Oh snap. It's winter.

Birds in winter.

Hi.  Yeah.  Um.  I live in the southern hemisphere.  It's easy to forget because, despite the fact that the accent is unconquerable and that generous Kiwi hospitality flies out the window when they get behind the wheel of a car, this enZed living really offers a snug fit.  Sure, like every other dumb Amurican here, I miss my carne asada and I still get a little gooey-- I mean, seriously teary-eyed-- when my doctor spends almost an hour with me and only charges me forty bucks, but most days, when I look out the window, I don't consciously acknowledge that my new home is thousands of miles in distance and history from my old one.  Most days, I look out the window and think, "Damn, I'm fucking lucky."

This morning, I woke up to a lavender sky.  The ocean was jade beneath it.  The air, felt only on my face and neck as Dottie and I rambled down to the beach to watch the sunrise, was piercing.  Because it's winter.  Even wrapped in several layers, I'd failed to put it together.  I think there's a cognitive disconnect.  It's June.  School is out.  Summer starts.  I want to go to the fair and swim at night and ride my bike through the heat rising from a sunbaked asphalt.  I need a bathing suit and maybe I should consider waxing my legs.  I should eat a salad.  Somewhere.

But not necessarily here.  Here, I should make casseroles, I guess.  Or eggnog?  Maybe I should build a gingerbread house.  Without a guiding winter holiday, I'm a little unclear on the appropriate steps to take to reconnect the season with reality.  Christmas down under means sunnies and a surfing Santa.  So, I need something else.  With Flag Day already gone, maybe I appropriate Bastille Day or Canada Day.  I don't want to take the Fourth of July.  That one gets corndogs.  Period.

A quick review of public holiday options in New Zealand tells me that, whoa, there is no public holiday until September.  Bummer.  I could go with the obscure and celebrate Disobedience Day on the Third of July.  Or maybe Pecan Pie Day on July 12.  That sounds both plausible and palatable.  I suppose the long and short of it is, there's just no decent commercial holiday that's going to guide me through this new winter in summer paradigm.  And that means, shit, I'll have to figure out some sort of tradition on my own.  How liberating.  How lonely.  How brilliant.  I'm going to go buy some pecans.

Thinking Faulkner...

Well, that makes me sound much smarter than I am.  I'm actually thinking of one silly little quote of Faulkner's which is really pretty prosaic compared to some of his more greater poetics.  "Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or your predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself."  Okay.  Not a bad push, right?  And there's nothing wrong with stopping the messy gazes at those who are so easy to elevate.  But damn it all if being better than yourself doesn't introduce immediate conflict with your very achievements.

For example, yay for me because I recently submitted my first screenplay to a contest.  That was nice.  I'd like to do it again.  But let's say that my first effort produces results akin to a ceremonial dump in the trash.  I expect no less, honestly.  Does that mean that I have to curb my expectations the next time around to believe that my effort may actually get read and appreciated by one person?  Or does that mean that I have to aspire to win?

Or, maybe, if I'm trying to be better than myself, I should try to try to take out the trash, so to speak, and stop believing that the rubbish bin is the appropriate storage facility for my work.

Well.  Now, that's an entirely new read on it.  I know a woman who can talk about herself until I'm nauseous.  I asked her one time to be quiet so I could finish my trivial contribution to the conversation, which was totally unnecessary but the only way to stifle the shuddering clamminess rising from the pit of my tummy as she continued to claw away at the parameters of dialogue.  Instead of deferring, she became offended and suggested that I should listen more carefully and then she started in on a story about the importance of her perspectives.  Yes.  I surrendered at that point and haven't spoken with her since.  I suspect that I may have offended her but at least I don't have to worry about tasting vomit in my mouth at events that are supposed to be fun and sweet.

The reason I bring this up is this: as I think about becoming better than myself, I think of this woman.  I have the suspicion that she wakes up every morning knowing that she's better than everyone else and interested in enforcing that reality.  Frankly, I don't like competition all that much, so the idea of being better than anyone, let alone myself, makes me feel that same nausea.  Well.  The heart does grow strong in conflict, doesn't it?  And the stories of these conflicts are usually the most worthwhile out there.  And, this, I suppose, is the reason that being better than oneself is a decent path to pursue.  I think that I prefer to pursue it quietly.  Despite that instinct, I'll still publish this post.  Why the hell not?

Different kinds of blah blah blah

This is Nelson.  We went there recently.

I know, I know.  I've got a project to finish.  And I'm getting it done.  I swear.  I have about 90 pages left to edit-- cut, revise, improve, karatechop, annihilate-- and I feel pretty okay about all that.  Let me tell you, finishing a book is a lot harder than starting it.  Or, outlining it.  Or writing it.  I've got a completely arbitrary deadline to meet though and thank god for my completely obsessive belief that I'm absolutely worthless if I don't do exactly as I tell myself to.  Yay me!

But for the last two weeks, I've jumped into a couple other projects.  One: I met a nice person with a killer idea for a children's educational series.  We met and brainstormed and now I'm on the case.  Which is really to say, I took notes and stuck it on the back-burner because obsessives are pretty good at prioritizing.  The very nice person knows my priorities and she's willing to wait.  That's only part of the reason why she's so nice.

Two: I decided to write a starter chapter for this chainbooks, a project that strikes me as abysmally sad and ridiculously entertaining and head-poundingly frustrating, all at the same time!  Some venture capitalist from Australia wants to make books out of dubious online collaborations between writers. It's sort of like the drawing game.  I make the head, you make the torso and you give it to the drunk guy in the corner to do the legs.  Inevitably, the drunk guy draws two penises balanced on rolling balls.  Yep.  In that spirit, I wrote a first chapter that could handle a couple of penis legs.  Penis legs might actually improve it.  If anyone considering contribution is reading this, hey!  Penis legs!

Three, and this one is Craaazy, although probably only to me and not you since you likely could give a shit what I'm actually doing with my rapidly darkening winter days: I wrote a screenplay.  It's almost done, even!  In January, I set a goal to write a screenplay by June 15.  That wasn't so arbitrary a deadline because it actually coincides with the late submission date for a contest in LA.  So, as a good obsessive does, I threw everything else to the wind to punch out a screenplay that might be worthy of submission.  Screenplays are interesting.  Screenplays are like outlines with dialogue.  Screenplays are like watching a movie in your head and writing it down at the same time.  I haven't minded this screenplay writing fun.

I heard on the radio today that everyday in Yemen is like Thanksgiving.  Really?  Sort of makes me reconsider the whole abaya thing.  Maybe I wouldn't mind covering up a little if I could stuffing everyday.