And we're back

Okay - enough of the sloth and indolence - I just love saying that.

I've recuperated enough from my week in New York City covering a huge event for work to blog again. This was one serious stretch assignment for me - but it really paid off. I learned a lot, got pushed waaaaay out of my comfort zone many times and, - best of all - pulled off a very successful and comprehensive communications plan.

And we pause so that I may bask in the accolades...

It was so bizarre - to be in a this huge hotel (the Millenium, Times Square) with glaring, blaring, gaudy and bawdy Times Square a half block away - and, with the exception of an occasional run to the Starbucks next door, I never left the hotel...for four days.

Not that I should have, mind you, after day one.

Thanks to the reliability of the web-based publishing tool we use (start gnashing teeth here), between Wednesday morning and Friday morning, I had exactly 6.5 hours of sleep. In fact, on Wednesday night, we were only able to get the tool working between the hours of 2-3 am.

Hey - wait - we're a technology company? Say what?

Thursday morning, at 6 am, I stopped working long enough to slip on a pair of track pants, flip flops and a hoodie - ran my fingers through my unbrushed hair that had been slept on for two and a half hours - and took my bloodshot, unshaved self downstairs in search of a Starbucks vente Americano.

I took my position behind a well-dressed business woman who, it turned out, was the senior vice president for the business unit I support.

Okay - I will be the first to admit, I was not at my best. But the look this woman gave me...the man who has supported and driven many of her internal communications programs for three years now...well, it was as if I had just oozed out from under the bakery counter and was putting roach doo-doos on her Ferragamos.

As it turned out, we made small talk - but she wouldn't face me and spoke very softly. So I had to keep going "huuhhh???' "whaaat did you saaay?"

Let's hear it for the sleep-deprived, unkempt little retarded boy! Yaaaay.

When I saw her later, appropriately attired, everything was back to normal - meaning she pretty much ignored me because there were more important people in the room. But that's the world of corporate - I simply don't rank high enough most days.

Anyhoo - it was great experience, but the best moment of the week, I realize, was when I was standing on the train platform in Rhinecliff, looking across the Hudson at the town I call home - my train disappearing in the distance...and the only sound I could hear was the lapping of the waves and the sound of the wind. I could have stood there forever, it seemed.

And oh yes - my hotel room smelled like pickles. How the hell you can get a 31st floor hotel room in Manhattan to smell like pickles is beyond me.

Random, I know - but it didn't fit anywhere else in the story.