This Has All Happened Before...

When I was in college my relationship with coffee went sour that one night, after drinking a pot of it all by myself, that I was not only able to sleep soundly on my notes, but through my alarm and halfway into my Shakespeare Studies Final.

No really.

There is nothing, NOTHING like running to the doorway of the WAY ALREADY in-progress final, stopping short at the door to try to catch your breath, and seeing the arched eyebrow of your professor with the, "You had BETTER have a really good excuse, kid," look on her face.  I mean seriously, it's been 19 years, and I have yet to replicate that feeling in its entirety.  I won't lie, there have been moments that have come close, accelerated heartbeat to the point it might burst (I had to run up to Merrill from Cowell via Cardiac Hill for those UCSC stalkers, I mean readers), hilariously out of breath, with a million and one thoughts racing through my head (NEVER before had anything like this happened to me, ME! OMG I am going to fail my first class, EVER! What a schoolgirl!), and trying really really hard not to cry (amazingly enough? I must have been a much tougher person back then, cuz I didn't, not even after I was told that I could still attempt the exam, but my end time would be the same as everyone else's.)  I might have experienced the individual items on their own (except now I cry), but not yet again all together.

Yeah.

Coffee betrayed my young trusting self and so I dumped it.  Bitter elixir whose taste I actually like.  A lot.  I must, I mean, I happily make coffee flavored ice cream at the drop of a hat!  I don't know what happened to my coffee maker, but very shortly thereafter it was replaced by my rival hot water heating um thingie and my morning ritual became a lovely cup of Earl Grey tea, hot.  (You know I had to say it.)  And an afternoon cuppa.  So intense was my anger, determination, and will power (weeelll, and possibly the increase in cancer stick inhalation may have helped, a lot), that I gave it up without (too) much of an issue.  It was possibly this success (more than the nagging of my then boyfriend) that also may have given me the same drive to start quitting the smoking habit I'd taken to (it took years.  Do as I say and not as I did, as I quote Grandmaster Flash, "Just don't do it.") 

And yeah, I've had a love/hate relationship with the stuff ever since.  Given my druthers I choose tea, not coffee.  Milky, lovely tea.  Earl Grey (hot, hee hee), Darjeeling, Ginger Peach, Mango Ceylon...Tea I will sit and linger over.  Coffee, and I'm thinking of the YEARS when I took it back, I treated rough, I'd pound it down like a shot.  It was not enjoyed, but the item to get me out the door.  Then, once settled in at work, I could have my lovely cup of fragrant tea.  And when the guilt of drinking coffee with poisoned and sugary (but yummy) French Vanilla non-Dairy Creamer finally filled my old UCSC-hippie heart, it wasn't.  It was a little more painful (no cancer sticks to make the process a little less harsh), but thankfully I discovered Chai Tea Lattes.  Don't ask me why, but that just fit the bill nicely.

Something's changing again, though...I can blame the allergies, I can blame my inability to sleep through the night...(I'm thinking I need to try this sleep schedule, it can't hurt at this point as 4 hours a night is just not cutting it). I can maybe also blame my brain  for not being able to stop and chill.  Too many things rolling through it these days, 99% work related.  New job, WAY NEW STRESSES, way new things to learn...and my one lovely cup of tea in the morning...just not working.

The other day I had the revelation that I feel like I've been dumped into a grad school program (with all the learning and constant brain melting I'm experiencing) that I actually never thought I'd sign up for, like, ever.  In fact, that might have been the last time I worked around a four-hour sleep schedule...and it was work.  If I wasn't teaching I was biking to class, or working on lesson plans, or correcting papers.  Sleep happened sometime after 2 AM, and I was at school ready to teach at 7 AM.  And yeah, there might have been coffee around then too, hanging out in the shadows, calling me over, promising me that this time it would be different...

Ugh, coffee, I wish I knew how to quit you.  But at least this time I'm not hiding behind the ultra processed creamer or fancy pants mocha concoctions.  That seems too much like dessert to me now.  Milk, sugar, ground beans, and water.  Mmmm, and now I must go have some...urgh.

How Do I Find More Music with BIG DRUMS as a Back Beat?

Sorry, is my 80s showing?

Oh, and hand clapping.

