Around noon today, here was the thought rattling around in my head:

I want this day to be over, and all my work to be done.

Then I took my third coffee break in a row. Sometimes there’s so much that all has to be done at the same time that I can’t bring myself to get started on any of it.

The happy ending to this story would be that I knuckled down, buckled down and got it all done. That didn’t happen, though. The knuckling and buckling, yes, but I ran into so many brick walls today that I spent about half the day doing a tiny fraction of what I needed to get done, over and over and over, wrong every time, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I was screwing up. By the time I did, it was too late to get through even one of the three major tasks I had to finish today. My Monday will therefore be extending into Tuesday and beyond.

I can’t think of a more frustrating way to end the day than to be in the middle of something that I should have finished by noon.

I also had trouble at the post office, where they slapped a “return to sender” tag on the envelope I mailed to the Boss last Friday. It seems you can no longer mail anything over 13 ounces without taking it to the window and getting a special stamp put on it. I don’t know when the new law went into effect, but the clerk very kindly pointed out the tiny sticker at the edge of the counter that provided this information. I used to be able to send 16 ounces without going through that rigmarole, but apparently the terrorists have been sending 14- and 15-ounce letter bombs, or something.