monkeycrap's Diaryland Diary
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Torontario III
Coffee talk
There are good drinks. A long tall glass of well-shaken pina colada, a bottle of lemon and soju in the right proportions, and what I'm currently having as I write this entry(which might just result in misspelled words and gibberishy sentences) - lemonade drowned in a bottle's worth of Rossi D'Asiago's 32% Limoncello Liquor.
Then, there's coffee. Personally, I don't think the beauty of coffee lies solely in its taste. Yeah, there's bad coffee-water (think Timothy's in Schulich), there're good brews, and there're delightful blends and concoctions. But the charm, the magic of coffee encompasses so much more than aromatic melange contained in densely-rimmed ceramic goblets - be it topped with hot, steamy froth, or penetrated by that gush of warm milk.
See, it's the coffee culture. Yes, that illusory, barmicidal utopia created by scheming marketers (in this politically correct day and age, we've come to refer to them as starbucks) to ensnare the unsuspecting, weary escapist into caffeinated financial doom. I've sold out to the dark side, and am unashamed to say so. Because you can get good coffee anywhere. A $4 cup of caramel macchiato at Starbucks, an 'ice-cap' from Tim Hortons, or a 70-cent kopi-o from the kopitiam across the street. But, but the coffee culture provides that much needed embellishment to that cup of good coffee. It is the catalyst which sparks the caffeine's journey through your veins, the impetus that synergizes pleasure from the heightened sense stimulation brought about by the caffeine overload.
For coffee always tastes better when sipped with a good book, good background music (or buzz if we're talking kopitiam), good company, good ambience and a good mood. Of course, a lemon-chocolate biscotti or two half-boiled eggs with kaya roti helps as well. It's all about the surroundings, the timing.
In coffee as in life, circumstance's so crucial. And it changes so often, which, to me, provides enough justification for hardly feeling the need to forecast and plan every step of my life, leaving it to the beauty of randomness sparked by much limoncello liquor and little rationalization.
"Once upon a time there was a centipede that was amazingly good at dancing with all hundred legs. All the creatures of the forest loved to watch it dance in its graceful entirety. Except the turtle, who was jealous of it. So the turtle wanted to get the centipede to stop dancing, and spent days and nights thinking of how it could achieve its evil aim. Nope, he couldn't say the centipede sucked. Nope, he couldn't say he danced better. After much thought, he decided to write a letter to the centipede. It read: 'O incomparable centipede, I am a devoted admirer of your exquisite dancing. How do you do it? Is it that you lift left leg number 28 and then your right leg number 39? Or do you begin by lifting your right leg number 17 before you lift your left leg number 44? I await your answer. Yours, Tortoise.' The centipede read the letter, began to think about it, going through the process of reasoned deliberation, and never danced as well ever again."
I think that impulsive, random decisions made on the spur of the moment come with one of two consequences. It either turns out a zillion times better than what you would've gotten if you'd make a calculated one, or you end up regretting the hell outta it. And it's this disparity between the outcomes that, like an espresso shot, provides that much needed adrenaline, that fuel for life.
We were headed towards union station, but decided on the spur of the moment to run out of the train at Spadina. We hit Kensington market for a spot of Japanese-product shopping, before Jayne spotted the sign that read 'Sublime Espresso Bar'. It was then, "Hmm...where is it? Eh it's here lor.. Want to go in anot? Ok lor!" and the rest was history.
The door-push opened into a greeting of warm, hushed tones of ochre, cream and parquet-brown. That simple, harmonious blend of contemporary and old school fits perfectly with that laid-back, chilled vibe that percolates, drips and filters through the quaint Kensington market area. The jazz music that permeates the simple establishment was loud enough to, like the latte, stir something within, yet soft enough for one to have a decent Saturday-afternoon coffee talk. It was not mainstream, generic jazz, but smooth jazz, chosen by the owner of the joint (who knows more about jazz music than coffee) and played on his, wait for it, gramophone. Records of jazz artistes are placed on the shelves by the 6 tables that litter the place, for sale to the public. The raspberry scones invite, the biscottis tempt as you watch the owner agree to someone's order of lemon ginger tea and proceeding to his chopping board to slice the lemons and ginger. Can't get any fresher than that.
It wasn't the best of weeks. When you've a little more time on your hands (read: I gave myself a second spring break by skipping one week's worth of classes because of general sianness), you think about stuff which you've no answers to, stuff which you'd want to have control over but can't seem to. You reexamine your beliefs, you do a post-mortem autopsy of what you've done, you do a pro-forma forecast of where you're headed. That fluctuation between the highs of I-think-I'm-doing-okay-ness, and the lows of mediocrity, of unaccomplishment, of knowing that you know nothing, it makes you kinda tired I guess.
But the good coffee, the good book and the good company made it all good. I drained my cup and left the place knowing that it's ok to not know, that it might be better charting your direction with a rough pencil sketch, that the feeling of unaccomplishment might just be an armament used by turtles trying to ruin your dance of life.
11:52 p.m. - 2008-03-22
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