to cheer myself up

While I didn't get to the gym today--in part from mood, in part because it didn't seem prudent--I did get some useful things done:

* I tweaked my resume a little and sent it off, with a cover letter, for a production editor job.
* I made us both omelets for lunch.

* I have thus far written 1293 words of (first-draft) fiction.

* I spoke to D, realized I wasn't up to planning, and agreed to talk to her tomorrow.

* I took a never-used vase off a useful table and put it on a less-useful but until-then-empty shelf.

* I spent some time looking into travel arrangements (I think the relevant airline computer crashed but didn't tell the Web front-end, which thus started announcing that all possible flights weren't available, no matter what date or pair of cities I entered, but I learned a thing or two before then).

to cheer myself up

While I didn't get to the gym today--in part from mood, in part because it didn't seem prudent--I did get some useful things done:

* I tweaked my resume a little and sent it off, with a cover letter, for a production editor job.
* I made us both omelets for lunch.

* I have thus far written 1293 words of (first-draft) fiction.

* I spoke to D, realized I wasn't up to planning, and agreed to talk to her tomorrow.

* I took a never-used vase off a useful table and put it on a less-useful but until-then-empty shelf.

* I spent some time looking into travel arrangements (I think the relevant airline computer crashed but didn't tell the Web front-end, which thus started announcing that all possible flights weren't available, no matter what date or pair of cities I entered, but I learned a thing or two before then).

travel planning

I'm not going anywhere, at least not definitely. (New Year's in Montreal is tempting, but I have to talk to cattitude, and he's off in Brooklyn watching animation.)

I've used a bunch of frequent flyer miles to get a ticket for a friend. I'd been looking at the airline Web site earlier in the day, and it looked doable. By the time I got email back from my friend about what he could and couldn't do, and verifying the name on his passport and such, the site was giving me very generic error messages on every search I tried.

So I called Northwest and threw myself on the mercy of the nice woman at the other end. She hunted through the computer, and at first couldn't find anything either. Then she pulled something off, at the regular rather than the "use lots more miles and get tickets when there aren't any" level. We chatted a bit while she made this work--she said she "had to get permission" to give me this particular set of tickets at that rate, but we were both willing to wait while it went through. It took a while, and the routing is a little weird (partly because Northwest wants to run everything through Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Detroit, or some combination of the three), but I got it. For some reason, they insist on paper tickets--even though at one point while she had me on hold, they interrupted the hold music to remind me that the fee for paper tickets when e-tickets are possible has gone up. The only problem here is that they'll only mail the tickets to the person whose miles are being used, whether or not she's the person traveling. So I'm going down to Rockefeller Center tomorrow, picking the tickets up, and putting them in the mail.

The airline person and I had a nice chat, and she volunteered that she was enjoying visiting with me. And then when it was all sorted out, flight numbers written down and vegetarian meals requested, she ended with a formulaic "Thank you for calling Northwest," sounding less friendly than she had any time earlier in the call.

I was thinking, over dinner, about why she'd be so cheerful about my complicated request, quoting tax rates in two different currencies, and all. And what occurred to me is "She probably just got yelled at by someone who doesn't understand why she can't give him a first class ticket for Wednesday" [the busiest travel day of the year]. But I was polite and cheerful, and my friend has tickets that have him there for Christmas and home before New Year's.

(I've also written over 3000 words today.)

travel planning

I'm not going anywhere, at least not definitely. (New Year's in Montreal is tempting, but I have to talk to cattitude, and he's off in Brooklyn watching animation.)

I've used a bunch of frequent flyer miles to get a ticket for a friend. I'd been looking at the airline Web site earlier in the day, and it looked doable. By the time I got email back from my friend about what he could and couldn't do, and verifying the name on his passport and such, the site was giving me very generic error messages on every search I tried.

So I called Northwest and threw myself on the mercy of the nice woman at the other end. She hunted through the computer, and at first couldn't find anything either. Then she pulled something off, at the regular rather than the "use lots more miles and get tickets when there aren't any" level. We chatted a bit while she made this work--she said she "had to get permission" to give me this particular set of tickets at that rate, but we were both willing to wait while it went through. It took a while, and the routing is a little weird (partly because Northwest wants to run everything through Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Detroit, or some combination of the three), but I got it. For some reason, they insist on paper tickets--even though at one point while she had me on hold, they interrupted the hold music to remind me that the fee for paper tickets when e-tickets are possible has gone up. The only problem here is that they'll only mail the tickets to the person whose miles are being used, whether or not she's the person traveling. So I'm going down to Rockefeller Center tomorrow, picking the tickets up, and putting them in the mail.

The airline person and I had a nice chat, and she volunteered that she was enjoying visiting with me. And then when it was all sorted out, flight numbers written down and vegetarian meals requested, she ended with a formulaic "Thank you for calling Northwest," sounding less friendly than she had any time earlier in the call.

I was thinking, over dinner, about why she'd be so cheerful about my complicated request, quoting tax rates in two different currencies, and all. And what occurred to me is "She probably just got yelled at by someone who doesn't understand why she can't give him a first class ticket for Wednesday" [the busiest travel day of the year]. But I was polite and cheerful, and my friend has tickets that have him there for Christmas and home before New Year's.

(I've also written over 3000 words today.)