Awake from a ridiculous dream. Something to do with being in a speedboat racing along the Thames near Oxford, with two men who insist on singing Morrissey’s Piccadilly Palare. “I’m more concerned about safety than speed” I say to the driver as he hurtles the machine along.

Then I realise this is all frankly substandard for an ostensibly limitless imagination, and so I do the dream equivalent of walking out of the cinema in a huff: I force myself to wake up. I wake up out of protest at my own dreams. Even the real world has better pictures when one’s dreams are this silly.

It’s 3.30am. I decide to debrief.

The previous day is one of those where I find myself lurching purely from errands to chores, taking journeys in between that take far too long. Waiting for a bus, waiting as the bus gets stuck in traffic, waiting as the bus stops and parks to change drivers (twice in one day). Waiting behind a woman in a coffee bar while she uses a credit card to pay for a ersatz-uccino. During one of these many longeurs, I muse on how normal people manage to get things done. How does anyone even manage to find the time to do their job? I find it incredibly hard just to manage three or four household errands in a day.

Getting up is a monumental task in itself. Washing, shaving, grooming, fiddling with contact lenses. Worrying about whether these lenses are right for me, or if they’re worth the £30 a month that I can’t afford anyway. I used to use disposables, but my eyes didn’t take to them too well. So now they’ve got me on these ‘Night & Day’ monthly soft lenses, which are meant to be okay to leave in overnight for up to a month. It’s true they’re a lot easier to fit than disposables, but I’m still not sure if my eyes will ever get used to lenses at all. From time to time one of them becomes cloudy or irritable. I’ll see what the optician says when I see her next week.

I mention all this, because THINKING about all this takes up time already.

After ploughing through emails, noting events in my diary that I may or may not attend, replying to those that warrant a reply, I finally leave the room at about noon. Already I’ve wasted too much time. But before I manage to make it outside, the phone rings. Can I review Cat Power at the Barbican tonight? No, not at short notice when I’ve got other undone and overdue things to do. And then I waste further time worrying if turning down this job was a bad move, career-wise. I’ll never know now. And already my day is a maelstrom of anxiety. And I haven’t even left the house.

I have to return a book to Holloway Central Library, so that means a bus journey. And then I’ve got to go to the bank. Another journey. And then to Argos to exhange a timer plug for Lawrence & Alison’s flat in Camden, which I’m ‘house-sitting’ while they’re both away. And then to their flat to fit it. Then my bag starts to fall apart, so I have to find a shop which sells Superglue to fix it. And then I have to fix the bag. I pass Virgin Megastore so I pop in to see if they have any copies of the free newspaper The Penny, which carries a large interview with me about the club. I know this because some people have told me they’ve seen me in it.

Z: (via text) Was just in Virgin Megastore. Great interview and photo of you!
DE: Where? What magazine?
Z: Oh, didn’t you know? I thought you’d know.
Me: No. I can’t know anything till I’m told about it. That’s how knowledge works. Which magazine is it?
Z: Oh, it was a free thing in Virgin. Can’t remember what it’s called. I’d have gotten you a copy, if I’d known you didn’t know about it. But how was I to know you didn’t know?
Me: (gritted teeth). Thanks for letting me… know.

It’s a bit like finding out about a friend’s love life status.

DE: So how’s things with you and Mr X?
Y: Oh, didn’t you know? We stopped going out AGES ago! It’s been AGES!
DE: I can’t help that. No one told me. I’m not on your relationship mailing list. How am I meant to know if no one tells me?
Y: You should find out.
DE: I don’t see you that often. I don’t see anyone that often. I’m too busy wrestling with trying to keep sane on a daily basis.

Actually, last I heard, Mr X is now back with Ms Y yet again. I can’t keep up. But anyway. This magazine thing I’m in.

I eventually realise it must be The Penny, and by the time I get to Virgin all the copies are gone. So I decide to go online, find the website, and email them very nicely, asking for copies.

By which time it’s getting on for 5pm, so I have to make it back to Highgate in order to meet Mr Chipping at a Pete Doherty event at the Boogaloo. I could do with sitting down and collecting my thoughts. So I stop off at a cafe with free wireless internet. Where I snap slightly.

Me: A filter coffee please.
Assistant: Do you want it from this machine, which is a bit dead, or a fresh cup from this machine, which is fresh but is a different type of coffee?
Me: (suddenly shouting, trying to disguise it as humour, probably failing) Oh – I DON’T KNOW! You choose for me! I can’t take the uncertainty of the day any longer! Decisions upon decisions!
Assistant: God, you seem stressed out…!
Me: (trying to calm down) I’m so sorry. I’m having a frustrating day. Stuck on buses for errands which didn’t deserve the time they took. I can only deal with a fixed amount of anxiety per 24 hours. And I used that up getting out of bed. It’s the agony of choice. Freedom to do whatever I want is getting to me… All those alternative universes dashed against the rocks… It’s a good reason to be a vegetarian. So you have less to choose from. Less worry that way. Except in a vegetarian cafe.
Assistant: Yes… So, do you want anything else with that?
Me: There you go again! Sorry.

Poor girl. What she makes of this man with funny hair going mad in front of her, I don’t know. I should really get some more therapy.

Of course, this would seem like an entirely blissful existence to your average refugee from ‘Insert Tough Foreign Land Here’. I’m not ungrateful for this life. Not one of these journeys was interrupted by gunfire or violence. I’m just deafened by the sound of wasted time trickling away. I am trying to get things done, it just seems to take so long even attempting to tick off the slightest chore. How normal people manage to live is utterly beyond me.

So, this Pete Doherty event at the Boogaloo. A special press-only gathering to make a ‘career announcement’. The pub is full of journalists and photographers who have actually queued up to get in. A guest list is checked, and there’s security on the door. Inside, the photographers set their tripods up in front of the stage. Once everyone is in, we are told Mr Doherty is not going to be there after all. Instead, a man with glasses from Orion Books says they’re going to be publishing The Doherty Diaries next March. Mr Doherty himself was going to be doing a reading here today, but… it’s “fallen through”. Still, he tells the assembled hacks, there’s a free drink at the bar, press packs to pick up, and thanks for coming.

It’s hilarious. And I thought I was having a wasted day.

Someone does take my photo, though, which is nice. Quite frankly, with all those photographers there primed for snapping Mr D, but thwarted; and me standing near them in my white suit and silk scarf, it seems the height of sarcasm for them NOT to take a photo of me. I should have taken to the stage and read some of THIS diary. And then squirted a syringe at the cameras – but filled with Body Shop White Musk rather than blood. To make the cameras smell nicer.

I chat to Mr C at the bar and mention seeing our old friend Cheska Grover’s boyfriend Gavin in a woman’s magazine. He’s playing in the band The Soho Dolls, and I saw they’re featured in a very Vogue-like article, looking expensively styled on a sofa.

DE: Can’t remember what the mag’s called. ‘Me Magazine’, I think.
TMC: You mean ‘You Magazine’.
DE: That’s it.
TMC: ‘Me Magazine’ would be the magazine YOU would edit.