Wave motion

... because that's how Fortune rocks you.

First off, the disclaimer is that I work in a place with people whom PR professionals feel the need to make nice to, thus resulting sometimes in free donuts, free concert tickets and travel junkets.

And that's when Fortune starts you on an up and down cycle.

Neil Gaiman appears at the Singapore Writers Festival the coming weekend. Tickets to the event are free. But it's the same collocation of if you need to know how much something costs, you can't afford it: If you need to know where and how to get hold of those free tickets, there won't be any left to get.
Score: -1.

Someone posts on the e-bulletin board at work, hoping for Gaiman tickets. Maybe someone had returns, she hoped. I add my name to the wishlist. If someone can get lucky there, I could try and get lucky too.
Score: Hope springs eternal.

My company is one of the sponsors of the festival. So we received some complimentary tickets. To be divided among 3,000 staff across the group. Of which 2,999 are probably Gaiman fans, 2,990 the rabid variety, especially the graphic artists in various artrooms in the building. Fastest fingers to email corporate communications win.
Score: Improving.

I was off for two days. And came back to find that I've scored tickets to Who Killed Amanda Palmer. There're only single tickets to the Gaiman talk on fantasy novels. But that's OK. Who Killed Amanda Palmer was the event I really wanted, and I could give up my place on the wait list for the other events.
Score: Yay!

I also came back to find an email saying that there're free tickets for the New York Philharmonic. On the night that I was offf. So I could have gone, something I couldn't possibly do on a worknight. The email came on the day that I was off. So I didn't see the email. Missed NY Phil on their Beethoven night. That I was informed that they did the Egmont Overture as an encore didn't help.
Score: Fortune gives with the right hand but raps your knuckles sharply with the left.

My supervisor messages that there's a press trip to Krabi. It's smallish, very exclusive, guests are being flown there by private jet. Over the weekend of the Gaiman events. Do I put myself in the draw for the trip? I felt guilty about not using the tickets that was given to me.
Score: swinging. Fortune is really effing with me today.

Husband practically berates me over the phone. Put your name in the Krabi ballot, he thundered. Neil Gaiman will always write another book. You'll never have the chance to fly to Krabi on a private jet for a spa and sea sports weekend.
Score: still guilty but hopeful. If Fortune had smiled on me for the Gaiman tickets, maybe she'd be even nicer with Krabi.

Only three people are in the ballot for Krabi. That's a one in three chance.
Score: on the upswing

I did not pick the short straw.
Score: I still have Neil Gaiman.