I will admit I have a fondness for altered states.

The total number of substances favoured for such alteration has dwindled over the years, since as I've mellowed with age, Sleep has become an increasingly satisfying means to take myself out of the ebb and flow of life. And even the remaining two have receded over the last few years as red eyes have lost their chic and a Molson Muscle looms over the precipice of my belt. But sometimes...sometimes....

I haven't figured out yet whether the substances were actually helping me with creative endeavours, or whether I just got into the habit of having them around when I was doing creative stuff. My job is an ostensibly creative one, and I already know that it's almost impossible to shoehorn my natural creative time into government hours - brainstorming is simply not possible under fluorescent light. Idea stuff, I mostly do at home at night. I am still, however, expected to show up freshfaced at 8:30am.

Despite my fondness for the aforementioned substances, I have always preferred Down or Sideways to Up. Up is where living in a city takes you, in combination with Wound. Up makes me into an asshole. Up-things have never been necessary for me, including sugar and caffeine. People always marvel at the fact that I've done without coffee these 32 years. Through graveyard jobs, school, and long roadtrips - nary a drop except incidentally in pop, which is drunk only for reasons of thirst.

Also I'm one of these hot people. Summer? Not for me. Sweaters are unnecessary (and oppressive). A high metabolism, (and more recently, a layer of...ahem...'insulation'); keep me toasty all the time. Women have always loved jumping into the sack with me, but always more for my thermal properties than any kind of sexitude.

Due to my molten core, hot beverages, and coffee in particular, have never been part of my routine. Also since I drink to quench thirst and not to warm up; I'm impatient. Hand me a hot drink and I will invariably scald my tongue.

So yeah. Even though the Doors of Perception are more of a tentflap for me, I have spent most of my life 99 44/100ths coffee-free.

I am by no means a manic person. To the external observer, I'm not twitchy, spazzy, or even alert much of the time. My interior can be considerably more turbulent, but from without I am a tree in a meadow, a bird on a thermal, a mountain lake. Phlegmatic as a sloth hanging upside-down from a vine (but without the ticks).

And then I started working here.

I need to be awake.

I thirst for mind-altering substances in order to do my work.

I am not allowed to be stoned or drunk at work (you may think no one is, but at animation companies this is tacitly encouraged).

And there is always free coffee brewing.

After 30 minutes of public transit iPawd zen, I arrive at work and wack myself the fuck out on the brown dishwater they keep in the kitchen. It is terrible. But it is chock full o' zing.

Wandering around the office, a traffic jam is contained within my placid shell. I am still unsure why I do this.

I have little experience with good coffee, but I have a discerning palate in other ways, so I am aware that this is not it. I don’t even think it's coffee per se.

Therefore: Office Coffee; I dub thee Offee.

As I sort out whether I wish to continue drinking you, I will debate the merits of spelling you Awfee.