I've been in an on-again-off-again relationship for going on five years now. It's unhealthy and co-dependent, but I can't seem to break away. Rationally I know that my love for them is superficial and wasted, but I feel at my best when I'm with them; they make me stronger, they complete me. I say that it's over time and again, I move on to someone new, but I always seem to find my way back . . . to Starbucks.

Oh, Starbucks. You are a symbol of so much that I despise about urban America. I want to hate you the way I want to hate Wal-Mart for homogenizing American consumerism. When I'm with you, I sit back in your cozy velvet armchairs and cynically chuckle at the soccer moms, sorority sisters, suits, and yuppies who balance their Coach clutch and pink Razr phones in one hand so their other hand is free to accept their venti low-fat soy sugar-free caramel frappuccino (with a mountain of whipped cream and syrup on top) from the perky barista on the other side of the counter.

But unlike Wal-Mart, you, Starbucks, have some damned tasty coffee. Sure, other cafes have good coffee, too, but yours is consistently quite nice at every location I visit. And you offer a nice variety of drinks and snacks. Your new breakfast sandwiches look quite yummy, and I've heard good things about your new salads, too. Some may complain about your extravagant prices but, honestly, comparable coffee drinks at cafes with comparable ambiance and selection come with comparable price tags and less consistency.

I lost my coffee virginity to you, Starbucks, and while I thought that meant something, you quickly showed me otherwise. Within two weeks of our first time, you took my drink (Cinnamon Spice Mocha) off the menu. I was hurt, so I sampled around at other coffee shops, but I eventually came back. I learned later that I could still get "our" drink, even though it wasn't explicitly named on your menu; experienced baristas still knew what a Cinnamon Spice Mocha contains: simple flavorings carried regularly by Starbucks.

A few summers ago you created a special treat for me: the Mocha Malt Frappuccino. We shared many hot days that summer, Starbucks, but at the end of the season you took the Mocha Malt off your menu. Undeterred, I ordered one up anyway, but was rejected by the barista who informed me that the Mocha Malt was only a seasonal special and to look for it again next summer.

I've yet to see the Mocha Malt on a menu again, but a couple of months ago I noticed that malt was a special "extra" being suggested to add to your favorite drink at my local Starbucks. I seized the suggestion and was thrilled when the barista attending my order admitted to also being a huge fan of the Mocha Malt! This discovery brightened my entire spring quater, and I looked forward to another summer of Mocha Malt bliss.

Until today. Returning to my local Starbucks after a couple of weeks of travel, I sought to catch up on some reading out on the sunny patio with my friend the Mocha Malt Frappuccino. Alas, the barista informed me that Starbucks has quit stocking malt. Can you hear my balloon being burst?

I understand that Starbucks is trying to attract new patrons--both coffee-drinkers and non-coffee drinkers alike--with interesting new drink combinations. I'm in love with the blackberry green tea combos (which I never would have thought to combine!), and these new juice blend frappuccinos sound really awesome; I'll have to try one soon.

So I get that you have limited space on your menu and may not be able to list all your "old" drink combos. But seriously, how much room does a container of malt take up? Is it totally going to break your bank to at least stock the ingredient? I know that you won't sell a million Mocha Malts a day (especially since you haven't advertised that particular drink combo in at least two years), but don't you feel any since of obligation to your loyal patrons?

A year or so ago you mailed me (a Starbucks Duetto cardholder since its inception in 2003) a pamphlet all about ways to create my custom Starbucks drink. You told me about all the options and extras I could experiment with to create my own, personalized coffee drink. You even encouraged me to stray from the menu selection and opt for a drink as unique and individual as myself. I did, and I fell in love with my unique coffee creation. Please bring back the malt so I don't have to search for love elsewhere!

This afternoon I went to a coffee shop and did a little reading and a lot of people watching. It's amazing how much the clientele varies from one corner cafe to the next here in California, where hippies and yuppies co-exist. Oddly, I variously identify with the hippies at times, and the yuppies at other times, and with neither group at all at yet other times. These times of disidentification are when I can truly detach myself and observe the strange behaviour of this fascinating creature.

Stories from my coffee house people-watching deserve a blog unto themselves, so I postpone them for another day. Instead, I share with you my observations of one particularly sad individual I stumbled upon after leaving the coffee house.

I ran into Trader Joe's quickly to pick up some salad fixins to have with dinner. Trader Joe's is all organic-y and attracts yet another strange mix of clientele, but it also attracts activists with petitions at the edge of its property. Today's activist was older than most, probably in her late 50s or early 60s. And she was louder than most, announcing her cause over and over again (as well as advertising with a huge sign: 'PROTECT THE ANIMALS') instead of approaching Trader Joe's customers individually and calmly and politely explaining the petition and asking for a signature, which is what most of these people do.

