I love food: fancy food, foreign food, even junk food. Over the past few years, I have managed to translate my love of food into a love of cooking. However, as much as I love cakes and cookies and breads, I have not developed a love for baking. Lauran doesn’t understand it. She says that a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, baking should be easy for me. Just follow the recipe carefully and measure precisely.

I guess she just forgets about all the stories I have told her about my lab disasters. Once when I was teaching AP Chemistry, I botched a demonstration because I boiled packaging material instead of the aromatic compounds that I was supposed to use. I now know that cardboard chips do not have any particularly interesting chemical or physical properties. They certainly smell nothing like wintergreen or citrus fruits.

The problem is that following a list of instructions and carefully measuring exact amounts never really appealed to me, which is probably why I ended up getting my master’s degree in English instead of Biochemistry. I prefer to improvise and experiment. Baking just bores me. Furthermore, baking disasters aren’t nearly as exciting as cooking disasters. I speak from experience.

I have had several baking disasters: bread that didn’t rise, cakes that caved in, frosting that was too hard, cookie bars that never cooked through, to name a few. None of that compares to the time my friend nearly burned down my apartment trying to make chicken fried steak. Now that is a disaster worth remembering. My dog is still traumatized by smoke detectors and always keeps a safe distance when we are cooking (unless we drop something). If you are going to mess something up, shouldn’t the mistake be spectacular?

Baking reminds me too much of this biochemistry lab I took my senior year of college. Every week, we would show up in the morning, place some chemicals in a machine and wait for a graph to print out. The chemicals changed every week (at least that’s what the TA claimed), but the process was always the same. Baking is redundant. The ingredients almost always involve some variation of flour, salt, butter, eggs and sugar. You always have to mix them in the same specific order. You always use the same equipment. (I don’t even attempt baking without the mixer we got as a wedding present.) You stick them in the oven and wait to be disappointed.

However, cooking is always a new experience: braising, broiling, boiling, frying, sautéing, grilling, simmering, stewing, blending, chopping, slicing, dicing. There are an abundance of herbs and spices to choose from: basil, oregano, rosemary, curry, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, sage, saffron, cilantro, thyme, parsley, lemongrass, paprika, and of course garlic, plenty of garlic. International cooking creates infinitely more possibilities and room for experimentation. Just last night, we made samosas using Tupperware empanada-makers.

Cooking also requires little precision. I rarely use measuring spoons anymore. I almost always end up substituting ingredients or adding something the recipe didn’t call for. And don’t even get me started on my own cooking disasters. My arm still gets a tinge of soreness when I think about cooking risotto on the stovetop. I exploded a casserole dish once because I thought it was a Dutch oven. Now that is a spectacular mistake.

People often ask me why I now teach English instead of chemistry. Today I am going to teach students how to take notes for a research paper. Tomorrow I am going to help them analyze poems by William Wordsworth and Dylan Thomas. Last week, we studied satire, and next week we study a short story. And literary disasters are the best kind. Of course, check back in with me when I have a stack of papers to grade.

Last year, when our Dean of Students finished off the morning announcements by exclaiming, “Today is Veritas Vacation Day,” I temporarily lost the ability to hear out of my right ear. The girls in my homeroom screamed, paused to take a breath, and screamed some more. They jumped out of their seats and embraced each other (still screaming). They rushed out of my room, down the hall, and into the auditorium (still screaming). They stopped screaming as the choir took the stage and began to sing, but the screams hovered in their throats, waiting for one of the soloists to hit just the right note. That is the magic of Veritas Vacation Day. It transforms an all-girls Catholic college preparatory school into a Beatles concert.

Veritas Vacation Day is an annual surprise holiday at our school. No one knows when it is coming, not even the teachers. The students show up to school just like any other day. Many of them probably spent hours the night before studying for a math test. Some of them surely worked well past midnight polishing their English essays. They arrive at school anticipating that it will be just another day. Well, I should confess that many of them have become adept at predicting which day will be Veritas Vacation Day. Still, it doesn’t detract from their excitement when they find out that all classes and homework deadlines have been canceled, and an all-day carnival awaits them instead.

Even the most astute VV Day prognosticators did not foresee this year’s festivities. VV Day has almost always been held in the spring, so this year the planners decided to add to the surprise element by holding it the day before Halloween. Not a single student had any idea what was coming as they filed into the auditorium expecting to hear a speaker talk to them about drug-awareness to cap off our school’s Red Ribbon Week. There was even a projector screen displaying different facts about drug abuse. After the students quieted down, the student body president and vice-president introduced the speaker. (We will just call him John Doe.) Strangely, John Doe did not step up to the podium. He was wearing a portable microphone instead. As he neared the center of the stage, he exclaimed, “I am not John Doe, and today is Veritas Vacation Day.”

