Learning to love (monitors) again

In July of 2018, I sold everything in my apartment. “Goodbye, Things” to the Ikea desk, bed, and dresser. Goodbye to the lounge chairs, kitchen table, and all the books on the bookshelf.

I even sold my Apple Cinema Display. I’d had this glorious piece of metal and glass since 2008! It traveled with me from my high school bedroom, to dorms in college and to an off campus house and to a new apartment every year for nearly 10 years.

Every time I placed it on a new desk and plugged in my laptop, it glowed. Every pixel, every time.

But my Osprey Farpoint only had room for my 13″ MacBook. So one morning, a guy in a hoodie showed up at Next lobby in River North, gave me $150, and in turn I gave part of my heart away.

“Goodbye Things,” I thought. “I’ll never buy a monitor again,” I thought. “This 13” laptop is all I’ll ever need,” I thought.

And the laptop has been totally fine. It’s not a huge screen, but it gets the job done. It’s simple having one computer, with no accessories, able to pull up Gmail in Ketchum and in Nong Kiaw and everywhere in between.

Then, last week, the “F” key fell off the laptop.

When we got back to SF, I started using Elizabeth’s bluetooth keyboard. “I might as well hook into her work monitor if I’m using her keyboard,” I thought.

I forgot how wonderful having a widescreen monitor for programming is. I can have the terminal, the code, and the browser all up on one screen without having to context switch.

Who knew keyboards were gateway drugs?

So I got on Letgo yesterday and found somebody selling an LG Curved Widescreen Display. “We’re moving abroad,” he said. Somebody else was selling an Apple Magic Keyboard/Mouse.

I bought it all and spent the afternoon jogging from the ATM to Russian Hill and back.

Before the guy gave me the monitor, he said, “One last hug,” as he squeezed the screen extra tight. His girlfriend looked at him, smiled, and said, “It’s time for it to go.”

I wiped everything down extensively with Wet Ones, placed it on our kitchen table desk, and fell in love.