Day 280: I’d Rather Only Have Good Problems [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. I don’t want you stalking anyone tonight! Okay fine, have it your way. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m…going outside…to buy…some pornography. It’s Friday, June 25th, Twenty21. The weather in Queens is 79˚ & Pantone 15-3919 and somewhere, somebody is working. What they’re supposed to be doing, they have no clue. They were just given an apron and told good luck. But why would they need an apron for an office job? Are they actually the janitor? Or the lunchperson? Was it some sort of weird welcoming gift? Is it a sanitary thing? Are all the glasses and mugs cracked and it was easier to just buy aprons and coasters? What’s their job again? Little do they know, they just accepted a position as an apron salesperson. And me? I’d rather be a bib salesman. That seems like a much easier spin. I also have some things on my mind.

– I got a new computer yesterday. While that doesn’t seem like a big deal, I’m going to make a big deal out of it. I’ll probably write articles in the future about it. Fact of the matter is, it was long overdue. My iMac was a first generation aluminum. The motherfucker lasted 14 years. When I got it, I wasn’t old enough to drink. George W. was still president. I still thought I could get street cred for listening to early Modest Mouse. I didn’t even wear ties yet. I had an emo haircut. I smoked Kool XLs. I still got Ween and Winger mixed up. Youtube was barely even a thing. There was no Gmail or Twitter. Facebook was just opening up to the Townies. That computer is an artifact from a bygone era and it’s some kind of miracle that it just recently died. Although in its twilight years, it didn’t get much use. It was spiritually replaced by a Macbook. But even that thing was from 2008. I had acquired it from someone as part of a debt payment on plane tickets to Japan. And you know what? The thing still runs. I kind of wonder if this new computer will see the apocalypse. Or maybe Apple decided to start building machines that break. Neither would surprise me.

– In speaking of Japan, time zones freak me out. The computer came from Shanghai, but it had a pit stop in Narita. When it left Narita, it was after Midnight the next day. It took a short flight into Anchorage and it landed earlier in the afternoon of the present day. Like, I know the dateline is a thing that exists, but it’s really freaky to see it in action. Because consider this: my computer was deep in Japan at 12:45 AM and it arrived at my doorstep in NY at 11 AM. In between, it had lengthy stops in Alaska and Kentucky. But technically speaking, it only travelled for 10 linear hours. It just took over 24 to actually get there. Time makes no sense. Also, how am I getting a 20 pound computer from Japan in 24 hours and yet it takes a week to send a birthday card to Michigan? These are the real questions.

– Surprise, all these thoughts are computer-related! The thing came in a big box [naturally], so I laid it out to see what willy would want to do with it. At some point, the thing turned upside-down, so he’s just been using it as a sitting platform.

What can I say? The dude loves him a cardboard surface. Whenever theres a new box, he usually prefers to just sit on top of it. He’d rather not be enclosed, he just loves the feel of it on his belly. Which makes me wonder: maybe Willy was a break dancer in his past life? At this point, it seems very fucking likely.

– Now that I have a computer that isn’t slower than molasses, I figured it was time to do some digital house cleaning. In many ways, the WordPress app is garbage. I can’t single-space, adding links is a horrendous pain and every time I make a post, it defaults the author to Baseball For Dinner, with no option to change it. So I had to go in and manually change the authors of hundreds of posts. The process was tedious, but it really made me think. This may take forever, but it took way, way longer to create the content. I never thought I would be in a position where I had so much finished writing that it would take an anger-inducing amount of time to properly catalog it. That’s an extremely good problem to have. I can’t lie, I consider myself to be an extremely fortunate person. But yet, I always feel like I’m having some sort of problem. I wish I could find a way to pivot all of them into good problems. Like last night, we were stuck in traffic on the BQE. I was hungry and had to pee badly. On the flip side, I have the privilege to drive my wonderful wife home from work every night so she doesn’t have to take the slow and dangerous train after hours. Also, we were on our way to Taco Bell and I was well-hydrated. If you ask me, being stuck in traffic while squirming and holding your crotch could be a good problem to have! I really should start flipping these problems more often…

– Try this trick over the weekend. Discover a problem. Then try to make it a good problem to have. I don’t care if you solve the problem or not, I just want you to think positive.

Have an optimistic weekend, everyone!

– TeeCoZee