An Off Day And A Day Off

Today, everything was just...off.
I was reminded of an episode of Dexter and one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons.
In the Dexter episode, he's having an "off" period, and they illustrate this - to great effect - by running the usual opening title sequence, in which we see Dexter engaging in his morning routine, in the middle of the episode (complete with theme music), except that everything is just going wrong.
For example, the opening shot of the title sequences is a close-up of a mosquito biting his arm, which Dexter then swats before getting out of bed.
In the "off" version, we get that same shot, except that he misses the mosquito.  Similar mishaps ensue with the rest of his morning.
Similarly, The Simpsons episode runs the standard opening title sequence, but everything goes disastrously and fatally wrong.
In my case, I woke up with a headache.
Upon going into the bathroom to remove my Gentle Molding lenses, I found that the right lens hadn't properly adhered to my eye, and had lodged itself in the inside corner.  This had caused my eye to become irritated, made it a hassle to get the thing out, and had prevented me from getting the vision-improving benefits of wearing the lens.  So my vision in my right eye was a bit fuzzy.  The left eye, however, was just fine, which threw things out of whack, because normally, even when my vision is at its best, it's always better in my right eye than in my left.
I then proceeded to just completely bungle the rest of my morning routine, doing things out of sequence, or forgetting to do certain other things entirely.
Despite the headache, I decided to try working out.  The warm up on the elliptical went okay, though it wasn't terribly pleasant, and I soon got on with the rest of the workout with minimal discomfort...until I did some chin-ups, at which point my head started pulsating like something out of a science fiction movie.
So, okay, no workout.
I took a long hot shower, hoping that it would help with the headache - which seemed like a sinus problem - and to prevent myself from leaving too much earlier than usual, having shaved time off my usual routine by skipping most of the workout.
I got out to my car and found that my remote key wouldn't unlock the door.  Usually, I keep the key in my wallet, as I just need to have it near the car for it to work, so I took it out and tried unlocking it by actually using the button on the key itself.  The key didn't light up, so I figured the battery was dead.
I went inside, replaced the battery, and found that it still wouldn't work.  So it was back inside to find my spare key - in which the battery was not dead but dying, which caused problems later in the day, such as delays in locking/unlocking - and, eventually, was on my way later than I normally would be.
Naturally, it was raining, and naturally everyone on the road was in full panic mode.
The day wore on with nothing in particular going wrong, but even so, everything still felt off.  It was like walking through a dream, and not a particularly good one at that.  Still, given how irritating my dreams often are, that actually added to the dreamlike quality.
My boss, noting the redness of my eye, and my general malaise, asked me if I needed to go home, but I told her that I would stick it out.
After all, today was the day I was going to be recognized for being nominated for the MVP Award.
As I mentioned a while back, we recently had an All Hands meeting.  Normally, during the recognition portion of the meeting, they recognize not only the members of the organization who were winners of awards, but also the nominees.  They also, normally, recognize people who have achieved professional certifications.
Since the previous meeting, I had been nominated for two awards and achieved the PMP certification.
For the first time ever, in the interests of keeping things moving, they elected to not recognize award nominees or certifications.
I was pissed.
I mean, I try not to be paranoid, or take things personally, but when my name should be brought up several times, and they deliberately choose not to mention the things that would cause my name to be brought up...well, it felt personal.  (I don't think I'm entirely paranoid, either, and maybe someday I'll explain why I think that is the case.)
So, regardless of how off I felt, as I told my boss, given how much bitching I did about not getting recognized at our All Hands meeting, I was damn sure going to get today's recognition.
I did tell her, though, that I fully intended to leave after the recognition thing.
Afterwards, when we were discussing the little ceremony, she said, "Go home.  That's your MVP Award from me:  you can leave at 2:30."  I said, "I was going to do that anyway."
This got me a "Shut up and just let me pretend I'm doing something nice for you."
She then decided that she would give me one of those coupons that managers have been given to hand out to their employees, like the one I got a while back from my (former) Director for a half-day.
In this case, I got a full day.
In the "For" section of the coupon, she wrote "Losing the MVP Award."
Meh, it's still a day off, which is better than an off day...