Your Lips Are Venomous Poison

It's Friday morning. That means Goop lands in our inboxes, full of advice spoken to us in the soothing tones of the great sage of our time, Gwyneth Paltrow.


This week, she explores addiction - defined as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.” The views - ranging from Kabbalah (it's not a weakness - it means our soul is unquenched, and seeking something bigger than ourselves) to Deepak Chopra who I have always personally found a lot of solace in (there are 5 elements to addiction which interact uniquely, forming just a part of one's life journey) to pyschologist Cynthia Bourgeault (a lack in spiritual/energetic force at a moment in our life) to the rather abstract Zen interpretation, which suggests addiction relates to the self, however there is no self ... and you lost me.

I mentioned addiction in my Samson and Delilah post, and how sad the fall-out of addiction can be on the addicted, and the people who care about those with an addiction. For a traumatic segue into the world of addiction, try watching Requiem for a Dream. I never wanted to touch drugs again after watching that film (not that I was ever into drugs in the first place).

I am, however, addicted to coffee. I only have one cup per day, so it's not a bad addiction, but I certainly notice if I don't have a coffee. Another part of my coffee ritual is the banter with my barista, who has been serving me coffee since 2004. He gives me cake and hugs on my birthday, cake for my parents' birthdays, and he is obsessed with marrying me off in a dad-like manner (each morning he requests an update on my marital status). Any male that comes to the coffee shop with me is greeted with "are you good enough?" suspicion in the manner that only older male siblings and fathers can pull off. Suffice to say, I wish there were more men in the world like my barista.



Wow. Tangent. I am addicted to coffee. I am going to New York again in August. New York is full of coffee shops, very few of them good given a very high percentage of coffee shops in New York start with "Star" and end with "bucks". NYC Mugged is about to change my life (for 2 weeks in August). It has reviews of all the coffee shops in New York, and you can put them in order of number of stars, and it has maps of where to go for said star-rated coffee. I love the internet.


Check out the site, if only for the great pictures of coffee shops.