Tikka

Nish took me out for dinner the other night, in honor of my getting old. Ronny was at work that night, so I took advantage of the opportunity to get Indian food. The food in India uses a lot of spice, and everything has some degree of heat. Ronny is allergic to hot spices (capsaicin, I believe), so the one night we all went for Indian together was a bit of a disaster. But I totally missed Tikka Masala, so jumped at the chance! Mango lassi is also quite yummy.

Nish and Mark broke up recently. I think this is the third major break-up, among many little near-break-ups, but I think this time it is for good. It was the first that neither one was all weepy and questioning and wanting to get back together. (The time apart from the previous break-up changed them enough to make this past attempt more difficult.) Anyway, Mark is still roommates with Sergio, so over the past year and a half, Nish has spent a fair amount of time over there and had become better friends with Sergio. (Mark kind of hates Worcester, so they were usually in Boston.) Nish didn’t bail from the parade last weekend like we did, and apparently kept bumping into Sergio there.

Our dinner conversation, therefore, seemed to drift into Sergio territory a lot. Mostly about how he smokes too much pot, dates all the wrong people because he’s looking for superficial things, isn’t mature enough to understand the true bonds of a real relationship (i.e. “he’s hot” is not one of them), and on occasion still asks about me. In an ideal world, I would be able to discuss things like that with about as much emotional investment as discussing the weather. It is not an ideal world, however. I could feel my stomach tighten as the conversation rolled along. He apparently even stayed at Nish’s place for a few days one time when rather distraught over getting dumped. The immediate reaction in my heart was along the lines of “he was three blocks away and I missed it!” For the time being, Nish and Mark are not associating (the healing-distance phase), so there won’t be more vicarious connection with the Baiano. (That’s the term Ronny uses if he refers to Sergio. The term means someone from the Brazilian province of Bahia, so there are millions of ‘baianos’ in the world. Cris is technically one, too. But Ronny uses the term, heavy with disdain, as a reference to one specific person. They’ve never met, but there is still something akin to jealousy involved.)