Just like the 2016 election, I’ve been hacked. Oft have I thought of myself as a formal group decision-making process but now I have the proof! It was a brisk November day (cue the contemplative instrumental music) when I got a text from my aunt. She told me to check out my website (this very one!) because something was wrong. Whenever she went to PatDoesWords.com it was in Chinese. She was doubtful that I had become fluent in Chinese and translated my entire website. Silly aunt, I thought, she must not know how to go to a website correctly. 

I pull up Safari and type in PatDoesWords.com. It had been a few weeks since I posted anything so maybe my sneaky aunt was attempting to trick me into writing an essay and posting it (I wouldn’t put it past her). Once I get to the site (this very one!), I’m stunned. Sure enough, the website I spent months building back in 2017 was in another language. It was a single white page with Chinese text on it. 

Well fuck.  

First, I contact my hosting site. For those who know little about the internet, don’t worry, you probably know more than I do. I did learn some things in the process of building PatDoesWords though. For every website, there’s a hosting site. You buy the domain name from them (for instance, www.patdoeswords.com). It’s like leasing a commercial space. Someone else owns it but it’s basically yours to do what you want. You can slap a bright neon sign on it, install concrete counters, put shiplap on every square inch of wall, and mount a cucumber water dispenser. Whatever. The world is your oyster. Your hosting site is basically your landlord. 

I open up an online chat with tech support from the hosting site. Surely this is some mix-up (they’re fault) that they can easily correct. 

Me: Hey bro my site is fucked. Help?
Smart Person: Yes, I would be happy to help with that. 
Me: ‘Preciate it dude. Shit is really fucked. It’s in Chinese and I don’t think I speak Chinese. 
Smart Person: I’ve run a diagnostic. Your site has been hacked. There are 150 infected files present. We will need to disable your site. Once you’ve cleared the malicious files, we will enable it again. 
Me: Great cool cool. How do I do that?
Smart Person: I can put you in touch with our security team if you’d like. 
Me: (not sure how that helps) Yeah let’s do that shit. YOLO.

-Transfers me to a 3^rd party security company-

Me: Oh hey man yeah my site is fucked. 150 infected files like what the fuck. Help?
A Different Smart Person: Oh yes we can do that easily. In fact, we can locate and remove all infected files, reactive your website, secure it from being hacked in the future, put up firewalls, run scans of malware every few hours, and protect your site for all future generations.
Me: Dude that sounds amazing! You’re the tits. Let’s do that. 
A Different Smart Person: Not a problem. That’ll be $900 yearly.
Me: (spitting out my drink) Puh-scuse me?! 900 American dollars?! Bro I’m already in the red on this website. It don’t make me no money. 
A Different Smart Person: That’s the rate I can offer you at this time. 
Me: Is it possible to do this on my own? I built the site in the first place. It shouldn’t be that difficult. 
A Different Smart Person: Yes, simply remove the infected files. There’s a list of them on your cPanel. Once removed, contact us again, and we’ll enable your site. 
Me: (not knowing what the fuck that means or how to do that) Great, thank you so much.
A Different Smart Person: My pleasure, is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: (nearly panicking at how much I don’t know what I’m doing) Nope I think that’ll be all. 

-End of conversation-

cPanel? Malicious files? Website? Computer? Technology? What does any of this mean? How do I fix this?! 

Breathe Patrick. It’s fine. Just breathe. 

I put a message out on Facebook to see if I have any smart friends. For the record, I have lots of smart friends, however they don’t all know how computers work. Many of my brilliant friends can barely turn on their phones. They’re smart in otherways. 

A few people respond! Yes! Not everyone I know is an idiot! One of my friends from my intern days (Hey Sean!) is a web designer. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to help but he offered to take a look at it. I had another friend offer up her husband (sounds weird…I like it). He apparently did the computer thing and was a pastor and a father to many children and I had never met him before. In classic Patrick fashion, I went with the man I had never met. 

We emailed back and forth about the issue…for weeks. It was during this correspondence that it became clear how much I don’t know about this stuff. Full disclosure: I’m a technophobe. I legitimately fear technology. My tech vocabulary is so limited that I can’t adequately say what’s wrong. It’s like when a toddler can’t tell you their diaper is loaded so they just scream instead. 

By the end of January, I knew 3 things:

1. I don’t know shit
2. Somewhere in the ether there exists a list of all the files that are infected
3. He can’t really help me if I can’t locate that list

Once this settled over me, I pulled another classic Patrick move: I disengaged. It was frustrating and I felt like I was running out of hands to play (poker reference…another thing I know nothing about). Maybe I just needed a break from this. Yeah! A little break would do the trick! I would come back to this problem with a new set of eyes and brand-new ideas. A break! Why didn’t I think of this earlier?!

