Diving In!
~You should keep diving in, Alex. This is your specialty, your focus, your dedication. – Eric Murtaugh ……who’s awesome blog can be found here - http://ericmurtaugh.com/
I LOVE…Diving In! I once had a friend refer to me as ‘fickle’. This was because during World Cup 2010, when he asked me which team I liked I went on to tell him which team I liked in each of the 8 groups. The conversation went something like this..…
Him: No, no, no! You can’t have a team in each group. You can only have ONE team!
Me: (Quite stunned.) Why can I not have a team in each group? What’s the fun in that? What if my ONE team isn’t playing…or gets eliminated? I need options.
Him: You need options? No, you need a reality check. You’re too fickle.
Me: I am not! Explain to me why I can’t be completely excited about Brazil one day and then completely excited about Portugal the next.
Him: What the fuck?! Brazil!? Portugal?! They’re in the same group!
Me: I know. So?
Him: Didn’t you just say ONE team in each group?
Me: I’ve changed my mind. Two, I want two teams in each group.
Him: Two in each group? That’s half the teams playing in the entire fucking Cup! You want half the fucking teams?
Me: Yes…and you can have the other half. Woohoo! High-five!
Him: No, no high five. I’m not high-fiving you and your SIXTEEN fucking teams. I have one team.
Me: You can have Korea and Côte d’Ivoire….
Him: You have no conception of the word ‘loyalty’.
Me: I’m extremely loyal…
Him: To?
Me: To whatever I’m excited about at the moment.
Him: Fickle…
Ok, so some may call me fickle or erratic, but I prefer to think of myself as curious, excitable, and fascinated by things around me. I do ‘dive in’ and I do it with both feet. I dive into romance, love, music, conversations, nature, exploration, discovery, the universe, and I can certainly dive into a large pizza with the works! (But no freaking anchovies!) I love learning and I absolutely love feeding off the passions of others….
You: I love popsicles!
Me: Me too!
You: Do you really?
Me: Well…I do now!
If someone is excited about something, I can’t help but feel that excitement and dive right in along with them. And I don’t want to go for a quick dip, I want to really experience it. I want to find, and revel in, that passion and excitement they feel. At this point some may be thinking that I have no convictions, no ideals, and no opinions of my own….but that’s not true. I’ve lots of them! In fact, that’s pretty much the entire purpose of this blog….things I LOVE. While I have tons of opinions, what I have very few of are rules….and the few I do have I’m very flexible with. I’m constantly changing the rules. Why go to all the hassle of breaking a rule when it’s easier to just change it? In my opinion, if you break a rule….it was probably a lot of fun, so eliminate the rule, eliminate the guilt, and enjoy yourself. Of course, there are some things I will not dive in to, some rules I will not break no matter how much some one else enjoys it….
You: I love anchovies!
Me: Me too! No, wait…did you say anchovies?
You: Yes, I love them!
Me: You’re weird….weird is good…
You: Don’t you like them?
Me: Nope, but…what else do you love?!
You: Quantum electrodynamics….
Me: Hell, yes! Tell me everything about it! You wanna go grab a popsicle?!
Coffee
I love …Coffee! I’ll admit to being an early riser. This is not by choice, nor do I subscribe to the notion of the early bird getting the worm. Worms, in general, are highly over-rated and as far as I know can be obtained at any point throughout the day. I wake when I do primarily because my brain seems to function best in the morning. While it’s true the first thoughts to enter my mind upon waking are usually on that of writing, its only when coffee enters my consciousness that my body then becomes motivated enough to actually get out of bed.
I am not at all a coffee snob. I will drink any coffee, anywhere, and like it. In my opinion, the quality of the coffee is greatly determined by the quality of the conversation which comes along with it. Great conversation can make the worse coffee wonderful, while even the best coffee in the universe can do little to resuscitate an uninteresting conversation. That requires the work of alcohol, preferably tequila. There is no one place which is more suitable for drinking coffee than any other. My desk is a great spot for it…as is a balcony in the French Quarter, a kitchen table in Timor, a campsite anywhere, a beach in Indonesia, or just about any front porch.
Coffee shops should, in theory, also be a great place to have coffee…however there are some rules which apply:
- Firstly, when ordering coffee, there should only be two syllables involved in the process. Three, only if it includes the word ‘please’. Any more syllables and one is no longer ordering coffee but instead requesting some concoction which cost as much as a small pony and resembles actual coffee in as much as that same pony. I’ve found that if the coffee shop has a corporate office, a pretentious menu, and a drive through window the chances of my getting change back from my ten are greatly reduced.
- Secondly, coffee shops should have an atmosphere, an ambiance, which invokes socializing and lingering conversations with other people who are actually present and not on the other end of a cell phone.
- Thirdly, coffee should be served in a cup, a real cup of normal proportion, and with a saucer…always with a saucer. (Thank you, Q!)
- And fourthly, please don’t, in any way, assign my cup of coffee the task of saving the planet or any portion of it. I mean…really?! When your CEO gives up his SUV for a bike then we can talk about saving the planet…preferably over a nice cup of coffee!
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