Blind Boys

Late evening on a day showing hints of summer. We’re taking the long way home, on the hilly roads through the old mill town. The top is down, I’m still in my white graduation robe and full of hope, and Dad says, you have to hear this.

Through the switchbacks and up toward home, wind in our hair and the bass socking us in the gut as five voices sing in harmony: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound...

It’s the old southern melody--the one that Creedence used for “The House of the Rising Sun.” It’s the first time I’ve heard it that way. And it’s a revelation. My heart is soaring.

There are certain crystal seconds in our lives that speak volumes about time and place and love, carried through the years, cradled deep within us. This is one of mine.

That was my introduction to the Blind Boys of Alabama. Who sang “Amazing Grace” last night when we took Dad to see them, of course, and brought that drive to the top of my mind. Dad doesn’t remember it--why is it we never latch on to the same moments?--but he loved the show, and it was a good way to all be together with the music. And for me to remember...

All of which to introduce: pics!

On Coffee

I was slogging through my bottomless RSS backlog a few nights ago when I came across this mug, linked from an explodingdog update.

It’s an attractive object, but I’m writing about it now because I responded to it on a deeper level than that. Remove “this” from the tagline to get “Coffee will change your life”, and I go: YES.

After that I started thinking...does it? How? And am I okay with that?

There are the usual suspects, chief among which is addiction. And let’s be completely honest, when I shuffle into the kitchen in the morning I display all the social grace and impulse control of a junkie in withdrawal. “Muh. COFFEE. WHERE.” is about the limit of my abilities. If pressed, I progress to wheedling, then to sullen, headachy grumpitude.

I mean, I’ve yet to sell a loved one’s small appliances for coffee money, but let’s face it: that’s probably only because you can buy a bucket of Folger’s for less than it costs to shoot up once. (Um, or so I conjecture. I admit I’m working on limited data here. Which is to say, The Wire told me.)

I could blame my last job with its free coffee, or the current one with its early hours and the Starbucks so temptingly close by. I could even blame the coffee maker I bought after calculating the amount I was spending at said Starbucks, which due to a completely separate neurosis must be used FOREVER or it will have been a WASTE. But really, here’s the thing: I could quit. I have done so several times in my long and complicated history with caffeine. I’ve been through the headaches, the fatigue, and all that, and they suck, but only for a few days.

The thing is, I drink coffee because I like it. Not as a connoisseur, which probably disqualifies me for the mug above. I mean, don’t talk to me about French presses, grinders, whatever. In my pre-caffeinated state that degree of involvement is unthinkable, and anyway what I crave is simple drip coffee. Taken somewhere near the midpoint between black and blonde, sweet but not cloying. Most importantly, it must be (as my friend C once described my brew) strong enough to stand a fork in. Rich and relaxing. Emphatically so. Perfect, and endlessly adaptable.

Even if I stopped mainlining the stuff daily at 5am, there would still be after-dinner coffee, afternoon-treat coffee, because-it’s-brunch coffee, sitting-on-the-couch-watching-the-birds coffee, let’s-thaw-out-from-the-cold coffee, waiting-for-friends coffee...you get the picture. It fits in so many places. It’s a reason to get together, a thing to do once you’re there; it’s a quiet, calm space on the way in to the office in good times and in bad; it keeps your senses connected to the world while the rest of you is lost in contemplation.

You hear the same thing about cigarettes from smokers. And about other drugs, to be honest--the psychological triggers that drive recovering addicts crazy and make it so hard to quit once and for all. The real pleasures of consumption. The inescapable mental tic: “You know what would make this even more perfect?”

I find that something in me rebels at framing my coffee consumption as anything more than a benign habit, though. And society would seem to agree. “Real” drug addicts are deplored, but most people shout I HEAR YA when told you can’t be approached until After Coffee. So other drugs don’t seem to be the right comparison. Cigarettes, maybe, but they’ve really fallen from equivalency with coffee in the last few decades (and when they make me walk 50 feet away from the building for coffee, I might decide it’s not worth it).

I guess that’s the answer: Coffee changed my life, for the better in some ways and for the worse in others. And as to whether I’m okay with it, willing to deal with the bad to maintain the good; well, this post should make it obvious that I kind of am. Reevaluation is always an option. (In)convenience is always a factor. Etc. But for now, there’s no way I’m quitting. Or even switching to decaf.

And so I am still feeling that mug.

This Again

Okay, guys, back for one more try. Maybe this time I'll produce something of quality and stick around.

And yes, it's the old (old) name on a new blog. Couldn't bear to waste it.