Girls leapt out of their seats and screamed as though the Jonas brothers had just showed up. My favorite part of the melee was that the ninth grade girls knew nothing about Veritas Vacation Day, but screamed just as loudly as the rest. The fake speaker brought out an improvisational comedy team to keep the girls entertained while the rest of the festivities were set up. After the show, the girls had an array of options to enjoy: an obstacle course, inflatable sumo wrestling, movies, Beatles Rock Band, Halloween-themed carnival games, face-painting, bingo and a number of other activities. They also enjoyed candy, popcorn, snow cones and hot dogs. If there is anything more exciting to these girls than VV Day, it is free food. We capped off the day with a costume contest, since the students and faculty are allowed to dress up for Halloween. I can proudly say that my Sherlock Holmes costume was a hit, but nothing beat the students who had dressed up as the Village People and led the entire school in a “YMCA” sing-along.

Every school and every job needs a Veritas Vacation Day. Imagine walking into U.S. Senate and seeing Republicans and Democrats singing in unison to “YMCA.” Imagine a high-powered law firm huddled in the conference room, eating popcorn and watching Twilight. Imagine a group of librarians screaming gleefully when their boss comes in to announce that they get the whole day off. We all just need a day to celebrate for no reason at all.

Homecoming is supposed to be a time to reconnect with old friends and relive the traditions and adventures of our school days, but homecoming also has a hidden agenda – forcing us to admit that we are getting old. I am still a young man, but each time I return to my alma mater I am reminded of how much older I have gotten since I left.

Lauran and I parked behind the business school in a spot I surely parked in many times before. We were late; the bonfire was already burning down to embers. Families were already leaving. When I was a student at Baylor, I was always early to everything. I never wanted to miss a moment. I could get ready to go anywhere in five minutes. Now, I rarely am ready to leave the house in thirty minutes. Marriage has really slowed me down somehow, burdened me with responsibilities. We had to take our dog to stay with some friends. It took longer than expected (as everything seems to now). We missed the entire homecoming pep rally. My younger self would have been angry at me, but I just didn’t care. We found our friends, said hello, and took a brief stroll around campus before heading to the bed-and-breakfast we stayed in for the weekend.

As we strolled around campus, we noticed a large group headed towards the campus auditorium. I remembered that Pigskin Revue, Baylor’s popular homecoming musical show, always started after the pep rally. It was about 10:00PM. Lauran asked, “Isn’t that late? How long does it last?” I too was surprised by the lateness of the show. I rarely stay out past midnight, and we were planning to wake up early to attend the homecoming parade at 8:00AM, an ungodly hour for college students. It is one homecoming event where the alumni and their families far outnumber the students. When I was in college, I rarely went to bed before 1:00AM. Now I can’t even remember the last time I saw 1:00AM. It was probably New Year’s, and I was probably tired and cranky. Lauran doesn’t believe me when I tell her I used to stay up late all the time.

As a student, the central part of homecoming weekend for me was the football game. Baylor has a longstanding homecoming tradition of losing football games in glorious fashion. I was always a loyal fan, sitting through every losing effort, refusing to leave until the end of the game, even if the team had clearly gone home after the first quarter. I always held onto the foolish hope that the next game would be better, that the team was only a few good players away from contending, that a couple of lousy calls by the refs could be blamed for most of our losses. My friends and I used to get angry at the alumni who barely made noise as they sat on the opposite side of the stadium. We scoffed at the way they got cranky if people stood in their way. We scorned when they left after halftime. After the game got out of hand, we entertained ourselves by mocking the stodgy alumni.

Now I rarely attend Baylor sporting events. This football game is the first I have attended in two years. The last couple of times I have gone, I have sat in the alumni section. There was a time after I graduated that I still refused to sit there even if my ticket said I should. Now I prefer it to the rowdy student section because I don’t have to stand the whole time, and I don’t feel pressured to cheer loudly or scream on opponents’ third down attempts. An older man a few rows beneath us screamed at some ushers to move because they were in his way, and he didn’t want to stand up to see. I laughed when I realized I had joined the stodgy old alumni who are eternally pessimistic about Baylor football and who leave games early. We were out of the parking lot before the game was technically over, but in reality, the game was over by the end of the first quarter, par for the course at Baylor conference games.

After the game, we met with some friends at a deli in the suburbs of Waco. We didn’t want to go to the one near campus because we feared it might be too crowded and noisy. One of my friends joked, “We are going to need child care next time we get together.” There were four kids there already, and our group was only half its normal size, probably because it is getting harder for us to get together now that so many of my friends have small children. I believe the count is up to nine kids now, but honestly, I have started to lose track of them all. I watched as one of my college buddies sent his daughter to time out and then sat down and talked to her about her behavior. I still can’t believe it really happened. I am accustomed to seeing my friends feeding babies now, but it still surprises me when I see people my age having to discipline children. It wasn’t that long ago that we were the ones in need of guidance, or was it?

