Incremental

I dived into my computer woes yesterday once again.  I read some articles online and started poking around in my computer preferences, my Safari and Chrome preferences, and finally, after making many changes and deleting many folders and files, downloaded a recommended piece of software to clean up my computer files and detect any viruses that might be infecting them.  I already knew the probable cause of my trouble.  I got fooled on updating my Flash player.  I knew what I was looking for--kind of--some sort of Daemon.  I thought it would be foolish to name a file that, though.  If you saw something on your computer labeled "Daemon" you'd probably question it.

I set the program to work.  First, it detected duplicate files on my computer and deleted the ones I OKed.  Then it found needless files and deleted them as well.  Then, the big one.  It scanned my computer looking for viruses.  The scan took about an hour.  In the end, it located one file.  When I hit the button to remove that file, however, I was informed I needed to upgrade the service.  Well, now. . . . They wouldn't remove the virus for free, but they did name it, and it DID have the word "Deamon" in it.  Now all I had to do was find it.  So I did several searches on the hard drive for Deamon.  I found many things, mostly installer things, and deleted them.  But the computer was still not functioning properly.  So I did what I had been trying not to do for days.  I sent some screenshots to Q.  I don't like asking people to work for free, and this is what Q does.  I don't want people handing me things to proofread.  I used to get paid to do that (don't laugh just because I don't do it here--I'm not getting paid).  I thought, however, that I had done a lot of the lifting and that Q might give me the final bit of wisdom.

And he did!  He told me to go into my libraries folder to find it, and boom!--there it was.  Once I trashed that fucker, my computer was up and running like a young sprinter again.  Fucking A.

Computers are more complicated than most things.  There are a lot of "moving" parts.  There are a lot of tricksters out there who can take advantage of that.  The moral of all this--wash your hands, keep your face covered, and don't go out.  Seriously.  Keep your computer usage to things you know.  Don't go looking for a good time.  That's how you pick up diseases.

Just like your mom and pop told you.

All in all, a long, hard, and useful day.

But things fall apart.

Since I retired, I've done nothing I had planned on doing.  Travel, of course.  But things around the house.  I was going to use my time to fix them.  I was going to learn how to become a handyman on YouTube.  I was going to replant the garden and tear up and replant a bed of jasmine.  I was going to weed and feed my lawn, take care of some trees. . . . None of that.  It is too hot, and I have become far to despondent and lazy.  There are three doors into and out of my home.  None of them work.  They all need repair.  One of the doors on the apartment, too.  I have some boards that need to be replaced on the deck as well as some of the house siding.  Oh, the list goes on.

Last night, I woke at four.  Got water.  Went to the bathroom.  Then back to bed where I had those strange early morning dreams that happen when you don't really think you are asleep.  And they were bad, all about things failing and falling apart.  Including me.  The adrenaline was pumping, my heart racing.  Over and over, I intend to do be more productive, but the hours get dichotomously briefer somehow in my long days of nothing.

I finally woke.  The sun was up.  I was sneezing.  Somehow, though I go nowhere, I have caught a cold.

Perhaps it is all the result of my evenings.  I eat too much shit, drink too much liquor.

The word of the day is "incremental."  That is how I am going to change.  Small incremental things.  Just a little more or a little less.  Nothing drastic.  I'll be a creeper, only creeping in the right direction.  I will do one more good thing than I did yesterday.  I can do two, but I only need to do one.  One less glass of whiskey.  A little bit of weed pulling. One fewer ice cream sandwich.  My choice.

There is a ton of old paperwork on my desk that I could go through, too.  When I think about it all, I get overwhelmed.  So. . . incremental.

I had a request for more Lonesomeville.  Hence the picture today.  I need to finish the printing and make the maquette so that I can shop it around.  It is costing me.  I need to buy hundreds of dollars more paper and ink.  I don't have the income I had.  I need to offset this somehow.  My personal economics are getting spooky that way.

I've already lost too much money in the Time of Corona.