#most cool tones look ashy on me but i hate warm tone stuff even more... balance love

[ableedingpromise]

Finally bought the eyeshadow pallette I wanted I'm so happy!!!!!

[mynameisbriggsycakes]

Bipolar* Baking

Baking is difficult.

You’ve probably heard from many chefs, a lot of them at the top of the class, say that they can cook an amazing four-course meal, but would do anything but make a dessert. That’s because baking requires a lot more precision, attention, and skill. There is a knowledge of chemistry that is needed to make that perfect cake or that loaf of bread. I know this, because I spent the better part of three years running an online bakery to help make ends meet in New York. Barely.

And then I moved to California.

When I announced I was moving here, a lot of people, knowing my second occupation, told me that I would make bank simply because of the alleged proclivity of a decent part of the population to desire edibles. I, for one, have nothing against marijuana, only that I refuse to smoke it myself as it either does nothing but give me ashy breath or make me extremely anxious and paranoid. You try explaining to your friends that you were two hours late because you were in the middle of Grand Central Station absolutely convinced that the train would derail and crash through the station like that scene in Die Hard: With a Vengeance and the only way you were going to survive is if you stared REALLY hard at the 7 train sign for several minutes.

That’s what I thought.

Anyway, I didn’t have much time for baking when I moved here anyway. The first priority was for me to get employed and fast; I swore to myself that I would not make the same stupid mistakes I would make in New York and would actually make the effort to make myself better (???) and to finally get a true diagnosis for whatever is up with my fucked-up head (?????). I was about to turn 30 and I wasn’t going to tolerate wasting my life away anymore, as my biggest weakness is guilt borne from regret.

Of course it’s never that easy for a thirtysomething queer Afro-Latina woman with a big mouth.

So after the racism, the sexual harassment, the lack of training, and the general sense of self-doubt and loneliness that was not dissimilar to what I dealt with for most of my life when it came to employment, I was finally able to get a stable job. It’s a good one and it’s moving up, but I also want to do other things. Like write, bake, sing, and perform. Stuff that was dismissed by everyone I knew, especially my family, who constantly told me that getting a good job and having money has top priority, as anyone who is anyone knows that having a ton of money is the only road to perpetual happiness and satisfaction with your own life.

Unfortunately, I was not meant to be a rich girl, and due to the inability to follow my dreams due to the expectations of those around me, I lowered my standards and resigned myself to being in one abusive relationship where I was willing to be a depressed housewife (suicide attempt #1), being in another abusive relationship where I was the breadwinner to someone with an ego the size of Texas (suicide attempt #2), and being in a THIRD one which wasn’t even a fucking relationship, but rather the deterioration of a friendship borne out of desperation, cosmic interference and ultimately a gross violation of trust (half-hearted suicide attempt #3; at that point, I was too worn out to even reach for the knife this time).

It was all a direct result of me not being myself. Plain and simple. Even at a young age I had a zeal for life that was dismissed. I knew what I wanted and would do anything to get it. That meant “being spoiled.” I had strong opinions and was always willing and able to call out other’s bullshit. That meant “being loud and obnoxious.” I was told that I couldn’t dress like certain characters because of my skin tone and that because I don’t have a “ghetto voice,” that I’m not really a black woman. That means “go fuck yourself, I need some new friends.”

So all of this, meaning over 30+ years of torment, some of it self-inflicted, finally broke the dam and led me to this fateful Friday night, where once again, I took the offer of baking some sweet Christmas treats for an old acquaintance who I worked with at a non-profit. I hadn’t professionally baked for over a year at that point (see above), so at that point, all I could come up with were shortbread cookies and snowflake cookies, as I had made those before with fantastic results. I mean, look at this shit:

That’s me. That’s all me. I baked and decorated these for a baby shower a long time ago, or what seems to be a long time ago. All I remember was going to a spot off Atlantic Avenue late at night and hand delivered a bunch of these bad boys and this incredibly talented photographer was so proud to send me these photos. So I was more than happy to make the same ones for my current customer not only to please her but to see if I’ve still got it--oh crap I lost my damn snowflake cutter in the move and I have to bake these motherfuckers tonight.

Okay, no problem. Baking is difficult. But just like on those cooking shows, you can improvise. You can make do with what you have and sometimes even create a better product. So I came up with the idea to make snowflake tokens, just  simple round sugar cookies with snowflake decorations on them. Fine. While I come up with some sort of design, let’s make the reindeer shortbread cookies, I said, muttering to myself as I always do because mental illness is just fucking awful sometimes.

The shortbread dough I made that night was awesome. I decided to have the leftover shortbread dough for dinner. A common baker’s diet. Leftovers.

I bake those suckers off and then make the melted chocolate I would need to dip them in. So I proceed to double-boil like a boss and make the creamiest, glossiest ganache this world has ever seen.

I’m just kidding. I overheated it and it looked like aerated poop. 

For those unaware, in order to make melted chocolate, it takes time and patience, two things that at that moment I wasn’t particularly thinking about because anxiety doesn’t allow you such a luxury. You need to have the chocolate over a bowl that’s set over a SIMMERING pot of water or you will cook it too quickly. So of course I boiled the soul out of that thing and literally got shit. Thankfully, my past self was well-prepared knowing of my eventual fuck-up and had a spare bag of chocolate waiting for me in the fridge. Cool. Screw the double boiler, I got Mr. Microwave ready to do the work.

Chocolate is ready, shortbread cookies are baked and cooled. It’s time to d-d-d-d-d-ip! (yells this to the Yu-Gi-Oh! theme).

I lay the cookies out, get the chocolate placed. Now, I baked 14 cookies. Usually you want to bake extra in case you make mistakes. It’s common. So I knew that either I could put too little chocolate on it or drop it and it would be fine, I would still have enough for the order are you kidding me why the fuck did you just snap in half you stupid cookie antelope?

And again.

And again.

I broke three darn cookies because I baked the shortbread cookies so perfectly with that melt in your mouth texture that it dared to follow the laws of physics and snapped when I held it in the wrong way while dipping. You can skip over this part, as it basically boils down to me muttering and snapping to myself of how worthless and stupid I am for about two minutes until I retreat to my room to calm down.

::fast forward::

Okay, shortbread cookies are done. I baked off a couple more to compensate and they are ready to set in the refrigerator. I now only hate myself half as much as I move on to the snowflake tokens. And I employ the Squint Rule to make sure they are up to my standards before I decorate them.

The Squint Rule is simple. If I have to squint at something so it looks more desirable, it’s not desirable and will not be sent out. I made the snowflake tokens and sprayed them with so much silver coloring that it reminded me of the Statue of Liberty street performers in New York if they were given the power to create and distribute currency. I squinted and did not like what I saw. But this is the part where it got all zen-like.

I said, “Let me decorate them and see what happens. If I don’t like them, then I’ll simply start over. Whatever it takes.”

This is important. I don’t think people understand how extremely important it was for me to have made that statement. This was in the middle of a mental breakdown. I had the clarity to say within all of the noise to let it go and let God decide. I let someone else take control. At that moment, I stopped allowing myself to drown in that all-too familiar misery that wrapped around me like a warm blanket every day and decided to run out in the cold naked.

Baking is hard. Baking with mental illness is difficult. Dealing with all the things I have had to deal with so far up until now has almost rendered me inert. But until the last cell in my body ceases to function, I’m going to fight this with every fiber of my being and know that someone, somewhere, is looking out for me when I feel just as alone as I did then and now. And maybe something good will happen each time I do.

I don’t know. What do you think?