Solution to my cooking inability

My mom - who is a wonderful, experienced, and health-conscious cook - really wants me to learn to cook.  She has given me a recipe book, has photocopied and hand-copied recipes for me, and is always willing to be my cooking consultant by phone.  She is as encouraging as possible.

I, naturally, am the problem.  I seem to be completely clueless about even the most basic things.  (Recently, I managed to screw up pasta.  The water kept bubbling way too much, threatening to spill over the edges of the pot.  I assume that between the amount of water, the amount of pasta, and the size of the pot, something was wrong.)  Other issues -- like my inability to find ingredients in the grocery store -- aside, my main mental block is how overwhelming it seems to even try to get started.  There are countless bits of know-how that the recipes don't spell out for you; I don't know where along the way you are supposed to pick these up.

So here I am, abilities ranging from pouring batter (from just-add-water pancake mix, obviously) into a waffle iron to boiling water in a teapot.  And probably, making tea doesn't really count anyhow.  While constructing my sandwich and cutting my apple for dinner tonight, I suddenly came upon the solution.  Actually I stole it from the book I'm reading at the moment, by realizing it could work out quite well for me.  All I have to do is marry a guy who (a) likes cooking, and (b) is good at it.  I could even get by with just (a), since then he'd probably become (b) automatically over time.

Of course, this is a solution only applicable to the future.  And the unforeseeable future, at that.