Today, I'm on a field trip.

Usually I do all of my writing from the questionable comfort of my home office, where I can control the ambient noise, take breaks to work on other things, and, well -- in that setting, pants are optional. Not today, though. Today, it's all about sitting here at my local coffee shop with my laptop, an activity that must be helpful to get work done, since everyone else always seems to be doing just that when I come in to get a mocha. I had assumed that stopping in to get coffee and the occasional bagel was the purpose of the place, but the laptop people make it seem so incredibly… secondary. It got to the point that I was afraid I was missing out on a magical experience, some kind of heady atmosphere that was conducive to better writing. So here I am, the writer going native.

(Odd that "going native" in this case actually means I have to be wearing pants.)

Frankly, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be drawing material from what's going on around me. If that's the case, I'm in for a rough afternoon, because right now the place is surprisingly vacant, save for a couple groups of people that seem to be happily involved in their own business. The exception to that is at a table very near to me, where a little kid and his mom are sharing a couple of cookies. Just now, he was looking over at me and asking his mom why I was sitting here with a computer. Kid, that's actually a good question. I've been here for a while now, the contents of my mug have been reduced to a dried chocolaty glaze, and I'm still not sold on the novelty of the experience.

Really, I think the only reason I decided to try this today is because I've been getting a little obsessive about coffee. Coffee and I used to be casual friends, albeit in a friendship that was very one-sided -- I needed to see coffee every morning and it probably didn't care about me one way or another. Then came the days when I discovered that there was so much more to life than brewing half a pot of whatever was on sale. It finally dawned on me that there were several hundred forms of the stuff available for me to brew in my very own home, and that really, I could start developing a taste, analysis, and appreciation for coffee that many people reserve for wine.

I realize that I am far from the first person to come to this conclusion.

When I was still pretty fresh out of college, my first job was in a small office environment with its own kitchenette. There was a coffee maker on the counter for community use -- pretty much standard practice in many places, even now with the ubiquitous Starbucks et al. The company's business manager, a wiry old fellow, would flat out refuse to drink the community coffee, which was mystifying to me at the time. Instead, he had a much smaller personal coffee maker (and grinder) that he would use in a morning ritual to brew up his morning fix. I eventually accepted it as an amusing eccentricity, but now I'm beginning to wonder if that's the destination that I'm headed for -- the land of coffee aficionado.

No more standard, off the shelf coffee for me. Give me beans. Give me a grinder. Give me a coffee maker that dares not scald or otherwise taint the balance of flavor in my morning brew. You know, while we're at it, give me organic beans that were purchased via a Fair Trade policy, because I might as well be progressive in my coffee politics as long as I'm going to geek out about coffee.

The problem I have right now is that I'm only good for about a cup and a half a day; anything more than that kind of gives me jitters, or if I'm drinking something with high acidity, a sour stomach. So the effort to become more familiar with the many varieties of beans from the different regions of the world and the different roasting techniques used on the beans is something of a slow-moving journey.

Granted, maybe I could be doing that kind of thing right now. I am, after all, sitting here in a coffee shop with a pretense of being productive. I suppose that I could start taking notes on different kinds of coffees… taking the time to sit here and savor what I'm drinking…

That seems awfully laid back and European, though. That's not what the "American" coffee shop is all about. Despite the lies that are told to us on many a television show like Friends, it's obvious to regular patrons of real-life coffee shops that the soul of the place isn't in going there to meet friends and talk so much as going there with your laptop to work.