coffee and me
For about an hour every morning I am a genius. I have flashes of brilliance and creative inspiration. I see patterns and parallels that weren’t there before, and ingenuous comedic metaphors fly through my head so fast I sometimes lose them. It’s all so fascinating that at times I have a hard time keeping a straight face. But inevitably, the caffeine wears off.
Most addicts are doomed to forever attempt to recreate the feeling of that first high – a hopeless journey akin to the pursuit of infinity. But every morning, after I drink my first cup of coffee (provided it’s strong enough), I get that same rush, and for a little window of time, I’m Albert fucking Einstein with a little David Sedaris and Tito Puente thrown in.
The funny thing is, I always forget this. A few times a week I’ll get some grand idea and think to myself, "that is absolutely brilliant I am a genius I need to write that down NOW I hope I didn’t say it out loud because someone could totally steal that and make money off it." But then I’ll realize (damn), it’s just the coffee.
Some days it’s a musical idea, even though I haven’t made any music in ages. Often it’s the idea for some huge creative undertaking that will be abandoned (and most likely forgotten) by noon. But usually it’s just something I think is really funny.
You’d think this process would cater nicely to blogging, but often I’ll get distracted by reading other blogs, checking NBA box scores, deciding what music should accompany my writing, or doing actual work, and later that afternoon, the two paragraphs that were the beginning of my ascent to comedic genius (A.K.A. "Document 1") are not saved.
This week’s big discarded idea (which is still on life support) was to write a day in my (working) life as if I were the lead in a comic book – first-person detective noir kind of stuff. I even went so far as to ask my desk-mate, Michael, if his Mac had that photo-booth filter that makes pictures look like comic book frames (the project quickly becoming a collaborative effort). It did and he was happy to oblige me (or maybe he just felt sorry for me).
Michael is a senior designer and a power-blogger with an unwavering temperament who sleeps five hours a night and works out almost every morning. He is directly responsible for my current "coffee, Coke Zero, coffee" daily caffeine intake regimen, yet I often feel like the annoying little yippy dog that is either running wildly in circles around him (tangling the leash) or passed out on my little pillow. I don’t know how he does it – it’s like his body absorbs the caffeine on some divine time-release cycle engineered for maximum productivity.
Lately Michael has taken to writing down funny/bizarre things I say every now and then. I’m not quite sure what his motives are, but I suspect this will eventually result in some impressive side-project (most likely involving typography) that he will present at one of our weekly creative meetings. He even has a more stable grasp on my creative output.
Michael is also more confident (in a good way) and less insecure. I am constantly prodding him to tell me that something I just said or wrote was funny (I will definitely email him immediately after I post this). This puppy needs constant positive reinforcement.
Anyways, this whole comic-book idea lasted for a little over an hour. I had just written the following sentence (and had an unintentional meta-moment/realization):
"I’ve had enough coffee to [dramatic verb] a [physically imposing man or animal]."
But then I realized that:
1. The sentence didn’t fit the tone of what I had already written.
2. The sentence was much funnier than what I had already written.
3. Damn, it was just the coffee.
And then someone came by and asked me to do some actual work.
Most addicts are doomed to forever attempt to recreate the feeling of that first high – a hopeless journey akin to the pursuit of infinity. But every morning, after I drink my first cup of coffee (provided it’s strong enough), I get that same rush, and for a little window of time, I’m Albert fucking Einstein with a little David Sedaris and Tito Puente thrown in.
The funny thing is, I always forget this. A few times a week I’ll get some grand idea and think to myself, "that is absolutely brilliant I am a genius I need to write that down NOW I hope I didn’t say it out loud because someone could totally steal that and make money off it." But then I’ll realize (damn), it’s just the coffee.
Some days it’s a musical idea, even though I haven’t made any music in ages. Often it’s the idea for some huge creative undertaking that will be abandoned (and most likely forgotten) by noon. But usually it’s just something I think is really funny.
You’d think this process would cater nicely to blogging, but often I’ll get distracted by reading other blogs, checking NBA box scores, deciding what music should accompany my writing, or doing actual work, and later that afternoon, the two paragraphs that were the beginning of my ascent to comedic genius (A.K.A. "Document 1") are not saved.
This week’s big discarded idea (which is still on life support) was to write a day in my (working) life as if I were the lead in a comic book – first-person detective noir kind of stuff. I even went so far as to ask my desk-mate, Michael, if his Mac had that photo-booth filter that makes pictures look like comic book frames (the project quickly becoming a collaborative effort). It did and he was happy to oblige me (or maybe he just felt sorry for me).
Michael is a senior designer and a power-blogger with an unwavering temperament who sleeps five hours a night and works out almost every morning. He is directly responsible for my current "coffee, Coke Zero, coffee" daily caffeine intake regimen, yet I often feel like the annoying little yippy dog that is either running wildly in circles around him (tangling the leash) or passed out on my little pillow. I don’t know how he does it – it’s like his body absorbs the caffeine on some divine time-release cycle engineered for maximum productivity.
Lately Michael has taken to writing down funny/bizarre things I say every now and then. I’m not quite sure what his motives are, but I suspect this will eventually result in some impressive side-project (most likely involving typography) that he will present at one of our weekly creative meetings. He even has a more stable grasp on my creative output.
Michael is also more confident (in a good way) and less insecure. I am constantly prodding him to tell me that something I just said or wrote was funny (I will definitely email him immediately after I post this). This puppy needs constant positive reinforcement.
Anyways, this whole comic-book idea lasted for a little over an hour. I had just written the following sentence (and had an unintentional meta-moment/realization):
"I’ve had enough coffee to [dramatic verb] a [physically imposing man or animal]."
But then I realized that:
1. The sentence didn’t fit the tone of what I had already written.
2. The sentence was much funnier than what I had already written.
3. Damn, it was just the coffee.
And then someone came by and asked me to do some actual work.
posted by Justin at 7:25 PM
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