Ти знайеш хто я???

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. - Nietzsche

I battle with monsters all. the. fucking. time.

Guess that explains a lot.

- - - - - - - - - -

So. That void kitty up there is Finn. He was supposed to be named Phineas after one of the characters in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It’s one of my favourite books and one I don’t revisit nearly enough.

But. Somewhere along the line, he became a Finnegan.

I’m his person and I can’t tell you how healing that little asshole is. He’s amazing.

We also adopted another kitten, Sophie.

She’s not a void kitty. She’s actually white with some gray tabby colouring.

So. Night and day. Literally.

Even in their personalities… where he’s a total and complete extroverted asshole, she’s a shy lovebug.

I’m not sure why she’s so skittish still, but it is what it is. But like Apache, when she wants loving from you, she will NOT be denied.

I am also her person… when she lets me be.

They have made me indescribably happy. Maybe not enough to keep the worst of the depression away, but it’s something.

- - - - - - - - - -

Let’s see… what’s happened since Memorial Day-ish? Besides bringing home a little ray of sunshine and an asshole?

My email account either got spoofed or hacked… I’m not quite sure. All I know for sure is that I was getting like 100 bounce backs a day. Apparently, I have control of your computer and if you don’t pay me in a bazillion bitcoins, I’ll share that naughty stuff on your hard drive with the world.

To be completely honest, I have no idea what a bitcoin actually is and I can’t be bothered to find out why I would want some.

I went to my webhost and, instead of taking any action, they told me it was MY fault and then directed me to a bunch of knowledge base articles. Not a single bit of customer service to be found… I decided to take my business elsewhere.

Not a spur of the moment decision even though it looks like it. I’ve been having problems with them on and off for years, but I was too lazy to do anything about it.

So.

Last year, I hosted a test blog on HostGator, using WordPress. (insert vomiting emoji here…) I liked HG, hated WP, but decided to cancel the hosting after the one year term was up.

I decided to go back to HostGator and transfer my entire digital life to them. This blog and 7 domains.

Well, the domain transfers went relatively well until they didn’t.

Apparently, I hit some limit with the domain transfers, triggered some fraud alert, and they locked me out of my entire account.

Even better, the email that told me why wound up in spam. If I hadn’t been exporting important email messages, I would have never known.

I went through this whole thing with them:

How am I supposed to prove the domains are mine? No, I’m not sending you copies of my bank statements or my drivers license via an unsecured email… and we were at a stalemate. Finally, I sent them screen grabs of the bank’s app.

Still couldn’t get in.

Talked to support and showed them what I had sent. They told me they needed a PDF. Of a bunch of pictures. But whatever.

I showed it to the person I was chatting with and they told me it was OK so I sent it off.

Still locked out.

Chatted Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… all of them telling me that my information was still being reviewed and they would “escalate it”.

We’re at two weeks now. TWO WEEKS.

Finally, the person I talked to on Thursday told me the ticket had been closed. ON SATURDAY. The day I was told what I was submitting was OK.

I gave up and sent them a copy of my bank statement. Completely redacted except for three lines. (So really, what was the point? I could have faked the document by that point.)

And I finally got access to my shit again.

Just so I could transfer it to yet another web host.

After being with NameCheap for a billion years, I moved GA twice in the space of a few weeks. And the two email accounts I was keeping.

I do not recommend doing that.

So… I’m off of work today taking a much needed mental health day and decided to post this entry.

The website, this blog, my fucking baby, broke.

Borked beyond belief.

The guy at A2 was super helpful and told me I was his favourite support call because I was having a good time.

What else could I do? If I don’t laugh about this nightmare at this point, I’m just going to cry.

And honestly? I’ve been doing a lot of that lately and I am OVER IT.

- - - - - - - - - -

Hmm… what else happened?

VEGAS WON THE STANLEY CUP!
(doo dah doo dah)
VIN AND DOUG CAN KISS MY BUTT!
(oh the doo dah day)

This is especially heartwarming because the Cats made it into the finals for the first time in franchise history.

They also lost a really good player in the Vegas expansion draft because they wanted to trade away a shitty one… and I’m pretty sure at least one of those names will be engraved on Lord Stanley’s Cup.

As I told several people, the Cats shit all over my dreams. I really hoped Vegas would shit all over theirs.

I think at this point, I have earned the right to be that vindictive because I have been dealing with the emotional upheaval that team caused me for years now.

I’ve actually debated posting part of my termination notice and I’m still on the fence about that. (WHAT? THERE’S SOMETHING I WON’T TALK ABOUT?!?! Dude, I talk about dicks, I’ve written about my struggles keeping two of my fan fic characters from engaging in statutory rape, I’ve written - ad nauseum - about my mental health. Yeah. Not a lot of boundaries here…)

But anyway, the part that (still) kills me - the part I absolutely CANNOT get over - is where they said that there was a possibility that I would never get better and they couldn’t keep my position open for an undetermined length of time.

I’m fucking bipolar.

I was diagnosed when I was 26 - right after my father died.

I’ve been under a doctor’s care in one way, shape, or form due to that since then. So, I was what? 43 when they shitcanned me.

43 multiplied by the square root of cheese, divided by pi equals… hold on. I need to write a ridiculous excel formula to do that math.

Where was I?

Oh yeah… I’VE KNOWN ABOUT THE BIPOLAR AND HAVE BEEN UNDER TREATMENT FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS.

Seventeen.

Seventeen years of therapy on and off.

Seventeen years of altering my internal chemistry to adjust for the fact that my body cannot produce what it needs for me to be a fully functioning human.

Seventeen years of pretending to be a fully functioning human and (mostly) succeeding.

But. You know. I might never get better.

Like I have any control over my broken brain.

I’m about as good as I’m ever going to get… and that’s the part that I can’t shake.

So yeah…

THANK YOU, LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS!