completely forgot

I completely forgot I had a new desk coming to me via Coupang yesterday. Anticipating that the desk would be heavy, I had told the Coupang people to drop the desk off by my door instead of at the lobby, where I usually get my deliveries. Of course, the desk got dropped off at the lobby, along with a message politely saying I could take it up to my room myself. 

Grumbling, I went to the lobby and dragged the desk over to the elevators, got to the 14th floor, then dragged the desk to my hallway, where I lifted the thing up to carry it quietly the final few yards so as not to disturb my neighbors. The box containing the desk was heavy, and of course, I'm dealing with a bad shoulder, so that didn't help matters. On top of that, a door in my hallway popped open, and some women came out, then just stood there stupidly as I tried to keep the desk aloft while they figured out what they were doing (I have a superstition that Koreans are always conspiring to get in my way; this seems to happen so reliably—the cutting in line, the sudden swerves and U-turns, the random-seeming stops, the total unconcern for others). They finally got into motion and squeezed around me, muttering inaudible politenesses, and I made it to my door, right shoulder aching.

It was already late Friday evening, so I knew I wouldn't be working on the new desk until the next day. Tired, I canceled my Friday-evening walk and decided the Saturday walk would be a less-ambitious schlep down to Bundang (instead of Jungnang Creek), followed by desk-work once I got back. And that's where things stand now. I need to clear all the crap off my current creaky-as-hell desk, disassemble it, put it outside in the hallway, assemble my new desk, put it in place, put my crap on it, then take the disassembled remains of the old desk downstairs to our building's B1 drop-off point and give it a final salute.

I had gotten my current creaky desk from a friend who worked at Sookmyung Women's University. This must've been back around 2015, when I first moved into my current building. My friend made me aware the desk was in rough shape, but at the time, I was desperate for anything approaching real furniture; I think he gave it to me for free (remember: you get what you pay for). For years, I lived with the desk's creaky frame, but I never quite got used to it. Finally, this year, now that I have some money, I decided the time had come to improve my situation ever so slightly by getting myself a new desk. And here we are.

I'm also planning to get a chair worthy of the new desk, but to be honest, I'm quite comfortable with the el-cheapo setup I currently have, which amounts to a pair of tough folding chairs from Costco—W17,000 each at the time I bought them, i.e., barely $15. So the chair thing isn't urgent; I might wait until later in the year to get one.

And now, I'm off to do my walk, and I'll be back this evening to work on the new desk, throw out the old desk, and maybe take some pictures of the process because I know there's nothing more exciting than watching desks getting swapped out. So stay tuned.