Caffeine

"I'm trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption
So when I get up I just have one cup of coffee
And I like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
And on the way to work I like to get a cup of coffee
Like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with a doughnut
'Cept I never get the doughnut I just have the cup of coffee
And when I get to work I like to have a cup of coffee
'Cause I like to have a coffee when I'm talking on the phone
But it usually goes cold and I need to get another
Cup of coffee and it's lunch and I have an espresso
And when I get back it's not morning anymore
So I have a diet cola and another diet cola
And by then I'm feeling fine and I'm feeling pretty sharp
And I'm feeling pretty wired and I'm getting things done..."

"Stress" - Jim's Big Ego


My caffeine consumption is the stuff of legend.

It is in no small part the result of being a chronic insomniac. I don't sleep well; I never have, although it started to get bad during high school. My brain does not like shutting down for the evening; it just keeps wheeling through thoughts cheerfully, like some sort of perpetual motion machine.

Worse, I often wake up several times during the night if my sleep conditions are not absolutely PERFECT (meaning I am in my own bed, the temperature is exactly 62 degrees, I have my fuzzy sleep mask and my microfiber blanket, and it is either quiet or there is white noise). When I have a bad night (which again, is often), I run on caffeine. This is clearly not ideal, because the likelihood that the caffeine I gulp down to wake me up is causing the trouble I have going to and staying asleep is relatively high.

At my all time worst, I drank coffee all morning--literally all morning--and then switched to Coke around noon. I shudder to think how much caffeine (and sugar, from the coke--I drink my coffee with milk only) was coursing through my system during those dark days (otherwise known as "My entire undergraduate career").

The fun part about this is that when I started college I DID NOT LIKE coffee. Sure, I drank coffee sometimes, mostly at high school social functions where it was mostly a vehicle for me ingesting twenty-three packets of pure sugar, but I didn't become a coffee junky until some years later.

My coffee addiction is the result of a spectacularly ill advised crush. You know, the one you look back on and go "I am so glad we never dated and he wasn't into me, because I would had to *^%*ing kill him because he is a *&^%bag and he totally would have deserved it?" That one. I got away from that one emotionally unscathed (once the initial bruised feelings faded. Me being me, this took about a weekend; I move into and out of emotional states with great decisiveness and never let anyone tell you otherwise), but addicted to coffee, which I drink with milk only. I happen to think sugar in and whipped cream on coffee drinks are both abominations before the Lord our God, and have scared more than one barista by yelping like a distressed puppy when I see him/her approaching my sacred cappuccino with the whipped cream can. Also, I know when to stop adding sugar to my husband's coffee when I take a tiny sip and I find it unbearably disgusting. True story.

Since law school (where as a 1L I was at various points so caffeinated I swear I could feel all my individual atoms trembling twice as fast as usual), I've cut down considerably. I no longer drink carbonated sodas of any kind unless I happen to be out to eat (and even then I usually order water). And my coffee consumption is much better; I'm down to three cups a morning rather than "heck I lose count at six" all day long.

Granted, those "cups" are more like a cup and a half...twelve ounces, not eight. This is a bad habit I picked up from my father, who will tell you he has "two cups" of coffee every morning. He is a liar. His idea of "two cups" is to drink two 16 ounce travel mugs of coffee. And he usually forgets to tell you he makes third for the road. (I love you, Old Man. But you are a lying liar who lies about his coffee consumption: I have WATCHED YOU!!!!)

These days, I'm trying to cut down further. I have, for the last few days, switched my morning coffee for a mix of yerba mate and black tea. I am operating under the theory that yerba mate (a South American holly bush) has different kinds of caffeine-ish stimulants in it and is supposed to give you a gentler, less jittery high. I add the black tea because yerba mate by itself, frankly, tastes like fresh mowed grass. It isn't unpleasant, exactly. But it takes some getting used to and mixing a little black tea in the mix seems to help cut the grassy flavor to a reasonable level.

It must be working at least somewhat because I have not collapsed into a heap or gotten caffeine withdrawal headaches and I have also not devolved into the rapid talking, glassy eyed chipmunk-on-speed I can occasionally morph into when I've hit the java a little too hard.

Still, I miss my morning cuppa and I am left wondering what I am going to do with my coffee machine. "Making my coffee machine feel useful" does not seem like a rational reason to keep drinking coffee, unlike "Coffee prevents me from developing psychic powers and ripping the world to scattered space junk with my uncaffeinated rage", which may actually be true.