Why do I drink coffee?
why not have these vices - is it a vice or is it a routine b/c yoga should be a vice??
I’ve been drinking coffee since I was in the fourth or fifth grade.
I had a sip out of curiosity in Puerto Rico. The myth that caffeine and coffee stunts your growth, well, that went over my head.
So, I drink coffee.
I can say I've been drinking coffee for +10 years.
We had a coffeemaker in our apartment. My mom would use the coffeemaker when she would get ready for work. She was working for an elementary school at the time for lunch-serving and dishwashing.
So, I got addicted to caffeine.
Caffeine has a long half-life and quarter-life. So, even if you have a cup of coffee at 12pm. The quarter-life of caffeine will still be in your bloodstream even if you are winding down at midnight if you're going to bed.
Coffee production is a menace for climate change. So, god forbid if you drink coffee past the year 2050 and then you just simply drink shit coffee because it won't be sustainable.
I can’t tell you why I enjoy the taste of coffee.
Except, it’s good.
There's necessarily no good reason to stop drinking coffee unless if the taste or the smell is horrible.
So, if you want to talk about why caffeine is bad for you, maybe consider ask yourself why cut yourself off? Michael Pollan has written about the benefits of drinking caffeine. Coffee has great benefits.
Quitting cold turkey is awful. I hate it. So, coffee withdrawal is awful. I get headaches. I get irritable. It's hard to focus. It is tricky.
You can be small adjustments about how you drink caffeine. Occasionally, I used to taper off for a reset. A readjustment for my body to rid itself of the caffeine that clung to my synapses.
Sometimes, coffee makes me poop a lot. Sometimes, the shape and form is a slurry. Though, coffee is a diuretic. It helps to go! to the bathroom! So, caffeine can help me be regular at times. Caffeine helps me feel creative and alert and focused.
I don't say it's the cure-all to being the best thing in the goddamn world.
When I was in art school, Starbucks was the balm to soothe my brain-fog. It was easy access caffeine. It was plentiful. It was fuel to make art.
It was a big habit to take solace in the Starbucks in between classes. See, I was obsessed with gingerbread lattes. I rarely had any iced drinks or frappucinos.
Starbucks was the Third Place. It was the liminal in-between purgatory before hanging out with people in the dorms and after zoning out in classes.
There’s no harm in having a coffee each day. I welcome the routine. Pour water into the carafe of the percolator.
Scoop the grounds into the percolator’s metal basket. Plug the cord into the wall outlet. Breathe in the smell of the hot brew.
It’s what I do to greet the day.
Thanks for listening,
Alexander