Seeing as today is turning into a right old bitch-fest for me, other things I am annoyed about include:

Lack of sleep. I got up at 6.30, and I’m really not happy about it.

Flickering light above my desk. Like Chinese Water Torture, but with lights. Sort of.

Too many children! Everywhere! When did half-term start to occur every six weeks?!

The fact that there was a musty smell on the train this morning, and I realised it was me. I was wearing the tweed Pendleton jacket I got in a Chicago thrift store (which, as Steve so kindly pointed out, is “a dead woman’s coat”), and today I found out that when it rains the jacket smells of wet dog and wee. May need to splash out on some dry cleaning.

Now I’m done. And happy belated birthday to Marcus Oakley for last Monday. I think he turned 18 or something, but still doesn’t look old enough to buy a drink.

I do not want to eat my soup with a teaspoon

I am sure there is a diet which centres around the eating of meals using child-sized cutlery and/or dishes, and I think Liz Hurley was banging on about it once (but then I think she did the “eat naked in front of a mirror” diet too, and is therefore a poor judge of healthy eating practices/body image/sanity), but I don’t wish to be on it. The premise is probably that you’ll get so flippin’ bored putting a tiny forkful of food to your mouth that by the time you’ve eaten half your meal you give up the monumental task of finishing it. Anyway, at my office there are no proper soup spoons, so I just polished off a lake of leek & potato with a teaspoon. Didn’t make me eat any slower, though.

Am bored today. It's raining, all the coffee pots in the kitchen are in use so I am drinking yuk Nescafe which always makes my stomach hurt.

Check back in a couple of hours, I'll probably have found some new things to complain about by then.

This jetlag thing is getting ridiculous. Last night I was feeling drowsy at 9pm, so decided to take a couple of Kalms so that I’d fall asleep as soon as I got in bed. But no, the ‘all-natural’ (sadly this usually means ‘utterly useless) sleep aid acted like speed on me, and 12am found me sitting up in bed making long lists of everything I had to do the next day. So I thought, ‘what is the best thing to send a person to sleep?’. That’s right: vodka. Got up, poured myself a couple of fingers, added some undiluted lemon squash (surprisingly tasty: a poor woman’s Lemon Drop), and downed it. Half an hour later I was calling Steve and having a long chat, and then – finally – I fell asleep.

DAMN YOU, RUBBER SOLED SHOES!

Everything I touch is giving me an electric shock. The drawers on the filing cabinet, my computer (!!!), even the foil around my sandwich.

Got back to work yesterday after a two-week absence, to find 250 emails, plus stacks of covers, page proofs and contracts littering my desk in no recognisable order. But why dwell in horrible crap like work, when I could be telling you all about my trip to the Big Windy? First off, we were blessed with the most amazing weather. The leaves were turning, and the colours were beautiful, but it was over 20 degrees every day, so you could wear a T-shirt. Therese’s wedding was lovely (she’d tell you different, tho): she looked beautiful, and the church was an amazing cathedral-like behemoth in Old Town. We stayed in a swanky hotel the night before and in the morning drove to church in a limo with a free, fully stocked bar. Is it sad/worrying that this stands out for me as one of the best parts of the day? After the wedding, more limo action to the reception, which took place at a restaurant called La Luce. The open bar turned some guests into obnoxious, drunken pains-in-the-ass within an hour, but for the most part it was fab. Other highlights of the trip were:

Therese’s hen night, where we took her to a posh South American restaurant, a café which serves only desserts, the Martini Ranch, and finally to Simon’s for pitchers of beer. Despite wearing furry kitten ears and a BRIDE TO BE sash, she didn’t get bought a single drink. Bastards!

Going to Target and finding red patent Isaac Mizrahi pointy flats for $27.

Trip to Bloomington, IN, to see Rachel and Jason. We went hiking in the State Park, ate at great, cheap ethnic restaurants, found the best and cheapest antique store in the state, and listened to R & J’s bird whistling the Muppets theme.

General girl-time with Therese, doing stuff like going for sushi, driving around, thrifting, shopping at Filene’s etc.

I miss it.

It’s my last day at work before I go away for two weeks, but I really don’t feel like doing anything. Want to look on Amazon, search for denim jackets on eBay, go for a walk. Have checked all the new clothes on Bluefly, looked at some hideous prairie-print shirts on Target.com, drunk a giant glass of wine, eaten some noodles, and the only thing that will make me happy now is a long nap.

Weekend was lots of bending down. Went to Wimbledon and packed up more of the house. Over twenty bags full of Polish books were designated for the skip or the Polish Parish hall. Another twenty bags of English books were set aside for some unsuspecting charity shop. On Sunday my sister, her husband and their twin daughters drove over. The girls are the cutest little monkeys alive. They are two this week, and their vocabulary now extends to ‘ello!’ ‘dada!’, ‘mammy’, and ‘fleeuughhghrrrr’, which means flower. Sabby, the more even-tempered and impish of the two, spent a good five minutes trying to tear off Steve’s beard, which she is convinced is false. Well how was she to know? Every man she has any contact with is clean-shaven! She must’ve thought he had a little something on his chin.

I realised a few months ago that I haven’t had a holiday this year, and this could explain my urges to send a global email to my company saying FUCK THE LOT OF YOU, blow a giant raspberry and wave two fingers at the board of directors, and skip out onto St Martin’s Lane with the wind in my hair and a weight off my shoulders. This scenario is becoming a regular fantasy of mine; hopefully this weekend’s trip to Chicago for two whole SF-free weeks will cure me – for a little while, at least.

Things I can’t wait to do when I get to Chicago

Ok, so at first glance none of these beat standing above the clouds in Africa, but for me they’re as good as that…

Pancake breakfast at the Lakefront Diner

Wake up for five mornings in a row without having to rush anywhere

Drink cocktails at Simon’s

Walk to the lake from the Belmont El stop. Past fine vintage clothing shops, a playground, Belmont Harbour and the boats

Record shop (I think that can be a verb) in Wicker Park, then go to Earwax or Aion for tea

See a film at the Music Box