Miscellany

Ramblings at a bar

Hello blog,

I am at Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, looking forward to a gig by Amanda Palmer. A bucket list event that I am insanely privileged to tick off. There have been lots of thoughts going through my mind and now is as good a time as any to get them out 🙂

There was a tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, United States on Wednesday. 17 people were killed. I have been blown away by the response of the teenagers affected. I am not afraid for the next generation. We just need to not fuck things up too much and then support them in their actions and problem solving. Teenagers and young adults blow me away.

I have been thinking a lot about grief lately. How it becomes a part of you. How the nature of the pain changes to be less engulfing, and then now as I write this. I miss my dad acutely. There is a rugby match on the television in the wine bar and I miss my dad. We often watched the rugby with him. I have barely watched since he passed on. It hurts too much, it brings in some acute grief.

South Africa got a new president on Thursday. I am glad that the Democratic Alliance didn’t force a secret ballot. I am not a huge fan of the DA at the moment, it would be lovely if they stopped grandstanding and did some work. I wonder if crime is going to improve under Cyril Ramaphosa…I wonder if Jacob Zuma knows the number of people murdered on his watch. I wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa will. I wonder if we will become less angry as a country. I wonder if our politicians can pull together to defeat DayZero in Cape Town. The people are doing well. I am impressed at the water saving efforts at Spier hotel. I do think pilots / flight attendants should make an announcement about the drought on landing in Cape Town. Reminding people to save water.

I worry about the inhumanity to one one another and am glad to see small acts of humanity and connection.

I finally saw wild dog on our trip to Kruger National Park last week. I am saddened by how inaccessible our national parks have become…they used to be much more affordable. But I was given hope (which is the thing with feathers) when I saw two black teenage girls posing for a photo in front of a statue of three old white men who founded the Kruger National Park and when I heard a young white lady speaking fluent Zulu in the shop at Skukuza.

I took two taxify’s today (A South African alternative to Uber). I love chatting to cab drivers, such interesting perspectives. I stopped using Uber because of their failure to care for their people in the US. When I chatted to my drivers today both of them felt like the company’s didn’t care about them. Only about their commissions. One of the drivers drove for both Uber and Taxify. He thinks that neither care about their drivers but Uber is safer to drive for, allowing drivers to cancel more trips and showing whether the pickup is a cash pickup or not. I did my first cash trip today when the driver was panicked about not having enough petrol to get back from dropping me at the airport. We spoke about kasi boys and kasi girls, he said he didn’t think he wanted a relationship with a kasi girl and said thank you for not judging him. I told him I don’t have enough energy to judge that type of thing. I suppose there is an advantage to having been so sick.

It’s half-time in the rugby now and I remember my dad commenting on how he preferred the much shorter interval in rugby compared to soccer.

And that’s some rambles done 🙂

Love and rambling,

Trisha

I breathed a camera up my nose, what did you do today?

Hello blog,

As I said yesterday living with sick is generally unpleasant. Sometimes parts of the diagnostic process can be interesting…like having an Otorhinolaryngologist play a piano tuning fork on various parts of your head to test your hearing. Other parts like them sending a camera through your nostril and down your throat are way less fun, even though they can be interesting albeit gross.

This was the second time that I had a camera through my nose. This is a completely conscious procedure and is about as pleasant as it sounds, especially without any local anaesthetic. The first time that I had this procedure was last year before my thyroidectomy and it was less intense, I think because my body did not know what to expect.

Today when Dr Neels van Schalkwyk said that he needed to do a nasoendoscopy I responded with dread, because I remember how unpleasant it was. Last year was the first time that my curiosity did not triumph over discomfort where the doctor offered to explain what he saw through the scope. The net result of this was an interesting manifestation of an anxiety attack (made more challenging by battling to breathe through my nose. My go to trick is slow mouth breathing when I get an anxiety attack) so I needed to breathe through my nose with tears streaming from my ears.

But the good news is that it looks like I have a diagnosis for the persistent ear and throat infections. Or rather, I have two (what can I say, I am an overachiever when it comes to these things). The persistent earaches are the result of something called Costen syndrome which is strongly linked to anxiety. And the persistent throat infections are the result of asymptomatic reflux. So some extra meds to the morning cocktail and hopefully that will be under control as well.

Hopefully next week will be much less health related stuff and more fun things.

