April 5, 2021

I missed one yesterday. 

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I spent the whole morning making monkey bread and deviled eggs. The monkey bread dough rose and pushed the melted butter and sugar out of the bundt pan and onto the oven floor. It smoked like crazy. I'm planning on cleaning it out later today. 

The cooking took me hours. It was my first time trying to make either of those things. I'm really enjoying cooking. Picking out recipes at the beginning of the week -- getting to try out anything that I want -- and then getting all the groceries. It feels good to do something that isn't on the computer, that isn't primarily mental work. I like buying and using all these tangible things. Meat, tomatoes, green onions, packages of noodles. The stuff that people write poems about and paint as still lifes. It's an easy way to get a little bit of novelty, a great venue for trying new things, especially because I haven't been cooking for very long. I have never cooked most things before. It makes me feel capable in a grounded way. Plus there's so much pleasure in it. 

I also am pleased that I like to do it because -- finally -- it's a way to perform my gender that feels natural and enjoyable to me. Feeding myself, feeding others. Marshaling a kitchen. Making my apartment homier, as in more like a home. It's all essential and ancient and warm. I text photographs of what I cook to my mom sometimes. I want to let her know that even though I may not have kids or go to church, I do cook. I'm participating in my gender and in tradition in some way (even though what I cook is not what she grew up feeding me). 

I wanted to add something about my experience at the pop-up skate event on Friday. Everyone else there is better than me. They have the combined abilities of gymnasts, ball room dancers, yogis, and ski jumpers. They fly spinning around the rink. I do my best to just stay upright and not run into anybody. My friends and I took a break, at one point, to rest and have a beer over on the picnic tables. I kept my skates on, hobbling around in the grass. When we went back into the rink, I had this moment where I knew I was not going to fall. More than a moment, like half an hour. I'm not sure if it was the false confidence of the booze or if I'm just slowly getting better. But for that little while, I was wrapped in security and it felt great. 

Lastly, I stayed up until 3am last night listening to my audiobook. My husband was out of town this week, and I generally did a good job self-regulating and sticking to good routines. It's tough though, to make good decisions -- decisions against your inclination -- when it's just you. Plus the book was really good. (I'll write about it tomorrow.) I finally went to sleep and not long after I woke back up. Then I felt my bed start to slip and rock. Three earthquakes between 4 and 5 am. I went back to sleep.