So I have been drinking flat whites, even though they also have TOO MUCH MILK largely because I want to solve the mystery.  And I am no closer to solving the mystery because HERE IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED YESTERDAY:

I was on my way to a Vintage Clothing Fair and popped into a Costa to get a coffee for the walk.  I ordered a flat white for investigative purposes.  And the barista handed me a cup of steamed milk.  Full stop.  Just milk.  With no espresso in it.  So I was like “shouldn’t there be coffee in this?”  and he was like, “oh,” and made it again.

So later this week I am going to go to Flat White, which is the coffee shop in Soho that started all of this nonsense and I am going to order a flat white, a cappucino, and a latte and figure this out once and for all.  I am putting my money on the possibility that I will just get three cups of the exact same thing.

OH, to be back in Los Angeles where I can get a tasty cup of hand-poured coffee delivered to me by a surly hipster in a funny vest!

PS:  This post is tagged CTHULHU because obviously the flat white is the beverage of choice of the devourer of worlds.

So, as you are no doubt aware, the fab VV and I hit up Galco’s Soda Pop Stop earlier this week. And, because, really, any instance of food and/or beverage consumption is really just an invitation to write a blog post, I am totally going to review some exotic soda pops! We bought nine different pops each, and I’ve been really good and have only been drinking one a day. So far, I’ve had the following:

Ok, well, VV and I tried these together and split them.  She got the Cel Ray (celery soda!), I got the Mr. Q. Cumber (um, cucumber soda!  Obviously).  Dear skeptics:  shut up right now because these vegetable flavoured sodas were amazing.  Both were not too sweet and not too vegetable-ish but really nice and refreshing.  The Cel Ray had a sort of V8-ish kind of aftertaste, and the Q. Cumber was really clean and light.  And yes, of course, we did mix them together in the interests of Soda Pop Science, and I’d actually say that the Cel Ray Q. Cumber Cocktail was probably the best of the three.  ALSO, IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH:  People in the know have informed me that you can get Cel Ray at Canter’s.  Why didn’t anybody tell me you could get Cel Ray at Canter’s?  I am so totally having celery soda with my next matzo ball.

The A.J. Stephens Raspberry Lime Rickey was potentially one of the most delicious things I have ever consumed.  I can’t even tell you.  It was just so good.  It was good because the raspberry flavor wasn’t that horrible fake-tasting raspberry, you know?  And also the color is clearly amazing.

Of course I drink my Manhattan Special out of a martini glass.  Was there ever any question, really?  Anyhow, this was wonderful.  As a pretentious coffee snob I feel qualified to make that assessment.  I would seriously consider replacing my usual afternoon coffee with this, if it wasn’t full of sugar.

Fentiman’s Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger!  I have no idea what a jigger is.  Shockingly, wikipedia is being completely unhelpful in this regard and has provided a useless list of definitions of “jigger” that includes nothing that resembles soda pop, and one or two things that are kind of offensive.  But whatever.  This was good shit.  It was slightly medicinal tasting at first, but that kind of went away.  I really liked the bubbles in this, weirdly enough – they were really tiny and soft.  And apparently Fentiman’s is not soda pop – apparently it is a Botanically Brewed Beverage, which makes it fancier.  I also got a Curiosity Cola, which I think I’m going to try tomorrow.

Oh, yum.  Yum yum yum yum.  The Nesbitt’s Peach tasted like fake peach, like a peach Jolly Rancher, but not bad fake peach, you know?  Like really, really good fake peach.  And also, it is hot pink.  No complaints here.

Stay tuned for reviews of:   Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola!  Vignette Pinot Noir Soda!  Manhattan Special Vanilla Cream!  Cheerwine!  I will try to post them daily instead of in a big batch, but, you know, best laid plans and stuff.

