Drowning is the only word I can think of to describe how my work makes me feel. And my life, for that matter. I don’t feel good about anything. Discovered that mail sent from my new server to gmail is being filtered to spam. I got to spend an hour figuring that out. Mail servers are not something I know much about. That was not fun. Looks like my IP address was once used by a spammer, or something like that. Does not surprise me considering all the garbage traffic I got from OVH over the years. I wonder if it is blacklisted everywhere and permanently… Came up with a stupid hack workaround that will probably fail one day and I’ll have to remember what I did today, which will take an hour. Tried to get spamassassin working but nothing worked, and collateral damage resulted in the mail server being disabled. So it’s been a day of bounced email from people trying to reach me. Not very professional looking. It’s a continuous cry for help that no one hears. I just want things to fucking work. I still cannot access my own sorabji.com site from home, though it appears to be available to the world. I cannot access the new server via ssh using this tablet from away from home, and that’s a very bad scenario should the server fail. Tried applying to some jobs but the job web site was a piece of shit and I could not upload a resume. I still have the old server online and I unwittingly did a bunch of stuff on that bo thinking I was using the new one. That was a waste of time, just like almost everything I do any more. Wanted to have coffee with a friend but he’s on gmail so he didn’t see my message from yesterday.
Such a sea of shit I am drowning in. The more work I put in the less I get in return. It’s like I’m digging a hole. At least I got email fixed but anyone who tried to contact me this week will probably not try again.
…Later in the day. Going to have to summon a more positive outlook on things but it’s so hard to do when everything I touch turns to dirt. Hah, there’s a self defeatist attitude for you. Can’t even get through one sentence without shitting on myself. Part of me thinks I should record myself descending into this complete and total breakdown. No one would believe me when i simply explain how much I scream at the computer and how my voice starts to sound like it is dying.
Really weird thing. I just noticed that earlier today I got a call from Juan, the owner of Sunswick. He left no voicemail so I’ll assume it’s just butt dialing. Still, couldn’t help think he was calling to let me know someone else I knew from there had died. And I would not have assumed he even had my number, or I his, but handing out phone numbers is not the delicate social game it used to be. Once in a while I get a call from Martin when the call was meant for his brother, whose name is Mark Smith and is one name in his phone book above mine. Martin called me like that once when i was clearing out my dad’s old apartment in Florida. It was nice to hear from him, even by accident. That hasn’t happened in a long time so I guess he got a new phone.
I remember the time I made Juan laugh. He’s not utterly humorless but it’s not easy to get him to really let out a belly laugh. The conversation at the bar one night revolved around Mexican Spanish versus Spanish Spanish (Juan is Mexican). A few people showed off what Spanish phrases they knew. When my turn came I said “pendejo”. Juan looked shocked, he shook his head in shame, then just laughed and laughed like I had never seen and never saw again. His reaction seemed to confirm my long-held belief that “pendejo” is about the worst insult in the Spanish language as spoken in Mexico. A cursory web search now however seems to debunk that theory, which was considered fact back in my college days. Whatever the meaning of the word it was awesome to see Juan laugh like that. That was the night Tiffany and I made out.
