Redemption.

This is normally a bearable-to-pleasant time of the year (weather-wise) to be in Phoenix.  Outside, it is probably around 55 degrees right now.  You would think that after suffering through a Phoenix summer these Phoenicians would welcome cool weather with open arms, but at this very moment it is 1 million degrees in the PHX airport.  That is an exaggeration.  [I was about to add a slightly vulgar and inappropriate statement describing the temperature's effect on my body, but in fear that my grandmother may someday read this, I'll just say for now that I am quite uncomfortable]

Anyway, the title of this post actually refers to womankind.  Being a bit wary and doubtful of the double 'X' lately, three women (angels?) today have once again given me a sliver of hope -or perhaps the other half of that ship-fragment-made-raft that Rose sat on to watch Decaprio die in the frigid waters of the Atlantic as the Titanic gave a couple hundred people the proverbial "shaft".  I don't blame her, I would have done the same thing after having to hear that damned Celine Dion song on the radio for the 8 years following the movie. 

Here are three short stories of redemption.


Jamie
Jamie is an old friend from my undergraduate days of Starcraft, Jiu-Jitsu, all-nighter-paper-writing, and drunken mischief.  She is quite possible the nicest and sweetest person in the world.  Not one little bit of [insert any negative trait here] in her body.  I just recently discovered that Jamie lives in PHX, and today she:
-invited me into her house
-let me park my car at her house for the next 2 weeks
-brought me to a "party" where we consumed only sweets, eggnog, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, and hot wing and bean dips, and met a 63 year old man named Egor. (Egor is more commonly referred to Santa because of his incredible Santa-beard, and he rocks hard on the upright bass... there will be more to come on Santa)
-drove me to the airport (I may have been dropped off at the wrong terminal, but I had some time to kill and it gave opportunity for further redemption, which leads me to Sarah)
Sarah
So I don't really know if her name is Sarah for certain, but I'm pretty sure it is.  I'm terrible with names.  And to my credit, we only talked for about 4 minutes.  I don't have much to say about "Sarah" except that she was beautiful, very easy to talk to, had a warm and welcoming yet very intriguing personality, and she was very calm and relaxing to talk to (despite the almost-certainty of missing her flight).
Charissa?
This is really her name (I swear- I actually remember this one), but I wasn't sure how to spell it.  Pronounced as Kuh-riss-uh.  That's probably not even a good phonetic description.  Anyway, Charissa mistook my confused looking-for-my-flight-and-gate-number-grumbling as some sort of creep-talk aimed in her general direction.  After clarifying my grumble, she was kind enough to engage in further conversation and even allowed me to stalk her to her gate and converse whilst we waited for her flight.  She was obviously a smarty, confirmed by her status as a doctor of the human eye, and we had a fine talk indeed (and she was also very attractive).

I think there are a couple traits that can be generalized for these ladies that gave them redemptive power- they were all genuine, sincere, and comfortable with (confident in?) themselves.  They were also all attractive and approachable, but that is another matter.  So you may be wondering what any of this has to do with drinking coffee, but it should be obvious by now.  I wouldn't have engaged with any of these ladies-  and womankind would still be in dire need of redemption- had I drank coffee because coffee gives you stale old-man breath.

Reason #3 to not drink coffee:  Coffee gives you stale old-man breath and significantly decreases the chances of engaging in conversation with an attractive member of the gender-of-interest.

EDIT:  I apologize for any missing words, misspellings, awkward sentences (well, more awkward than usual anyway), and anything else amiss with this posting.  To my credit, it was 2 am in the Phoenix airport when I was writing this.  It was just me and good ole Creeper Joe.  Ok, I never actually talked to him so I didn't actually know his name, but he was definitely creepy.

A confession...

So before we get too far into this, I need to get something off my chest. Coffee does have one potentially important function- it makes you poop. Well, it makes me poop at least. Now before you get too crazy making assumptions about the value of coffee, it is important to recognize that pooping isn't always a good thing, though there are certainly times when a little pooping assistance is useful. For example, I wake up early to sneak in a run or bike ride before starting work for the day. Now ideally I would have my cup of green tea and a bowl of oatmeal, poop, run/bike, and be back in time to have 2nd breakfast and start working. Unfortunately, sometimes that poop isn't quite ready before departure, and all it takes is 2 or 3 miles of a 6 or 7 mile run to rob you of your dignity and a good pair of socks.  And there's nothing worse than losing a good pair of socks.

If I'm in a hurry and need to poop immediately, coffee is the go-to drink.  The speed at which it works is unbelievable really.  A few sips and a familiar friend is knock-knock-knocking on Evan's door.  The flipside to all of this is of course that you don't always want to poop as soon as the coffee demands it.  For instance, road trips.  Don't drink coffee (or let your road trip partner-in-crime do so) if you need to be anywhere on time. 

I believe in letting nature take it's course, and subsequently, I don't like to resort to coffee-inspired pooping.  I just want to recognize in this post that there are certain (extremely dire) times when it is acceptable (though regrettable) to consume coffee.

Today's coffee fact: For better or worse, til death do you part, coffee makes you poop.  With great speed and urgency.

Inspiration!

I'd been considering starting a blog for a long time, but I wasn't sure what I'd write about.  The epiphany struck like a black-star ninja this morning during a text-conversation (textsation? text-exchange? text-change? textange?) this morning.  I asked one of the female kind to get coffee with me, and she (knowing my anti-coffee state of being) naturally questioned my intent.  I quickly responded with "When I said coffee it was only to create the illusion of my conformity for your comfort- I would definitely order green tea."  She slyly replied, "Ahh, but you would be so much cooler if you ordered coffee... consider conforming spandex boy," (in reference to my road cycling hobby, see footnote) and I countered with, "Cooler maybe, but conforming under peer pressure would compromise my character..."  And that, boys and girls, is  my very first reason to not drink coffee.  Strength of character.

Cheers.

footnote: I definitely do not own one of those obnoxious, overpriced spandex suits that you often see old, overweight men stuffing themselves into.  The only piece of spandex I own is my padded cycling shorts, and that is only to help ensure the longevity of my manparts.  But if you were curious, my butt does look fantastic in them.