Love and diagnosis,
Trisha

Snippets that I don’t want to throw away

Hello Blog,

This is a snippet that has been living in my drafts folder since January and I don’t want to throw it away. It does not have a clear beginning and conclusion. But I think that the snippet has enough worth to stand on its own:

Terry Pratchett once wrote that it is the dream that we can go back and tell our younger selves what we know now and then act with the knowledge and wisdom that we have acquired. Being, Terry Pratchett, he of course takes it a step further and reminds us that who we are then bares very little resemblance to who we are when we are older, because you then are in fact a tit, who needs all of the stuff ahead of you to happen to you in order to become who you are in the present.

One of my friends relayed a parenting theory to me that in the three weeks before and after a child’s birthday they are more emotionally charged than usual. And, when we discussed it made sense to me, and it reminded me that as much as I don’t make a huge fuss about birthdays (although that is changing, and I am seeing them as a reason to celebrate existence simply because we exist) I do tend to go through a little bit of a stock-taking exercise each year around them. (I definitely did stock taking before entering in my thirties, and I am pleased to say that I find my thirties to be the most enjoyable decade yet, the one where I am happier with who I am, and more confident in being my true self, rather than the self that I think the world would like more, and discovering that the world likes me plenty enough as I am, and those who don’t, don’t. And it is okay that not everyone likes me. )

Love and incomplete posts,
Trisha

Women who have shaped me

Hello Blog,

Over the past little while I have spent a bit of time reflecting of what has gone into the cauldron that has shaped me. Specifically, the women who are not necessarily close to me, who don’t know me, but who have shaped my views*. Last week Saturday I went to an evening function and needed to choose an outfit. One of the outfit’s that I tried on, was a form fitting beaded black dress, and while I was looking at my reflection and tucking in my tummy, the thought crossed my mind: “Venus de Milo, didn’t tuck in her tummy, and I don’t’ have to”. This thought allowed me to shift my mindset and acknowledge that the dress was very pretty. (I chose to wear slacks and a different pretty blouse, but I did not feel ugly or fat when I was wearing the beaded dress). I credit my shift in mindset of becoming a kinder, more gentle person to myself to a number of woman who I don’t have a reciprocal relationship* with but who have collectively broken through a societal narrative that beauty falls within a very narrow ambit.

The women and the messages that I have specifically, been thinking of are (in no particular order):

Amanda Palmer, from whom I have taken the message to live authentically as myself, knowing that not everyone is going to like you but that you will still be safe in your tribe. (I think the words of the Ukulele Anthem are words to live by)
Marian Call, on embracing my geekiness, and whose song “I’ll Still Be A Geek After Nobody Thinks It’s Chic” often pull me back to myself
Kim Boekbinder, who has in little ways reminded me to believe in myself. She is not a hugely famous rockstar, (yet), but a fiercely independent soul whose art (both music and words) has helped me heal myself in ways that I cannot quite describe, nor know that I needed to be healed.
Samantha Smith, on embracing my “inner bitch”, and not being afraid to be assertive when I need to be. This was the most recent piece of the puzzle for me, and I have become a much happier person, for not believing that I need to be nice the whole time. (I was lucky enough to meet her when I went to a Supernatural Convention in San Francisco last December and she was an amazing person).
Karen Walrond, who inspired me to look for the light when I was experiencing a major depressive episode and whose insights I collect and they pop out of my head at the most opportune moments.
Jennifer Lawson, the Bloggess, who lives openly with an autoimmune disease and some mental health issues, and probably helped me handle last year’s brush with Hashimoto’s better than I would otherwise have, and who gifted the world and me with the mantra #depressionlies.

These are some of the woman who have helped me become who I am, and who I am incredibly grateful to.

Love and reflections,
Trisha

*There is an entirely different collection of people who do know me and who have also put a lot of ingredients into the cauldron of who I am, but this post is not about them…it is about the people who I don’t have a two-sided relationship with.

Keeping Track in 2018

Hello World,

2018 seems to be flying by. Towards the end of last year I created a an excel workbook of things that I wanted to do in the coming year fully aware that I might not get half of them done. One of these sheets includes books that I am planning on reading for my professional development (I have a separate shelf in my bookshelf for some history books that I want to read as well).

Part of me is a bit concerned that I am rushing ahead at too fast a pace, that I will need to recalibrate things. But I think it is a case that I should rather just track things and stretch and try and figure things as I go along as well. There is no pressure to knock every item off the list, it is a stretch goal. Perhaps, I will do it slow and sporadically with big things every once in a while but I am trying to be consistent and get the things that matter more sorted.

It is also useful to keep track of where things that seem unproductive get done, for example I needed to have someone come and measure part of my ceiling to come and replace it where it got water damaged from a leaking geyser. All of the little admin that takes time that just needs to get done.

