Severance

I'm actually amazed to be able to access my site today. Last night, the inability to check email evolved into applications returning errors of unknown usernames and bad passwords and still no cogent response from my hosting service. During the blackout, I experienced this profound sense of frustrated isolation. Maybe this is a smidge of what it feels like to be stranded on a desert island. You send out messages in bottles, and the tide keeps bouncing them back to you. You wonder if the croaking of the seagulls and the carrion eaters circling above you can be translated into a message of some sort. Think of all the communication you are missing out on. Maybe someone is trying to improve your mortgage rates even now.

Amidst my electronic paralysis, I worked on some art projects and finished a book I've been reading. Finishing a book is a strange sentimental experience for me these days. I usually take my time getting through books. I have a pact with myself to read a chapter each day -- usually right before going to bed -- no matter what condition I'm in. But I often read no more than the one chapter, and that makes for slow going in some thicker tomes. So, it may take me a month or two to read a book, and then those months forever become a period labeled by that book. Like when I was rereading The Lord of the Rings over the holidays. It's a pity to close a book finally. Metaphorically or otherwise. And there is a strange disconnected feeling that comes over me when I matriculate to the next title. How will the world look to me when I end each day with the words of Donna Tartt? Or James Joyce? Or Tony Millionaire? Okay, comic books don't count.

So back to my tale of the web hosting jack. In the end, I lost all copies of email I received and sent between June 18, 2003 and June 24, 2003, so if you are reading this and would like to forward me messages you sent me or messages I sent you during that period, you will help me keep my archives complete. Also, yesterday, my email was being bounced back for about 16 hours, so if you have been trying to reach me and have been unsuccessful, try, try again.

I went ahead and signed up for a new account with Dreamhost, so now I'm just waiting for the DNS addresses to be switched. There may be some downtime involved there, but one hopes it will be worth it. I will also be able to host all of my other ridiculous domains there, so perhaps this will be the beginning of something beautiful.

Anyone want to place a bet as to whether my current hosting service will refund any of the annual charge I paid in February?

I think I will go for a run. Surely this brand of frustration is carcinogenic.