s02e01 - coffee might fix me
as you stumble into your home for the day: a windowless, former archive room strictly lit by fluorescents, the delay between your body and brain will make you contemplate Getting Really Into Stimulants. Not coke, but at least coffee.
You find it secretly demeaning squeaking out your order in front of your colleagues "Oat hot chocolate?" with an inquisitive upturn at the end of the statement as if you're anticipating a slap and a harsh remark: "What are you, six?".
And yet you are equally shameless— if you cared, you just wouldn't order anything, but there's something about getting a little marshmallow placed gingerly on your saucer next to your mug that you find exhilarating. This must be like when horses get given an apple. This sustains you, spiritually.
Why hot chocolate? Coffee bitter. Your palate hasn't matured enough to the point where you can enjoy apparently aromatic things that taste blatantly terrible: wine, namely.
Although hot chocolate warms your soul and harkens back to a childhood you were never really allowed to have, it does not, in fact, help you stay any more awake.
You could also get really into energy drinks. Though you feel that would be an ill-advised move, given your heart somehow beats like a jackhammer— shouldn't that beget awakeness? It doesn't, in any case, and you're on a non-trivial dose of what has been previously used by Wall-Street freaks as a substitute for whatever they're prescribing for kids with ADHD these days.
And yet, on your drive-in some mornings, you feel like you could be prone to closing your eyes for a moment and suddenly opening them after plowing into a street sign. Like, it's not actually that bad, but you do feel a little less alert than you'd like.
It is a shame your day is so hypnotically rhythmic, often not restorative by any means. What will fix you? Coffee? or an earlier bedtime?
You did sleep for maybe two hours as soon as you got home from work tonight and you'll sleep another 7 later, but it never feels like enough.