My Ten-Year-Old Self Gone Shopping

I almost bought a record last night. I was in bed, feeling off, out of balance, unsettled by new opportunities and possibilities. Good stuff but a lot to figure out and I get impatient. The ten-year-old within me says, "Buy something and our worries will go away!" I know better, but his voice is persistent and convincing. I've been listening to him a long, long time.

Earlier in the evening I was watching coffee videos on YouTube. Yes, there are coffee videos on YouTube. There are YouTube videos for nearly everything and what's not there is served somewhere else you may not want appearing in your search history. Anyway, my favorite coffee videos are by James Hoffman who is smart, funny, and produces stuff better than most anything on television.

Better for me at least.

My wife might argue the coffee videos are not terribly interesting and that I should watch Stranger Things, but I take the path less traveled which makes a lot less difference than I'd like to think.

Last night I watched Hoffman review the Niche Zero grinder. It's really something. I won't go too far into the weeds — spoilers! — but it's an Indiegogo project that actually ships and has satisfied backers, reviewers, and experts. Last night, I wanted one.

Have I mentioned it costs $651? That's not bad for an espresso grinder. I could spend a whole lot more and spending much less isn't worth doing. There's a $375 grinder that might work, but it's not nearly the Niche. Good tools make for good work and, in this case, great coffee.

I also want the Cafelat Robot, which Hoffman reviews using the Niche. The Robot is a $370 manual espresso machine meaning that the pressure necessary to making espresso is generated through arm strength applied to the arms of the machine. It's cool and retro looking, like the Jetson's butler, and follows the idea that good things like coffee should require some work.

Good thing I viewed this stuff with my wife in the house. I came close to purchasing both products, but how would I explain that to her?

I imagine it sounds as if I have to justify all purchases with my wife or I'll be in trouble. The ten-year-old in me thinks that, but we don't have quite that abusive of a relationship. I just don't want to appear foolish to her and were I to order these things on a whim, I'd be quite the fool. I already make excellent coffee. The Robot and Niche would be fun, but buying them covers up what's really going on with me which has everything to do with emotion, balance, and the ten-year-old inside me crying for a new toy.

I closed the computer. There are times for new toys and good reasons for them, but last night was not the time and I lacked good reasoning.

Later, in bed, still feeling out of balance, I got thinking about jazz guitarist Pat Metheny (as one does) and his album 80/81 which I want on vinyl. My turntable and records give me real pleasure and although I've spent well over the price of a Niche and Cafelat on them, the spending has been spread over three years which makes me feel better. I found 80/81 online for less than twenty dollars shipped and added it to my cart.

As I was about to complete the sale, I became aware of the feeling driving me furtive anxiety. When I was ten, I'd steal money out of my paper route or even Mom's purse to buy the things that might make me feel better and then lie about having done any of it. In bed last night, I felt the ten-year-old running the show.

Here's the part that interests me: I smiled.

I have a habit of not smiling about these things. I shove them down in the bottom of the trunk and close the lid. I try to deny feeling ten years old. But last night I smiled, shut the computer, turned out the light, and closed my eyes. Sleep didn't come for hours — I was still too far out of balance — but I was no longer desperate to buy a record, an espresso machine, or a grinder. I ruminated on other things than shopping my worries away. I didn't hear from the ten-year-old the rest of the night.

This morning I used my same old grinder. I boiled water and made a spectacular cup of coffee with the Aeropress I already own. I felt good doing it.

Later, in my car, I remembered that Metheny album and queued it up on my streaming service. As it began to play I said, "hang on," and opened the list of my records I keep on the phone. There it was: "Pat Metheny, 80/81." I bought it years ago. I smiled again and said, "it's okay. You're okay."

I drove across town to meet a friend at a coffee shop. "What are you working on," he asked before we got down to writing. "A couple blog posts and a longer piece," I said, but instead wrote this. If I had brought headphones, I know what album I'd have listened to.

I sipped good coffee while writing this. I heard the grinder and the espresso machine. If the coffee was better than what I brewed at home, I couldn't tell. My mind had moved into calmer waters. My friend sat across the table, typing. Looking around, I could find no sign of the ten-year-old and all his anxious desires.

Deja Vu All Over Again, Damn It

I had a great idea for a post about exclamation points and how I have offended at least one person this week due to my refusal to use exclamation points in email.

This is the sort of thing that happens to me a lot (both having ideas for writing and offending people, but let's stay with the writing). Usually, I take the good idea to the keyboard and write until I decide I'm on the right track and keep going or decide there's nothing to it and give it up.

Sometimes a great idea feels really familiar. I was writing about exclamation points, telling how my typewriter (yeah, I own typewriters) doesn't have an exclamation point key. Great story, I thought but I also felt like I'd written it before. I kept going but began thinking that I hadn't just written it but had also posted it to this blog. I kept writing until I got to Gil Thorp.

My friend used to read the Gil Thorp newspaper comic and laugh at how nearly every word bubble ended in an exclamation point. We read out loud, exclaiming every line and laughing ourselves silly. Remembering that as I wrote started me smiling, but the sense of deja vu was overpowering. I opened a new tab and searched for Gil Thorp exclamation points. The second result was a piece I posted last April, the exact damn piece I was writing tonight. Damn. That's the sort of thing that almost calls for an exclamation point. But I'm no Gil Thorp.

Hey, want to hear about how my typewriter doesn't have an exclamation point key? Or have I told you that one already?

Make A Place For It

Anxiety. I've written about mine all too often, but writing is one way I deal with it, so deal with that. Please. I've been spun up lately by my anxiety, dizzying circles within and around me. My mind spins up to anxiety as if it could catch up. I arrived for therapy yesterday feeling all this. My therapist suggested that I resist the urge to stop, avoid, or deny the anxiety. "Make a place for it," she said.

She hits me with these koans regularly. Damn it.

After each session, I sit in the waiting room or behind the wheel of my car and write a bit of reflection. It's a way to remember and keep the session going beyond the fifty-minute hour. Yesterday I wrote, "Make a place for it? Where? How?" There was more, but that's the only non-whining part, so I'll leave it at that.

Here's the thing: I don't need to understand or have the answers. Not yet. For now the questions are enough because they have me aware of options other than spinning up, remaining anxious, and denial.

Perhaps the place I make for anxiety right now is on the next stool at the bar. We can sit together, listen to music, chat with the bartender, munch some food, and sip our beer. Then, at some point, I'll want to go home, but anxiety will want one more. I'll leave a twenty on the bar for my bill and anxiety's next beer. See you later, I'll say, because I know we will meet again.

For now, I'm still stuck to my bar stool, raising my glass for a wordless toast to us. We stare into the mirror behind the bar, anxiety and me, working at coming to grips with all we see there.

"Top Economists Study What Happens When You Stop Using Facebook"

Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism reports on a paper examining the effects of not using Facebook. I'll assume the results apply to other social media as well.

Perhaps most interesting was the disconnect between the subjects’ experience with deactivating Facebook and their prediction about how other people would react. “About 80 percent of the Treatment group agreed that deactivation was good for them,” reports the researchers. But this same group was likely to believe that others wouldn’t experience similar positive effects, as they would likely “miss out” more. The specter of FOMO, in other words, is hard to shake, even after you’ve learned through direct experience that in your own case this “fear” was largely hype.

This final result tells me that perhaps an early important step in freeing our culture from indentured servitude in social media’s attention mines is convincing people that abstention is an option in the first place.

Newport's blog entry is worth reading. I might read the report itself as well.