I ran out of coffee a couple days ago, and hadn’t had a cup when I left the house this morning, and was feeling cranky. I usually don’t get coffee out. I have my beloved Bialetti Moka Express stovetop espresso maker. It makes two cups of espresso which I drink from a glass, not a cup. Throw out all that expensive espresso-making parphernalia you never use, because this is it. This is how real Italians (eh-hem) do it.

A Moka Express’ll run you about fifteen bucks. Get some Illy espresso coffee (they sell it at Whole Foods), and your happiness is assured. Sometimes when I’m a little low on funds I pick up a 10 oz. packet of Cafe Pilon for $2.69 and dump the contents into an Illy canister, and I’m stillhappy! Point is: you don’t need Starbucks. (Speaking of, there was an interesting piece in Slate about Starbucks’ espresso you might want to check out, if that’s your thing.)

Anyway, I went to Dunkin’ Donuts to grab a cup of joe this morning. There was a Starbucks across the street, but when I have to choose, I’ll take Dunkin’ Donuts. And it obviously has nothing to do with the coffee, per se. I like to think of it like this: if there was a rumble between Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, who do you think would win? I think I know. But still I’d like to see it. And I don’t mean one of those mamby-pamby barista tournaments. I mean, brass knuckles and crowbars. And finger-snapping and dancing, too, of course. That goes without saying.

But, actually, before I could get my coffee (I got a muffin, too), I had to drop into the ATM. I was at Downtown Crossing, so I went to the one at the corner of Arch and Summer. But there were two homeless people inside, and they were just rising to greet the day. One was putting on his pants. And I can now report with confidence that homeless people are just like anyone else: it’s one leg at a time. Anyway, I didn’t want to disturb them, and there’s another ATM in the neighborhood.

On my way back to the T after the gym, despite the chill, I gave in to the temptation of Brattle Books on West Street. They have that outdoor browsing area with books priced from one to five bucks. I can remember when five bucks out there was unthinkable. It still is for me. Three bucks is my limit–I mean, if I’m bargain-hunting musty old used books. You pay five and it doesn’t feel like a steal. I don’t know why. That’s about the price of one of those so-called value meals at any fast food joint, but still.

I never leave empty-handed, and I always take away something I feel my library can’t do without. This morning I picked up The Essential Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr’sThe Irony of American History and a pocket-sized hardcover of Washington Irving’s brilliant The Crayon Miscellany, which is perfect for reading on the T, size and subject matter both.

What I like about browsing used bookstores is that you have no idea what you’ll find. That gives your finds a feeling of fate. I’ve been re-reading Lippmann lately. I just ordered A Preface to Morals, which I think is a great book, from amazon.com, so the Lippmann anthology felt right. Seems like I’m on the right track, you know. The same with Niebuhr. He’s been coming up a lot lately. The Crayon Miscellany is a freebie. I mean, it just jumped off the shelf at me.

On the way home there were two guys from Southie, one of whom had a bone structure and features as close to the Western ideal as I have seen. And then he opened his mouth. Had that Southie drawl. And that Southie attitude that goes with it. I’m not knocking it, it just seemed a little incongruous in this instance.

Male beauty is so misunderstood, though, isn’t it? One online source I consulted (answers.com) ranked determinants of male physical attractiveness this way: first and foremost, “sexual attraction for man by a woman is determined largely by the height of the man.” And you guys thought it was your shoe-size. If you make the cut, the next most important factor is a muscular physique. This, according to answers.com, “largely arose as a social backlash against effeminate homosexual men.” Um, OK. After that comes (I’m not kidding, either) “a unique hairstyle.” Then comes a “heavily-set jaw” and a big bone…through the nose. (Wikipedia’s entry for “Physical Attractiveness” is both instructive and entertaining here.)

Hmm. I think symmetry is important. And features in impeccable proportion to one another. And that’s what was so jarring about this bloke on the train. Still, an ideal is an ideal, and you get to a point where the ideal may not be attractive in reality. While the ideal may still be a touchstone, a degree of deviation from it may be more attractive than the ideal itself. Even so, those who approximate the ideal must be admired for the sheer fact that they do. That’s how we’re programmed. We have no choice but to admire them, even as we may resent them for not having done anything particularly admirable. But we don’t resent purebred dogs or horses for approximating the ideal, which is precisely why we breed them as we do.

Anyway, all I’m trying to say here is while I felt compelled to admire this fellow, it wasn’t a hubba-hubba thing.

There was a very nice-looking guy behind the counter at the munchie stand at JFK today listening to some hypnotic Arab pop. He looked to be of Arab extraction himself. Very nice, indeed. And nothing at all like this other bloke. Kinda scrappy. Finding awesome beauty in the little imperfections is what it’s all about. For the flawed masses, at least. It’s like people who are happiest when they’re saddest. (Saint John’s wort can help with that, by the way.)

I finally went out and got a TV. I’d been without one since October, when I moved in. I went through mild withdrawal, but after a couple of weeks I didn’t miss it. But this latest mining tragedy thing convinced me I needed to have one. (I wrote about it here, in case you’re interested.) Long and short of it is: if you didn’t have a TV there wasn’t really a story. I mean, of course there was a story, but the story wasn’t the story in the end, was it? It was a “mining tragedy,” which is a pretty established genre of tragedy. Not a lot of room for variation there. The story was the story of the story. And without a TV you didn’t really get it.

But I had forgotten, in the intervening months, how miserable I was supposed to be. All those smiling talk-show hosts are so busy hammering that home, aren’t they? Dr. Phil and Oprah. Even Lester Holt, with that crooked little smile and those sad eyes of his, was on NBC’s morning show this morning hocking “happiness make-overs” . And what are make-overs but an admission of misery so abject you have to annihilate the source of it?