august 12, 2001. I can't wait to go home & talk to my female relatives about cooking. Yeah, that seems a little bizarre to admit, but the better I get at domesticity, the more curious I become about the workings of the simple meals that were served to me in my childhood. For example, I'd love to be able to make the cutlets my Italian aunts seemed to turn out so effortlessly - although I don't eat veal anymore, I want to free myself from the tyranny of pre-prepared boxed chicken pieces. I want to make batches of things and freeze them. I want to know what goes into my grandmother's roast beef and my aunt's pasta-and-beans. I want to know how my females have survived so many years of cooking, what shortcuts they've found and what they can teach me about sustainable effort. I want to cook forever because it's so damn empowering, but I don't want to burn out. Empowering. That's another bizarre word that juxtaposes against second-wave feminism and the need for women to be as important and self-centred as the traditional male. I love getting food together into a recipe. I adore eating something new that I've made myself. I beam during those rare nights when every random element comes together into a fabulous multi-dish dinner. And oh, I crave the praise that's due a hard-working cook. Food is so important to me that making it from scratch fills me with a holy light and an unstoppable sense of manifest destiny. It's just like when I was in university and discovered the joys of a fabulous wardrobe - or at least the joys of having half-a-dozen good pieces to wear when you're going someplace to be noticed. I felt then as if I had stumbled upon one of the universe's keys to eternal happiness. And well, it's just accessories, it's not Nirvana or Eternal Salvation or anything, but man it's fun. Cooking and baking are the same kind of joy, and they also seem to unlock parallel doors of experience. God, I love being a girl. Today I awoke ass-early, propelled out of bed at 7:15 by a weird burst of energy that unfortunately deserted me halfway through church. Our morning was filled with conversation, church & more research into Canadian universities for the Boy. At noon we piled a whole bunch of stuff in the van and took off for a picnic at Blomidon. I had originally planned to eat & swim, but by the time we were chased out of our picnic grounds (by a large out-of-control Phillipino family picnic that played the worst 50's rawk cover versions I've ever heard in my life, but you know, it was so awful as to be kind of funny) & made it down into the big, smelly, muddy Bay of Fundy, we were too bloated to do anything but wade about contemplating the universe (me) and poke around the various colonies of invertebrates (the Boy). The tide rushed in around us, which is always amazing to the two of us. It's one thing to read and know abstractly that the Bay of Fundy has the fastest, highest tides in the world; it's quite another to stand up to your knees in warm shallow water and feel the water level stampede up to your hips in a matter of minutes. Luckily, I was wearing my "almost hotpants" shorts, so I could stand in one place and feel the tide gaining ground all around me without getting my clothes wet. It felt...more mystical than usual for a day outdoors, I suppose. This is a good thing. I saw Poly at the supermarket yesterday, which was kind of neat and unexpected. She was all flustered & bit frantic; she moved to Toronto last week, shortly after her Toronto-based boyfriend dumped her. (Note: Poly hates cities and only accepted a job in urban Ontario to be with this boy. Eeek.) The good new is that I should be able to drag her out for coffee or something when I'm there at the end of the month, and she'll give me back my Christmas copies of Bust & Bitch (which I really appreciate. People come & go, but feminist ideas are forever.) Maybe if I show her the Green Room, she may lose some of her blind city hate. You never know. The other thing about meeting her was that I had forgotten how small she is! I don't think she's much taller than 5 feet, which makes medium-sized me feel like a giantess while in conversation with her. If I hang out any more with her, I just may have to grind her bones to make my bread...'cause I want to feel small again, dammit! "You know what the world needs?" I said. "A western with really cool, obscure, cutting-edge alternabands on the soundtrack. Like, with a showgirls scene set to "Kissability" by Sonic Youth. Or a gunbattle to "Crackety Jones" by the Pixies." "They had that. It was called Young Guns," said the Boy, not looking up from his fantasy hockey pool crib notes. "Yeah, but the music sucked. It was totally Bon Jovified." "He he he! Bon Jovified!" "Yeah, it seems to describe so much, doesn't it?" "The only radio station I could get in Moncton was this classic rock station. By the time I got home I was totally Bon Jovified!" "That's very good, sweetie." this time 2 years ago: two spunky friends and a variety of sticky situations