I have another homecoming under my belt now, and it’s probably about time for me to get a new belt because this old one doesn’t fit so well anymore. I already had to retire my trusty Baylor t-shirt that I wore faithfully every Saturday because I am convinced that it has shrunk drastically over the last couple of years. It’s Sunday. It feels like a good day for a nap.

The bus dropped us off at a small dairy farm 30 miles outside of Brussels. I have heard that memory is most closely linked to smell, and certainly the smell of dairy farms has left an indelible impression on my memory. I turned to Lauran and told her, “It smells like Wisconsin.” The village was Corroy Le Grand, Belgium, a small community where my great-great-great-grandfather was born just a few years before his family immigrated to Wisconsin. Almost all of my dad’s ancestors lived in similar Belgian farming towns in the area just south and east of Brussels.

My family moved from Wisconsin when I was almost five, and aside from occasional visits for one or two weeks, I have not spent much time there. In fact, it has almost been 10 years since I last visited the small Wisconsin farming town where most of my dad’s family still lives. Small towns in Texas are not all that different from small towns in Wisconsin, but over the years, I lost connections to my Wisconsin/Belgian roots. I don’t speak with a Midwestern accent. I don’t frequent taverns, and I usually barely even notice St. Nicholas Day. Still somehow I found myself traveling 5,000 miles to find some connection with my heritage.

Corroy Le Grand is mostly a typical small farming town. It has a small school, one church, two main streets and a restaurant. The livestock may outnumber the people. There are no shops or tourist attractions. Surely the residents must have found it strange that two Americans were walking through their village, taking pictures of insignificant objects like houses, street signs, fields and mailboxes. To me these details were not insignificant. Each one was a symbol, a connection, or a memento. I had to take a picture of the street sign that said Rue d’Eglise (Church Street in French) because my grandparents live on Church Street in a small hilly Wisconsin farming town that bore an uncanny resemblance to this one. I took pictures of the small dairy farm because some of my Wisconsin relatives have also owned small dairy farms. I took pictures of the hills covered in barley fields because they reminded me of the Wisconsin landscapes. I took pictures of the old cobblestone road because it is possible that my ancestors walked that same road.

We walked through the entire town in about 30 minutes and waited a few more minutes by the dairy farm for the bus to pick us up. I didn’t meet any distant relatives or see any definitive traces of my ancestors, but the evidence of my heritage was abundant. I felt a deep connection to this tiny village that no tourist would ever think to visit. It reminded me of my other homeland back in America, the place where my ancestors finally settled after the treacherous journey across the Atlantic, a place I have not seen in years. It’s funny how a mailbox shaped like a beer barrel can become more than just an amusing piece of home décor, or how a rundown Catholic church can become a historical monument, or how an insignificant village can become a window.

I live on a little blue island in the middle of one of the reddest states in the union. Politics aside, I sometimes forget that I live in Texas. Aside from the used cowboy boot store down the street, there are very few reminders that my neighborhood is in fact in the Lone Star State. Texas prides itself for being able to fly its flag at the same level as the United States flag, but in my neighborhood, rainbow flags are more common than anything red, white, and blue, unless you count Obama campaign signs.

Let me make this disclaimer: I love living in Texas, but what I love about it are also the same things I love about my neighborhood; namely, the rich cultural diversity and the incredible weirdness. The last couple weeks have provided plenty of incidents to remind me of these two things both in my neighborhood and the rest of the state.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was rear-ended near our house. She called me, and I drove over right away. When I got to the gas station where she was waiting, I parked in front of a homeless woman who was not very happy with me for parking by her. She proceeded to rant at me for the next 10 minutes, but then forgave me and started serenading me with Elvis songs until the police arrived. Before I had arrived, a guy on a bike had already asked Lauran for money, oblivious to the fact that the back of her car looked like it had been struck by a meteorite.

As we waited for the next 30 minutes, we saw someone walk into the gas station barefoot. He had probably just come back from the beach. Finally, the police officer arrived. We stood next to his car and gave him our information. While we were doing so, a middle-aged woman approached us and asked us if we knew where any good bars or clubs were. I replied that I didn’t know because I was a little surprised by her question. Lucky for her, you can’t go a mile in any direction from that gas station without passing a few clubs or bars. The guy on the bike also returned, but when he saw the police officer, he pedaled away without asking anyone for money. To top it all off, we also saw a friend of ours who works at the church next door to us and is a former student of Lauran’s. Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, but it is rare that I leave the house and don’ t run into someone I know. Most of the rest of the night was uneventful, but I must say that in our neighborhood, this could have passed for a fairly quiet night.

