mmmm...coffee
let me review my history briefly over a bittersweet cup of coffee...

i first tasted coffee when i was just a little kid. i remember the first time, sitting in a restaurant with my whole dad's side of the family for sunday brunch... i begged my mom, and she finally agreed. i used to drink lots of tea, but i wanted to drink coffee because it was what all the grown-ups had, and i thought it was cool. i felt so special drinking my coffee with the adults, but i began to woner why they loved it so much (to me, it was just the forbidden fruit.. what i considered my key to adulthood) - the flavor was always dishearteningly strong, so i'd have to dillute it with cream and sugar x50 in order to enjoy it as much as i could at the time
.
i realized that i fucking hated coffee (cream and sugar or not) and i stopped drinking it entirely...

until i got to boreding skool at age 12 where i was forbidden from drinking it.
needless to say, i guzzled that shit every opportunity i got just for the sake of rebellion.
by the time i moved back home, the sense of novelty had worn off.
several years passed while i turned my lip up at the world, especially america and it's coffee-dependent inhabitants... i thought these people had serious issues. basically, i would've preferred them sniffing a line of coke - i thought it would be more honest.
but my coke days came and went, and there i was, a freshman in college... as much of an academic procrastinator as ever. but shit was hard this time around - especially since i smoked so much weed. i relied on my good old caffeinated companion a couple times during the first semester - late night english papers and finals week! - but i still loathed the shit. it made me feel really jitttery and awkward, like coke diminished a few times in magnitude and void of the euphoric response of high-velocity powdered inhalation. i used it only when "necessary".
the second semester, i made things a lot harder on myself than i prolly needed to, but that's just how i operate. i had to read tons of articles, essays, and symposiums, and write tons of response papers. and, of course, loyal to my ways, i saved all of these assignments for the night before they were due. by the end of it, i knew the midnight shift at my local dunkin donuts all too well - and it was fucking awful everytime... the things we do for drugs. or to save our asses, rather. my ass, in particular.
anyway, i started waiting tables during this semester too. there were many days when i just couldn't not get high before going to werk, and i know damn well that i can't be socially functional at work while i'm stoned, so there i was using a drug to counteract another drug... but i gotta tell you, they make a beautiful team... beautiful.
after i quit that job a couple months later, i stopped drinking coffee completely for a couple years, although i did fall in love with chai tea. i actually started drinking lots of tea in the past couple years, kind of like how i used to when i was little.
but i'm sick of tea now. and i've learned how to love the taste of a good cup of coffee. and i'll be the first to tell you, there is LOTS of bad coffee out there. and i hate that shit - i won't drink it unless i really need it (which hasn't happened since freshman year). unfortunately, my mom loves it. she has disgusting taste in coffee.

anyway, if you've made it this far, i'm impressed, and i'd love to know:
what's your favorite cup of coffee?