Oh glorious day! My body must be adjusting. One cup of tea around 9am and no pain medication. Still a little sluggish, but what do you expect?

Addiction Noun
1. Being abnormally dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (especially alcohol or narcotic drugs).
2. An abnormally strong craving.
(Websters)

-Date “addiction” was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1599. (references)
-Etymology: Addiction \Ad*dic”tion\, noun. [Compare to Latin addictio an adjudging.]. (Websters 1913)

Woke up in a fog around 5am, although I didn’t roll out of bed until closer to 6:00. No, I don’t usually wake up that early but I was incoherent by around 9pm last night so it was early to bed and early to rise.

At least 5 people on the bus had travel mugs with them. I wondered how many days/months/years it had been since any of them had gone without it. Then I thought about the last time I’d gone without. It was the spring of 2004 during Alaska Folk Fest week in Juneau – not that I attended any of those hippie festivities, but I remember a lot of people walking by our house – and the Taylor’s had one of their notorious (and I mean that in the best possible way) wine parties.

A lot of things happened that night: there were charades, there was trash-talking, a certain red head stripped to her bra in front of Haden Kaden, and Bill Kozlowski lured a few of us out to the deck for some merry-making. Well, the merry-making lasted most of the evening and yours truly passed up the food completely. That night, my boozy alter ego ShaSha was born. The next morning, ShaSha couldn’t move and not a sip passed the lips. That’s nearly 21 months of drinking coffee every morning.

By the time I arrived at work around 7:30am my head was throbbing. You know how Popeye’s heart bursts from his chest when he sees his beloved Olive Oil? That’s what my brain felt like. Thankfully, one Aleve and 2 cups of tea brought relief in less than an hour.

Yes, I realize I’m diverting my dependence to tea right now, like an addict trading meth for God. The plan is to wean myself slowly. By next Monday, I hope to be on herbal tea with no pain meds. After a week or so of that, I hope coffee will find it’s proper place in my life. It won’t be banished forever, just imbibed more judiciously. I want to feel the heightened effects of the drug, not require it to bring me to normal.

Made a few blunders today but they could have happened to anyone, things like forgetting a co-workers name, or that I had soup on the stove (no fire this time), or how to spell heightened…

On the way home, I passed a guy with a cup of coffee in the crosswalk. It smelled so good I considered tackling him for it. I didn’t though. We all know violence is never the answer. Soothing soundtrack for that walk home: Broken Spindles and Coldplay.

Day 1: 4pm

I didn’t wake up this morning with the intent of kicking my coffee habit. I’ve had a cold for about five days and my scratchy throat made the morning cuppa sound completely unappealing. So I packed some earl grey leaves and lemon slices in my bag and went off to work. Rationale: black tea still has some caffeine so I shouldn’t miss coffee at all. It seemed logical. Wrong-o.

Although delicious, the earl grey didn’t give me the jolt I’m accustomed to. Couple that with a head cold and I was operating at about 50% capacity. Around noon, the first signs of withdrawal hit. Mild headache. I hadn’t eaten much yet so I chowed lunch. Headache still there. Took one Aleve tablet.

Around 1:30 the pain started to increase. Aleve, the wonder pill, wasn’t working. I duplicated the same set of copies twice before I realized they were upside down on the letterhead. I decided to have a 2nd cup of tea.

I turned on the kettle, visited the loo and returned to see flames erupting on the stovetop. I’d turned on the wrong burner and torched a paper bag that had been sitting on the back burner for a month. Not a very bright storage spot. Not a very observant junkie. I was able to get the bag to the sink and douse the flames as smoke began to fill the entire office.

The rest of the day went by without incident. I listened to Tupac for inspiration on my slow walk home. I feel handicapped and am probably not fit to operate a motor vehicle.

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pollee

that’s right, folks! silly me is ordained enough to marry some of our dear pals in Seattle this summer! what the gods must think…

check it out here — you heathens, too, can reach a higher religious order in just 5 minutes flat!

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c

The other day my friend, David, asked me this. I went on and on about how i did and what i liked to use to do it, and oh how i used to spend more time doing it but…on and on.

what would you think it means, i ask you?

Turns out, what David meant is even cooler:

“StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for sharing and discovering great websites. As you click Stumble!, you’ll get high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended (rated I like it) by friends and other SU members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your friends and peers – you will automatically ’stumble upon’ each others favorites sites.”

The human-edited version of Google?

Whatever it is, it’s rad. Check it out but be careful…you might get hooked!

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c

Today in the NYT is a fascinating interview with the father of LSD: Albert Hoffman, who turned 100 this week. Albert’s work on ergot produced several important drugs, including a compound still in use to prevent hemorrhaging after childbirth. However, it was the 25th compound that he synthesized, lysergic acid diethylamide, that was to have the greatest impact on our culture. When he first created it in 1938, the drug yielded no significant pharmacological results but when his work on ergot was completed, he decided to go back to LSD-25, hoping that improved tests could detect the stimulating effect on the body’s circulatory system that he had expected from it. It was as he was synthesizing the drug on a Friday afternoon in April 1943 that he first experienced the altered state of consciousness for which it became famous. “Immediately, I recognized it as the same experience I had had as a child,” he said. “I didn’t know what caused it, but I knew that it was important.”

When he returned to his lab the next Monday, he tried to identify the source of his experience, believing first that it had come from the fumes of a chloroform-like solvent he had been using. Inhaling the fumes produced no effect, though, and he realized he must have somehow ingested a trace of LSD. “LSD spoke to me,” Mr. Hofmann said with an amused, animated smile. “He came to me and said, ‘You must find me.’ He told me, ‘Don’t give me to the pharmacologist, he won’t find anything.’ “

What’s great about it? BANDWIDTH, baby, lots of it.

What sucks? All the vids are encoded using Google’s own .gvp codec, which requires users to download and install the “Google Video Player.”

What happened to standards-based computing?

Must’ve been buried under a Detroit expressway next to Jimmy Hoffa?

Still, video is coming! Exciting! Hurry I2!!!

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c