Buffy wanted me to do a blogen* on cooking. Okay, Buffy, this one is for you.

It's very nearly impossible to do an adequate job of cooking something -- and I mean by this, all the effort required to chop, slice, mix, thaw, beat, combine, measure, cut, pour, stir, manage the temperature, serve, etc -- AND think about sex at the same time.

And it's a good thing, too. This twist of reality (that is, the impossibility of cooking and simultaneously thinking about sex) results in one of the few ways that men can redeem themselves in the eyes of women (and eventually find a mate) without being a member of a well-known basketball team or rock band. And let's face it, guys, how many of us are ever REALLY going to make hoop-shots or play the drums that good? Dream on.

Some of us find out early in life that the doors to sport teams and rock bands are forever closed to us. The prospects of ever seeing a winsome lass stare into your eyes with desire, while her fingers start playing with the buttons of your shirt, dwindle away and vanish. {sigh} So, you look for something to do while not studying for that next exam.

Learning to cook is a good thing to do while not studying for that next exam. In fact, it's a double good thing. You cannot cook and think about studying at the same time, so it has a stress-relieving effect. You cannot cook and worry about money at the same time. What you CAN do is focus on the cooking as a kind of Zen art form or Tai-Chi exercise performed over boiling water. One must focus on the doing. And in the process of learning how to focus, one magically learns how to get in touch with one's senses and anticipate the present.

"Anticipating the Present" is a wonderful and woefully misunderstood state of the Human mind. It's ethereal as all hell, so don't expect some Pulitzer Prize winning definition from me. But it is like this tiny zone in the brain, where, with lots of practice and focus, you can learn to place your consciousness. You can be... just... THERE. Yes. In that place. With the food and the smells and the well-rehearsed motions and the awareness of a kind of culinary transcendence. You are becoming the food. And soon, the food will become you. And in the crossing of those two paths...

I can't go on. God! Trying to find the words to complete that sentence gives me shivers up and down my spine. The feeling is almost like... like... well... like sex, only without all the bodily fluids.

And this gets me to my central point. You can't cook and think about sex at the same time. If you're really doing a good job at cooking. Even if a woman is present. Even a winsome lass that you just met a week ago at Stacy's party, and it took you four days to work up the courage to ask her if she would like some home cooking with freshly made bread.

And here you are in the close physical proximity of a member of the Female Species who would ordinarily have you thinking of nothing BUT sex, and trying to make jokes, and babbling and trying to look down her blouse without her catching you, but instead... you're focused on measuring exactly one tablespoon of butter, folding in the egg yolks just so, monitoring the bubbles in the simmering peas, and answering her questions about where you learned to cook, how did you know how much bacon to put into the green beans, and what kind of town you grew up in.

And time slows down. And a peace descends. And you can hear the birds chirping outside. And your consciousness enters... that Zone. The Spatula Zone. You just KNOW the chicken in the oven needs eleven more minutes. You don't have to look.

And you turn to find her sitting right behind you, beside you. And she's looking in your eyes. And she's THERE. She's there in the Spatula Zone... WITH YOU. Because that is where Women ARE -- they are always in the Spatula Zone. And you find yourself calmly communicating with a Woman as if you were both of the same species. And you're NOT thinking about sex.

And you say to yourself, "so THIS is what it's like to talk to a woman and listen to her voice, and see your own reflection in her eyes." And you're falling, falling, forever falling into her eyes.

And she takes the spoon out of your hand, smiles that smile that you will remember for the rest of your life and offers to set the table.

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