For about ten years now, I have limited my caffeine intake to one soda in the morning. This is not because I’ve particularly virtuous, as anyone who knows me can attest. I used to love coffee, but in my early 20s I found that cutting caffeine cured my insomnia and, more importantly, had the added benefit of lessening my back problems. They say you take your stress out on the weakest part of your body, and I damaged my back in a playground accident when I was 8 or 9. It hasn’t ever really been the same, and it’s the first thing that lets me know I’m stressed. I’ve dealt with pretty much daily pain as a matter of course since my early teens. Exercise and massage therapy help, but the most immediate, mundane, effective thing is to limit my caffeine and anger.

I didn’t start to think about caffeine and academia until I was at C’s last year, watching everyone and their coffee cups. Since then, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the academy runs on the stuff. Coffee is an integral bit of process for almost all the scholars and writers I know. Jimbo and his caffeine units are a heroic example, and it seems like most bloggers write about coffee fairly often. When I’m struggling with a deadline, I often feel like I’m at a disadvantage with my lack of coffee. I settle instead for hits of green tea, with its negligible but present caffeine. Nevertheless, I always think if only I could jack myself up on coffee, I’d get so much more done.

Mister Boyfriend is another king of caffeination, and when I moved in with him I also moved in with a burr grinder, a Krups espresso machine, and a contant flow of fresh-roasted whole beans. This is a man who drinks multiple triple cappuccinos throughout the day, who never writes without downing a couple to start off. I haven’t been tempted by any of it, mostly because I’m intimidated by the whole process of achieving the perfect grind and the perfect tamp and the perfect froth and the perfect cup. Never mind all that, I’m busy, and besides I can occasionally steal a sip from him. But the espresso machine has been dying, and in a fit of pragmatism he went out last night and bought a Senseo. This is dangerous. Not only can I operate it (hell, a trained muskrat could operate it), but it makes a pretty decent cup of coffee. This morning, I have had one Diet Coke and two cups of coffee. The spasms have already started in my lower back, and I’m sitting here totally wanting another cup, just for the taste. If I keep this up, I’m going to end up sitting in the corner twisted up like something out of a fairy tale. And it’s not like I’ve experienced an attendant jump in productivity, either, sitting here writing about coffee and pain. Still, that damn machine is a siren, I tell you.