I was a little annoyed by her brazen behaviour and apparent lack of respect for the Trader Joe's lurking activists who preceded her. But I was also touched that a woman her age and apparent social status was willing to give her time to such a thankless cause as animal rights. On my way out of the store I intended to stop and hear about her issue and appologize for not being able to sign her petition (since I'm not yet a registered citizen of California).

Just before I approached her, however, a father and his 4- or 5-year-old son walked past her on the sidewalk. The little boy had a helium balloon tied to his wrist. The woman began berating the little boy for carrying the balloon! She told him that all of the gas in the balloon would leak out and pollute our air, and that after he threw them away. the rubber balloon and the ribbon it was tied to would end up in a stream somewhere where bunnies and ducks would choke and strangle themselves on the garbage.

When the father told his son not to listen and to keep walking, the woman persisted and started to follow them across the parking lot. Finally the father confronted the woman, saying that perhaps she should learn to get along with people before she tried to help the animals.

What a crazy bitch! What else can I say? Crazy friggin nuts-and-berries psycho bitch.

So what ever happened to the West Nile Virus? Shouldn't we have heard about it again by now? Did we manage to eradicate it? Or have the news networks just not picked it up for another season? Maybe our public health conscience only has room for one potential epidemic at a time, and right now this Avian Flu is trupming good ol' West Nile.

And who decides what to name these potential pandemic eradicators of the human race? I'm sure there's some committee at the CDC who are being way overpaid to sit around and debate the best way to name these diseases. Notice that it's the Avian Flu, not the Asian Flu, and the West Nile Virus, not the Egyptian Virus (or even the East Nile Virus, for that matter). This differs strikingly from the Asiatic Flu, the Hong Kong Flu, or the Spanish Flu epidemics of the 20th Century. And it doesn't follow the more recent trend of giving the disease a long name of medical jargony terms that is inevitably reduced to an acronym (AIDS, SARS). West Nile Virus and Avian Flu seem like really deliberate attempts at being more PC by 1)not attaching a deadly epidemic to a particular ethnic group of people, and 2)not indentifying the source of such an epidemic in any human population at all.

One thing is clear: any of the epidemiological nomenclature techniques outlined above are better than The Black Plague. Talk about your PR nightmare! Try to put a positive spin on that, FOX News!

I'm really getting annoyed with the anti gay marriage rhetoric. Forget the fact that our country has many more important, life-and-death issues we should be tackling (like Iraq and healthcare, for starters). If we're going to take on a moral hot topic, can we at least appeal to rationalism and logic in doing so?

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said, "Marriage between one man and one woman does a better job protecting children better than any other institution humankind has devised. As such, marriage as an institution should be protected, not redefined."

First of all, if there has been any reputable, controlled, scientific study of marriage patterns effects on children, I'd love to read it. But I'd like to see the result of such a study where proportional weights of single parents, divorced parents, and domestic abuse are taken as independent factors.

The fact of the matter is that we can't really say what the effect of a same-sex couple raising a child is because we haven't yet given ample opportunity for this scenario to take place. Every child is different, as is every parent. If we really want to know whether a homosexual couple is as effective at parenting as a heterosexual couple, we need to give enough of them the chance to be parents and to be in officially recognized families to make our comparisons valid.

The other argument for the "Defense of Marriage" amendments is that the legalization of same-sex marriages will undermine the sanctity of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Here's another place where logic and rational thinking are tossed out the window. Legaling same-sex marriages won't stop heterosexual partners for getting married, nor will it change the sanctity with which heterosexuals enter into their covenant. What does undermine the sanctity of marriage are true social evils like domestic abuse, child neglect, and infidelity. With divorce rates and domestic abuse at the ridiculous levels they are in this "modern society", how can anyone serious talk about the American institution of marriage as a thing of sanctity in the first place?

Like the gals from Laguna Beach, I am now an official card-carrying member of the elite wannabes--or at least a bag-carrying member. Today I finally got my fabulous knock-off Fendi buckle bag, heretofore referred to as my Pretendi bag.





Carrying a fake is fine as long as you don't take yourself too seriously. And seriously, who really defines themself by the label on their handbag anyway?

I like fashion. I enjoy getting dressed each day, and like to be as creative as time allows in putting together an outfit. But sometimes I'm worried that I've been a little too creative. Or maybe I just have poor lighting in my room while I'm getting dressed. The point is, I sometimes worry that my creativity will lead me into the Land of Fashion Donts--that I'll end up one of those poor, black-barred souls on the back pages of Cosmo or Glamour:

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Then I look at other people on campus, or at the mall, or at the grocery, and I realize that even if I might occasionally get a bit overzealous in my fashionability, at least I'm making myself worthy of taking notice. I'd rather get black-barred for my creative fashion sense--overzealous though it might be--than spend my whole life in relaxed-fit khakis and solid-colored polo shirts, never making a blip on the Fashion Police's radar.

So I'm a blogger now.

What?

A blogger.

Seriously?

Seriously.

What do you have to say?

I have stuff to say.

Like what?

Read my blog and find out.

Seriously?

Seriously.