Some situations I am currently concerned about:

• the political/electoral, and the continuous waves of stunned disbelief it gives rise to;
• recent natural disasters here and abroad and the ensuing sense of this-will-only-get-worse;
• wide-scale domestic economic mayhem (and the ensuing sense of (see above));
• that war thing that is still happening;
• just this vague yet pervasive post-millenial unease.

Anyways let’s talk sodas!

Oh but wait here come some things the internet wants you to have an opinion on:

• apparently there is a Google browser, Josh, you use it to look at the internet;
• the Lindsay & Samantha situation, we need to be supportive;
• what does it say about us as a country that we sit idly by and allow our government to force prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to read the comments on YouTube;
• serious, don’t you totally love [the thing everyone won't shut up about this week, probably it's a TV show]???

I’m not saying:

• that I don’t have opinions.

I’m just saying:

• it’s hard. Especially for a person who is seeking relief in his personal life from strongly-held and hastily-considered opinions.

Here are some of the things I do currently have opinions about:

• If there was a Wordpress plug-in that granted or denied access to this website for each reader based on his or her level of enthusiasm for a certain current VP nominee, I would not hesitate to ask Josh to install it;
• I am definitely a winter and my face looks sallow when I wear pastels so I should probably stop doing it;
• Twitter didn’t kill the internet, but it didn’t volunteer to drive it to the hospital, either;
• Lips that touch cochineal / dinnae have sex appeal.
• sometimes a man is too tired to stand up while he pees, but that does not make him any less of a man, he did climb all those stairs after all.

Reasons I’m thinking about all this:

• posting an opinion of something on the internet is the karmic equivalent of shouting into the ear of your very deaf great grand-aunt at Thanksgiving, who does not remember your name, and who is more likely to accuse you of trying to steal her purse then ever pass the sweet potatoes;
• I get asked my opinions on beverage-related topics all the time, and it’s almost always a trap.

People want to know my opinions on:

• a certain drink no one except them knows about;
• high-fructose corn syrup;
• diet sodas and artificial sweeteners.

I tell them:

• Yeah, cool;
• Yes it’s bad, but life is complicated;
• Yes they’re not as good for you as water, but soda and Tumblr are my only vices, so, you know, I feel like Heaven is still in the offing.

They can’t believe:

• I haven’t! heard! of that! beverage!;
• I know the horrors of HFCS but would still willingly occasionally put them in my body;
• I seriously think diet sodas are better for you than regular soda—they actually CAUSE more weight gain than regular soda, plus give you all that cancer.

So, like that.

But despite:

• life being what it is;
• people being what they are;
• all the above-mentioned non-beverage, non-internet worries that keep me awake at night and engender in me a deep-seated fear for my family’s long-term safety on this planet,

I do occasionally like to drink:

• Cherry Coke Zero.

It’s:

• good. It basically tastes like regular Cherry Coke. Not exactly, but closer than you’d expect, which makes it one of the better diet sodas there is. They stock it at my office. It costs me nothing. I drink one and then move on to other things.

Somewhere beyond the mechanical roar of the internet:

• life continues.