caffeine junky

i'm not unsympathetic to plights of addiction. there are degrees and grey areas. i'm addicted to caffeine. as proof i had only one cup of mud this morning. we woke at 5:00 am to drive to our annual pilgrimage to s.f. for the saint lucia pageant hosted by the swedish women organization, swea, in the cathedral on geary. we've been going to this pageant for many years now. the only problem is finding parking in the city. san francisco is horrible. too many cars and not enough parking spaces. unlike most of california, up and down the state, s.f. is on a tiny spit of land and there are only so many spaces. so we decided to get up before dawn to beat the crowds and perhaps not have to fight for a parking space.

which meant that i only allowed myself one cup of rocket fuel. usually i down two cups of mud. i didn't want to be on the road and have to pee. nothing worse than being in traffic, especially bay area traffic, and have to pee. it's pure torture. i felt fine for most of the day. until i got home. i was exhausted and wanted to take a nap, which i did, and there's little in the way of pleasure that compares to crawling into bed on a saturday afternoon.

it had been a good day. bought a dozen saffron buns, a traditional swedish christmas treat which i love, and found a used book, modern swedish poets edited by gunnar harding and anselm hollo. i found the book at a table that sold used books. it was published in 1979 and had only two names i knew well, tomas transtromer and goran sonnevi. another poet whom i read tonight, goran palm, is totally knew to me. palm's work was political in a way that reminded me of another swedish palm, lars palm, and i think will reward rereading.

back to the coffee. i got up this evening just before dark. nicholas wanted to go for a bike ride. how can i refuse. a light rain coated the streets. i had a headache. i recognized that sort of headache. lack of caffiene. before i took nick out onto the wet streets at dusk i made a cuppa. hit the spot and took away my headache. my eyes opened again and the world turned on to a sequence of yeses. speaking of transtromer, he has a poem about coffee that declares it gives us 'the courage to open our eyes'. amen brother.