Taking care of myself like it’s my job. Tonight I made green pozole:

On weekends, I like to make big batches of flavor rich ingredients that I can then use throughout the month. I’ll caramelize a giant pot full of onions over the course of an hour until they barely cover the bottom of the pot and are jammy. They go into frittatas and anything that needs a mellow sweetness.

This weekend I made enchilada verde sauce and froze a ton. It’s super easy. You roast poblanos, tomatillos, garlic and onions with a little olive oil until everything is blackened. Throw it all in the Vitamix (including the juices but not the poblano stems). Freeze what you can and keep some in the fridge. It’s another great addition to eggs, great on chilaquiles and the starter sauce for pozole verde.

I had a pork chop and needed to use it today. So I cut it up and browned it in a pot with onions and olive oil, added water, dried beans, fresh frozen hominy, the enchilada sauce and salt. Every hour or so I’d stir the pot (a little one) and add more water.

I chopped up fresh cilantro and onion and threw it in the bowl on top of the stew. And it is ah-maize-ing. I’ve never made any kind of pozole (red, white or green), but this stuff tastes like love.

As for love, well, I have to remember I’m surrounded by it even when people aren’t close. Last night Tyler came over and we had a lovely night. I made green chilaquiles and beans. He scarfed them down.

We talked about all sorts of things. One of my stories had to do with the last solar eclipse visible in the northern hemisphere and he remembered where he was on that day in 2017. We didn’t know each other then, but it tied us together to remember our individual experiences.

We watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and I laughed harder than I have in a good while. He said he’d been waiting for a very long time to show it to me and last night it was an imperative. It’s a deviation from the artsy stuff we usually watch, and I’d actually seen it before but dismissed it the first time around because I knew a lot less about music and was such a prude.

I mentioned George Jones during the movie, so he had to show me a Mike Judge cartoon on YouTube about George and Tammy Wynette. It was also hilarious. This song just fucking kills me every time:

I’m starting to feel a little more like myself again. Taking it about as easy as Glenn Fry in Winslow, Arizona.

See, I can make music references now because I got ‘em in spades. Didn’t use to. Used to be that I was afraid of exploring and experimenting and caring about anything too deeply lest it be ridiculed or judged. But that ain’t the case anymore. I know what I like. I’ve got good taste and better instincts and I’m surrounded by musicians and aficionados who keep exposing me to songs and artists that change my life.

How could I not love myself for making that happen?