The Artist As The State Of Her Coffee

On today’s episode of “I have a platform and will use it as I see fit”, we’re going to distract ourselves from installation logistics.

Now I like a mocha vanilla breve as much as the next barista, but the luxury of time is most frequently reflected in the time applied to the rituals of daily living. Most concretely, in my experience, they’re reflected in coffee. If I have the time to walk to the coffee shop, order a mocha vanilla breve- and could you throw an extra shot of espresso in that etc.- and then pay, and then wait for the barista make it, and then sit and actually drink it for the 25+ minutes it takes to not scald my entire mouth, and maybe take a few deep breaths, and *possibly* even use this relatively harmless addiction as a way to relax… Well I’m having a pretty good week.

Here’s the current coffee ritual:

1. Microwave a barely washed mug 3/4 full of water for one minute or until it’s basically sort of hot

2. Apply one and a half spoonfuls of Folger’s instant coffee crystals using whatever spoon is next to the sink

3. Fill the remaining 1/4 of the mug with cold water

4. Chug immediately or in as close to under 3 minutes as possible. If impossible, chug as walking wherever, shake mug dry, and slip into backpack.

This isn’t so much a complaint as an observation that necessities like- for my addled brain at least- coffee, do not have universal, or even day to day, standards. The amount of time we are allowed to allocate for them fluctuates. A shower can be a desperate scrub in between three hour classes before study group and rehearsal, or it can be a steam-pillowed birthday reward topped off with testing that face scrub your sister mailed you like a year ago. A meal can be shoveled down while power walking to the next meeting or an hour long escape.

I guess what I’m saying is that my disgusting goblinoid coffee behavior means my time is dedicated elsewhere at the moment. And it’s amusing, to weirdos like myself, to have a concrete measure of that push-pull relationship between necessity and recreation in my daily habits.

Perhaps this was a little blathering. But again, I built this soapbox and no one is paying me to use it. There are no rules. Long live the queen.