Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

To Caffeine or not to Caffeine? That is the question.

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15

bean memeSo most of you know I turned in the manuscript to Fall or Fly, my journalism-storytelling book about foster care in the Coalfields, and then got sick. For a week I was down, during which I basically didn’t eat or drink much.

Two weeks later, down I went again with something viral. With the end result that no coffee has been in my body for almost a month. Nor iced tea, nor hot tea, nor other caffeinated beverages.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been monitoring how that changes anything – do I sleep better (possibly, jury is still out) feel better (the same) see any other advantages (I get out of bed ready to go as opposed to needing 30 minutes with the mug) or disadvantages (there really isn’t anything to order at a hotel for breakfast except expensive “juices” that don’t taste like real juice).

So, those of you who have kicked the habit, or who haven’t, any words of wisdom? Booksellers who don’t drink coffee are not unheard of. Booksellers who don’t drink coffee OR hot tea (Earl Gray, hot) are a bit more unusual. What will I drink at the salons? What about when out with girlfriend booksellers? Or just girlfriend posse members? There’s a whole social aspect to coffee, as there is with cigarettes. Will I miss the rituals? Will I miss the camaraderie?

Send thoughts. Send chocolate (I do still partake of that caffeine source). And thanks!

1/3 Piece of Dry Toast

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6

sick dogI ate 1/3 of a piece of dry toast today. I might have eaten more, but our foster cat Butterscotch – the one who leads the charges and plots all the mischief – hopped up on the chair arm next to me as I sat in the bookstore with my meal. He spied the toast, gave me a bright smile of thanks, snatched it up in his mouth, and instigated a game of hockey with his foster brothers, Justin, Edgar, and Alfie. There was some complicated scoring mechanism by which they took bites at certain times, so the remaining toast was soon gone.

But it had done its work; it settled in and stayed put in my stomach, a place I had come to think of as similar to the Bad Marshes of Middle-Earth: gases everywhere, unsure footing leading to likely death; and an explosion could happen at any moment.

So I’m on the mend from the Virus of Voiding that seems to be making the rounds these days. Three nights of simultaneous toilet-and-sink hugging, my cheeks resting at each end on cold porcelain, hadn’t left much inside to expunge.

I am now determined to change my diet if I ever get back to eating real food. Our Good Chef Kelley has promised me vegan falafals. I may never touch caffeine again, after the withdrawal headache that exacerbated the first night of misery.

Who am I kidding? A life without Pal’s Tea wouldn’t be worth living. But speaking of misery upon misery, I really think it ought to be a law that one should not have to deal with poison ivy at the same time as the Voiding Virus. The cats have been going out in this warm weather, and apparently the favored spot of My Archenemy beneath our apple trees is going strong. I have poison ivy on my chin and neck, from where they gave me cat scans during my comatose illness state.

All the same, I’m on the mend. I am actually thinking about the future in a hopeful way: bookshelves to sort, pages to write, cats to foster. I may manage a whole piece of toast by supper–assuming I can hide it from Butters, of course. And someday soon, I will sip a cup of hot tea.

Soon. For now, though, I shall return to my bed and a book, and try to keep the cats from sleeping on my neck.

Slainte