Or: “To New Beginnings.”
Let us be gin, Richard often says. I like caesura‘s. They are opportunities. Spaces. Places. Moments of freedom. “Mind the gap,” they say (and not just the GAP™), but I like to think of it not as a warning, but as a call to action—”hey, we have a gap here … let’s take advantage of it!”
That’s overly optimistic even for me; that much I must admit. And now, briefly, to the “story.”
I got to class Tuesday morning at about 10:55. One student asked, “Have you received the onslaught of emails I sent your way?” to which I replied, “Um, er, some of them but not all.” Another inquired, “Did you know, the class website is down?” No, I did not. Then another student made the same inquiry; I got it the first time.
I checked. Indeed: no website of any kind. I had my suspicions. I logged in to my host’s control panel. I noticed that instead of a credit, I had a negative balance of about $6.50. Ooops …
… had it really been three years since Mike and I decided to go in for a single hosting plan (for my existing domain and his new one)? Three years. That was before he shipped off to Africa. I was living on Willy Street, was I not?
The site gave me the option to make a payment. A payment, I thought … I have a debit card and a credit card; I can manage this in two minutes, including proofreading. I clicked, I selected, I typed, and I submitted.
I was rejected.
I read over my entered data, I clicked again, and was once again rejected. I decided to switch cards, but paused; what was my billing address for that one? Did I want to log into my credit card account with one minute before class just so I could look up my billing address? This could wait until after class. And wait it did.
On my way back to the office I pulled out my phone, noticed a missed call and a voice mail, dialed for the latter, and was informed by my credit union’s fraud department that there was suspicious, potentially fradulent activity they had caught. Was this why my transaction had been rejected? Was there a hold on my card?
In my office, before calling the bank, I logged into my other account, checked my information, returned to the host’s site, and once again—this time armed with a new card—attempted to reactivate my stale and cash-depleted hosting account. Rejected. Okay, let’s use the other address on file. Rejected.
I was dejected.
I checked my email for notifications from the hosting service. The same email to which my credit card statements arrive, etc. I may change that. And a new credit card email: suspicious activity detected! Call us immediately! Before calling I opened a support ticket with my hosting service, marked it urgent, described the situation, and even attached a screen grab of the above-mentioned email. Had their payment system been hacked? Clearly it was my attempt to make payment that had been flagged as “suspicous” by both debit and credit card suppliers. Off went the ticket.
Then I called the credit card company, got through to a “real” “live” “person.” What had gone wrong there was that my single input of an incorrect address had caused the transaction to be flagged. Now armed with the correct address (mainly the correct zip code) and with the real-live-person on the other end of the line, I returned to the host’s website, completed the transaction, and was rewarded with a positive balance that should be good for about the next three years.
Then I returned to the ticket I had opened and essentially wrote, “Oops, false alarm! Here’s what the problem seems to have been …” I still had to deal with the debit card, though. And so I called the credit union, was connected with another Real. Live. Person. and discovered that their problem was that the hosting service is located abroad (the servers are in the U.S., but the company is incorporated in Europe), and they don’t authorize transactions outside of certain regions. When I paid for my first three years I used a different account and so did not have this issue … live and learn.
Ah, the times: they are a changing.
In any case: [1] credit card taken care of, [2] debit card taken care of, and [3] hosting account paid … all I needed was for my account to be reactivated, but that was not automatic, and I had another class to teach. Off to teach I went. On the way back to my car once my day was done I pulled out my phone, called up the web browser (“Hello, Browser here.” “Hey, Browser, Steve here. Could you do me a favor?” “Sure, man, anything.” “Would you please look up my site?”), and saw that my sites were back … and there was much rejoicing.
I got home. The hosting company had replied to my tickets, I replied to their reply, we closed matters, and all was well with the world. But what it all made me think about was that here was a good opportunity, effected by a gap (in service, of about 1.5 days), to return to my sites, to return to writing content for them, and so on.
Like many folks I treat the beginning of the year, such an arbritrary point along our calendar, as a good “starting point” for any number of activities. This year—so far, so good—eating better (again) and losing weight that has crept on over the past seven (yike!) years. Throughout the month of January I doodled/sketched every day. In February it died off … perhaps work got to me. It’s such an unimportant thing that I do not or cannot even recall. But if I were to—yes, it’s all about narratives we tell ourselves, about constructs, about artifice—draw a distinction between today and the beginning of the year, I’d note that the latter is a mere line in the sand that is a long fractal sea-shore of time, whereas the former is a break, a breathing space, another kind of metaphor I’ll not pursue at the moment.
And that break is more liberating in a way.
As a break it makes me think: this is a break from the “past,” what came before, what counts as “influence” or “inspiration” or even “destiny.” Just different mental images, different justifications.
And so, on April 10, 2012, my account paid in full, I look forward to a return to daily posts.
