the U.S. in September. 

12:13am Remember I’m supposed to be doing this in the middle of a Powerful Woman’s Bath (hot water, coconut oil, Epsom salts, lavender and thyme oil, a hint of apple cider vinegar, a glass of red wine). Friends are sending me pictures from a party with booze and boobs and crop tops and I feel a bit lame for staying in so I take a semi-sensual bath/mud mask selfie and coast on some likes, because TGIF.

12:30 My husband Alex comes home from doing a show. It still feels like I’m trying to prove something when I call him “my husband” out loud, like a tween conspicuously referencing her period so everyone knows she’s a woman. Anyway, my HUSBAND comes home and makes us popcorn and rubs my feet. I am a “Simpsons-only” kind of weed smoker so he rolls a joint and queues up the episode where Lisa gets a pony. I get too stoned and it takes like ninety minutes to watch it because I keep pausing everything to make “observations.” Halfway through a story I realize I’ve already told him this one, and why didn’t he stop me? He says at least 50% of my stories are repeats, but he usually just waits them out because it seems like I’m having a nice time.

2am: #intercourse

8am: Alex wakes up to go for a run. It’s confusing for both of us. I go back to sleep immediately.

10am I lie in bed with my mouth furry and smelly from red wine and popcorn, half sleeping and half petting the cat and half wondering what the hell I’m going to say at this “industry panel” about being a “woman in comedy” later in the day. “Get good sheets because you’re going to constantly be in your bed?” I’m always in bed. Always always. I don’t feel any guilt around it, just lucky I can work from there.

10:15 Melody sends me a pic of a new agent provocateur lingerie set she bought. An AP obsession has swept my friend group. Everyone is horny for spring so we’re all constantly sending each other pics of our boobs swaddled in expensive lace. Haley sent me an article recently that informed me this is called “frexting” and I won’t call it that but I also will never stop doing it. I frext goodbye to Haley who is at the airport, about to fulfill the Toronto artist ascension cycle: she’s moving to New York. My breath is truly bad.

10:40 I wonder if my roommate is home or if I can just run downstairs naked and brush my teeth and zip back up unnoticed. Instead of doing anything I just resolve not to open my mouth anymore.

11am Trying to figure out what to wear is stressful right now. I don’t have enough Adult Woman clothes (god, it’s 11am and the theme has already emerged and the theme is “fumbling towards adulthood,” because it’s nice to remember that your legitimate life concerns only ever add up to brutal cliche), and I feel like when promoting my book I have to look sort of adult but young and cute and smart and together. (My first-ever book, a humor collection called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better, is out May 13th and I’m excited and underdressed.) Last night I met Kate Bolick at a party for her book and before I properly met her I’d clocked her “hot together lady on a book tour” ensemble. I want that. But I don’t have any Rachel Comey relaxed suits, so I put on a ribbed T-shirt and a mid-length skirt from Topshop, and this necklace with a crystal on the end that I wear with almost everything.

11:12 Sweet little baby sister texts because she wants us to go do yoga. I tell her about the panel and she says “gross what does that even mean” and she’s right. Melissa is going to nursing school and is one of the wisest people I know.

11:16 I recently bought a very luxuriou$ face oil and rubbing it into my dumb head is the best part of my day. I feel like an ancient queen or some kind of high-powered executive who owns a TON of Rachel Comey relaxed suits.

11:30 I catch Alex hot boxing our shower (“it’s so luxurious, you don’t even know”) and gift him with a brief yet inspired song and dance bit, changing the lyrics to J.Lo’s I luh ya papi so they are about our cat, Boots. Boots and Alex both hate it but I think I have something*. (*”it”)

11:45: Stop into Saving Gigi, the best eavesdropping cafe in Toronto, to grab an iced Americano. Run into the very funny Rebecca, who is also on this panel with me.

12-1:30 On that panel thing talking to women in comedy about women in comedy. I mostly tell the audience to get paid. Afterwards I get paid in a bottle of nice wine and a coupon for a manicure.

1:30 Bike ride through Toronto in the sun, very glorious. When spring happens in Toronto we all really Lean In. Everyone in the park has taken off their bra and I am on board.

2 Doing a shift of bookselling at the wonderful Type Books for Authors for Indies day. My book is in the window and I feel only good about that. The first day I got a physical copy I went home and read the whole thing cover to cover and you know what, the book is not bad.

Alex buys us some raw vegan food in an effort to be healthy and we can both tell we’re going to have poop issues about it for sure. Daniel shows up and we perv on book covers and listen to readings.

3:10 Emily and Hali show up with some kind of pastry treat. They put it in my mouth and that’s how I know we’re best friends. Hali buys a book and I stress for a hundred years about what to write when I sign it. Signing my book feels very indulgent, like lol who wants this signature. I hide behind a stack of design magazines and watch a stranger buy my book like a narcissist voyeur.

