The great caffeine experiment

I feel like a heroine addict a few hours after her last hit. Things are pretty calm right now, but I know it's gonna get bad. I'm taking a 30-day leave of my elixir of life: caffeine.

I have this thing, this tremor. I have my mother and her mother to thank for it. It's been increasing over the years. I'll be eating and I'll catch eyes staring at my right hand, fork shimmying above the plate. My sisters are the worst, they love to give me hell about it. "Geez, Jenny! See a doctor!"

Thing is, I have, and I remind them of it every time we're together. Recently, the four of us sisters got together for a flick Burn After Reading (marginal in terms of Cohen Brothers, but Pitt was hilarious). I commented on how my sister Angie's hands were so still. She looked at me and said, "Jen, this is normal. Your shake is not."

As with every other time, I assured her I've talked to my doctor and have been told that other than quitting the caffeine, there's nothing that can be done. "And I tried that, for a day, and it didn't help." Then she said it, "Have you tried it for a month?" I about choked on my Mountain Dew. "A month?! No caffeine for a month?!"

She dropped the issue, but it left me thinking, "It can't hurt to try." So here we go . . .

Part of me hopes it works, it would be nice to use the video camera again, cool to take the SLR off "shake" mode, even better to not have to wipe mascara from my eyebrows. But if it works, that means no yummo espresso from the Bialetti, no thirst-quenching bite from the infamous green can, no bottomless cup during my coffee hour with friends! But there are concessions I could make, I could switch to decaf (shhh, don't tell me if there are trace amounts) and I really shouldn't be drinking any pop in the first place. So it's not like my life would become completely desolate. . . Right?