My hands still smell of ginger and garlic from having used a mortar and pestle to make the paste for this afternoon's dahl.
We didn't have enough mint and the coriander leaves that I picked from my window sill weren't grown up enough to provide much either, but next time I make the dish, I'm skipping out on the british-style cream and it's going to blow my own head off.
I love using a mortar and pestle. Memories of chemistry labs, or visions of the shamanic woman alone in her hut on the hill that I'd always imagined myself to be, and a thousand other dreams crush themselves in with the ginger and olive oil.
Yesterday afternoon was filled with other visions, turquoise haired and a slightly sweeter seventeen, that young lady has enough brains in her head to belie the uber-raver act she's put on so well.
We spent the afternoon shopping for $1 shirts, I came away with a red fuzzy sweater low cut enough to show off my slowly developing pectoral muscles.
She spent the afternoon trying to convince me that I can squeeze myself into the puny outfits that she manages to escape so neatly with.
She also spent the afternoon setting fires underneath my ego, starting with "I want to be where you are when I'm twenty five" and finishing off with an hour long tirade as to how hard I make her laugh, how impossible a pair Mr. Pyke and I make, and how crazy the world has to be for the two of us to have ended up in the same city, and playing such delightful cohorts.
The cohort part came to mind last night when the bed verily erupted in giggles and squeals.
With every time we come together it seems that something fits just a little more comfortably.
Perhaps this is simply a result of optimism, but in the rotten mood I've dug myself into today, I'm actually not sure of that.
But the rotten mood I woke up with has a thousand heroes pitted against it.
Beginning with the mortar and pestle, continuing with the little turquoise girl having made me her confidante, spiced with imprompty hugs from Rob last night, someone who is becoming more and more comfortable in his own skin every time I see him.
Other shining moments were a love letter from my Johnny, reminding me of how our Mickey and Mallory / Sid and Nancy / Bender and Freak / O.C. and Stiggs days were more than just a continual party.
He called us tumours under each other's skin, and quite frankly the closeness he spoke of, and the misty eyed jokes he pretended,left me misty as all hell.
Distance could never change that, he said.
So did a few other letters from Paris.
So despite my nightmare-induced seething fury at the world at large today, I am screaming with tears in my eyes.
And off to my singing lesson.