My Relationship With Coffee

Hello Stalwart readers!  Sorry some time has gone by since my last post. We are in crazy season at the Salinas household (more on that in a later post).

Today I would just like to talk about my relationship with coffee. I've been reading and very much enjoying Kris Carr's Crazy, Sexy Diet. My vegan lifestyle, since February 11, 2010, is well established and easy to live at this point in my life, but Kris' perspective as someone, like me, living with a chronic illness, is valuable to me (she: an incurable, rare cancer, the name of which is very long and complicated and impossible for me to recall; me: Multiple Sclerosis diagnosed January 1996, in the good 'ole days when we were told a cure would be found within 5 years -- still no sign of a cure, only gobs of poisonous, brutal "disease modifying drugs" which produce symptoms worse than the disease, itself). Whew, sorry. Have you noticed I am prone to rants lately? I blame "crazy season" which, as I said earlier will be addressed in a later post. Back to coffee --

Yes, I crave Kris' insights from her relatively rare perspective, and I also crave her irreverent, positively jubilant attitude about her life -- "Life is too sweet to be bitter," she says. Just writing that brings tears to my eyes. Thank you, Kris, for your wisdom.  Off track again -- coffee -- from the pages of Crazy, Sexy Diet I resolved to fine tune my lifestyle even more. The coffee could go. I was only having half a cup a day anyway. The martinis, not so much. But I can have one instead of two or more. The green juice, still a work in progress. I need a juicer. We have medical bills out the ying-yang because of what we are going through with our son's migraines. But, the coffee --

As a young professional fresh out of college, making next to nothing, I was thrilled at the notion that the coffee in the office was free, and it was "all you can drink". It wasn't great coffee, but it was free -- sorta like the beer at the fraternity houses in college (for girls). I developed a pretty serious 8-cup-a-day habit. Later, as a real grown-up with kids, my habit dwindled to about 4-cups-a-day. Right before I went vegan I was still throwing back about 2-3 cups. A clean vegan body made that much coffee intolerable, but I was still sucking down 1/2-1 cup in the morning. Inspired by Kris, I gave up coffee altogether for a week. Oh, the sleep -- the blissful, restful sleep I was afforded without my morning jolt! But then I realized that life was tough. And it wasn't just because of "crazy season". It was because I was no longer smart. I'm serious. Without half a cup of java, my most cherished attribute was GONE! Paying bills: two hours, and full of errors. Reading: incomprehension resulting in re-reading the same passages over and over. Cooking dinner: panic attack-inducing. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Why is my intelligence my most cherished attribute? My background, in a nutshell:  In high school, I was NOT popular. I was "the brain". In college, at William and Mary, I was not "the brain", in fact I was less brainy than most, but I was definitely in my element! It was finally cool to be smart! Smart folks are SOOOO much more interesting! Now, I'm not bragging that I am some brainiac, but I delight in what intelligence I have. Without it, without half a cup of coffee, I don't even know who I am, and life is really just too hard and ineffective. I'm sure Kris wouldn't judge me for that. She's cool that way.

Do you like the mug? My daughter did the artwork for it. She is awesome!