How old is too old?

I'm on the train home. It's late and the train is only half full. Or half empty, depending on your perspective.

Across from me is a kid on the phone to his mate. He's hard to age - he's in clothes that would suit a teenager but I'd guess he's in his twenties.

The conversation is about a job interview tomorrow. He don't want to work for no serious city dudes, bro. (He's white, but has been taking style tips from P Diddy).

He's just told his friend that he job he really wants ... the very career that his heart desires, is to be a ninja.

All I can think is, "you'll never make a ninja if you can't work out which way your baseball cap goes on."

The moral if the story: there comes a point in your life when you are too darned old to think that being a ninja is a viable career option.

So many thoughts ...

... so little time.

100 thought flit through my mind all at once. I can't separate them into individual threads of consciousness.

Tomorrow is my first day at my new job.

My mobile phone is somewhere else in the house and is beeping.

I've had a lovely weekend away with a friend who I've known, we worked out, for 14 years. I last saw him in May.

The dining room is finally painted.

It's a new phone and I'm not used to it's peeps and whistles yet.

A friend of mine is a new Auntie.

What should I wear tomorrow? Trousers or a skirt? Flats or heels?

Another friend is going to India for the week tomorrow.

The house smells of fresh paint. It's comforting and stifling both at once.

Perhaps the beeping means I've got a new text message.

I'm a small bit jealous of her adventure. But I'm a big bit thrilled for her too.

We went together to the village Christmas market, where his mother was running the raffle.

I think maybe just black will be best. Trousers and a top. Low heels. It'll be safest.

Her new nephew is called Felix Ernest. What a mouthful!

I should move all the furniture back into the new room, from around the house, and get a bit of order back.

I only bought raffle tickets because I felt a bit guilty. She was raising funds for the church.

I ought to go and find the phone. It's bleeping like mad, and it might be important.

But maybe a nice necklace. Something chunky or coloured to cheer it up a bit.

She's excited for her sister and her new baby boy, of course, but sad that her parents might now not come to them for Christmas, but go to bounce their new Grandson on their knee instead.

I ended up winning first prize! Three boxes (THREE!) of Thornton's chocolates. That'll be nice for Christmas treats.

What will the weather be like in December in India?

Or maybe my red shoes. Would that be too much?

Och! That phone!

I understand her upset. I want to fix it and tell her that it's a one off. One of those things. But it does always seem to be one of those things, and I know it would just be platitudes. I can only tell her that I don't know what to say, and it seems so weak.

How will I sleep?

Going, going ...

Today has been a big day.

I have been feeling fidgety and dissatisfied with my working life for a while. A lot of it is itchy feet, pure and simple. Some of it is more irksome.

It's a strange thing, is the "9 til 5", when you think about it. I don't think my office is any different to any other. It's a strangely false environment.

I spend more hours in the office, than I have waking hours at home each day.

I sit at a desk with three close colleagues within six feet of me. Honestly ... if three people spent the day in my house, within six feet of me, I'd be jumping up and down shouting "get away, get away, get away!" within half an hour. But in the office it has to be OK. Because that's the way it is.

The only thing that we all have in common that we're all hired to do the same job. There is no personality test. There is no prerequisite that we are all friends. There is no requirement that we all have the same sense of humour. And yet, if we don't see eye to eye, we take it personally and are vexed by it.

I work in a company of 30 people which means that there's always something going on that no-one is meant to know about, but everyone actually does. The politics are enough to make Betty Boothroyd squirm.

And the love triangles! My life! Is every firm like this? There's always someone secretly chasing / flirting with / sleeping with / dating someone. Again, no-one is meant to know about these things, but everyone always does.

Recently, it's all just felt a bit like ... well ... school. Cliques galore and being picked last for netball. Really. I'm surprised I've not had an onset of adult acne to complete the experience.

But sometimes all these things resolve themselves without your really trying. I've had a couple of casual chats recently with another firm, and today they offered me a job! Hooray for me!

When I handed in my notice this afternoon, I was shaking. Now, I feel like with world is my oyster.

By Christmas I'll be working in a new office with new people. There will be new bits of top secret gossip, scandal and rumour. There will be new office politics, and new oddly familiar relationships with people I hardly know. And I can't wait!