Tonify The Tiger

Today is the last day of the FauxTea. Which I read inside my mind as Foti. Frankly, I’d rather it was Foti, as Polygonum multiflorum, otherwise known as foti, is alleged to:

“Tonify the kidneys, Balance a fragile yin. Treat weak bones and premature graying of hair and protect the skin against UVB damage. When taken internally, P. multiflorum also has a laxative effect.
P. multiflorum contains stilbene glycosides similar to resveratrol and with superior antioxidant activity. Resveratrol is extracted from P. multiflorum's close relative, Japanese knotweed (P.Cuspidatum). Resveratrol has been suggested to extend life span by a variety of mechanisms” (Wikipedia).

Hee, hee, hee, “Tonify”.

Cold turkey, will sure give you the runs

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my checkered, chessed, and parcheesi’d past, it’s to step down, over cold turkey, whenever possible.
Now for some people (court ordered, boneheads, recalcitrant) or in some circumstances (Jail, rehab, de-tox) or with some substances (me & tobacco so far) it’s not likely to work.
But cold turkey is for that brand of people who say things like “Go ahead, punch me as hard as you can, right in my stomach”. And I guess if you’re just a flat out pain freak it might even be fun.
But my step down program has always worked (other than tobacco) every time I’ve needed it to and it’s relatively painless. It’s based on halves and doubles. Either cut the dose in half each time or double the time between or if you really need to be macho, both.

I used to think withdrawal was meritorious in that it would make one think thrice about picking up. But then I used to enjoy a bit of pain as well. And the reality of pain is one of our most fleeting memories. (Thank you brain chemistry for that at least.) I am so over that bit. And I have also learned that if one is determined to pick up, nothing is likely to stand in the way, other than a bullet ot something of that ilk.
People who are in that headspace don’t call their sponsors. That is one of the big ass problems of 12 stepping.

I mention all this because I will be off the caffeine by Monday. I started at the level of one cup tea, one cup coffee on Weds. Thurs. I had one cup tea. Fri. 1/2 a teabag. Today 1/4. Tomorrow a few grains. So far, no debilitating headache. Sweet.

So if I can painlessly get off it, compared to the pretty severe pain it causes me, I’m ahead in the game. Of course when the memory of the pain it gives me has fleeted, I could easily forget to not pick up..... Cuz coffee, tea and chocolates are such sweet poizens.

The new morning ritual

I wake up. The cats mill about either harassing each other, harassing me or laying around on top of us. I smoke while they sort themselves out. Then I shove everyone over and crawl out of bed. Hit the bathroom and they always push the door open just to check up on me and maybe fight at my feet a bit. Then it’s time for the hoopla and huzzah, breakfast for kittens! As they go shooting down the stairs in that hoppy, tiny cat fashion I’m watching my feet until they go shooting ahead of me nipping each others bums. On to the kitchen for their breakfast treat. They get a quarter can each of this foo-foo lobster, shrimp and chicken goo. They circle, rowr, wurble and chirp until it’s dished up and then fall to as if they’d been starved for days.
That’s my opportunity to get the kettle on and the bread sliced. By the time I’m settled with my tea and toast they’re wandering back to the living room, ready to play a bit, get their fat bellies rubbed and then pass out all snugged up together for awhile.

Sitarounday

Mmm Saturday morning. I suppose I should get up and do relevant things - go to the Farmer’s Market, walk by the river, start cooking and cleaning, whatever. I don’t though. I’m all up in Sat. Morning cartoons. Now with the new season there is Superman in addition to Batman, as well as they’ve brought back Beakmans World (double super awesome). So in addition to the half hour of commercial free, old school toon s on Turner it’s back to Saturday TV Savage hood.

Also joyous is a proper cup of tea with a double bagger of PG Tips. I just found a not insanely priced source. Toast made from a decent loaf of bakery bread from Great Harvest Bread Co. A 4 dollar loaf, no holes and cave-ins, a proper chewy texture throughout and even though they don’t have a sesame semolina approximation, I think I can find enough alternatives to make me happy.
I have been super pissed at Zingermans bread for ages. Always full of holes. 8 dollars a loaf and they can’t properly knead it? I am not a Zingerman’s fan. I was 20 years ago, but it all started going downhill when I found a bloody finger condom in a sandwich back in ‘86.

