Joe de Vivre

Neon Memes • Most if not all of my days since the second grade have started with coffee. A cup, a mug, a hogshead. Sometimes doped with cream and sugar―I can abide neither dishwater nor sludge―but preferably black, strong and fresh. Coffee enjoys an inviolable hold on the morning, in my view; I regard with deepest suspicion anyone who believes otherwise, like my friend and former colleague Matt Halverson, who likely still opens each day by opening a Mountain Dew. (Matt, buddy, if you're reading this, get help, for God's sake!) Nevertheless, for manifold reasons, none of them compelling enough in hindsight, today marked the first day this workweek that I've indulged my java jones. As I sat awaiting my breakfast in the Clayton Stratton's Cafe―whose praises I've previously sung in this blog―I paused one last tantalizing moment before gratification to luxuriate in the full-bodied, seductive scent steaming from the cup before me. Oooh, baby baby baby. Eventually, with fingertips as sensitized as those of a swain engaged in his first tryst, I lifted that absurd cardboard chalice to my lips and once more sipped bliss. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor