Babes in Candyland

I don't bake. I am not domesticated like that. I don't make cookies and give them out as presents. In fact, I'm more likely to be the one to spit on the cookies on the table in the break room because that kind of concentrated effort and forced feminization blows my mind.

Needless to say, my mom and I didn't bond in the kitchen making cutesy Christmas cookies or even cakes. I learned to cook at five, my first meal, hot dogs for me and my dad. And that Christmas, with my mom crying over the turkey that did was still frozen in the middle at 8pm, my dad sulking in the living room, I proudly declared to my uncle and grandma, I would make them hotdogs for dinner.

My mom and I did, however, bond over clothing and men.

We didn't even have a stove growing up. Not due to impoverished circumstances, but rather because my mom didn't cook. Sometime in my teen years my mom worked as a buyer for a food service company and we acquired an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie oven, which sat (sits) a top the refrigerator in which she baked Stouffer's pizzas well into my college years. That was the extent of baking that occurred in my home. More like browning of frozen goods.

Correction, I don't bake, unless I'm consciously avoiding something. Making brownies at 11:30 at night to avoid a stack of papers that need to be reviewed, making cookies on Sundays to avoid planning out the next week. Lately, what I have been avoiding has been my life.

I am currently entertaining making chocolate cupcakes - from scratch- at 9pm on a SATURDAY.

How did my life end up here? When did this become my life? I have been asking myself that same questions for the past 11 months. That's about how long ago this feeling started, as far as I can see.

Recently, people I have talked to have said,"It's just your 20s. They suck, especially 23, 24 and 25." That thought had never crossed my mind. I have heard of the terrible twos, moody teenage year and my mom told me every birthday from when I was 9, that 25 was the worst year of her life, but is it possible we go through a series of "terrible" years through out our life; these cycles where nothing seems to be going right, though you're right on track?

So far I loath 24. It is the only age I can say I honestly didn't want to turn when I woke up on that December morning. Twenty-three was decent, twenty two excellent, twenty one exciting, and what I remember about 20, it was the pinnacle of existence, but 24 from the start has been a game of punching me in the stomach and when I fall down, doing a Mexican hat dance on my heart and soul. No, this is not a weepy, "oh my poor love life" blog, though I assure you when Betty Crocker is abound, so will be that genre of blog. This is a doubleUteePH? blog. A, I throw my hands up to the Universe and scream in the car with the windows down, white flag waving, crying on your best friend's couch, seriously?, SERIOUSLY dude?, blog.

With it, 24 has brought a stringofmen that make my head spin, yes, my life skills are becoming refined with each one, but did I really need to make up for my lack of adolescence quasi-boyfriends with a slew of guys that are really great but do not fit quite right.

I digress and I promised it wasn't that kind of blog.

It has also brought with it, my conscious choice to stay where I am geographically.

A fabulous grip on my career and several doors with matching opportunities.

A commitment to the machine in the form of a mortgage and a monthly car payment; and while some may say, "Ah-ha! That's the issue, the all so sudden forced maturation of BILLS and economics!", I must respectfully disagree. It's not that.

It's not the guy thing,or lack of guy thing or the overwhelming of guy thing, it occasionally IS the geography of it all, but not consistently enough to warrant complete abdication. So, why do I feel like I can't get a grip, on ANYTHING?

Is it as simple as, simply a phase, the tumultuous twenties? Or should I be calling Dr. Phil and talking about the tragedies of my parents throwing out my toy blocks and my odd need to put lipstick on my dolly's head pretending he was bleeding after he fell off a cliff? It was an accident, and I always fixed him up. Hey, I even bought him real pampers, okay, my mom did. He was anatomically correct, I didn't want him to be embarrassed if there was an accident. Always be prepared, I say.

So, do you think it's hard to find buttermilk in sub-tropical climates?

That's a silly question, I do live in the South.