Writer's Best Friend

I'm not a morning person, and I'm not one for kitschy mugs, but this combo does it for me. I avoided coffee for 30 years and just, basically, avoided mornings. I was in the theater and waited a lot of tables, so I spent over a decade never cultivating a healthy friendship with mornings. We avoided each other and spread a lot of nasty rumors about one another. But then on a writer's retreat down in Mexico, I complained about not having writing stamina-  I couldn't keep my pen up for longer than 2 hours. That's when a friend introduced me to the writer's best friend, coffee. It started with mochas, progressed to lattes, graduated to coffee with cream and sugar, and now has landed on coffee with milk. I guess the manly thing is all black, but we'll see about that. I get a lot more writing done and am even considering dedicating my book to caffeine, and now that I'm a teacher, coffee and I have become even better friends. I keep mouth wash in my desk, so I don't repeat the scarring I received from my seventh grade teacher with his coffee breath and algebra equations. And on top of that, I found this mug that says it all.

Chief and The Admiral

Much like rockstars have other names and personas (The Edge, Slim Shady, Lady Gaga), so do these guys. The guy on the left is called Chief and the guy on the right is The Admiral; he used to be called the General, but upgraded. Two years ago they embarked on a 26 destination Pacific Surf Odyssey (they only made it to two). The t-shirts called it the "Search for the Biggest Kahuna Surf Tour."  The forthcoming film documentary called them "insane, delusional, and mustachioed." These things were absolutely true about the tour: they drank Absynthe, they hula-hooped, they surfed double-overheads, and their wetsuits got mildewy and stank like the bottom of the sea. Even though there was a mortal shark attack last week on a California beach, these two continue to search for and ride epic waves (1-3 footers). Just yesterday, they realized a career dream of not only catching the same wave, but to reach out and clasp hands as they shredded in (seems easy, but actually quite difficult). Keep your eyes on this blog for the release of their documentary "Holding Hands in the Face of Wet Death."