keeping up with the jonesing
Unlike Stennie, I haven't "done" Lent for over a decade. But maybe I should have. For the past two weeks, I have dramatically cut down on my caffeine intake, and I've had to rely on willpower instead of being shamed by the season.


Now I'm not "quitting." I'm just cutting back. After all, I can quit anytime I want to. (Ahem.)


It wasn't for any other reason than I was drinking too much: last Monday I had three refills of coffee during lunch, and chased them down an hour later with a mocha. That was when I decided (because I'd known for a long time) I had to get this monkey off my back. He was starting to make the decisions for me.


It's been a conscious choice every day not to have my cup of ambition. Maybe it's habit, maybe it's addiction, but I know this: Thoughts of caffeine are as ubiquitous as the frame of my glasses. Sometimes I stare at it, sometimes I ignore it, but I can't deny it's always there.


I'm too lazy right now to do research on what coffee does to your brain (I recall it being similar to cocaine), but I remember that emotional rush as the caffeine hits the bloodstream and the words come tumbling effortlessly on the page. I'm awake. I'm alive. I care!


That's not to say that I don't care about my work now. But the manic attack of inspiration is harder to summon, and my brain always begs for juice. At work, I feel like the writing has been flat and the articles not as ingenious as they could or should be. I watch my colleagues develop those meaningful stories, write those wonderful words, and drink their aromatic coffee, and I sin in my heart.


It is not anger -- I'm happy for the acheivements of others. It is (coffee) lust and (caffeine) envy.


This does not mean I have cut down on my espresso intake. Espresso tastes guuud, especially with foamed milk and chocolate. So, I have treated myself to a decaf mocha every other day. In the past few weeks, I have discovered that to stay awake, the sugar content has been more useful than the caffeine. It could also be that I hope that the decaf washes into my cup a few of the molecules of real coffee sticking to the spout at the cafe.