Oh all right, all right. I’ll go be adult and constructive now that it’s noon

"It’s a thin line between love and hate"

“She opens up the door and lets you in,
never once asks where you‘ve been”

Here’s the thing about me and caffeine.
In the early 80’s I was, among other things, a serious tweaker. I have noticed this trend, ecto-morphs who use tend to become Junkies, meso-morphs who use tend to become tweakers. Cerebretonics seem to be fair game to all kinds of things but frequently it turns out to be sex.

Why did I become a tweaker? Well, I always suspect it was due in large part to my relationship to caffeine. I adore caffeine. I am highly allergic to caffeine. To this day I have not been able to kick caffeine right out of my life. Imagine my dismay when in ‘93 I went to visit my dying Grandmother in Seattle, and found a cappuccino machine in a Burger King. This was my first foreboding of the caffeine culture soon to reach across the country and now the world. It feels very much the same as being a nondrinker in this alcohol fueled culture. (Which is, for the most part, also one of my struggles).

So, given that I needed to work 3 jobs and party incessantly, and that caffeine compromises my immune system and severely aggravates one of my genetic illnesses, what other recourse did I think I had at the time?
Needless to say it was another in a series of really bad ideas.
I had no idea at the time that crank is the very devil, that one only has to smell it to know that it comes straight from the pit and that putting something in your body that looks, smells and tastes exactly like you scraped it off the bottom of the cat box is inestimably stupid. But it wasn’t caffeine, and it was so much stronger! How exciting was that?

I did gain one, single, boon from it, in an indirect manner, I met Uncle Bunny because of it.
I was sent to him by my friends who said to me;
“Stella, darlin’, you’re psychotic, and we think you should go talk to this guy who can help you. Tell him what idiot shit you’re up to and he’ll sell you some supplements to counteract that and you’ll feel and behave ever so much better.”
They were right.

I probably can’t get away with saying what he suggested, and what worked for me or the FDA will arrest me or something. But once I was assisted to stop being psychotic, I realized that caffeine, for all it’s problems was at least a known toxin. So I gave up the other and never went back. However, it didn’t end there, as I discovered that among other things my metabolism was now supremely fucked. It takes years to recover from that stuff. I still have some issues and its been what, over 20 years now.

So given those extremes I have decided that known toxins are generally the better choice. Like sugar. I happen to be a chocoholic diabetic. How pathetic is that? Its the caffeine thing again also, only in chocolate its the double whammy. When I work at the store, I stand right next to a huge stack of super-fudgy, chocolate-chocolate chip brownies, some of which I’ve found to weigh over a half pound, made at the restaurant by the fantastic baker. And, they just reek of chocolate. It’s like being madly in love with a married man, that you have to see socially, who doesn’t love you, but who occasionally uses you for sex.

But, in my distrust of Nutra-sweet, Splenda, other chem-sweets and chemicals, at least I know where I stand when I go back for more chocolate and tea. I’m making that perfect cup of properly brewed, black tea with milk, with my eyes wide open.
Someday I'll get what I want out of this relationship, someday it won’t hurt like this.
Then there’s tobacco.....

Working over the weekend

I feel like while I have a tiny break from work and the network is actually running the way it’s spozed to, I should get in here and rewrite my lost entry or say something salient.
However as its still early and I havent had my proper cuppa tea I just don’t feel inspired.
You would already know how I like my tea, my relationship to caffeine and about Karl LaFong and Charlie Daytona who are coming over later to play music, had I not lost that other post.
It’s so painful and I feel so wistful because I am a classic three finger typist and losing something I typed away at for an hour makes me daggers mad.
But the teapot awaits, the dogs need to be sat, Im sure there’s plenty of filing to do, and Oliver just sleeps blissfully on, like the world is just prepared to wait for his attentions.