a day without a gay is like a cookie without baking soda

I’m at home today because it’s A Day Without A Gay. Not that my workplace is remotely anti-gay (it’s the kind of organization where the boss sends a “Happy Indigenous People’s Day” email every Columbus Day), but I guess the point is to prove how valuable queers are to the economy. We’re not buying anything, and we’re not, in my case, doing any literary outreach. Take that!

So, like the militant dyke that I am, I’m at home baking cookies.

I’m using Jamie’s recipe for ginger cookies, except, as with all my cooking adventures, there have been some substitutions.

I went to Trader Joe’s last night for the ingredients, but they didn’t have molasses, and I refused to swing by Fresh and Easy today to get some because I’m not going to Contribute To The Economy (with the possible exception of one little latte if I decide to write later today). Also because I’m lazy.

I soon discovered that I didn’t have baking soda either. There must be some kind of Murphy’s Law that says you will inevitably re-buy certain baking ingredients every year until you have 16 open boxes of powdered sugar, but you will forget the one thing you’re actually out of.

This probably doesn’t happen to people who bake more than once a year, or who, like, look in their cupboards before going shopping, but whatever.

I ended up substituting chocolate syrup for molasses because what isn’t improved by being more chocolaty? And I substituted baking powder for baking soda, even though I can almost hear the voice of Mrs. Wolf, my seventh grade home ec teacher, saying, “BAKING SODA IS NOT THE SAME AS BAKING POWDER.”

But I didn’t pay that much attention in home ec because I was 1) disappointed that I got the cooking semester instead of the sewing semester, 2) suspicious of Mrs. Wolf because she wanted us to put mandarin oranges in salads and bizarrely devoted an entire unit to talking about skin cancer, which didn’t seem to relate to cooking or sewing, and 3) I was holding out for wood shop, where I knew we would get to make one of the plastic key chains I had seen dangling from the JanSport backpacks of so many cool eighth graders.

The cookies just finished baking. They look normal, and the giant globs of dough I ate tasted great, actually, but the verdict is still out. When AK wakes up (she’s asleep because she actually is sick today, although she’ll probably go in for a half day—“Are you trying to tell me you’re really bi?” I asked), I’ll let her have the final say.