What is driving me crazy, though, is that last week sometime, I had a conversation with someone that went kind of like this:

“Did you hear? Intelligentsia is opening up this new, excessively-pretentious-sounding store in Venice. With hydraulic pods or some shit.”
“Really? Wow. I heard there’s some place where you can get some kind of donut-infused coffee.”
“That is so amazing that it can’t possibly be real.”

But this morning I learned that it is real. But I cannot for the life of me remember who I had this conversation with so I cannot share the joy. Which is driving me crazy.

But, anyhow, apparently the process for making donut-infused coffee is actually to first make donut-infused milk, which you do by soaking donuts in milk. So I am going to do it myself. I figure, if you use skim milk, it will be like eating donuts, only not as bad for you.

ANYHOW, in other Excellent Coffee News, yesterday I found the Most Perfect Coffee Shop Ever: It is purple on the inside, plays jazz, has paintings of pinup girls, has lots of cute boys with beards hanging out, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: it has a brie and avocado melt. Sadly it is in Echo Park, which means I cannot walk there. The only coffee shop in walking distance to my house is the shitty uncomfortable one with weird Tibetan chairs that are low to the ground and very tiny tables that I always bruise my knees on.

I am going to write another blog post about things other than coffee, but first I need to finish reading my pretentious French feminist theory.

Love,
Alexandra

Dear office computer,

It has taken me an hour to burn a cd on you, what is your problem? Oh, the things I do for Sgt. Pepper.

Hate,
Alexandra

Dear Readers,

This is the first time I have looked at my blog on this computer and I am dismayed to see that the header banner is not centered which fills my obsessive-compulsive heart with angst. Does that happen to any of you? If so, I will fix it this weekend.

Love, love, love, and also cookies,

Alexandra

And also I presented some conference papers.  And spent a respectable amount of time wearing leopard print.

I am thinking of going away for spring break to some place really dreary.  Maybe Seattle?  I hear it rains all the time in Seattle.  And I could take that train that goes from LA to Seattle along the coast and takes, like 36 hours.  I think I would like that.  I like traveling on buses and trains because it is an excuse to not do anything, because what can you possibly do?  I also enjoy doing those kinds of things alone.  I like spending days without talking to anyone because it lets me get really weirdly self-indulgent and introspective and decadently melancholic and I don’t have to care about what anybody else thinks.  (Unfortunately, this tendency probably means that eventually I am going to die alone and be found days later, half-eaten by my pet ocelot, but what can you do?)  I want to go on holiday and I want for there to be no sunshine for days.  I want to be able to wear boots and my raincoat that makes me look like a Russian spy.  With a cardigan underneath.

Oh, and I am so excited right now because the radio in the cafe where I am working is playing The Shirelles!  I love it when The Shirelles happen.

Ok, I should go home because I have been here for four hours.

And fuck, how is it almost three am?  I have been cutting back my caffeine intake exactly to avoid this “three am and I am blogging rather than asleep” scenario!  I only had one giant americano today!

I am going to leave you with this sad, mopey song lyric (from “Sand in Your Eyes,” by Twilight Hotel, which is currently my favourite sad song by a sad, Canadian cowboy band) because it is beautiful and sad and really sums up my current state of mind regarding some stuff:

Cynics recovering from chances we took,

Our hearts are just things in anatomy books,

It takes a failure to learn where to hide your desire.

2.  The other day, Cute Earnest Barista was like, “Hey, you should come to this show we’re having next week!  I think you’d really like it!” which either means that Cute Earnest Barista likes me, or that Cute Earnest Barista is worried that nobody will come to the show, and I look generically artsy enough that I might be inclined to attend that sort of event.

3.  For breakfast this morning, instead of pouring milk on my granola, I poured on leftover iced coffee and it was so delicious.  Also, maybe this coffee thing is becoming a problem?

4.  Margarita ice cream!  I am making some tonight!  And probably not sharing.

5.  Did you listen to this week’s Vinyl Cafe?  You should download the podcast because it was SO FUNNY.