Revisiting an old drug habit......recommended!

A good friend of mine, who lives in the Medium-Sized City these days (so I don't see him much) had landed a very tasty artistic gig in SE Asia, and shall be departing the country shortly for I don't know how long.  I'd vaguely planned to go down to the Medium Smoke and see him next week, but yesterday morning my dreams and a strong intuition just directed me to wake up and go down immediately.  So I did.

I met HTB probably 15 years ago roughly, and we formed really an indescribable compatriotism around aesthetics, lifestyle choices, and similar addictive substance preferences.  I've already mentioned way back that I used to be an involved denizen of Fremantle, which is where we met and on many days sat together, with the passing parade and a movable rogue's gallery of allsorts for company, doing drugs together (EDIT: this last may not mean what you just assumed it did, you scallywag reader you....read on...).  So it was most pleasant to revisit the old haunt and once again ritually partake of the joys we had not shared for many a year.  Here's the aftermath:

Yes, I had a coffee. It was fabulous.

(EDIT: See, coffee is a drug; as is nicotine for yea, verily, I did once smoke up a storm also.  I suppose these clarifications are a pseudo-necessary exercise in the world some of us still inhabit, eh?  Can't be too careful and all that?  Sigh.)  This is the remains of a 'small macchiato' at my Fremantle cafe of choice, Gino's.  I see they have changed the glasses since last I was there, passing through in early 2008.  Looked and smelled exactly the same though.  The ritual of imbibing with HTB was almost the same as it ever was - minus the cigarette, plus a g-tube.

Those of you who've followed this blog through its history may recall that coffee was the last thing I clung on to in oral intake world, because it's so darned good, and also because I'd been drinking coffee from a very early age - I think I recall a cup after a family dinner with the cousins around maybe age 11 or so - but regularly since high school days.  A caffeine addict, in other words.

Back when I drank my last coffee, I think I said something along the lines of "I won't be going down the route of putting coffee down the tube though".  And true, it's not something I'll be doing on a regular basis.  Whipping out the tube and syringe al fresco on the busy cafe strip was fun, and just in case I needed it, reaffirned just how comforable I am these days with the whole cyborg-in-public thing.  Funniest part though was me reflexively putting sugar in the coffee.  Old habits, eh?  And I could very nearly taste it too.

When you don't have a regular intake, I can tell you THAT YOU REALLY NOTICE THE CAFFEINE EFFECT and it gave me a little better insight into the workings of my mind back in the days I used to have 3 or 4 of them over a morning.  That and all the peopleness of the outing - I went shopping a bit too - fried me just a tad so as soon as I could on the road out of the city I did this:

Ahh.

Never ceases to amaze and delight me just how grounding and healing even a moment in the quiet forest - or nature of your choice - can be.