WALKING ON THIN ICE

The carefully calibrated Kathy needs caffeine.

I’d been two months off coffee, and this morning I remembered that coffee used to be the high point of my morning. It makes me smarter, more enthusiastic, bright eyed, less numb, all in all a better person– save for the nervousness.

So I drank a strong cup this morning. Within two sips the yellow kitchen wall had a new depth, a vibrancy. A gray layer, a film, lifted from my eyes. It’s like I’ve photoshopped reality, made everything clean, interesting.

All my life my personality, the core of my being, has been enhanced by this evil wonder drug. Grampa started me when I was four years old. I got up with him before the sun rose, at five in the morning. This was our special time.

“What do you want, little girl? A treat?” He filled a glass with half coffee, half milk. He made me a soft boiled egg. Then he sat with his paper and his potbelly and smoked and moaned about the news, and the room filled up with blue smoke, and I sucked on my coffee and dipped toast in the egg in the bright kitchen light, waiting for Gramma to creak out in her blue robe.

I was wondering why I hadn’t been writing lately, why I felt dumb and numb. It’s because I’ve been high all my life! I’m a speed freak. The majority of my poems came from two vente Starbucks lattes a day. There’s a brown syrupy synergy between me and my monkey, a fine divine wine.

“You’re writing a new blog?” Smith asks. “Again? Two days in a row?”

“Mmm hmm.”

He puts his hand to my head. “You’re warm, you know that? You’re just a bird that burns from within.”

I do have everything I want.

Have you ever seen the movie, “Conan the Barbarian?” It’s also kinda like that. At one point in the story, Conan has fame, money, and is in love, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He gets so drunk his face falls into his food. Then he gets in trouble again & has to resume adventure.

I have too much time on my hands and I’m still not used to being my own boss. My mind falls to a low set point unless others are making my reality. But it’s my responsibility to make my reality.

“Choose your own adventure” is the name of the game…