Amanda Takes Off...

When I was in junior high, my brother and I spent winter vacation with my father, who lived in Arizona. He had a friend, 21 years old, Eric, if I recall correctly.

He would buy coffee at the 7-11 and shove those tiny little plastic tubs of flavored creamer in his pockets, not paying for them. I once pointed to the little sign saying they were 5 cents each, and he scoffed.

Eric loved coffee.

And I, in the way only a 14 year old girl could, loved Eric.

This crush, combined with being born between Generations X and Y, made me love coffee shops when I was in high school.

Too young to really be Gen X, I mostly missed the 'zine wave, the riot grrls movement, and raves. Five years too young to do Gen X, five years too old for Gen Y, I did manage to get into grunge music, flannel, Trainspotting and...coffee shops.

I wasn't cool enough to partake in the habits of my friends who chain-smoked, talked about dropping acid, smoking pot, or drinking liquid codeine. I was cool enough to drink coffee. I would go home, smelling cigarette smoke when I shook my head, the scent coming off of my hair. The taste of coffee, usually black, behind my teeth.

I remember ordering a triple espresso from Café Zev (Mark, remember that place?) after my classes at college (but I was in high school, yes) and being told by the lithe-gay coffee dude that he'd made a mistake and made a quadruple by accident.

"That's cool." I could handle a quad.

I lived with a lover for far too long. A lover who didn't drink coffee, but who plays into my coffee baggage. What the Hell Was I Thinking hated it when we didn't go to bed at the same time, hated that I got to sleep in later because of my class schedule (and thus, woke me up all the time), and told me—while I was doing my teacher's certification program, taking a full load of classes and student teaching 40 hours a week—that it "wasn't fair" that I would get "summer vacations" and I "since I work, you had better work, too."

I dumped What the Hell Was I Thinking halfway through my second year of grad school, which was also my first year as a teacher. And I never, ever worked summer vacations when I was a teacher in the States.

After What the Hell Was I Thinking was Dead Fan (Who Was Ten Years Older and Should Have Known How to Dump a Woman Properly, But Didn't). Dead Fan liked coffee and I spent too much money on a coffee maker for my house, hoping it would make Dead Fan more comfortable. Dead Fan didn't last long—my house was always "too warm"—but luckily, I was able to sell the coffee maker for a decent price. (Dead Fan, for the record, dumped me at the same place we had our first date, which was...a coffee date.)

Now I drink coffee when I am with people who drink coffee. I drink coffee at shops with friends and during language exchanges, and when I'm offered it at work.

I do not drink coffee at home. Good Man, however, does.

Coffee in South Korea is most often sold in sticks. A stick of instant coffee, cream and sugar added. You have to pinch the end of the stick to prevent the sugar from coming out, but the marked pinch point is always off and you end up getting sugar anyway. It's really not that fantastic.

The teacher I replaced left about a dozen sticks of coffee in the kitchen, coffee I thought would be left for the next teacher.

When Michael left Korea, he gave me coffee. Good, real coffee. My school provided me with a coffee maker, but since I don't drink coffee, it's buried under my sink.

The coffee maker and coffee have yet to meet, so I'm still giving Good Man those instant sticks. In fact, I actually had to buy a box of those instant sticks to keep having coffee around.

I bought instant coffee sticks rather than taking ten minutes to clear a space and figure out how to run a Korean coffeemaker.

I am a horrible girlfriend.

When Good Man spends the night, I let him sleep. I remember too well when I felt forced to act awake, only to crawl back into bed as soon as the door shut, as soon as the car engine turned over.

When Good Man stays over, I pour water in the teapot (an inheritance from Michael) and set the flame high while I try to decide what to wear.

By the time it's whistling, I'm dressed. I turn off the flame, pour a stick of coffee into a mug, try to pinch back the sugar. I pour in a splash of milk, stir it with an unpaired wooden chopstick.

I walk into the bedroom, place the mug on the end of the nightstand (also an inheritance from Michael), and lean across the mattress to touch Good Man's shoulder.

"Hey, [Good Man], it's 8:00. Here's your coffee. Don't miss work." I know he won't miss work, he never does, but I say it every time.

When I come home after work, I know where Good Man checked his email, where he sat with his laptop. I'll find the mug on the floor where he drank it, a light circle of dried coffee in the bottom.