That ‘break’ from my website woes was just code for wrapping the issue up in a shame bubble and walking away. Every time someone asked me about the blog, that shame bubble grew a little thicker, a little bigger. Here, yet again, was another creative endeavor I started but didn’t complete. I was weak and wasn’t willing to fight for something when it got challenging. I didn’t have passion or purpose. I was lazy, a major loser. 

This is a narrative my silly brain has been repeating over and over since I was in high school, maybe earlier. On most days, I easily poke holes in it. I’ve ample amounts of evidence that debunk the Lazy-Loser-Passionless-Doesn’t-Finish-Shit myth. My higher self knows that. Yet, it’s one of my default stories. It’s like that terrible ‘friend’ you have from middle school that you can’t seem to stop being friends with. Like, Kelly, we’re too old to be getting this drunk on a Tuesday, I don’t like spending time with you, and you just generally suck. And yet, you can’t stop hanging out with Kelly. You hang with Kelly because it’s just what you’ve done since middle school.

Months go by and the shame bubble around PatDoesWords is as thick and shiny as ever. It’s out of sight but not out of mind. One morning I’m having coffee with my mom when we start talking about the different ways people work. She and I have always marveled at highly productive and efficient people. We’re friends with and related to some of these strange creatures. They say they’ll do something and 45 seconds later they actually do it! They don’t sit around for a few weeks thinking about how they’re going to think about doing it. They don’t take their time in planning how they’re going to one day plan to do it. They just do it. It’s baffling to someone who doesn’t work that way (me). 

Mom and I also marvel at people who work a little bit at a time in order to finish a project. Those were the kids in school who started on that paper when it was assigned and chipped away at it every day for two weeks. They came into class on the due date with the darn thing laminated and color-coded. By the way, these are the kids who turn into adults that laminate shit. Maybe you’re one of these people. Props to you. 

These are not genes that run strong in my family. We have a tendency to wait until the 11^thhour (or a few minutes past that). Then we kick it into high gear and crank that paper out the night before it’s due. Fortunately, our anxiety leading up to the 11^thhour has meant we’ve plotted and planned and diagramed that paper in our heads for two weeks. So it kinda flows out of us when we do sit down to work. Six of one, half a dozen of the other as they say. 

So we came to a conclusion: people are either sprinters or marathoners. Sprinters get short bursts of energy where they’re inspired and productive. They can knock out their to-do list in a few hours one morning and then not do shit the rest of the week. Marathoners, on the other hand, are very good at plodding along. They do better when they break up a task over a longer period of time. That to-do list will be spread out over the course of the week.

This concept was a revelation for me. How can I optimize the way in which I work (sprinter)? How do I not beat myself up for not being a marathoner? Are there ways to capitalize on this thing and make me more productive/less stressed/happier? 

The answer is: I think so.

Case and point: I got this mofo-ing website back up and running in two short bursts…with a little drama thrown in the mix. 

I decided I was going to put the shame bubble down and tackle this thing, once and for all. It felt like a burst was upon me, like a thunderstorm of energy and focus was rolling in. I grabbed my stuff and headed to Mecca (Starbucks), got me a sammie and a coffee the size of my leg. This was going to happen. I was determined to figure this thing out, not pay $900, and get myself creating again. My soul was at stake. 

First, I needed to find these damn malicious files. I hopped onto another chat with tech support. The energy of productivity and determination was coursing through my veins. The technician on the other end told me where to find the list. It was literally a one-page document labeled “Malware.” Okay, we’re off to a great start.

I open up the document and it is chaos. My eyes cross as I try to make sense of what I’m looking at. File #1 looks something like: 

MyWebsite/BigscreenTV/ColorPixels/blahblahblah.php.

Okay we can do this. Let’s start at the My Websitefolder. Sure enough, once open, there’s another folder named Big Screen TV. Great! I open that to discover a bunch of other folders, one of which was named Color Pixels. Yes! There in Color Pixels, I see a little file named blahblahblah.php. It was like one of those Russian dolls that open to reveal another damn Russian doll. I highlight blahblahblah.phpand select delete. Boom! He was gone. Holy crap, I thought, I might be able to pull this off!

I continue attacking each and every one of those naughty files. I delete those bastards with a merciless joy. I was in the zone. This burst was taking me for the ride of my life. One by one those malicious files went bye-bye. It was incredible. There were a few more chats with tech support for files that were trickier to find. Then came the moment of truth. I asked them to run another scan to see if there were any more bad files. “Sure,” my tech said, “it’ll take a few minutes.” I wait patiently. My burst of energy starts to dissipate. It’s coming to a close. Please god let this work. 

“You are free of malware. I will restore your site. It should be up and running in 20 minutes.” It was the greatest thing anyone ever said to me. I close my laptop and merrily leave Starbucks. My burst had lasted a full two hours which was enough time to fix something that had plagued my heart and spirit for months. It was a Russian-Doll-Christmas miracle. 

That miracle ended the very next morning. 

