I like iced coffee, but I dislike hot coffee.

I like hot tea, but I dislike iced tea.

I like peanut butter, but I dislike peanuts.

I like lettuce in my salad, but I dislike lettuce in my sandwich.

Today, my gym boyfriend took me aside and said I was warm, open, and nonjudgmental. Then he sort of cried and went and hid in the personal trainers’ office. I feel as if his assessment was misapplied, as if he had somehow been looking through a window to my past. As I do not feel especially beneficent these days, perhaps a scan for chroniton particles will shed some light on the situation.

The mythologies of warmth and consistency and positioning are fluid and should not produce divisions that are absolute, even though they often do. Coffee, tea, and me can be both hot and cold at various points in our trajectory through space-time, and perhaps both simultaneously. To an Eskimo, iced coffee may still be sorta hot. Perhaps the coffee is struggling with issues of its own and appreciates this vote of confidence.