Often I am asked the question: "Hey, Matthew Bey, how is it that you have the time to edit two sci-fi publications, publish regularly, blog and podcast incessantly, and still work your crappy blue-collar job?"
There’s a simple answer to that: Drugs.
Drawing from the world culture of mild stimulants, I find that I am almost always buzzed and ready to do business. Here’s some of the highlights of my pharmaceutical frakking:
Canned coffee:
Who needs to go to all the trouble of brewing fresh coffee, when the Eastern beverage tradition brings us so many pre-canned varieties? They’re already milked up and sweetened, taking all the guesswork out of flavoring your cup o’ Joe.
Turkish Tea:
Cheap, bulky and sweet, nothing hits the spot like some piping-hot tea. It’s good to sip during those long afternoons at the laptop.
Mate:
Too Much Coffee Man magazine describes this as tasting like getting hit in the face with a sack of wet hay. And yes, I have my own mate straw or bombilla.
A German friend of mine says that this Argentinian drink is referred to the same way that we refer to quiche, as a shorthand for effeminate men. But it doesn’t keep me up the same way that coffee will, so it works well as an evening stimulant, for when I have something I want to get done before I go to sleep.
Supari:
This concoction of betel nut from India is pre-packaged and flavored with menthol and saccharine. The nuts themselves are as hard to chew as steak bones. A larger sampling of supari yields similar results, hard to chew and hardly any buzz.
Talking to the store clerk I got the impression that these supari pre-packages are meant more as breath freshener, sort of like these sugar-coated fennel and anise seeds:
Yeah, fuck you, Altoids. You’ve been replaced. Now my mouth smells like a Pakistani grocers.
Much more chewy, the sweet supari in the pouch stimulates all the symptoms associated with the betel nuts sold by the betel nut beauties of Taipei. Salivation and a goofy, almost imperceptible excitement, like smoking three American Spirits one after the other.
This is what I chew when I can barely stand up with fatigue, and I just want to lie down and watch Netflix instant viewing, but I know that there are really much more important things I ought to be doing.
You’re supposed to accentuate the buzz by adding lime to it, but it’s not the lime you’re thinking, it’s calcium oxide. You know, the principle ingredient of cement.
Personally, I’m not that eager for a buzz.
