oh my....coffee!

eureka (sort of). so there's this stuff i discovered today. manna from heaven, i'd like to call it (note: i'm not religious, which makes this statement all-the-more powerful i think). You've heard me go on and on and on many times about my lust for caffeine, well today i skipped Orchard 88. I'm beginning to think the hipsters there aren't sure they actually feel like working on most days, and it's started to annoy me. I'll revisit them on the weekends for a panini or something, when I'm not already 15 minutes late for work.

Today, I headed across the street to Roasting Plant. Their gimmick is that they roast your coffee--cup-by-cup, right there in front of you. And above you, there's a clear tube, that extracts beans from these dozen or so canisters, and then transports it into this brewing machine--and out comes your very own fresh cup of caffeinated goodness (if i didn't paint a visual for you, see pic below). The process takes likely the same amount of time as it would for the Orchard 88 folks to acknowledge i'm standing there waiting at the counter--and it's entertaining! Think something you'd see at Willy Wonka's house. So, the guy hands me my cup of coffee, and i'm worried now that it's gonna be too strong or brime-like. but nope. It's yummy, and doesn't leave you with that sticky, bitter after-taste. Obviously, if i'm writing this--the coffee was worth at least a couple hundred words. Another perk--as I'm pouring in my half-n-half, to my left there are at least 8 variations of sugar--all in these easy-to-pour ikea glass urns. There's cinnamon sugar, maple sugar, splenda (yay), regular, raw, agave liquid, and I can't recall the other 2. (dear funny-boy: When you were here, I regret that you settled for Starbucks, when you could have had the wonderfullness that is Roasting Plant.)

Okay enough. I say all this to end with--possibly, maybe I derived a teensy bit of inspiration (and happiness) from my coffee cup. I sat on the subway today, whipped out my pen and notebook--and wrote all the way from 14th St. to 103rd St. (on the local track, btw)--balancing my notebook on my purse, pen in right hand, coffee in my left, sleeping-leaning-on-me woman to my right, and broad-shouldered-dickhead-with-arms-akimbo to my left. And that's SOMETHING. Perhaps passion, perhaps inspiration.

I'm having a good morning. Hope you are.

p.s. yesterday i was browsing the web for writing boot camps and i came across this--"The secret to writing is...writing." I like it a lot.