Wednesday, May 15

 Woke up at 7 without alarm. It was raining outside. I picked up an umbrella and headed to the train. The train was not too crowded, maybe more hybrid folks stayed home cause of the rain today? I read somewhere later that before COVID 5M people were riding the subway daily. A couple of years ago it was under 3M. This year about 4M – still well under before the pandemic. I read Maslowska’s “War” on the train. Magda, Angela, and now Natasha got in his place; Natasha is a crook, it seems.

In the office by 9. No meetings were scheduled, and not many people around. Except Paula – she’s back, running meetings all day; so I listened to a lot of music. Turned out Wax is Shed. Wax is his creative pseudonym, among others. But Shed is Rene Pawlowitz from Berlin. Shed’s music was inspiring; so much so that I played with Logic Pro a little bit after work.

For work I read a bunch of pages about AWS SES, that is email sending service. Learned about DKIM – that is domain signature for emails. So why does the spam still exist; why do I still receive emails from Amazon about clicking to refund my mistaken expensive purchase? I guess those do not fake the domain anymore – they just look like an authentic email from the company. Domain in email is now somewhat reliable, if it supports DKIM.

Finally, installed CoPilot. I’m late to this game. A bit disappointed at first – it doesn’t exactly read my mind and knows what I wanna do.

By 6:30 I was running to Apple Store to fix the cracked screen on my phone. The guy told me to just upgrade my 5-year-old phone, but I explained that there was no way I was gonna be giving it away – I’m passing this phone to the next generations, kids, grandchildren, etc. Then, he explained, that they actually were gonna replace the screen and not swap the phones as they used to do, and it was not gonna help with the battery life unless I asked to replace the battery too. Then, he told me my battery was probably drained because of all the background app refreshes that I never disable. I got so sleepy – it must be from the second coffee in the afternoon – I thought fuck it, I’ll keep going with the cracked screen. What’s up with Apple Store these days – they just convince you not to pay money.

I thought I’d stop by Trader Joe’s since I was in the hood. Picked up some Ube cookies – they are back on the shelves. Omg I love these cookies! – the cute cashier girl said. Yeah, they just stashed them for a while and didn’t sell anymore, I said. They are seasonal, and now they are back, she explained. What are you listening to in your headphones, she asked. Oh, my, what am I listening. War and scare and blood in faraway countries. A podcast, I say. No one tells me just a track, she says, nobody listens to music anymore. I listen to music all day at work, and a bit tired of it, just now I wanna hear someone’s mumbling. Oh yeah, music at work, do this, rhythmically do that, she plays a robot. She tells me about a track called Kambuforia, it’s cause she likes Kambucha, which is what relaxes. Have a good night, honey, she says. Honey? Is it cause I shaved this morning? Or the cause of my cool long raincoat?

Haha, you look like shit, B says when I get home. She worked from home all day, while outside it was raining pretty much non-stop all day. I definitely looked a bit like a stray dog left alone in the rain. We ate comfy tofu Korean soup with rice for dinner. I love eating Korean soups on rainy days.