tea, cats, and androgyny

I have just found myself momentarily entranced by a jack-of-all-trade
interests-type personality that, for the most part, I fail to notice
on a daily basis but nonetheless still intrigues me with a fair bit of
regularity.

That personality, of course, would be mine.

Dale and I just brought home a bread-making machine. It's a nice
brushed stainless-like finish on the outside with a little pan inside
where the bread is created. Dale's mom asked what we were up to so I
went ahead and wrote about it in my email to her moments ago.

At the end of the email I added, "I need more tea." She will
understand this far more readily than any casual reader, so let me
explain. On New Year's Day, Mary, Dale, and I visited a crowded
little tea shop where we sat at a tiny table luminated by heavily
filtered daylight, a tiny wall lamp reminiscent of a miniature
artist's light, and the soft glow of candlelight on people's faces.

I had something called "Da hong pao." In English, it apparently means
something like "Big Red Robe Tea." It was decently fragrant but oh
my, the taste brought forth memories of my first loose-tea samplings.
It went very well with the delectable Baklava set before me. I licked
my fingers of the honey and ended up drinking three infusions of that
awesome tea. So it stood to reason that upon our departure, I bought
four ounces of the stuff. I had a gift certificate, after all!

Last night watched four cups of the stuff make it into my system. I
woke up at 2am to expunge some of it and even in my sleepy stupour, my
mind could recall "The Longest Pee" by Adam Sandler. Just five hours
later, I found myself in that little room all over again. They're not
kidding when they say tea can be a diuretic, but do I ever learn?
No. So throughout today I've tossed back four more cups. Ever wired
was I this morning, running around the house with my mind racing
faster than a greyhound!

Like most things I obsess over, I... well, I can, admittedly, become
pretty obsessed for a time. This is why that ending - I need more tea
- had more meaning than its apparent face value.

Thus stands my explanation for that, but I return now to the original
statement regarding a jack-of-all-interests personality.

As I ended my email to Mary, I realized with a start that I have been
on extremes all day. I started out wired and energetic; was geeky
enough to chat online with a few people at once while simultaneously
learning a new program (not exactly hard but nonetheless!); focused on
gardening and herbs for a while; studied a bit of Cherokee; cooked and
cleaned around the geeky behaviour; cleaned up after the rats; looked
forward to trying out some tennis; enjoyed a joke about whether a guy
is gay or not (Dale likes cats... hmmm... Dale, is there something
you're not telling me? haha); and then I found myself reading about
androgyny and thinking back on how Mum used to study psychology and
try to engage me in conversation about it.

Aight, big whup... still, I felt like writing. Now my attention is on
making some bread. LOL

~nv