Shortly after that night, we went to visit Lauran’s parents who live just north of Houston. The area they live in is a developing suburb, complete with Starbucks, Applebee’s, Target, and a Chick-Fil-A. However, they live right on the edge of the suburbs, where Houston ends and the East Texas forests begin. In some ways, they are straddled between two worlds — suburban America, which looks just like the rest of suburban America, only with more trees and deer, and a place best described as the heart of Texas, where people drive pickup trucks and dress like cowboys and speak with a drawl.

While we were staying with Lauran’s parents, they took us to a diner in the next town over. This place served the kind of food Texans pride themselves for: burgers, chicken fried steak, and some Tex-Mex, all served in portions that could probably feed a horse. Our neighborhood has its fair share of these of restaurants, but the coffee shop next door also serves vegan pockets. This restaurant also had a wall of fame for those who had eaten the Holy Grail of greasy burgers, composed of six beef patties totaling 1 and ½ pounds, plus 1 pound of bacon, ½ pound of cheese, and all the regular burger trimmings. Cows and pigs have nightmares about this burger. One guy managed to finish one in nine minutes. I am sure he is now a local legend and in my mind resembles Jabba the Hut. In the same weekend, we also went to an organic chuck wagon barbecue that served delicious and nutritious steaks and veggies (all covered in butter of course). While we were there, we got to listen to live country music and pet a horse.

Later that weekend, we headed home. Just as we pulled into our neighborhood, we saw a tow truck barrel through the intersection in front of us towing a pedicab behind it and being chased by a police car. Lauran said, “I am not even going to try and guess what happened there.” I just laughed, happy to be home, where my own weirdness doesn’t seem so out of place.

Panphobia is not the fear of cookware. It is the fear of everything.

I have recently had reason to discover this term because Morgan, our black Labrador, is panphobic. These are some of Morgan’s greatest fears: thunder, vacuum cleaners, small dogs, babies, leaves that blow in the wind, stuffed monkeys, brooms, bicycles, green beans, plastic bags and water hoses. Over the last three years, this list has continued to grow. I try to come up with stories that might explain some of her most irrational fears. For example, maybe when she was first born, a baby attacked her with a broom and a water hose while a stuffed monkey blew leaves in her face and forced her to eat green beans. The only problem with this story is that it still doesn’t explain her fear of bicycles.

Last weekend, we took her out on my parents’ boat. She is supposed to be a water dog, so I assumed that she would naturally take to boats. Of course, she is also the only lab I have ever seen who will not jump into the water, but must wade in cautiously. As soon as the boat started moving, she braced herself. Once the wind started blowing her ears back, she couldn’t handle any more. She ducked down behind the seat with a clear look of displeasure on her face. She looked over at me as if to say, I’m sorry for whatever I did that made you want to put me through this torture. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her reaction, but I thought she might actually like being in the boat as much as she likes sticking her head out the car window.

We pulled up to a beach, and before we could even stop the boat, she had leapt onto the shore. Once we were off the boat, she was back to her normal energetic self. She retrieved sticks from the river. She ran up and down the shore. She ate random things she found on the beach that I would rather not describe. As we swam, a large bull came down to drink. I forgot to mention that for all of Morgan’s ridiculous fears, she is also sometimes recklessly bold when a fearful retreat would probably be her best option. As she saw the bull, she did not cower in fear, but she ran towards it. She started running circles around it, barking like she does when she wants to play. The bull looked annoyed. She kept harassing it. Lauran and I feared that it might charge her or kick her, so we kept calling for her until she finally came back, completely oblivious to the fact that an angry bull is much more dangerous than a crawling baby. The bull left shortly afterward, and Morgan went back to her less dangerous beach activities.

Later as we got back into the boat, I had to hold Morgan to make sure she didn’t jump off before we got away from the shore. The entire ride back, she buried her head behind me. I laughed thinking about her irrational fear and her insane courage. Then some friends of ours pulled up on jet skis and tried to splash us. My dad started driving the boat much faster to get away. He kept turning around to see where the jet skiers were. I started to brace myself. The smile faded from my face. I was ready to get out of the boat too.

For three years I have tried to figure out Morgan’s panphobia without stopping to consider that it might be a learned behavior. Maybe her instinct is to charge fearlessly at bulls, but she has instead mimicked my overly cautious nature. Maybe when she barks at random strangers, she senses that I too am a little nervous around new people. Maybe when she runs away from small dogs, she can tell that I don’t trust them either.

I am too embarrassed to list the ridiculous things that strike terror into me. Maybe I need to start charging bulls instead.