Coffee

It occurs to me, now and again, that I really don't offer up much in the way of personal information in my blog. Or I don't seem to think I do.

Not that anyone's asked for any. And not that I am upset that no one has asked for any. More along the lines of an existential dillemma: if I am a blogger, what am I blogging about? Why am I here? Whose socks are these?

These topics come up when I reflect that I am not blogging very regularly, or especially when I try to balance my blogging with my non-blogging, or when I read other people's blogs and wonder if they are really the person the blog reflects. And then there's the old argument about community-- or, I should really say, Community: can a virtual community exist? IS there not some level of interaction that is not possible, some inherent disconnect, that prevents the online community from being a real community? Is it possible that the base level of alienation we all feel when in actual community prevents us from having that intersubjective moment, the moment when we see the other as a unique self, that there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I recognition that is the very hallmark of the being human?

Nahhhhh. Besides, at least as far as the alienation issue is concerned, I can think of at least three bloggers I know of who have the ground pretty well covered.

So why am I here? What do I want you to know about me?

Well, I suppose that if you need to know anything about me, you need to know this: I love coffee.

I love coffee more than you do. I don't even know you, and I feel very comfortable saying this. Were we to meet, I believe, I could convince you, within five minutes, that I love coffee more than you do. The subject wouldn't even have to come up. Something inside you would just say "By Jove, this guy loves his coffee!"

I typically have one cup a day, but it is one helluva cup of coffee: freshly ground Eight O'Clock French roast coffee, about as much as the average person would use to make a full pot, dumped into a French press with a jot over a cup and a half of boiling water poured over it, left for five minutes to steep-- that used to be approximate, but over the last couple of years it has become something I time, mainly as a way of making the time go by while I wait for my morning coffee.

For many, many years, it was Chase & Sanborn through a drip maker. It wasn't until the Monday morning the drip maker dropped its bladder all over the countertop that I pulled out the French press-- which I had gotten as a Christmas gift-- and realized what a fool I'd been, all those years, and converted to the French press, not just as a ritual, but as a bedrock belief.

I will occasionally drop into a shop for a cup-a-joe, but there are severe ramifications and parameters to observe. Some days I can get a good deal of satisfaction out of a Starbucks; other times it just tastes burned. I prefer a Caribou, or a brew from one of the myriad local places here in Charlotte you've never heard of. I especially enjoy that moment when, while trying to decide between a Kenya AA or a Sumatra, that my sense memory takes over and I get a taste image in my mouth. Ahhhhhh. Sumatra.

I DO NOT drink office coffee. That is to say, those crappy simulated mass-produced faux coffees produced and distributed by companies that don't really give a roiling crap whether you have a good day or not. The same almost goes for the junk they present as a "courtesy" in hotel rooms, but nine times out of ten I end up taking the sucker punch. (So I guess it's safe to say: I KNOW how bad that crap really is.)

So why does all this come up? This morning I broke down the press (which I have decided, on the spur of the moment, to refer to from here on out as "Frenchi,") for it's bi-annual cleaning. The process has been to rinse the thing before each use, which gets most of the gorm off of it, and then every once in a while it requires a fully broken down scrubbing. While scrubbing, at one point, I thought I might have to replace the fine mesh screen, which was not quite coming clean and picking up fibers from the scrubby in the process, or, failing that, break down and buy a whole new press. (In this day and age, there lurks the possibility that the mesh screen might be the sort of thing that, although it is the very heart of the machine, might not be available as a replacement part.) But after a thorough scrubbing and re-assembly, Frenchi is alive and well and living in my kitchen next to the door to the garage. And this morning's coffee is back to it's rich, black, pungent, thick condition. IN coffee is truth, and in truth, coffee.

That is all ye know in this world, and all ye need know.