With every goal on the spreadsheet I set out a criteria for evaluating completeness, which was surprisingly difficult to do. And then I played around with some conditional formatting so that when I mark the items as complete with a Y, the rows turn green.

There are a total of 44 things to get done on the list which I broadly categorised as administrative, personal, professional, creative and health goals. There are 42 books that I want to read. I have only completed the one, the Sketchnote handbook and I will post some notes about it in the near future, but it has changed my way of notetaking completely.

In addition to the main sheet which keeps track of the overall goals, I have created a summary sheet and so far I have been adding weekly sheets with a bit of planning on them as well. I think that being able to see everything that I need to do (and add in additional bits) is helping me figure out where I am and what I am getting done. A lot of what I do is repetitive administrative tasks and because you only really see the results if they are not done rather than the results of the work being done I think this is a way of re-assuring myself that my invisible work matters.

Okay, enough rambling.

Love and plans,
Trisha

New Year’s Day Technical Trouble: Fixing the White Screen of Death caused by WordFence

Hello Blog,

On New Year’s I decided to write my new year’s wish, and when I came to visit my site it gave me the white screen of death (WSOD). (For the blessedly uninitiated, the white screen of death refers to the empty browser window filled with white instead of your WordPress installation). My reaction was along the line of: “Seriously! Exactly two years ago my site was down like this. I am through with [REDACTED hosting company name]”. New Year’s day is a difficult day for me, being the anniversary of my dad’s death. But, unlike two years ago I felt that I could do my own technical support. I settled in to fix my blog. Step zero was making a complete backup of the server.

My first port of call was to start a technical support chat with the hosting company’s technical support. (Based on issues I have had along the way with them I was not entirely unconvinced that they had messed up. Spoiler: they hadn’t) So, the helpful guy on the other end of the chat had a quick look and came back with the verdict that it looked like WordFence was causing issues on my site.

It is definitely prudent to run a Web Application Firewall (WAF) on any WordPress site at the moment, but I admit my frustration that my site’s downtime was caused by the very thing that is meant to protect it. I have neither reached out to WordFence, nor looked through their documentation, in order to see whether I was just particularly unlucky or there is a known issue that was causing the particular crash.

Once I established that WordFence was the issue I went into my cPanel (you can just as easily do it through an FTP client) and began renaming the plugin folder. This gave me some progress, instead of getting a WSOD I instead got the error message:

Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0 
Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0 
Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required '*/wordfence-waf.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/usr/share/pear') in Unknown on line 0

This meant that I had something to Google which led me to find that WordFence adds some php to the user.ini file, and that I needed to delete:
php_value auto_prepend_file '/home/public_html/wordfence-waf.php'

from it. Thank you to wfasa for her reply on a ticket in the WordPress.org support thread which allowed me to figure this out.

That should have taken care of the initial error, but when I tried to access my site again (even after clearing my browser’s cache) I got that same error. Between myself and the support agent, we figured that W3TC might be presenting the cached error messages instead of the site. And so, next step in this mission was to disable W3TC without having access to the /wp-admin dashboard.

This was where things got slightly more technical. Firstly, because I needed access to the .htaccess file I needed to change my control panel’s settings to view hidden files. My Google-fu took me to a helpful post by Journal Xtra on how to remove W3TC manually. I was battling to get his fix to work with my wp-config.php permission set to 755 so I decreased the permissions to 644 (I don’t have sufficient server side knowledge to know if this was a bizarre quirk, something related to the cPanel issues I was having due to my Firefox preferences of opening links in a new tab (eventually I was doing the technical things in Chrome), or something unrelated that got tweaked along the way). After permissions were set to 644 and I had deleted:

w3-total-cache-config.php
db.php
advanced-cache.php

I edited my .htaccess to remove the blocks of code inserted by both WordFence and W3TC. This was made easy and stress free by the fact that I had done a complete backup of the files on the server before I started tinkering and that the code inserted into the .htaccess by both plugins was clearly commented out.

Finally, when I refreshed my site and was greeted by my WordPress installation. I then eventually, hours after I had planned to was able to write my post).

[Sidenote: When I rename files or folders like this I literally append _renamed to the folder or file because it changes the path and makes it super easy to find what you have changed. When you are doing this type of thing you really should keep track of what you are changing for two reasons, one so you can replicate the fix in the future and two so you can undo the fix in the present if you mess something up. ]

Love and fixing my own stuff,
Trisha