Cooking

Although I have a solid reputation as a loner, it is a well-known secret that, going back to high school, I have almost always had a girlfriend. Recently, however, I’m thinking, “fuck ‘em,” and not in the sense that I usually mean that.

When I break it down, girls are useful for four things: conversation, haircuts, cooking and physical contact. (If you look closely enough, that last one is really two things.)

I've seldom found good conversation to be gender-specific, except I DO love to flirt. True; haircuts and cooking aren't actually gender-specific either; I just find it sexy when women do them and not men. Is that sexist?

Since my hair “style” consists of me never combing my hair (an ex from college is the genesis of this, by the way), giving myself haircuts is pretty easy- I simply stand in front of a mirror with scissors and hack at it until it is sticking up everywhere.

So now I’m teaching myself to cook. Like everything one doesn’t know how to do- it’s not as hard as it looks. I’ll never understand those who say they “can’t” do something. My experience is that most humans aren’t actually very clever- if someone else can do it, then so can I. Perhaps I can never do it expertly, but that’s a different thing entirely.

The first thing to do when acquiring a skill is to recognize your weaknesses. One thing I know about me is that I have a very poor sense of volume and clock-time. I have to measure and time everything; if I try to guess, I fuck it up. Another weakness when cooking is that I can’t stand untidiness. Cooking makes a mess! I get OCD about cleaning everything all the time, which distracts me from the cooking part of it. I honestly don’t know that I will ever be able to leave all the dishes until after I’ve eaten, but I can find a balance I’m sure.

The second thing to do is recognize your strengths. I am a master of taking copious notes. Every recipe needs fine-tuning, and I love that part of the process. Also, “undaunted” could be my middle name. I don’t mind fucking up a dish, because I figure out what to NOT do next time.

Anyway, I’m still eating. The whole physical contact thing though; I don’t see myself joining a convent anytime soon….