The monster I created.

Due to my search for higher learning (and a place to find work writing comedy), I’ve left Miami and wound up in Manhattan. I’m officially matriculating at Fordham University, College at Lincoln Center. Which means that I will actually have work to do for the next four years! Which also means that I have to start waking up early in the morning for reasons other than just lounging around. I try to give myself about an hour every morning so that I can eat breakfast and enjoy the view of the Upper West Side. Which brings me to the subject at hand: my new battle with morning coffee. I normally don’t drink coffee, but I figured that college is a good time to develop a caffeine addiction (featuring frequent bathroom trips). And what’s an addiction without crappy drugs? I have no time to make a fresh pot every morning. Nope, I use the instant stuff: Chock Full o’Nuts instant coffee. I have no money to buy good cream; I have a bottle of generic powered creamer, tasteless as the hot water I mix the coffee in. (If I’m desperate, I’ll sneak in some of my roommate’s Half&Half.) There’s no feeling in the world like taking that first sip in the morning, and realizing that you need to add more sugar after spitting your sip into a nearby sink. After sitting down after adding a good half-kilo of sugar into my brown caffeine-riddled cesspool, I still can’t get rid of the bitter taste-fail. I think to myself, “Why not?,” and proceed to pull Cran-Raspberry juice out of the fridge and pour a swig into my “In Coffee We Trust” mug. Without this slightest bit of flavor, I’d just lose all faith in the world, then go outside to kill a pigeon. Needless to say, I haven’t had a good cup of coffee in a long time. And I know what you’re thinking. Why do I still drink it? Why do I still knock back the brown Franken-swill that can probably strip the paint off a Volkswagen? Because I made it. It’s mine. I’ll pick my crappy coffee over a Starbucks coffee milkshake any day. Because at 7:00 in the morning, it’s just me, my coffee, and the people that I stare at in the apartment complex from across the street.