she once believed in every story he had to tell

This morning I learned that myself and white wine need to go on a break. This marks me as a bit of a snob, but I have a habit of only drinking alcohol that I myself bring to a party. And while this makes me a snooty jerk, the alternative is the headache that I got this morning. Because the difference between good wine and bad wine is not always the taste-- more often, it's the headache. Of course, for most of the people at the party, this is not an issue. They're young and don't really know the meaning of hangover yet. And that is probably the only thing I miss about being younger.

Because yesterday turned into a bit of a blur, I forgot to take pictures before I took off. Yesterday I made double chocolate cookies in the morning, and then later in the afternoon, I suddenly was seized with the inspiration to make empanadas from scratch. Teach a girl how to roll out dough into a circle, and all kinds of havoc follows, apparently. Because it turned into a bit of a rush job, the empanadas were not as petite and cute as I'd planned them to be. Instead, each one was the size of an entire meal. That didn't seem to bother anyone yesterday, as they disappeared pretty rapidly. But I had a lot of filling left over, so I will be making these empanadas again, and then there might even be photographic evidence that I really suck at making those pretty folds and crimps that some people can manage on empanadas (or samosas for that matter).

When I bake these days, it has to be a carefully orchestrated plan. For example, I make cookie dough at night, and then bake first thing in the morning, when the apartment is actually cooled down from the night air. Sometimes I wake up, turn the oven on to preheat, take the dough out to soften back up, and go back to sleep until everything is ready to go. Similarly, if I am baking later in the day, I have to plan to be out of the house pretty much minutes after the baking is done, because it otherwise heats up to an unbearable extent such that I have to stick my head in an ice bucket. I know anyone foolish enough to read this is wondering why I don't just turn on the air conditioning. But here's the thing- if I'm going to be wasteful enough to turn on my oven in the summertime, then I have to give up the A/C for the timebeing. If I'm not baking anything and it's very hot, I might make allowances.

*

I know I haven't stopped writing of being in the kitchen lately, and for that I apologize. There's something else occupying my head, but it's really bothering me so much that I am having trouble putting the words down. I have reached a crossroads with someone, and I have been avoiding that reality for maybe over a year now. But it's in my face now, and it's getting increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye.

When you have known someone for a long time, you are willing to make a lot of allowances for them. Whereas I usually assume the worst intentions when I am wronged, I tend to optimistically rationalize into never-never land with people I have known for a long time. I know why. Until a person crosses that invisible threshold, I know I can live without them. I know that I have lived without them, and that I can do without them again should the need arise.

But afterwards, they've become so close to me that they have become a part of me. Afterwards, the idea of losing them is like losing an artery in your body. You know that you may survive, but you also know there will be damage, there will be a scar. It's going to hurt.

So, as long as I can, I have tried to ignore it. But the other day, I realized that I was feeling like a complete failure and f***-up in life, and I realized that it was solely because one of my closest friends in the world was making me feel that way. Now, I had to give this a lot of thought. The whole reason I value having close friends is that I want someone in my life to call me on my sh*t. I want someone to be honest with me. And honestly, I can be intimidating, and thus acquaintances or recent friends do not have the stones to take me on sometimes. So, when I had been repeatedly derided by someone who means the world to me, I had to really sit there with all the facts, sift through it to see what was warranted and what wasn't.

And this time, it wasn't very warranted. It was hurtful. It was even more hurtful than anyone else could be. When someone knows you really well, they know your Achilles' heel. They know which parts of your history to cite that will strike doubt into your heart, make you question everything.

Suddenly, I realized that our entire dynamic had shifted. I hadn't returned calls, I hadn't sent long, idle emails. It was my feeble way of fighting the situation, but it's not a mature way of dealing with things. I know now that I have to face it head-on, and yet I dread it. I can't imagine actually facing it, but I can't imagine not either. I have never been so scared of a confrontation, because, for the first time in a long, long while, I feel I have something very precious to lose.