I’d Rather Be Thirsty & Unscathed [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Would you mind hanging my coat up on the wall, please? Ahaha. Relax, Homer, at Globex, we don’t believe in walls. In fact, I’m wearing nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all! It’s Friday, February 28, Twenty-Twenty. The weather in Brooklyn is 40° & Pantone 285 and somewhere, somebody is playing a game of cat and mouse. Whether they are cat or mouse is up to the eye of the beholder. And who is the beholder? The beholder is the owner of the cat. Or maybe they own the mouse. So is this person owned by the beholder? Who’s really beholding what? And me? I’m not beholding shit. The cat is falling asleep and the mouse left town months ago. Also, the game is called Life. And I have some things on my mind…

– I have a weird relationship with my cat. I am wholly convinced that he hates my guts, as he has never done anything to suggest otherwise. He never lets me touch him, he never thanks me for feeding him or changing his litter, he always scratches my feet & never my back and he has an affinity for leaping at me from the top of his tower in the dead of night. He straight up doesn’t care for my existence. Despite this, he sleeps in my spot on the couch at night. Then after I wake up, he goes to sleep all day in my spot in bed. Rachel thinks this is endearing, but I see through his smokescreen. He does this because he knows that I’ll eventually try to make him move, pinning me as the bad guy every time. He just loves making me feel guilty.

Today, he was particularly angry at me after an impromptu photo sesh. I couldn’t help myself. He looked too damn cute and my camera is too damn good to let the moment pass.

10 seconds after taking this photo, he jumped and hissed at me. Then he proceeded to block entry to the bedroom, a total impasse lest my feet be clawed to a bloody pulp. He seemed to know that I forgot to take my meds today and now in order to do so, I’d have to pay the toll. But that’s fine. I’m cool with waiting. I’d rather be depressed than bleeding. Eventually, the passive stare down ended and he resigned to the bed. I took my meds, cracked open an ice cold Budweiser and watched some TV. But as soon as I heard the “Dun-Dun” to signify the starting of Law or Order or maybe Both, I knew I would have to go to the bedroom to watch the Dodger game and attempt writing. So I moved the Budweiser and the laptop and my body and tried to “get to it”. But of course, Will is firmly placed in my spot. Instead, I sat at the edge of the bed, hoping he would move, but nope, nothing, he’s comfortable, I’m screwed. After an hour, this is still the situation:

Clearly, he has no intention of ever moving. This is his world and I’m just living in it. And damnit, I’m so thirsty. There’s nothing that I want more than a gulp of some lukewarm brew. That’s his beer now. I’m going to have to get my own. And then it got worse:

I am never going to be able to drink again. If I make any move towards him, he’s going to wake up in a blind fury. I’d rather be thirsty and unscathed. And I know what you’re thinking. “Coze, why don’t you just get out of bed, grab your beer and sit on Rachel’s side of the bed?” Clearly, you don’t know anything about beds. Her side is hot lava, dummy!

– The New York State Plastic Bag Ban starts on Sunday and hoo boy, I am not looking forward to this crap. It was not very publicized until maybe a week ago and let’s be frank, nobody reads signs. So come Sunday, everybody in the city is going to be blindsided. People are going to be angry. People are going to yell. People are not going to accept it. Bodegas will be giving them out under the table to bag the customer’s Virginia-stamped cigarettes. It’s going to S U C K.

And I know a lot of people think that statement is crazy [here’s looking at you, affluent liberals], but what you don’t understand is how crazy some people are. I’m not saying everybody does, but there’s a definite crowd of New Yorkers that fucking love plastic bags. They put candy bars in them. They’ll use them for a greeting card. They drink beverages out of them. They are people that feel that they are entitled to a plastic bag whenever they buy something and anything less feels like a complete ripoff. I’ve had customers get very nasty with me for assuming that they didn’t want their single banana in a bag. A person once made me triple bag a 20oz Coca Cola Classic because it was raining.

