for rollick, who asked somewhat directly, a description of a typical day for me:

get up somewhere around 5 a.m. and fumble around the house until i'm mostly dressed and have found my work keys.
get on the vanpool at 6 a.m., and fight 55 miles of traffic to work. today was my turn to drive, not sleep. boo! content myself with critiquing all the bad design and horrid typography to be found on the billboards near LA's freeways. this keeps me awake, and cultivates the proper cranky attitude.
fling myself out of the van as it stops in the alley behind my office, somewhere around 7 a.m.; stumble upstairs, enter my ID code into the little black time clock thingy so that the vast bureaucracy knows i showed up, even though i'm salaried and could be punching in at 1 a.m., for all they care. unlock my office.
avoid all the cheerful morning people on my floor and try to get to my hairbrush as soon as possible so that no one accuses me of looking unprofessional. curse hair for its tendency to hang straight and part down the middle and dread up in the back. think about just giving up and dreading all my hair, then realize my boss would never let that fly -- i'm pushing it already here with two visible tattoos and multiple ear piercings.
see if minion's gotten coffee yet or not. think briefly for a bit about whether or not i should add 'fetch me coffee' to his list of duties, then decide that's horribly unprofessional.

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minion's already gotten his coffee and none for me. grump about him not reading my mind as i go downstairs to the coffee bean and get my usual. the baristas don't even bother to ask me what i want as i hand them my mug and $2.
back upstairs, i dive into my work and personal email. marvel at how one can have the SpamAssassin spam filter cranked all the way up to 'East German' and still get 100+ spam messages.
mutter dolefully as i now have a couple of meeting invitations for meetings i didn't plan on having today. add them to the list of two meetings i did have. decline one other meeting invitation, as it conflicts with existing meetings. curse the braniacs who decided my calendar should be available across multiple administrative divisions.
answer the emails from people who thought they'd decide to look like they were working hard by sending their emails at 2:13 a.m. -- i'm on to them. the 'send later' feature does not impress me.
check my project database to see what's up with the 40 projects i currently have going on. sigh as i realize i need to enter in about five more from yesterday. brighten as i realize i can delegate some of them.
check a third email box to see if anyone here has decided to add a new router and thus, new wireless service somewhere on campus. if they did, that requires updating the three campus wireless maps, which will kill a good hour, if not more. luckily, no one has.
fill out the purchase requisitions for stock photography, and the last four print jobs that got delivered last week. this requires using a remote windows OS simulator, as the archaic purchase requisition program only runs on the PC platform.
wonder why no one has bothered to come pick up three of the four print jobs that they had to have so urgently.
idly scan my friends' blogs to see what's new. the southern faire crew is all agog about gigs and costuming and how to perform better, and who saw who on what day -- and will continue to be until june.
chat over IM with minion, coworkers, and friends in spare moments all day. idly wonder if perhaps psychotherapy shouldn't have been my field.
get pulled into an impromptu meeting in which i listen to someone vent. calm them down and leave. wonder again about psychotherapy.
finish working on the sitemap for the revised intranet, and send it to print. pull it off the printer and notice that only the icons printed, not the text. spend the next hour or so dorking around with print settings, for no joy.
go down for more coffee with minion. spend half an hour talking about non-work things before i realize it's been that long, and i think about the deadlines to hit.
take advil for the eye that's beginning to throb.
try to find someone to go to lunch with, but everyone's busy. give up after 20 minutes, and slink over to whole foods to get some salad and water. pay $13 for salad and water. sheesh.
notice intern's late. call intern's cel phone to ask where he is. he calls back momentarily to ask if i got his message. i didn't. until i hang up with him, when my cel phone vibrates cheerfully to tell me i have voicemail.
meet with intern and give him more direction on what i want a project to look like. digress for 20 minutes on the philosophy behind good form design, until i notice his eyes glazing over. make sure he knows how to set tabs and use leader dots, then let him run free to redo the project.
have another impromptu meeting/counseling session. wonder again about therapist as a profession.
correct the printers' proofs that've come back; wonder why they didn't look at the dummy i supplied to figure out the correct signature order.
have a meeting in which i argue about the information architecture of a website with someone who wouldn't know usability from their elbow. try not to lose my temper.
try vainly to explain color calibration to a friend who's having problems with their monitor, and complaining that all the files i sent them are blue. again try not to lose my temper.
give printing the sitemap another shot, but no dice. swear loudly and take screenshots of the sitemap, then tile it all together in photoshop, then print that bad boy.
think about making a horribly emo post about how no one loves me, then decide against it on grounds of being too whiny and self-deprecating. besides, no time.
email PDFs of proofs of a couple of the now 45 projects to clients.
leave at 5 to drive the van back; get home around 7 p.m. see different billboards to critique.
fire up the laptop to start in on the freelance work. wish to god i'd remembered to email myself some files i need to finish the freelance work.
go outside and punch the 80# heavy bag in frustration. kick it a couple of times. stub my toe and yelp, exciting the dog, who runs over to investigate, knocking me over.
realize it's now 10:30 p.m., get disgusted and make some dinner.
open up the liquor cabinet and pour myself a generous portion of bowmore.
drink until midnight, shower, then go to bed.
begin it all over again the next day at 5 a.m.!