Cooking means a lot of things to a lot of people—you know, like love. To some people, it means going to the grocery store every day after work, roaming the aisles, smelling the produce, buying the freshest ingredients, and coming home to make a proper meal. This is the person I want to be. And then there are the people who meal prep for the week on Sunday. I used to fall somewhere in between. To others, cooking means whipping out a Trader Joe’s meal from the freezer and dethaw it using the oven instead of the microwave. This is what I do now because of my commute. My parents also extended this level of effort when I was growing up. But the first thing I thought of was meth. Yes, that’s right, in the word-association game: cooking = manufacturing methamphetamine to me. Thank you so much, Breaking Bad. But, but—to be fair—it’s not really my fault. Meth’s been on my mind a lot lately. I am neck-deep in the final season of Better Call Saul (the Breaking Bad prequel that has somehow managed to be even better than its predecessor). Goddamn, that last episode was a real heart-breaker. And to be honest, it was more of a gut punch to me than I felt when my ex and I broke up nearly two years ago. And before you go around calling me an asshole for saying that, consider first that I’ve had a nearly 15-year-long relationship with this character but only had three with her. And after you do that, then you can call me an asshole. Characters aren’t real, even when they feel like they are.