CURRIED FAVORS!!!

dudes!
sometimes i'm in a hurry.
other times, i'm in a rush.
rarely, if ever, am i leisurely waltzing my way to the finish line.
y'know?
i'm on a tight schedule always, feeling the pressure of so many minutes
pouring out of each hour,
and every hour flitting past like a blinking eye.
damn.
it's NOT easy.
day after day after day, up early, on that steady grind:
doing, making, creating, working, actively participating!
for realsies, man-
i'm tired, spread out, worn thin, and for the first time in a long time,
i'm kind of tired.
uh-huh.
so,
sometimes, i forget to do stuff.
yup.
like, ordering propane, or raking leaves, or getting special ink for the printer,
and so on and on and on.
i'm just busy, in every direction, all the time, from the first to the last,
every single day.
and THAT'S why dinner is sometimes a big heap of hottness,
piled high with all the stiff i need in one place.
y'know?
mmhmm.
that doesn't mean it's sh!tty, just that necessity demands i get it poppin' FAST.
i need the luxurious flavors, i insist on the glorious textures,
and i absolutely require the visual sexxxiness of a huge portion of all the deliciousness.
word.
so,
in three pots, in twenty minutes, i  came up with THIS:

YELLOWISH CURRY IN A HIE AND HARRIED HURRY!
guys,
it was suuuuuper dope.
the spinach and the pea shoots and the cucumbers are a nice raw touch, too.
and fyi, that's jasmine rice,
because the delicate long grains cook fast, and taste great, and look cool.
yeah!!
did i use a whole can of full-fat coconut milk?
i did!
what about coconut oil?
hell yes.
it was the unrefined one, too.
i LOVE coconut, and i want ALLLLLL the huge coconut flavor.
and is that tofu you see up there?
OBVI!!
-
fried triangles of soybean sorcery,
coupled with well-browned hunks of baby-sized portabella caps!
that's. what's. UP.
deliciousness taken to eleven is all i had in mind,
and i made up my mind only minutes before i made up all the SAUCE.
there's a stalk of celery, and a carrot, as well as an onion,
plus a teaspoon of fresh minced ginger, three cloves' worth of sliced garlic,
half a hot red chili, and a smalllll baby red sweet bell pepper,
all soaked in a bath of coconut milk, activated with 1/2 tsp turmeric,
a spoonful of bouillon, the juice of one and a half limes, plus half a lime's zest,
GPOP, coriander, a hearty dumpin' of cumin,
and a big blop of chili garlic paste.
guys!
the thing about cooking is it's organic, and fluid,
as well as a genuine expression of the moment.
i don't measure, man, i feeeeeeeeeel it out.
i mean it.
cilantro sprankles and exxxtra lime just felt like what was supposed to happen,
and so it did.
*
it's an inescapable progression, kids.
beginning, middle, ending.
idea, ingredients, heat, transformation, ingestion, enjoyment, digestion, and sh!t.
ugh.
that's what you get, bro-
sh!t is how it always ends.
yup,
because rules is rules.
it turns out that today was the day.
a bitterly cold windy grey one,
with early darkness,
a half of a tree smashing the rooftop of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
and the last ties to my last love being severed through the servers of social media.
ummmmm, yeah.
and that last one's a weird feeling, y'know?
like,
suddenly, they've disappeared.
here's the thing-
there's always a sort of lingering attachment after you get past the surprise
of an abrupt departure from a long-time partner.
it's certainly not affection, exactly,
nor is it intimate interest;
but rather,
it's a sort of interconnectedness affirming that what we once shared meant SOMEthing.
regrettably,
as time marches forward, distance and time separate us all
from who, what, and where we were,
and what used to be becomes either a recital of litanical lament;
a fond recollection of highlight reel greatest hits;
OR,
it seems,
you just find yourself deleted, long after they've removed themselves.
yikes!
relationships are hard enough when they're all really happening.
it's so much weirder when they aren't even a thing anymore,
and yet they still somehow still feel like losing.
...is that too personal?
it is?
well, it's a true story, and that's sort of the whole point.
NOvember claims another loss,
and creates a whole 'nother other void in the roster of casual acquaintances.
that's why it's the worst month, always.
it's colder than it needs to be,
darker than is advisable,
and people all begin to really act like a bunch of buttholes.
i'm not a fan,
and all the curry in the universe couldn't warm me up when it's this lugubrious on the inside.
what's there left to say?
oh, right-
bye-bye;
never quiet, never soft.....