I woke up the next day ready to blog again. The website was back up so there was nothing in my way. My spirit was charged up and I had a renewed sense of purpose and drive. I fixed something! I, Patrick J. Donohue, do not fix things. I’m not wired that way. I can help others fix things. I can ask for help. As a last resort, I will detonate something that needs fixing and just start over. This time was different though. This time I was a competent human creature and had managed to clear out this Chinese malware and get my shit back up and running. Go. Me. 

I boot up my computer (do people still say that? Is that just a phrase used in late-90’s romcoms? Comment below). My cup of coffee stands nearby ready to celebrate my victory with me. I go to my website just to look at her before I get to writing anything. I type patdoeswords.com. Up pops a completely blank webpage. No Pat. No words. No Chinese. Nothing. It was a hot white screen with nothing on it. My coffee cup was horrified. So was I. 

After the shock, came the panic. What did I do?! I deleted the bad files but maybe I deleted some necessary ones in the process? Was my website gone forever? My beautiful, gorgeous baby I built from the ground up? Was she gone? 

I closed the laptop. It was finished. The feeling was terribly biblical and not in the cute way. I used the previous day’s burst on deleting files and rebooting my site. It was delicious victory at the time. But apparently, I botched it up and I deleted my website off the face of the internet. I took a deep breath as I stared at my computer. Then came the mourning.

A deep grief swept over me. Even though my website had been rendered useless by some unknown robothackerperson on the other side of the world 5 months earlier, it chapped my ass to know that, in trying to fix it, I had inadvertently blown it off the map permanently. My words were safe because I save my essays elsewhere (thank god!) but all my other hard work was gone. During the 5 months that my site was in Chinese, there always remained a glimmer of hope that I could one day fix it. At some point in time I would get the gumption to just pay the $900 because that’s probably what a grownup would do and I’m a grown up now and I’m competent and capable and I’m not a child thankyouverymuch. But now, I had proof that I was decidedly not competent or capable. I was inept and lazy and stupid. The only platform I had to put my work out into the world was now gone because I’m a dummy. I mourned the site and all that it represented. 

That was a rough24 hours. Big Bitch Kelly was having a field day running around in my brain. My sisters even staged an intervention because they heard how distraught I was. We talked on a conference call for about an hour; we laughed and Donohued all over the place. It helped. By the time I went to bed, I felt a little better. It was clear: I was going to have to build another site. I would wait for another burst and start this whole thing over. I was resigned to my circumstance. 

The next morning I set up at my computer. My robe provided my only comfort. The coffee cup sat nearby, symbolizing solace not victory. I took a deep breath. It was time. I had surrendered. 

I went into WordPress, the content management system (CMS) I use for PatDoesWords. If a hosting site is your landlord, then the CMS is the general contractor that builds your fancy cucumber water dispenser or whatever. I was prepared to start rebuilding my fancy water dispenser. I diddled around in my CMS, so to speak, looking for how to erase all remaining files from the previous site so I could start fresh. I was switching back and forth between instructional YouTube videos and WordPress. Not surprisingly, I was confused. I needed to get rid of every last remnant of PatDoesWords 1.0 in order to start a new site. It seemed I couldn’t even do that. I was so inept that I couldn’t even properly obliterate my website. 

I see something that says Reinstall. This was it. Once I clicked this, all fragments of the past would be gone. I would have a clean slate. It all started to feel okay. One last breath. 

Click. 

I did it. Goodbye old dreams, hello new ones.

Wait. 

Hold up.

What the fuck?! 

Something seemed weird. I pull up a separate web browser and type in PatDoesWords.com. Holy fuckballs. My old website is completely restored. It looks exactly like it did prior to the hack. It was the same PatDoesWords 1.0 we all have come to know and love. HOW IN THE FUCKADIDDLY DID I DO THAT?!? I look at my coffee cup. He’s just as dumbfounded as I am. We sit there staring at each other, mouths gaping. Did we just witness a real-life miracle? Did my guardian angel (Paul Walker) restore my website for me? 

I clicked around WordPress and my hosting site. I explored my website from the front end (what you all see). Everything was back to normal. Everything. I was one lucky dude. My coffee cup and I kept glancing at each other and giggling. Life is a trip sometimes. A damn trip. 

In hindsight, I believe what I did was 1) Delete all the bad files, 2) Panic, then 3) Restore a backup of my site that was somehow floating around the internet. Boom. Healthy website restored. God bless technology. Smart People think of everything!

So what’s the lesson? I don’t fucking know, you guys. I just work here. 

But here’s what I’ve gathered so far:

1. Protect the things that you value
2. Don’t let problems fester for 6 months and grow a shame bubble around them
3. If you’re a sprinter, wait until a burst comes on and then milk that thing as much as you can for as long as it’s there, then move along
4. Maybe what they say is true: “If you love something, let it go. If it’s meant to be, then it’ll come back to you because Paul Walker will pull some guardian angel shit on it.”

Side note: you guys must be terribly valuable if Chinese spies are trying to hack this blog you subscribe to. Like, you should feel special. Bravo.