dark path

If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will...

Yoda to Luke, SW Episode V

I think it is fairly clear that, as it relates to my life, this prophecy is definitely about coffee.

Yes.

I started drinking coffee when I was in high school and had grown tired of drinking soda and even lemonade at work. Once I developed a taste for it with lots of cream and sugar (liking it black came later), I adopted it in its traditional role as a tool for students. I was young and my body handled the abuse pretty well, as far as I can remember. Once I even stayed awake for 46 hours straight (though at that time I also employed instant iced tea: yikes)! Gradually, over the past dozen years or so, it has become both a tool and a pleasure, and, since college (or so), a stumbling block.

I think about coffee daily, many times daily, over and over. Why? I think I like it. I think I need it. I think it will help me. On the other hand, I think I don't like it. I think I need to stay away from it. I think it will make things worse. Daily I decide, exhaustively, over and over, if I will have it or not. I make rules about how much to have, how often. Then I decide over and over again how to follow them, to what extent.

See, for me, there is no "I'll just have one cup of coffee per morning". That doesn't work for me. If I'm going to drink it and feel ok, I need a little more than yesterday. Each day, a little more, or it doesn't reach the point of being enjoyable and feeling normal. I quickly start to get to where I feel bad if I don't have any, in all kinds of ways, and as the threshold of "enough" coffee creeps higher, drinking that much makes me feel unwell too. Furthermore, I lose the ability to tell if I'm tired or just behind on my caffeine intake. I feel confused and grouchy and, often, in physical pain.

Then, withdrawal. Ouch ouch ouch.

So yes, coffee is a powerful force in my world. I am easily drawn in to the shadows and illusions that it generates. Happiness? Yes. Feeling of being not tired? Thanks, coffee.

I think it's safe to say that I spend a lot more energy on this drink than any drink really deserves.

I know there are people who stumble to the coffee in the morning, drink their cup(s), and are then ready for the day. They are at peace, and even happy, with their habit. Maybe that will be me some day, but now, it is not. I have trouble even isolating what the variables are, especially now that I figured out that drinking coffee makes me groggy the next day. Seriously! How does that help?

Another problem is that coffee doesn't always seem to help me like it generally used to. Or at least, sometimes it doesn't make me happy. Instead it makes me edgy, and then really grouchy when it wears off. But only sometimes.

Why does it have to be so confusing?

This had gotten so bothersome in the past week or so, that I seriously considered calling it quits. No complicated rules about "I can have a moderate amount once every third day" or whatever. Just no coffee. Would it help? Or is coffee really good for me, as I used to think (sometimes) and as some studies seem to show?

But now that I like it again, maybe I won't entirely quite after all. Maybe I'll work my way back to one of my complicated schedules.

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with myself.

Noise.

Lately, I feel like I can't get away from noise. It's everywhere; it seems like everything in my life is so loud, at work, at home, in between. Even things I like, that I would never want to get rid of, are kind of loud. And there is always some kind of sound around. Usually, there are many.

Today, during a break at work, I took a short rest in the marketing storage room, one of the quietest places in my life. I could still hear the noises of the building and the city, though they were muted, and also a loud ringing that seemed to be in my ears that I'd never noticed before. Is it always there? Is it always there when it's less loud than usual? I don't even know.

In the past few weeks I've been especially struck by how loud cars are! I haven't thought about it much before, maybe because I've always been around cars. But man! Those things are loud, and dirty.

Then there is another kind of noise: the noise of facebook. How I love facebook, which has gotten me in touch with so many people.....kind of. It is such a strange medium, facebook. I want to look at it and think that I am keeping up with people I care about, but I can't remember all I read, and afterward my brain has this splintered, unfocused feeling. And then, I go back to do it again, very soon. What if someone gets engaged, and I miss it? Does anybody else have this experience with facebook? It's so wonderful and strange a thing.

And of course I make my own noise, mental noise: over-thinking noise, or being irritated noise, or being confused noise. Not always, but much more than never.

These are just some examples. I feel like it's wearing me out, in some way. I really think I'd like some quiet. Outer quiet and inner quiet. I don't know where to find it, though, in the middle of the city. Or anywhere else. I imagine the wild has its noisiness, too, what with rustling leaves and chirping bugs and other lovely things like that.

It sure would be nice to stumble across an empty concert hall right now. I'd love to sit there, still and quiet for for some time, and then, perhaps, get out my tuba and play some long tones and other nice things.

poetry

I was remembering:
I used to come up with poems, while walking.
I can't even remember why I stopped
or when.
Is it my blunted memory,
no longer powerful enough
to remember the lines?
Is it the noise,
the roar of the city
and the clutter in my mind,
and the infinite distractions
carefully crafted
by marketers of every kind?
Or maybe my life is insufficiently tragic
for poetry
now that I am happily married.

Did I write a poem today?


Well.

If so, it is not a very good one.


Maybe the problem is that I know I don't have the time to properly edit them and want to spare myself the pain of poor poems!

People on the phone are crazy!

Where I work, I answer the main phone line. Often the callers behave in ways that make no sense to me. Sometimes they are are all weird in oddly consistent ways, too! I find it surprising and interesting, because I guess I'm secretly a psychologist of some sort.

Here's an example. When they ask for a something that’s handled out of our corporate headquarters, such as warehouse space or human resources, I always say, "That’s handled out of corporate headquarters in Eden Prairie, would you like the number?" and they always say, "No. Could you give me the number?" It’s so weird! It’s like my mouth isn’t saying what I think it’s saying, or it’s impossible for everyone to hear me say that because it’s just so unexpected, or something! (Does that ever happen to you?)

I don’t really mind. I just think it's so odd! I'm surprised every time (though I guess I should be used to it) and sometimes I have to restrain myself from saying something like, "I just offered to give it to you and you said no!" Instead I just say, "Of course, it is: " because that is my job. And then I chuckle to myself, because that is what I do.