Bitches Brew, Activity Groups, & Going Analog

I'm a big fan of coffee. Huge, actually. But I'm picky about my coffee. Growing up, the only kinds of coffee I was exposed to were instant coffee or preground buckets of the red or green stuff. It's hard to say precisely when I came across real coffee, but I think it was as a teenager. I have three distinct memories that shattered my childhood image of coffee and helped shape my appreciation of coffee today.

The first was around fifteen when I spent a lot of time with an older friend of mine. She'd randomly show up with a plastic cup of iced something that smelled good. At some point, I asked her about it, and she told me it was iced coffee. I remember being a little shocked because it didn't look or smell anything like my perception of coffee, and I didn't even know iced coffee existed. She shared some with me, and it tasted like a liquid dessert. I've never been a fan of sweets—and it was too sweet for me—but it still tasted good and nothing at all like what I knew of as "coffee."

A couple years later, an inventor working on a free-energy machine introduced me to fresh ground drip coffee. The free-energy machine didn't end up being all it was ground up to be, but the coffee sure hit the spot and sent me on many late-night side quests way before the trap of YouTube holes was invented.

A few years later, I became a regular at a small, locally owned coffee shop run by a couple of book enthusiasts. I wasn't there for the coffee, though. I was instead drinking a metric ton of iced chai. However, one of the baristas introduced me to this weird little book called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." She also introduced me to a properly made, fresh-ground cup of dark roast. Thanks, Jessica.

I didn't actually develop a taste for it then, though. That came later, with Tae, under wildly different circumstances that involved a neverending night, lumomania, thumping basslines, and canned monsters.

All this, of course, is just to say that Tae and I found another good coffee.

This is not a paid endorsement. It's just good coffee comma bitches.

A giant cup of it is the perfect companion for the two activity groups I've been participating in recently: writing and art. Okay, I'm actually reminding myself of The Truman Show now. Whoops.

Anyway, the activity groups I'm in are both online and with people spread out across the world. If you have an interest you're into, thinking about getting into, or want to get back into, then you might find these types of close-knit groups are your thing. For the art(s and crafts) one, I've been spending the time working mostly on the art I've been sharing here lately. It's been a nice break from all the digital things I do. I think a lot more people in the world right now could use a nice break from bits and bytes.

Do you have any groups you're in? If so, I'd love to hear about them.

What's New?

• I'm working on a rather complex piece of art (compared to what I've been doing) for an old newsletter. It's taking longer than the others, so we'll see how it goes.
• Upcoming Into Horror History: Black magic boars of Indonesia.