Burgers in Wellington

In the past few days, I've received three emails from former co-workers who each let me know that they were sure I was very, very busy doing many, many things.  Ah, my friends, I'm so sorry to disappoint you. In fact, what I have been doing may best be described with any superlative preceding nothing.

Or, this is how it feels today, faced with the task of responding to their inquiries.  The challenge is self-imposed.  There are things I can share, and ways I can frame those things that could make me sound incredibly active.  But, I'm working on being nice.  And I think that means being nice to myself and honest with others.  I want to honor the plan that I've set for myself by recognizing the effort I need to devote to it as well as the exceedingly quiet aspect that it lends to my days.  Sometimes, I don't leave the house.

There's a reason for it.  The truth is, I've been writing.  Every day, from about noon until seven or eight in the evening, I write.  I'm working on a book.  Maybe I'll tell you about it someday.  For now, I'm not out leading yoga classes or fighting insurance companies or tutoring in prisons or developing soup recipes or blogging about the crisis of limited consciousness in the US political landscape.  I wake up, work out, eat breakfast, deal with crappy home trivialities and then I sit, beside a floor to ceiling window framing the racing waves of Lyall Bay, powered by southerly winds spitting sideways rain on the shore.  And I write.  Last Wednesday, I worked on a single paragraph for an hour.  On Friday, I wrote 2900 words and felt better.

I like my book.  I struggle with appearances.

This morning, while finishing up the stupid tasks that I consider the quid for the quo that lets me do the nothing all day that really is something if I'm kind to myself, I came across the results of a burger contest in Wellington.  My husband and I had hoped that one of the 33 burgers would be good, but the offered fare, posted online, encouraged us to try only one: a barbeque burger with bacon.  All the other burgers had came stacked with peppers, duck confit, deer meat, scallops, garlic aioli, tuna, fried eggs and, of course, beetroot.  Our burger was okay, the flavored patty reminded us of meatloaf, the barbeque sauce was sparingly applied and our fries were soggy.  The winning burger featured lots of garlic, lots of beetroot, an egg and lots of meat shaped into a fist-sized patty teetering on an even larger garlic-laced bun.

So, if I find I can't write, I've decided to make burgers.  Plain ones.  With a patty, cheese and a bun.  Then I can let people know how busy I'll have become.  Until then, I'll be in the house.

This is a burger.

Photo provided because, once again, I confessed.

Day One.

Sometimes you have to hide from the sun.

I met with an acquaintance this afternoon after five or so years of radio silence.  Our distance was justified by the actual distance between us.  That, and our limited interactions five years before.  She's a lovely woman, and I hope to know her better.  This isn't about her.  It's about the impressive qualities of her friends.

Now that I'm here, on a small island on the roundest edge of the world's butt cheek, checking the box beside "non-wage earning labour force" (an apt description on government forms for which the bureaucracy should be commended), I keep pretty tight lips about my true intentions for my future.  I don't tempt fate.  What if someone found out I was trying to finish a book and someone else said, "oh, I have a friend doing the same, and she's a lawyer, and does yoga, and blogs, and helps the needy and has an agent and worked for world peace and probably will build the first moon colony after curing AIDS."  What if someone added, "did I mention that she also works part-time and opened a restaurant and has sex everyday and cooks without recipes and composts all her waste?"  Yeah, I don't want to hear that.

But, today, I did.  So, fuck it, I thought.  Time to blog.  At least then I can silently affirm, "yes, well, I'm writing a book AND I have a blog.  I just prefer that no one read or see or hear about any of it."  Isn't it better that way?

(I've decided that confessional postings merit a picture.  You deserve at least as much.  Probably more.)