My Coffee

Similar to how most Pennsylvania diners are open 24/7, my family runs a 24/7 home. In other words, someone is almost always awake. This has its charms, like having someone to always welcome you home. Then again, I think that its only natural to want some alone time every now and then. And thus, I have come to enjoy those days in which I get up at 4AM or 5AM to go in for an early morning work shift, seeing as people generally aren't awake at this time. You see, I like to ease into my day like a soft incoming tide. Slow and steady with a quiet strength, all conducted in total darkness. If I'm not articulating the exact shade of this mood well enough, I'll just say that if I had a theme song that captured the whole ambiance I desire, think Belle and Sebastian's "Ease Your Feet Into the Sea," not Arcade Fire's "Wake Up."

The other day, I was eagerly anticipating my usual solo morning act. This did not happen. For some reason, my sister was awake. I think she was uncomfortably hot and thirsty, the latter which could be attributed to a pizza dinner the night beforehand.

I also happened to be parched, so instead of kicking off my morning routine with the typical shower, I mixed some Trader Joe's Midnight Moo Chocolate Syrup into soy milk and sat down on a cool leather stool at the kitchen counter. My sister poured out a miniature hill of Cinnamon Toast Crunch onto a napkin and sat down next to me.

Between my smooth sips of chocolate milk and her noisy munching on handfuls of cereal, we talked. Then again, I think I did most of the talking. Sometimes, when you get me talking, I just don't stop. I don't think that it's because I actually like talking or that I like talking about myself or that I like to hear myself talk. Rather, I think it has to do with a fear of not adequately articulating things. Thus, as a compensatory act, I keep on adding sentences that I think or hope with add depth and dimension to my ideas and arguments. It's not that I'm a perfectionist; it's just important to me that other people genuinely understand what I'm trying to say. In the world of mechanical drawing, you might say that I speak like an orthographic projection: one in which you are afforded all of the necessary views, plus dimensions.

Apparently, I can also pull this off at 4AM. I swear, it must be the Midnight Moo.