anecdotes – cake pt. II
A seaside rest cure to conclude another earth rotation.
I look at the long aisle of dairy products stacked one on top of the other. Failing to find mascarpone, one of the surprise ingredients in my surprise birthday cake, whose flavor I had yet to be made aware of. We had gathered other identifying ingredients in previous aisles – cardamom, strawberries, sugar, and flour. Butterflies grew in my stomach realizing the efforts made to celebrate my birth until I caught myself and held my excitedly skittish arm.
When asked, I had given only a few descriptions of what’s been on my mind lately to inform my desired birthday meal, grateful for even being asked such a question. I had admittedly been indoctrinated by whatever side of the internet has been feeding me some idea of a Regency-era medical cure called the seaside rest cure in which a woman is deemed unfit for society and sent to a rural area by the sea to rest and be engulfed by nature to cure hysteria. I found this hilariously amusing enough at the time and gave this as an answer. I had also convinced myself that I could use extra omega-3 after feeling mentally weak from two shows in the past month in which I hurled victorian-ghost-looking self into a pit full of people whose elbows were at the height of my head, in front of a blaring sound system, and blinding strobes, joyfully protected by my other half acting as a human suit of armor.
We began the guessing game as we arrived to pick up some fresh scallops. It was becoming obvious that there were intentions to make me a meal historically made by my ancestors and other than by my late grandfather, who I had been very close with growing up, no one had done enough research in my family to find such a traditional dish or dessert. I found this alarmingly enchanting and stood quietly as I heard the words “capesante alla Veneziana and a Sicilian strawberry cassata cake.”
Despite bringing some of my cake-making supplies over, we forgot a very important tool I had, a hand mixer, resulting in us taking turns rigorously whisking egg whites with a potato masher for a humorous amount of time. Both sat on the stools rotating in place until our arms got tired, holding our breath and making silly faces.
I have been deep-diving into journal archives for work this week. Logging every single article with the word ‘holography’, ‘fractals’, and ‘telematics’ to support a thesis about the journal’s impact on contemporary product design. This thesis is meant to be presented to the National Endowment of Arts in early June. Studying clusters of artists, designers, and engineers in certain geolocations and finding patterns within the archive. I know there is probably a better way to collect this data with natural language processing. Still, due to the immediacy of gathering this information, I am just neurotically logging by hand with the help of AI prompts to tell me summaries. It would take too long to figure out a quicker method at this point. I yearn to take a formal course in this one day. I became so invested in finishing logging all the titles with these words in it, that I had to be told to stop because it was my birthday in a meeting. Meticulously logging data has always put me in a meditative state and I didn’t even notice.
I left to go eat a small meal together before meeting up with the rest of my friends at a bar known to feature cats you’re allowed to pet. Unbeknownst to me, this cat had multiple gigs and was apparently at another bar on that night. I found this to be comical and enjoyed my cocktail which had blue butterfly pea powder in it. The last bus arrived to bring me back home. Upon my return, I felt the necessity to document my face at this age. This particular birthday felt important to archive and I thought a lot about a decade of the graceful and tumultuous transitions from girlhood to womanhood.
I wrote in my journal a lot and asked myself what I would want answered in a year, the birthday that will be a more proper milestone in my life. I didn’t want to reflect too much as I didn’t believe in falling into rumination on my birthday, even if there was good rumination. I thought about this time last year unintentionally walking into the Cannes festival along the coast of France and people-watching together on a bench by the sea with our backpacks as we waited for our train. Returning to the present, I tucked the letter I received into my memento box and clutched the spherical cap of the gift it went along with. The letter was sweet and tender, reminding me that it wasn’t just my celebration of my birth, but an anniversary of meeting me for the first time. I fell asleep blushing.
We have fallen into a habit of making pizzas on Fridays and found ourselves at a cowboy-themed saloon the next night where I tried mead made out of honey and wine. I sat and studied every little Western trinket and knickknack that was on shelves and hung on the wall while the bartender played slapjack. I sat charmed and joyful that I found a black cardigan that buttoned at the top earlier that day for only a few dollars.
The next few days were spent writing more lore that I forced myself to get out by the end of the month, going to the Mission to get some feedback on the writing from a friend, getting caught in a Carnivale parade that was a cacophony of sounds while doing so, doing laundry, reading stories by Clarice Linspector, cleaning my apartment, and drinking a lot of jasmine tea.