Everything I know about coffee is the SMELL.
The smell, Tully’s Cafe, Starbuck’s, some breakfast place, it didn’t matter; they all meant Seattle. I always wondered what it would be like to drink the stuff—to differentiate FRENCH ROAST from CINNAMON VANILLA—and would I take it with cream and two sugars or milk or hot and black and strong?
Coffee was like a world I had stuck my head into, with the remainder of my body dangling out the back, head immersed only in SMELL.
Business people drank coffee. So did homeless people. So did my best friend Natalie’s parents—I would poke the bags of beans in their freezer when we were getting fudge bars, just to see if a poke could release that aroma. An aroma spicy, warm, comforting and unique like nothing else I’d ever set my nose to.
Instant cool, too. Cool and collected inside a space with windows to look out on the dribbling gray outside; a space where you can pick up the recommended Tuesdays with Morrie, or pitter away on your laptop, and you and your extra tall mocha latte with no whipped cream are safe.
This is comforting stuff, safety. Like for three dollars you can get security in a styrofoam cup. No wonder people shell out for it.
Like swallowing a liquid blanket.
(but hey. I don’t want to drink coffee. just to let you know. the smell is all I need.)
6 comments:
ooooooh, i LOVE the smell of coffee.
Also, i like reading your blog. It gets lost when its private.
did you release it? because i love it. i was missing your words.
hi brooke remember me..i heart you and need you to visit....love your friend
val
Brooke? Can I tell you that I just like you so much already and I don't even know you? I also have been stalking your blog in private...but I didn't want to tell your brother..because I didn't want to sound creepy...but I love it! Liquid blanket=perfection.
We're going to be sistercousinsinlaw. I hope you know. I just invented that term.
:)
Brooke there is this part of You've Got Mail that I LOVE about coffee. Here's the quote, although I'm finding it sounds kinda harsh and definitely less-relatable if you're not watching him learn it.
"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the heck they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."
You should watch this movie. Claire's Mom likes it too.
Oh Julie, I believe this is the start of something beautiful.
And Lyndsi Shae, I totally forgot about that part! But I love it.
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