Diet Coke, Please!

We scoffed at the man carrying a diet coke on his tray.  “What’s the point? He has a chili dog and fries; a regular coke isn’t going to make much difference and it will taste so much better.”

The person behind us chimed in, “Maybe he likes the tastes.”

We couldn’t figure out if he was serious or playing along.

Now, I find myself in the same habit as this man at the front of the line at Pink’s ten or fifteen years ago.

I’m not sure when it happened, but diet Coke is a flavor I enjoy. Coke Zero tastes much like regular Coke, but I often forsake it in favor of diet Coke. The only times I choose regular Coke are when I’m in a foreign country that bottles its Cokes with real sugar in a glass bottle. Yum.

Why do I even choose a soda? Well, I enjoy it. I also figure that there is no need to do more damage than I’m already doing. I guess, I also figure if I’m going for the hamburger, I can go ahead and get a small order of fries instead of a regular soda and not add too many more calories. I know, I could save double the calories, if I drank water, or iced tea and skipped the fries altogether.

In any case, I’m now just like that guy, choosing a greasy meal and complementing it with diet Coke. I don’t care what they say. It’s at least 150 calories I’m saving, that’s a lot of minutes on the cardio machines, and yeah, I like the flavor.

Moments

This morning I realized we really are alone when it comes to ‘moments’.  Occasionally I share a moment with someone, but I doubt we see the moment the same way.

I spent this morning in melancholy because I’m bloated, wearing my laundry day pants, and my roots are showing. I went from station to station on the radio. I listened to a bit of talk and a bit of music before all the channels simultaneously went to commercial. Then, I turned on the CD. The next track happened to be from a CD with music from when I was dancing with a Bollywood troupe. One song, that I’ve always liked came on and took me right back to all the good moments this sound has been the sound track for, most recently, and most importantly my wedding day. I drove myself to the hair salon. It was raining softly. This song is about rain. It mimics the approach of a storm, and then swells into a deluge, and then it drops down back to silence. The music fills my heart. (That’s corny to say, but how else can I explain it?) The drums and voice and strings rise and fall and my emotions follow.

I sat in my car, parked in the garage at work until the song finishes. Then I realized this moment was alone. The moment it reminded me of was also alone. Would anyone understand it if I shared it? We spend so much time alone. How would my experiences be different if I spend my time in a crowded metropolis, commuting on a train or crowded bus? Would home be the refuge it is if it was one of many tiny apartments in a multi story building without an elevator? Would I be reliving my moment if my office was one of those open places where there aren’t even cubicle walls to separate me from my neighbor?

How different would things be for me if my community was not in an individualistic culture? Would I crave the company? Would I only see my moments with others in it? Would I long for ‘me’ time? Would my moment still feel like only I’ve experienced it? Are we alone in our moments, really?