4:02– We leave Type and I’m having one of my aggressive bi-monthly red meat cravings so we end up at a mediocre burger restaurant. Melissa joins us. Everyone tells me how rude I’m being while I type this. Melissa is fixated on the news, which is airing a “first look” at England’s baby princess… she says she’s just interested in current events. The only other news we learn from the TV is that David Beckham turned 40.

4:35– I eat a burger wrapped in a lettuce leaf instead of a bun and feel depressed about it because what the hell, Monica, just eat the bun.

5:00– A long walk through Toronto in the warm, low sun with beautiful Yasmin and my baby sister and a bike basket full of books. The park is really out of control now and I have to explain to my sister what slacklining is and we’re both like “fine.” We get home and drink wine and talk about our parents’ love lives. There’s no toilet paper so Yas resolves to air dry. I wipe my butt with a novely napkin that says “Today’s forecast: 100% chance of wine.” I’m contributing to a sketch comedy show for CBC right now and write down “novelty napkins?” next to “what is LinkedIn” in my sketch notebook.

8:15pm My twin sister Alice arrives fresh off a Kentucky Derby-themed party down the street. She looks very pretty and is wearing a ridiculous hat and brought a friend who ticks similar boxes. Alice is also in nursing school because my sisters are harder workers than me and also smarter. Alice is very exuberant in a friendly, drunk, hat-wearing way. Her friend says my using the word “partner” makes me sound like a lesbian. I tell her I’m only a lesbian sometimes and she laughs uncomfortably for too long. They leave after using the bathroom. I don’t know if they found the napkins.

8:37pm Bike through nighttime Toronto to my friend Cory’s birthday. He’s making a different kind of nachos, every hour on the hour. According to the night’s menu I have already missed jalepeno pulled pork. It’s a bit cold out so I’m wearing a hoodie that belongs to a man I like and I marvel that it still feels like you’re doing some kind of crush magic to wear a someone else’s sweatshirt at 26.

8:45 Walk up to Cory’s with Galit and open wine and eat the dregs of pulled pork nachos. The party is full of slightly older and more successful people which is great because it means no one will talk to me. I do some damage to the nacho area.

9:15 Alex gets back from a show in the east end. Paul and Paola and Norm and Galit and Kalpna are here so I’m doing less solo nach-ing. There’s a giant bowl of chopped liver on the table and most of my energy is being spent resisting the obvious joke about it.

9:56 Accidentally send entire draft of this day’s record to Katie, someone I barely know and also respect. Explain in another email and then die.

10pm There’s a new kind of nachos out with a fresh cheese. Everyone is being so nice about the book and the wedding and the upcoming move, especially the move. I wish leaving wasn’t considered the best thing you could do in Toronto.

10:15 Hali texts me because Brad, our favorite teen heartthrob cashier is done exams and back working at our local supermarket. I tell her she’s a creeper MILF and perfect. I ignore a call from a number I don’t know and an old friend from high school leaves a singing voice message for me about a night we spent in a park last summer.

10:30 I have spent most of this evening doing my favorite media party move: not returning searching eye contact. Do we know each other from Twitter? Did we meet at a thing? Do we know each other’s names?? I guess we’ll never know.

11pm Dorito casserole. There is also a massive cake, which has Cory’s face on it and is covered in outdoor-use low-grade fireworks. Some guests seem disappointed when noone is injured by rogue pyrotechnics. The fire alarm goes off as a consolation.

11:10pm In the bathroom, texting Hali about Brad (he has such good manners!) and taking notes for this thing. Alex messages me: “on your phone in the bathroom?” I come out and there is a fairly long line. We are getting a divorce.

11:30 Leaving party I finally properly meet Tabatha, a woman I’ve known and adored on the internet for some time. She gives me her business card and it says “Tabatha S, you lucky bastard.”

11:35 Unlocking my bike, two bros accuse me of stealing it. White wine drunk, I get a little aggro about it. They mutter something rude and leave. Biking through Kensington market we run into Zack and Marianna. I think about how all I’ve done all day is run into people and that’s just so exactly this weird little city. Toronto is basically a low-key version of the “bonjour!” bit at the beginning of Beauty and The Beast. I zip up my crush-hoodie and enjoy a tipsy bike ride up an empty tree-lined street.

11:50– Alex and I stop in at Comedy Bar and he introduces me–his friend of twelve years and literal wife–to a friend as “Megan.” I adopt this alter ego intermittently for the rest of the night. Megan is a pill.

12am Walk up the tall stairs to Bad Dog Theatre Co. and run into more friends. Order whiskey and get a little stressed about leaving this city and the people in it and wish, not for the first time, that I had Drake’s number.