Addictions

Monday morning I went on a school trip with Maayan's class to Park Canada, which isn't the small crappy park across the road from our house, as I'd previously thought, but a large and beautiful spot near Latrun where the Maccabees fought the Greeks in a big battle. This trip pertains to Hannuka (which I prefer spelled without a 'c', even though I've started adding that same 'c' to the English spelling of my surname as people were calling me Emma Seven) as steep inclines lead to 360 degree views and ruins of the guards' watchtower, which is living history and thus pretty cool. This was all wonderful stuff etc etc but the whole 5 hr shebang would have been significantly more enjoyable if there had been coffee in my bloodstream.

It was the first morning for as long as I could remember where coffee didn't play a part, and man, was I fucked up. Arrrggh, massive yawn, Arrggghhh massive yawn, arrggghhh massive yawn - whoop swallowed a rock, a child of eight, a teacher's scarf, my own face. Who, Maayan, is that constantly yawning, grey-skinned lump of near-life crouching with desperation near a rock? Oh, that's my Mummy. She's just dying of caffeine withdrawal. She'll be fine and if not we'll cart her body home in the bus. Leave her to die and let's war again.

I was flabberghasted to realise just how addicted I am to caffeine. Yesterday morning I had to have five cups of it to replenish the cellular deficit. This morning, pre-coffee, the yawns started again, the body was sluggish, half-alive, eyes streaming. Post-coffee and I could run across the Antarctic in my pj's and feel neither cold nor tired, merely wonder why there's no zenith to climb and how long I could stay in the icy waters before my heart gave way, and plop, here goes - start the stopwatch!

Dad used to tell us how sugar was 'the biggest poison known to man' and refuse to buy sweeties, cookies, chocolate and sweet cereal and I plotted that when I was older I'd have a whole row in my kitchen of all the cereals I wanted and no one would be able to stop me. Now, of course, I don't want them, I want Weetabix, which costs like eight quid a box of 24 so there's no way on earth. Anyway, we'd say, 'yeah, yeah Dad, give it a rest and pass the Smarties.' So I wonder if it was the sugar as much as anything that I put in my coffee, but whatever. I don't drink as much alcohol as I once did, I don't ram consciousness expanding drugs down my gullet (anymore), I let people cross at zebra crossings, unlike Israelis, and I work hard for almost no pay, so I figure I deserve a little poison.

Hannuka is about to begin, which means doughnuts and holidays and cold dark weather -except the weather hasn't got very cold and on the trip, we saw the flower rakefet, don't know what it's called in Anglit, which is an end of winter sort of flower, and the teacher reckons she saw blossoming almond trees, which is a sign that you need to start cleaning your house like a nut for Passover. It's all messed up. I like Hannuka. I like anything if I've drunk coffee that morning.

So Him Indoors said last night I was addicted to the computer - 'the world's greatest addiction' he called it. Yes, I've spent almost every minute on the effing thing since I got back and here I am again, but I WORK on it, was my reasoning. I feed from it, I connect with the world, I write and create. This is my medium. This is my sustenance and livelihood, my entertainment and my 'only connect' faculty. If it made me coffee I'd marry it.

So I guess I'm not as pure as pure can be. Not that purity was ever a goal, as such, but one wonders if I might be something worth thinking about. I'm too punk to be pure, but one day I might be rid of that and get zen on a cloud of purity.

No cigarettes, said the brain upon waking.

No cigarettes it's saying now.

Don't get up and go to the back door.

Don't do it.

Don't!