set adrift on memory bliss

Today, i got to work late, which I was not pleased about. This morning, I woke up and was thinking, ‘ok, my alarm is going to go off any time, I’ll just lay here until then.” After a while, I look at the clock and its THREE THIRTY. I couldn’t believe it. Then I started wondering WHY I had awoken so completely so early. So I started thinking maybe someone was in my apartment or outside trying to get in. so I was laying still trying to listen for things. And I couldn’t hear anything. I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I finally woke up and did some stuff online. My friend was online getting ready for a flight to Miami at 5:50 am. I lamented my wake up story and he agreed, “that happened to me today – I woke up at 3:45 and my alarm wasn’t set to go off until 3:50.” I thought he was joking. I was like, “5 min is a lot different than 2.5 hours.” And he replied, “yeah, but 5 min seems like a lot right now” because he was so tired. I guess I kind of understand. I stayed up for about a half hour or so and then forced myself to go back to sleep. Of course, when my alarm went off, I was in the middle of a weird dream and couldn’t wake up. I reset it for a half hour later (6:30) and fell instantly back asleep. Once 6:30 arrived, I could hardly move. I finally forced myself out of bed at 6:54, which is nearer to the time that I should be leaving for work instead of waking up. Oops.

So now here I am at work again. Cake making has actually started to pick up for me and I have been busy every day for the past few weeks. I tried to watch how I met your mother last night, but it was weird: I turned cbs on and there is no sound. Then I hear laughter, from the audience (a track laughter) and keep watching. The actors’ mouths were moving and I could pick out some of what they were saying, but still no sound. I thought it was bizarre that I could hear the laughter and not the actors. So I decided to watch dwts instead. I’m not super jazzed about any of the contestants this year. Max is still super hot and I like to see that he’s kind of an ass hole. For some reason, I’m attracted to jerks. Or maybe more intrigued by them.

And now I realize that since I have not been writing a lot lately, I have run out of things to say. There haven’t been a lot of “left in the wrong worlds” because I listen to my headphones at work most of the time now. I find this keeps my blood pressure lower and doesn’t make me want to turn into the incredible hulk and start smashing into things.

Oh, let me comment quickly on the nature of following up and how I think it’s a good thing to do.

My first example of this is with the hyatt mainz in mainz, germany. I went there almost a year ago with my friend, imke. She is living in Brussels and I was living in berlin, so we decided to meet half way to do a little castle tour of the Rhineland in germany. We each took the train and met in one city (I can’t remember which one) and then rented a car and drove down to mainz where we spent another night. I convinced her that we should stay at the hyatt, which was more expensive than she would’ve liked to pay because I wanted the hotel points. The trip was fun, but the hyatt was NOT worth the extra price and I was really disappointed. So, I took from the hotel room the hotel comment card. But I always wanted to spend quality time writing down all my complaints. That time didn’t come until last may (over 6 months after my trip) on my way back to europe. I wrote about how the gym had broken machines, they didn’t have to tell us to pay for the parking (an atrocious amount!) and how you have to pay for a 2nd person in the room. I didn’t expect anything back, but I was so annoyed with the hotel, that I sent the comment card for prosperity’s sake. With a month, I received an email from the hotel manager and he offered to either give me a discount next time I was in mainz or some hyatt points. I told him that I don’t live in Europe anymore, and can’t imagine a time when I’ll be back in mainz, so I said the points would be great. He offered me 10,000 points, which was amazing! I was totally shocked – if anything, I would’ve thought 1,000 points or something. So I was like, “great! 10,000 points!” well, after a few months, I realized that he hadn’t put them into my account. So, 3 months after I got his email, I emailed back saying I hadn’t seen the points. Now: I do see them in my account. Following up pays off.

Also, last summer I won the squarespace twitter contest for a $199 itunes gift card. I was so excited! And I haven’t decided what to do with the gift card (I have an ipod touch and my t-mobile contract isn’t up until December or so), BUT the point is that I have the gift card and will now be able to get something cool. So, I would suggest entering contests and following up. And if you would like to try out squarespace, which seems to build websites for small companies, you can go to https://www.squarespace.com/signup/.

My final example is that of my dining for miles program. I wrote a comment after eating at a restaurant and the restaurant wrote back to me! They didn’t offer me any discount or anything like that, but it made me feel really good that someone read my comment and appreciated it and then took the time to let me know how much they appreciated it. It’s like me sending note cards and articles for my friends to read. I have to believe that people appreciate the effort and that’s what makes me feel good.

And now I am going back to work.