I WAS (not actually, but easily could have been) DATE-RAPE-DRUGGED BY MY BARISTA

Spoiler alert: everything turned out just fine.  But I did have a crazy two hours.

I have recently been trying to maintain even levels of caffeine intake.  I have a really smart, realistic, honest doctor, and he told me, when I visited to remedy some persistent headaches, that cutting caffeine out of your diet entirely basically has the same effect on headaches as just ensuring that you drink the same amount of caffeine each day.

Makes sense.

So I've been trying to ensure that I have an even two cups of coffee each day, instead of the 1-4 I used to have, depending on the day.

It's easy at work, but not always as easy on the weekend.

So Saturday, I had some reading to do and needed one more coffee to finish off the day's quota, so I decided to walk to my favorite local shop, ordered an iced coffee (love San Diego spring-which-is-really-summer) and got cracking.  I put on my iPod "sweet sweet studies" playlist (that I have effectively maintained since my sophomore year of college, and is largely made up of Enya, Beethoven, some random movie themes and two James Taylor songs), put on my reading glasses (because I am 85 years old and wear glasses OVER my contacts now) and opened up to chapter one.

I HAVE NEVER READ A BOOK THAT WAS SO AMAZINGLY INSIGHTFUL.  Within the first ten pages, I had underlined, circled and bracketed so many points that it looked like a page from a book your kid (yours, specifically. your kid will not stop with the book writing!) got a hold of without your permission and wrote all over it to spite you.  I was so into this book that I could barely stay in my SEAT.

I was so inspired that in the middle of reading, I pulled out my phone, looked through my old contacts and emailed my grad school adviser to see if I could set up a meeting to talk about PhD programs.  If academic reading was this exciting to me after just a few years off, I AM READY TO GO BACK TO GRAD SCHOOL!  Meeting scheduled.

I went back to reading and blowing my own mind when I looked up and caught someone from the table across from me staring at me.  I realized then that I had been seat dancing to Enya.  I CANNOT BEAR TO SIT STILL FOR THIS AMAZING MUSIC.  I do really, really love Enya, but I don't usually dance in my chair to her music...without realizing it...  I awkwardly smiled and tried to keep it together. 

At this point, I realized that I had read,  frantically underlined, circled and bracketed at least a full page without being entirely sure that I'd read the page.  I definitely couldn't actually recall what it was about.

At this time, after I had consumed about half my iced coffee, and the barista walked over and said "Heyyyyy, confession.  You ordered and iced coffee and I accidentally poured you our specialty brew, which is cold-brewed to have three times the amount of caffeine as our regular coffee.  Sorry about that!"

...

Apparently a lot of caffeine makes me act like other people act when they're on coke.

Good to know.

So I packed up before further embarrassing myself and/or signing up for an additional $100,000 of education, changed playlists and walked home.

I arrived faster than I ever had, and Jonsi has never sounded quite as magical as he did on that walk.  I pretty much felt like I'd just solved all of life's problems, but didn't actually DO anything...I just felt so great about it.


But then I had like a day long headache, so overall, not worth it.