And let’s talk about the rain. It happens a lot here. And when it does, it ruins paper bags. So if you want to make an impulse purchase on a rainy day [as many New Yorkers do] and don’t have your own bag, you are essentially shit out of luck. And you may argue that there’s already bans in other weather-prone areas like Massachusetts and Chicago and to that, I say, “fine”. I suppose if I was in Connecticut and I wanted to buy a book in the rain, I would have to protect that book from the elements…all the way to my car. You don’t have that luxury in New York. If I’m in an area where I’m shopping, chances are I am not close to home and I surely didn’t drive there. I’m going to have to walk that object for a long distance to the train station, where it’s still not safe from wet surfaces and dripping umbrellas. And then I would have to carry it again from the train to my home. When it’s all said and done, that book is straight up ruined. Chances are, I’m just going to buy the book online and save the hassle. The plastic bag ban is going to be good for the environment, but it’s going to be bad for commerce and catastrophic for small business that rely on impulse buys. I think an outright ban is rather bullheaded for a commuting city like this one. A fee would have been a much more suitable step. You know, like the fee that’s being imposed on paper bags.

Oh, you didn’t know that? Yep. There’s a 5 cent fee on every paper bag. And if you’re buying groceries, you’ll probably want it double bagged, so that’s 10 cents. But as a purveyor of prepared foods, I’ll also be forced to charge 5 cents for every soup that gets bagged. And then I assume that fast food restaurants will have to do the same thing. That’s a shitload of nickels and it’s going to add up very, very quickly. There are 8.263 million people in NYC. Let’s assume that every resident averages 3 paper bags a week, which I feel like is a fair assessment. That would make $64.451 million per year for…hmm…wait, who is this money even going to? Does anybody actually know? “The Government”? I guarantee that in 5 years, the Subway will still be a mess, the roads will be broken, there will still be trash and rats everywhere, the schools will be underfunded, the parks will be destitute, and in Albany, they’ll still be trying to figure out a budget crisis. Because there is absolutely no transparency or accountability on where all these nickels are going.

In summary, I’m willing to bet that I will encounter at least 10 people this week trying to stuff all of their groceries inside of produce bags. This is gonna be a whole ass mess…

– The other day, Zach wrote a startlingly true piece about the thought process and learning to forgive yourself for being unproductive. It hit way too close to home. While he’s striving to post something every single day, I still struggle to get something out once a week. And when it doesn’t happen, my self-image takes a huge hit. I may have been really busy or even out of town, but in my eyes I am a worthless piece of shit for not producing anything. Then it makes me reflect on my previous work in a negative light and I convince myself that writing isn’t even worth my time. “Look, this one only got 3 hits. This other one is just about pooping. What am I even doing with my life?” And then these thoughts get cemented and I end up not writing for months at a time. When I come back, it’s rusty and I don’t know what to say. The whole thing feels like a pointless grind. But then after trying and trying, I’ll eventually get back in the zone and I’ll wonder what I was even afraid of in the first place. And then I’ll eventually have an off-week and the terrible cycle will happen all over again. It’s something that I’m still learning to deal with and break out of. But for now, I have to keep chugging along and never looking back. If I stop, this bike will surely fall over and all of the random objects that I had purchased throughout the day will fall out of my arms and topple into the streets.

– Rachel told me to write about belly buttons, so I guess I have to do that. They’re really weird and I’m glad that mine is currently normal. Belly buttons could easily go wrong. I’ve seen some nasty shit in my day. Just think about it. The navel is an alcove that goes nowhere, located in a spot that gathers a lot of sweat and detritus throughout the day. And yet, nobody finds them disgusting. Some people even do shots of liquor out of them. But not me. Those things are a hotbed of fungi and bacteria. You’re better off sucking toes. At least there’s no crevasses in there.

– Try this trick over the weekend: wash your bellybutton, damnit! You have no idea what could be in there!

Have a hygienic weekend, everyone!

– TeeCoZee