The first time I came to France, I found that an abundance of alcohol was the best way for me to become fluent in French for an evening. With the help of a giraffe of beer (that's 3 liters folks) or half a bottle of wine, I bull-dozed right over complex verb constructions and finicky pronouns and found dramatic new ways to express words that were not in my vocabulary, like, "Yesterday, the weather was weird. It was raining, but not really. It was between rain and snow. The rain was hard and it pricked me in the face." Instead of, "Yesterday, it was hailing." All of this added to my innocent charm. But somewhere along the line, alcohol stopped working. My drunken party tricks--like training myself to use chopsticks with my left hand and declaring it the "Year of Rum"--fell flat too many times to crowds of uber-chic Parisians who had their sense of humor genetically bred out of them. Plus, hangovers suck and I still have yet to find the right preventitive remedies.

So, with alcohol out and weed definitely out (can't understand a damn word of French when I am stoned...it's just a bunch of funny sounds strung together), I have found my new happy potion, one that I was resistant to for a very long time: coffee. Coffee makes me sparkle. I can switch languages at the drop of a hat; I can say clever things to the old men who try to touch me in the street; I can talk on the phone and prepare a three-course meal at the same time; I can philosophize about Karl Marx or Groucho Marx; I can conceive of a piece of music while being engrossed in a lecture about Proust. It is a miracle! But I am afraid. I am afraid of the addiction. I try not to have one everyday...but it makes me so happy. I think about the metabolism problems, and the high blood pressure, and the dehydration, and the stained teeth...but it is so good! What is a girl to do?