The world is treating me bad. MISERY!

The Lads won't fail me now. For no matter how I feel, there's a corresponding Beatle song. And, to cover yesterday and early this morning, an oldie called "Misery" fits the bill.

Got up early on Thursday because I had a big client presentation, revolving around a project that's been unremittingly and needlessly stressful. Made it to Union Station in plenty of time for my 9:25 train downstate and found it had been postponed. A freight train had derailed, and understandably Amtrak couldn't use the tracks. No one could tell me how late the delay would be because it was a problem completely out of Amtrak's power.

Which was OK because one of my coworkers/copresenters still hadn't gotten far from her home. She woke up to a flat tire. Because of her late start, she was still close to the The Loop and was able to give me a ride downstate to our client's offices.

We got down there just 30 minutes late (the best we could hope for under the circumstances) and discovered my copresenter's laptop didn't work in the client's conference room. So I had to fake it and forge ahead without her slides.

Amazingly, we got nothing but positive feedback from the client! By now it was 4:00. The presentation had been long and stressful. All I wanted was to board my 5:30-ish Amtrak train and sleep all the way home to Chicago.

Except that my Amtrak train had been canceled.

So my copresenter gave me aride back to the city. On the way back we stopped at Au Bon Pain. I had the corn chower. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!

Between 8:30 last night and 3:30 this morning, I have alternately been soaking in the bathtub or just laying on bathroom floor, willing myself to recover from my gastrointestinal maladies.

Misery!

Now I am going to try to sleep.