Blame it on the rain

In an attempt to help pass the time, and avoid training myself to tolerate the pain required to push needles through the web of my thumb, I decided to measure my average daily caffeine intake.

Turns out, I’m sucking down over 500 milligrams. 32 ounces of coffee in the morning, pot of tea (three cups) in the afternoon, and my daily indulgence – a Dr. Pepper.

I then went and read what that much caffeine does to you and had several ongoing physical and emotional problems explained.

In 1997, I gave up caffeine for six months. It took about three weeks to kick the habit – each day, taking in less and less coffee and soda. I remember how exciting it was to reach the level where half a can of soda was all I needed to stop the headaches and overall meltdown. Then, the big leap – The day without caffeine.

During that six months, I was the happiest I have ever been. I was full of energy, I was more aware of my surroundings, I became sociable and kind and loving. I acquired a girlfriend and everything was beautiful. This was back when my little chronic pain thing only “flared up” a few times a year instead of trying to kill me 24/7.

Then I flew out to Albuquerque, where my uncle asked me to house sit during his prolonged odyssey along the Rio Grande. He had it in his mind to take a tape recorder, hop in a rental, and follow the length of the river – from source to the Gulf. While he fucked off and did that, I sat at his house and watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and every horror movie on Blockbuster’s shelves.

My uncle has a somewhat notorious relationship with caffeine – if you told me you saw him shooting coffee into his eyeballs, I would believe you. So when he came back from his intimate musings with the river, the first thing he did was haul me out of bed and take me to a coffee shop. This was, of course, the first step on an all night pub crawl… But I don’t remember the boozing. I just remember that first cup of coffee after six months. My starved body just lapping it up and the old, familiar buzz stronger than ever.

Since then, I haven’t been able to stop again. In fact, in the past ten years, I’ve slowly increased my dose.

In April of 07, I had brain surgery. This required approximately three days without caffeine. There I was with my head sliced open and feeling like it was stuffed full of rotting pumpkin, and what was the greater pain? The caffeine headache. That hammer blow that comes down if I don’t get at least a cup of coffee in the morning. Fuck the surgery and recovery – get me a cup of coffee!

The nurses say I was asking for coffee in ICU before I was asking for water.

Taking all this into account, I’ve decided to cut back on caffeine. First: No sodas. Which are all kinds of bad for me, anyway. Next: No more regular tea. I also drink faggot green tea and shit, but those only rank in at 30-60mg. So just one of those a day.

Next will be the hardest – cut my coffee consumption in half. I’ll start that tomorrow.

I’m going to aim for, but not promise myself, caffeine freedom by June.

The problem is that I don’t really want to be free of caffeine. I like it. I like coffee. Just like I enjoy booze. Except for when I puked up that pomegranate vodka. I didn’t like that.

Instead of ending the article with that image (pomegranate puke is strangely pretty), I’m going to complain about my co-worker who came in here asking for candy. I was about to continue on writing, but she started complaining about how she was feeling so blah. Then she said “Blame it on the rain,” and I had a nostalgia flashback to Milli Vanilli. That has proven to be the end of all rational thought for today.

So here’s the video.

It cuts off at the end – but that’s okay! God.

Also, “Girl You Know It’s True.”

Yeah, how’d we not see through that?