This thong conversation got me thinking about the very small things that can ruin your mood on an otherwise fine day. They include:

• pants with a tight waistband

• flat hair

• a dirty kitchen floor

• two soccer games on two different fields at the same time

• an e-mail with an exclamation point attached that is not at all urgent

• an unsatisfying lunch

• having to ask your son four times to empty the dishwasher

• Magic Markers without their caps

• no fruit in the fruit drawer

Oh, I could just go on and on. Unfortunately. Luckily, today is not one of those days. At least not yet.

One of the things that made this agency so super-cool was that you could take your dog to work. The place had an open floor plan, and everywhere you looked there were dogs: some in cubicles behind baby gates, some trotting merrily out the door with their owners. And many, many napping. Fascinated, I grilled one of the people who works there, and she explained that you have to sign a contract that your dog does not bark, does not have accidents, and plays well with others. (Ah, that all humans should sign such a contract.)

Since that time, I've been obsessed with taking my dog to work and weighing whether or not it would be a good thing.

PROS

• someone to hug in the middle of the work day

• someone to complain to in those moments when telling my coworkers what is really going through my head would be rude, ridiculous, or perhaps illegal

• a constant, living reminder that I do have a life outside the four walls of my office

• someone to force me to get outside on a nice day, no matter how busy I am

CONS

• dog hair all over my office

• no more eating in my office, because my dog is a shameless beggar/bottomless pit

• after a day spent in meetings, my dog would begin to hate me

• not to mention lose his belief, crucial to the man's best friend dynamic, that I am someone who knows what she's doing

• my dog would be a major distraction when I am forced to focus on some task I hate, like looking at anything on an Excel spreadsheet

Of course, contemplating taking my dog to work is like contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, as I do not work for that kind of a company. But we can all dream, can't we?

Here, an informal sampling from me, family, and friends:

Pride and Prejudice (BBC version)

Pride & Prejudice (Keira Knightley version)

The Notebook

Sleepless in Seattle (even though he is a widower and his dead wife was so pretty)

Out of Africa

The English Patient

The Holiday

An Affair to Remember (the sublime 1957 version with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr)

The Cutting Edge

The Bodyguard (Oh, Whitney. What happened?)

Bull Durham

What movies am I forgetting?

We also both carry the Pride and Prejudice gene. You know about the P and P gene; you may even be a carrier. The P and P gene—let's call it PPG in the interest of brevity—means that any mention of Pemberley or Longbourn or even Netherfield Park sets your heart aflutter. And when that happens, you feel an uncontrollable urge to read or watch Pride and Prejudice ASAP (yes, the Keira Knightley remake counts, and Bridget Jones's Diary will do in a pinch). And then you fall into a weeklong depression that you are not Elizabeth Bennet.

So imagine our delight when Sharene found a movie called Lost in Austen while trolling the Web for PP-related material. It is about a woman in modern-day London who has a bad boyfriend and (perhaps as a result) is obsessed with PP. Long story short, Amanda Price (the real-life heroine) switches places with (fictional) Elizabeth B.

Well, it is quite a long movie and I had to watch it in two parts. The more I watched, the more confused and disappointed I became. I would not recommend buying this movie, as Sharene did. I would, however, commit to memory the three principles below, so you do not buy any PP–rip-off movies online and wish you hadn't spent the money.

The three principles of PP success:

1). Any woman Mr. D loves must be beautiful and cannot under any circumstances wear lip gloss.

2). Mr. Darcy must be so handsome that you would consider leaving your husband for him.

3). You have to want to wear those gowns, even if you live in America and it's 2009.

The moral of this sad little story: For those of you with PPG, know that not all Austen adaptations are created equal. Buyer beware! (Sigh.)

Have I mentioned that “Hey Jude” is his favorite song, with “Come On Eileen” a close second? You don’t need to tell me that he is an unusual child.

But the iCarly fascination truly mystifies. He cannot possibly understand what goes on in the show; I myself am still struggling with the absence of parents and the indeterminate age of Carly’s older brother. Nevertheless, it’s the show he requests above all others, and he cries when commercials come on. Theories, anybody? Maybe Carly is his first big crush?

• Clean out the garage

• Plant perennials

• Finally order slipcovers for the wing chairs that have been bothering you for 5 years

• Buy a new dog bed

• Follow a weight-training regimen

• Visit old friends

• Or you could write a book. Maybe it is possible to write a book and do lots of other things at the same time. But as it turns out, if you are me, you cannot plant perennials or try difficult new recipes or any of the above if you are writing a book. Which is how I spent my non-working, non-mothering, non-sleeping hours for much of 2009.

I suppose “write a book” would be on my bucket list, if I thought in those terms. Regardless, I may have to start a bucket list and put “write a book” at the top, just so I have one thing I can already cross off. Is that cheating?

For those of you who might be interested, the book is called Just Let Me Lie Down. It is a dictionary-cum-memoir (bear with me), basically a moment of therapy for all lunatics like me. (The subtitle is “necessary terms for the half-insane working mom.") It is being published by Little, Brown in April.

I had a complete ball writing it, even if I became unbearable to live with as I approached my deadline. But now it's finished! And I hope at least one or two of you read it, if only to make up for the enormous toll it took on my perennial garden.