One More Cup of Coffee

Since becoming sober, I’ve become compulsive when it comes to consuming coffee.

While at the rehab clinic, I could often be found with a tall flat white in hand or else a cup of black coffee, the vapor wafting from the small plastic lid and following me like a fragrance as I walked across the courtyard to the group therapy sessions or else while on break, tapping and inhaling from an American Spirit cigarette (I smoked the yellow packs back then, but now I indulge in the blues with a fierce commitment).

Now, thrice a day, I often brew coffee in my Chemex. I add three scoops of Pike Place Roast to the metal filter with the micro-perforations and stand over it, lovingly filling it and watching it foam with hot, boiled water from my electric kettle (a simple but strong Hamilton Beach model I bought at Target earlier this summer); and, like clockwork, once my coffee is consumed (or cooled and becoming stale) I empty my ombre pink ceramic mug made in Portugal, wash it, wash my Chemex, and let them all dry on the drying rack before waiting a few minutes to create another pot of coffee.

In between, I consume cold brew.

My medicines and allergies make me sleepy, so does the drowsy Floridian heat and the squalls that pass through by the hour. Like the damp tropical flowers outside, I find myself wilting under the heat and the cold brew with Italian sweet creme offers a pick-me-up, but it still does little for my need to rest my head against the cool linens of my pillow scented with lavender and chamomile.

Because I’ve done all my chores and worked all week, I don’t feel guilty about spending time today being lazy and finishing the book that has enchanted me. I’m nearly finished with the book and already the thought of feeding the insatiable Hydra of my reading list is taxing me. My therapist says it’s a good problem to have. He is right about that, but it doesn’t reduce the confusion I have about what book will come next.

On the docket is a Raymond Chandler, a Stephen King, a George Saunders, Grady Hendrix, and Simone de Beauvoir. Not to mention a very salacious and elegant Emile Zola confection.

Still, a part of me wants to continue on with Lestat’s journey once I finish this novel. It seems fitting to read Anne Rice while I’m in the tropics. That or a Hemingway.

There’s a nice little pile of National Geographic on our coffee table now that I keep wandering away to read, something about Hidden London, about Precambrian ruins beneath the London Underground. Something fascinating regarding the Permian Extinction and Cornwall.

How Woolly Mammoths once wandered about where Big Ben stands, always chiming over the pewter landscape of metropolitan London.

I like the cold brew coffee I got. It’s smooth and bold and plays nicely with the Italian sweet cream. It’s a good companion while I pore over my embarrassment of literary riches.