Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Already great and wonderful

My aunt and uncle are moving to a new apartment soon. For the first time in nearly three decades, they will have a proper living room (proper, as the British like to say). And a living room deserves the single best furniture in a home that isn’t the bed: a super comfortable couch.

Is there a better feeling than plopping down on a couch after a long day at work? I don’t think so. Even in this tiny studio apartment of mine, I bought a chaise lounger because the relaxation of laying down is that important to me. As much as I prefer the Japanese aesthetic of limited furniture and floor-based seating, the West got it correct: a large couch is where it is at.

This sort of comfort used to be the domain of kings and aristocracy. Nowadays, any common man can afford a couch with bit of saving. Perhaps it’s incorrect to compare timelines this far apart, but truly, the middle class of today live a life better than monarchs of old. Emperors of China wouldn’t even be able to comprehend luxuries like flushing toilets, and on-demand hot water. He did have a comfy dragon throne to sit on, though…

I think these sort of comparisons are an important exercise to keep us in perspective. Sure it may be worthwhile to keep chasing the better next, but what we already have - the most basic of modern living standards like regularly scheduled garbage disposal - is pretty great and wonderful.

That’s home.

I guess I'll lie down

I had planned to exercise after work today. But I woke up this morning with a super cranky right shoulder. It’s bad enough that I can’t comfortably turn my head rightward, and wearing a backpack actually hurts. Guess what? That means moving a kettlebell around is not going to fly, nor is doing pull-ups. No workout today. I’m not that enthused about it, honestly.

Alas, I am getting to that age (mid 30s) where ailments like that just happen. I’d go to bed with zero pain anywhere and then wake up with a body part gone awry. It can’t possibly be the mattress, because I paid a pretty penny for a quality one about a year ago. Perhaps during sleep I am dreaming something violent happening to me, and it’s transferred over to real life.

Good thing I bought a couch this year! Indeed, every home needs a properly good couch. Lounging around - especially when parts of your body isn’t feeling to great - is the best thing. Watching YouTube on the big TV in couch mode is the only way to enjoy hours of Korean language programming. Of course, you should definitely pay for YouTube Premium. Because adverts in videos are obnoxious. It’s one those things in life where it’s good to throw money at the problem. The quality-of-life increase with YouTube Premium is worth the monthly expense.

My friends are definitely tired of me saying, “Ads? On YouTube?” every time I watch on their TV or computers. I’m simply not used to seeing ad rolls before and during the video. I’m too lazy to even click the skip button using the TV remote. When I’m on the couch, I am on the couch: totally vegged out, not wanting to move any more than necessary.

Because my right shoulder is hurting.

Dense melon.

I got a couch

Recently I finally bought a couch for my studio space - after over two years of first moving in. FYI: the inflation crisis have reached the furniture space as well. I had no idea simple armchairs are so expensive. Even the vaunted IKEA value pricing cannot salve the situation. You’re looking at $400 starting for a typical chair. Get additive like I did - I bought a chaise-style lounge chair with side armrests - and the final bill was over $900. This thing had better last a very long time.

The primary reason for getting the chaise is so I can relax in front of the television. Now that I’ve converted to sitting on the floor for my office/workstation desk, I need an actual chair for entertainment watching (I no longer have an office chair). It is indeed nice to be able to lounge on a fat couch after a hard day’s work, or on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Perhaps I can even take a nap! I loathe to get in bed without first showering, so I could never take naps on my actual bed. I realize most other folks don’t have such quirky idiosyncrasy.

A comfy couch does introduce a new problem: utter laziness. Soon as I collapse into the chaise’s warm embrace, I really don’t want to get out of it. Just this past week alone, I missed two days of morning writing, simply because I lounged on the chair first to drink the morning coffee. It’s too easy to zone out and be lackadaisical. Which is why I’m typing this out right now, on a Saturday - got to make up for the missed days!

I think the strategy going forward is to only be on the couch after I’ve done the day’s work. The enjoyment of doing nothing should only come after having done something. There should be no reward without first the work!

Grayscale.