And - not required but how awesome would it be: a young child chorus a la Pat Benetar's "We Belong?"  Oh come on, even Sigour Ros (or however its spelled) uses that gimmick and he's definitely "current" or so my facebook feeds would let me believe.  For all I know everyone I am "friends" with is as stuck in the 70s/80s as I am.  Which would why we are so friendly!  Um, yeah.

But after reviewing requests for hours at a time all I can think is that big drumbeats that I can swing my legs to (yeah, I'm not in the most ergonomic of sitting positions in my new chair, but dudes! I've got so much clearance I can swing my feet when I get all antsy!!!) keep me from running away screaming.

Except I'd have to change shoes before I took off anywhere.  I'm breaking in a new pair of what I can only describe as grown up versions of my Minnetonka Moccasin boots.  But not Minnetonka because OMG they are so very narrow now that I gave up even trying to fit my duck feet into them.  And not boots! Which means I'll be able to wear them all summer long! (Ahem, once summer gets here...)  I spent way too much money on Clarks "Originals" as they have come up with a version that is just AWESOME and shaped EXACTLY LIKE MY FOOT!  Yes, I did not pay full price, cuz um, yeah, I have baking pans I'd rather spend that money on.  Which is my version of retail therapy, apparently.

And I did. Spend money on way too many springform pans.  But it's all for the good, I think.  There are two (2!) cheesecakes sitting in my fridge as I type this!  Cuz why make one ginormous one when you can make two smaller versions?  I might be getting subliminally influenced by those car insurance commercials, "More is better!"  Which I wish was true about love handles...but we've covered this topic before.  Just a few days ago, actually.  Whatever, because baking really is my therapy, thank goodness I work in an office where people will eat what I make, because I also procured a "tube pan" for an apple cake.

I've had one piece.  Okay, one piece yesterday, one piece today.  It's not like I had ice cream for dinner....oh wait, never mind.

Anyhow, drum beats, hand-clapping, ethereal child chorus...I ask for so little, I know.

Can I Just Freeze My Mom in Carbonite?

Just for a little bit?  I mean, Han was in it for like a year with no side effects, right?

It's a case of everything happening all at once again and I'm just trying to figure out how to isolate things so I can focus and deal and then focus and deal...and then focus, and then deal...ad nauseum...

Cuz seriously?  I just clicked Cntrl+V HARDER to try to make a copy/paste dealy work faster!  I mean,  what's next?  Tapping on the teevee to make the picture clearer?  (Yeah, okay, that would necessitate my actually using the television in my place to watch something over the air instead of netflix/dvds, and that just sounds like something more to focus and deal with...and then my brain 'sploded.)

And just by the by? Titanium glasses frames are great!  You can keep going in to the eye doctor to have them readjusted (ha ha, if time allows) after every single time you fall asleep wearing them because OMG they are so light you forget they are on your face!  Until morning when you find them under your shoulder.  Or embedded into your eyeballs seeing as you decided to sleep ON YOUR FACE and they've certainly left quite an impression!  I know, sexsay!  That plus my purple night guard?  RAWR!

My left eye started twitching yesterday after my first official training in my new work capacity.  It hasn't started driving me batty simply because I just can't let it. (See 'sploding brain above.)  I am the little kid who has been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool by their sadistic older sibling.  Or maybe the over-tired adult learner of SCUBA who is flailing at her 10 min. threading water test...in shark infested waters...AND YET I am striving to be AAAaaaauuuummmm, calm, collected, not too crazy-giggly when they drop yet another item onto my lap (either work or life related.)  Sorry, is the plastic perma-smile on my face starting to show cracking around the edges?  Maybe near my overly-attached-girlfriend-eyes?  (I promise, I'll cut back on the caffeine next week.)

Knitting is not helping.  At least not anything I'm working on at the moment - a sock, actually, that's the only thing I have right now and I'm at the heel and really?  Why can't heels be easier!!! (That crackling noise?  Just giving my neck a little side stretch you know to unstick my jaw.)  I've taken to baking cookies and/or making ice cream.  And giving them away.  I have succeeded in ditching the 15 lbs my Ralleigh VS Truck accident gave me and my hip just does not need the extra weight back, thankyouverymuch.  No matter how much chocolate sugar cookies taste like there's hardly ANY sugar in them!!!  Cuz really, the salad I've packed for lunch is plenty for me...yup.  (I promise to stop lying to myself next month.)

Ah, much better.  Thank you rant space blogger for letting me have a place to drop this off for now.