I broke down and drank coffee. There, I said it. It's public, so now I can breathe. For two whole months I abstained from caffeine one tortuous day at a time. Occasionally, I would hover around Peete's or the Coffee Bean like a soccer mom or trust fund recipient (what else are these people doing in the middle of the day?) and then just when I got to the cash register my Inner-Big-Black-Woman-Cop would kick-in with a megaphone and shout "Young lady, step away from the coffee bar!" And I would run like an addict in withdrawl and say to myself, "Boy, that was a close one." Anyway, last week the stress got to be so much that my Inner-Big-Black-Woman-Cop went on vacation to Puerto Vallarta and I was left totally vulnerable to the whims of my desires. So, of course, I marched into Coffee Bean and ordered a mocha thinking that if this stuff is so harmful why is there a coffee shop on every corner? Forgetting, of course, that a) I have a proven allergy to caffeine, b) in certain areas of Los Angeles there are liquor stores on every corner (does that make it healthy?) and c) that Vicadin is totally legal. The truth is (and I think Chris Rock said it about donuts or something) there's gotta be more than just coffee in that dark liquid... and don't act like you don't know it! It feels that good.

Anyway, it didn't stop with just ONE mocha and I'm paying for it now. My bladder has an acid reflex and by the third day my system was fully contaminated. I read somewhere today that people crave what they are allergic to, which means that I will probably have to abstain from HBO in the near future. For now, I'm in bed recovering from my coffee-binge. I've hooked up my computer so I can write and blog from bed, which leads me to ask myself, "why did I buy a desk in the first place?" This way, if I want to take a nap, all I have to do is close my eyes (I can respect laziness).

Just for today, I can't (sob) drink coffee.