Completely Unnecessary

Sometimes I feel kind of old. I’m 26.5 as of last Saturday, a night when all I really felt like doing was watching The Island and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I didn’t feel like going out; I felt like loudly abusing Ewan McGregor/the TV for his shit American accent.

Then, tonight, I realized that this is a perfect age. This is how old you are when you think - ‘Oh, I’ve been dropped off in the CBD and it’s 11pm. I know my friends are at a bar around here somewhere.’ And then they are, and you have fun. And you find yourself, as usual, walking along the streets, looking for your typically inconveniently-parked bike. You’re old enough not to have to report to a mom and young enough to innocently flirt with skeezy 20-year olds.

This is the life - and many of us are lucky to have it.

Anyway, where I was before the CBD was a Thai cooking class out in the bufu suburbs, a birthday present from the dearest, and onlyest of the brothers I have. I don’t know what Chicago suburb you would wind up in after a 1/2 an hour Metra ride and a 15 minute suburban bus journey, but I guarantee it would look exactly like where I was tonight.

Anyway, it was really fun, but it was in this woman’s house - and she was vaguely terrifying in a sweet way. It was mostly like, “No, no, no, no, no! Don’t do it like that!”

We were all a little nervous.

I think the high point was when I’d been put in charge of thinly slicing some palm sugar. I picked up the container to look at the sugar, but the lid wasn’t on tightly and it fell from my hands. Embarrassing. The woman, whose name, charmingly, was Pip, said, “Oh no, leave that alone!” I backed off quickly, bumping my elbow into a glass container of vegetable oil, knocking it to the ground and shattering it.

That was a proud moment. I had trouble for the rest of the session, some two and a half hours, keeping a straight face. I kept feeling like ‘Dropsy Girl’ - which I feel would quite obviously be my superhero name.

Anyway, we made two curry pastes, fish cakes, dumplings and a curry - all of which were delicious.

I had a great night.

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