I had what might be termed a "bad day." (Only in America can a "bad day" consist of a string of minor annoyances—rather than, say, dying from lack of clean drinking water.) But oh well. It was my bad day and I am going to own it. How bad was it, exactly? Let me count the ways:

1. I woke up this morning with a headache. At first I attributed this to dehydration (not from lack of clean water, but from sweating all night due to nightmares). I chugged a glass of water and nearly threw up. Once my stomach settled I took a few pain pills. The headache got worse.

2. I was running late. Some mornings you are just fated to be late, no matter how early you get up or how brisk you are in following your morning routine. Which means if you wake up late and are totally inefficient, like I was today, you are going to be screwed.

3. White shirt+drippy coffee cup=stain that I didn't notice till I arrived at work. On a similar note,

4. Chocolate crumbs on a chair I sat on+khaki pants=a lively stain that was not discovered till I get home that evening and changed out of my pants. Then vowed never to leave the house again.

5. More mathematical equations? Okay. Try: running late for work+65 mph speed limit=stuck in the lane behind the guy going 55 mph. Probably he was trying to conserve gas, the fucker. What I need is a flashing light to stick on my dashboard or maybe a functioning cannon, to alert everyone on the road that I’m running late. Then everyone would know to drive as fast as they possibly can or else get the hell out of my way.

6. I arrived at work, where waiting before me were miles upon miles of audio-visual items that needed shelf-shifted. Shelf-shifting consists of trying to move all items on the shelves upwards and to the left to make room on the shelves for more items that you really don’t have room for, then realizing that you have incorrectly gauged how much space these latter items take up and beginning the shelf shift again, repeating the whole process many times over until you fall over and knock down every shelf in the library like a set of dominoes. Well, not quite. But that’s what I felt like doing. Plus a battle was raging that is requisite for every public library in the summertime, in which half the building was enveloped in a deep, air-conditioned freeze and the other half was like a kiln, meaning that from where I stood you could see miniature thunderheads forming over the series paperbacks. Of course I was shelf-shifting in the ovenlike part of the library, and so I was

7. sweaty. And also possibly heat-related, I had

8. vertigo. I’ve been getting this a lot more often lately. Sometimes I think I should see a doctor about it. Then I remember that it’s just the disembodied spirit of Kim Novak taking over my body. That darn Kim!

9. After work, all I wanted more than anything in the world was a vegan chocolate chip cookie. It’s not often that I crave a vegan chocolate chip cookie, but when I do, all other thoughts flee my mind and I become singular, focused, obsessed. And so it was that, in keeping with the day’s theme, I got to the vegan bakery at 7:20 to learn that they’d closed at 7. I ended up going elsewhere later in the evening to get a non-vegan chocolate chip cookie. It was stale. I ate it anyways.

10. I sat down to write this blog entry knowing that a number of really irritating, annoying things had happened to me today. When faced with the task of writing them down, however, I couldn’t remember a single one. Thus, I’ve sat here for the past hour pawing at my hair and trying to regress my tired brain through the day’s admittedly unexciting events. All to bring you this blog entry. Which hopefully has not contributed to any feelings of annoyance, discomfort or vexation on your part. And if it has, just remember that I had it worse. After all, did you go through your whole day with chocolate stains on your ass?