They say that Voltaire at times drank 15 cups of coffee in a single day. Beethoven, so the legend goes, often averaged 10. I, on the other hand, have been putting down a consistent 8 mugs of coffee every day for the past three or four months.

Maybe I was just a couple cups short of writing a Candide or composing a 5th Symphony, but it didn’t feel that way. Instead, every morning has been a gigantic struggle to get to the coffee maker, to pour that first cup, to gulp it down like an athlete would water after a marathon. Then a fury of productivity, anxiety, eating with one hand and typing on my keyboard with the other. Caffeine propelled multi-tasking in its truest form.

Around 3 o’ clock the buzz would wear off, my eyes droopy while driving to work. Or glazed over, staring blankly at the computer monitor.

Two more cups of coffee. Or maybe a double espresso. Then at night, working in a coffee shop, there was no way around it. I drink coffee on my job because it has become as natural as breathing air. And as necessary.

But hopefully all of this will change. Today marks my first day in 2004 without a cup of coffee. I’ll still be drinking tea – probably quite a bit of it at first. My intention isn’t to quit coffee completely – I’m addicted enough to know that I can’t imagine life without the daily mental rush it gives me. But just one small cup in the afternoon used to do that for me. Not eight.

So for the next two weeks, no coffee. Just tea – soon herbal. Then, two weeks from now … let’s see, the first of May, I’ll reward myself with my one cup an afternoon. Nothing more.