Last night was one of those moments we all have at one time or another. Well, at least, I hope we all have so I don't feel so guilty about the decision making that soon followed. It was late, I was hungry and my sister happens to mention going out for a late night snack. I look at the clock. 11:30 and yes that would be in the pm. "Almost midnight" my mind pondered inquisitively as if she had just asked me to solve a calculus problem.

It wasn't long before I ignored any part of me that was trying to convince me to either A. go to sleep B. not to eat this late or the worst choice of all C. eating something healthy instead. The mind thinks some pretty ridiculous stuff sometimes.

My healthy eating to junk food eating ratio I would say is around 20:1 if that and when an opportunity to have some purely delicious, bad for you food, I take it with glee. We hopped in the car and headed to where else but Nathans in Coney Island. Although I have a love/hate relationship with New York City, one of my favorite loves is that so many places are open at all hours of the night. You want pizza with a side of chili fries and a cherry Coke at 3:30am? You got it. I won't bore you with a list of all you can get but rest assured, from bowling to a new pair jeans, you can get it, round the clock in this city.

The rest of the story follows a pretty straightforward path. We park, we order, we eat outside with the other hundreds of people that obviously had similar agendas as we did and chatted about this and that and nothing at all eating what a nutritionist would most likely have circled with a big red circle and slash on his office wall.

We live in a time where numbers rule. Bank accounts, all the 0's and 1's transmitting this message to you right now as well as the myriad of numbers on that little white, nutritional fact label on everything we buy. From calories to protein to fat per serving, we make the calculations in our head to see if the math adds up. Now obviously living a healthy daily life is of most importance if we are to have energy to do all the things we need to do but sometimes, just sometimes, we need to make sure we're getting enough grams of JETHOOL. Oh, by the way, that stands for Just Enjoying the Heck Out Of Life.

Who's coming tonight?

much JETHOOL love
~Adrian

Daily Update: My music can't go very far without your help and I wanted to show my appreciation for all of you that are so kind to help me get the word out. If you have recommended my music to friends, please click Free Gift to get a small gift from me and for other ways to share. Thank you again, it means more than you know.

I will admit that I sometimes choose to complain about what is not available. "If only I had this" and "if only I had that" are common phrases that go through my head. It always seems as though some critical element is missing in order to accomplish what we desire.

What typically happens after moments such as these is that I will coincidentally read about someone that reached their goals and beyond using the ordinary, commonplace and everyday tools that are available to everyone of us. These are the types of people I admire and that I turn to today for inspiration.

So with that said, my days(well at least today) of complaining are over and my days of doing with what I have at hand commence. I will view what's before me as "what I have" and not, "what do I still need?" It's easy to fall in the circular pattern of feeling as though if you just had that one thing, then it would all be so much easier but it's not impossible to rid ourselves of that thought.

And in a very Shakespearean fashion, I say "be gone!" to the illusion of what's missing and hold to hope that what is truly there will become ever more visible as days pass.

Here's to what's real and milking it for everything it's got.

much use what you got love
~Adrian

Daily Update: My music can't go very far without your help and I wanted to show my appreciation for all of you that are so kind to help me get the word out. If you have recommended my music to friends, please click Free Gift to get a small gift from me and for other ways to share. Thank you again, it means more than you know.

“Hello, may I help you?”
“Yes, let me get a medium coffee. Regular with two sugars”, I said enthusiastically.
“There’s no medium sir, we have Tall, Grandè and Venti.”
Quite majestic names for a few ounces of liquid but who was I to argue and after looking at the various sized cups trying to decipher which one in fact, was medium, I say, “Umm, okay, in that case let me get a Grandè coffee. Regular with two sugars.”
“What flavor would you like sir?”
“Flavor! A coffee, I just want a coffee!” I thought to myself yet as the words were about to slip off my tongue in frustration, I uttered, “What flavors do you have?”
“They’re listed on the board behind me.”
I could see she was to be no help at all so I perused the never ending list of everything from exotic Kenyan roasts to Brazil’s latest import that arrived just last Tuesday. Much like being in a museum and not wanting to appear apprenticed, I held a couple of fingers to my chin and pondered inquisitively as though to incite admiration from my fellow coffee drinkers.
“Wow, this guy really knows his coffee, look at how long he’s taking to choose” must definitely be the thoughts flying around the room as I stared blankly at this meaningless list in front of me.

With decided assurance, I finally give out a ’Ah, I’ve got it now’ sigh and tell the nice girl that I would like a Costa Rican blend, grande with a little bit of milk and two sugars. Surely, the confetti would come down and I would be awarded the customer of the day right then and there. As she rings up my order to what is presumably a bill that I will have to add to my student loan debt, she proceeds to tell me that I can add my own milk and sugar at the condiments table behind me.

So let me get this straight: Not only is this the most expensive cup of coffee I’ve ever confusingly ordered, I still have to finish preparing it myself? Okay, I walked into this establishment willingly, so I was prepared to play by their rules. Far be it from me to complain about what I did not understand. Maybe this was the Picasso of coffees and I was just a novice in the world of cubism. Bring on the square heads and distorted torsos.

I took my coffee. I added milk to my coffee.(5 types of milk to choose from) A couple of sugars.(5 types of sugars to choose from) Stirred not shaken. Drank my coffee. Enjoyed my coffee.

Choices are good, I’m not about to say how much better it was back in the days of supposed simplicity. Life is never quite as simple as we think it might be but the lessons seem to be the same no matter how much we rename things, add choices and mix up the cards. A slot machine in Vegas has a few combinations that yield a big prize. Three cherries in a row, the lights go off and hundreds of coins fall into your lap. I sometimes get the feeling that we’ve turned everyday life into the same odds hoping that we strike that lucky combination in everything we find only instead of coins, you get a perfect coffee, car or even friends. I’m not quite sure that’s the way it works but I am sure that we’re giving too much power to the choices before us.

If that coffee is not enjoyed as part of a conversation with a good friend, who cares where it’s from? Frankly I’d rather share a cup of tea with someone from Costa Rica than to drink their perfect blend of roasted beans alone. And of what value is the a/c and sound system in a new car when it’s so much more fun to roll down the windows and sing at the top of your lungs with someone you love?

As I stood there in front of that immense ordering board, blankly, looking for a way out, I realized that this was going to be a special cup of coffee after all. I learned how adding complexity to simple things is easy but drawing the simple lessons from life isn’t always on the big board of choices.

“Hello and welcome to your life, what can I get you today?”

Daily Update: My music can't go very far without your help and I wanted to show my appreciation for all of you that are so kind to help me get the word out. If you have recommended my music to friends, please click Free Gift to get a small gift from me and for other ways to share. Thank you again, it means more than you know.