Rain.

It's raining here. Which is fine, because I got fairly tan weeding the other day. Which, as we all know, is all I care about. My first WWOOF host made fun of how concerned about my skin I was. But whatever. I clean toilets. Hah. it's demeaning, but I work about and hour and a half each day and in return get to stay in a sweet ass place for free. Although, I cook all my own meals and that is already getting old. For some reason, all I can think of making is rice with stir-fried veggies. Even when considering other possibilities, all I can think about is cutting up more veggies. What would I eat if not veggies? That seems to be all the food in the world. You can't have a dinner of mainly fruit, because that's weird. And I guess maybe pasta in some sort of sauce? But that's just cutting up veggies. So whatever, I can see how being a chef/house-keeper (what would be a suitable short term to substitute for wife?) could get boring having to cook everyday and really, simply cutting veggies ALWAYS. I guess if I had a better spice rack. Also, groceries are expensive and buying them for myself with my money sucks. I much prefer working for a place that cooks and buys my food. I don't mind washing dishes. Here I do everything from start to finish. Sigh.

But, I am very happy. Something I think may or may not have been evident in most of my posts since arriving here in New Zealand. Yes, this has been very good for me. But positive things are so difficult for me to write about. They just exist. It's the negative things that are good fodder for writing....(does that mean my writing is just a glorified form of complaining?) maybe...

So yeah. I at random times throughout the day just get overwhelmed with such a positive feeling. Like one memorable one yesterday was running on the beach. it a deserted beach and a precursory day to to today's rain. You know, the kind where the sky's dreariness weighs so heavily on its mind that it begins to blend into the ocean and the land covering everything with a thin but opaque grey cloud of indistinguisability. Yes. it was one of those days. and the deserted beach fit right in. Not a soul out there and me running, with a roaring surf and my short (and all too quick) breaths. I opted to ditch the shoes because the sand is so fine and soft (not to mention nowhere near solid although it appears so...). It was great. I needed a camera because this beach, first, is looooong and flat the sand is packed down (so it appears) you, know, like the sand right by the oceans edge, its like that almost all the way up to the grassy dune banks. None of that deep wide ill defined footprint type loose dry sand. It all looks neat and flat and precise. But it is really soft and the footprints sink deeply in creating well defined dark footprints on a blank sand canvas. And here it was that I ran barefoot, running, not even noticing after a while the gull circling above my head (too high for rocks to reach, i tested) squawking at me insistently. Impotent to inflict any more damage than a mind filling persistent caw that pitched exactly to shove one's sanity out to sea, it followed me along the water's edge. But it was no competition for my mind stimulated to a heighten attention and awareness (no where near proportionate with my pallor surroundings). The mountains in the far off distance barely perceptible from the sea, the grassy slowly and coarsely brushing in the breeze and the sand groaning silently beneath each foot were all louder than this gull's problem with me. Eventually it flew off and I was again on my own. On this beach, my beach. Not my beach, this beach. This wild beach. Look at that surf. This wild beach. i needed a camera, because when I finally turned to go back (after a short potentially scandalous swim break), I could see my solitary mark on this scene. My singular trail leading back into the grey. one footprint directly in front of the other. Not the usual slightly staggered footprints of normal walking gait, but my particular single file run prints. It was a snake of my effort, it was my mark on this world. it was the confirmation of my existence. and oddly enough, proof to my wandering mind that yes, I had been here. and I did come from there. And that yes, I was here. I could very easily convince myself that I no longer existed in all this grey. In all this solitude. I might've floated away never to return without that thin trail, back to me and back to the makeshift sandy parking lot just behind one of the many dunes with an old hippie wagon and newish dark blue subaru.

whoa, that image sort of ran away from me. I guess that's what you get when I don't have a camera and can't post a picture. Anyway, the point was. I was really happy at that moment. Today I have not done much. I watched Ghost Dog with some guests and other WWOOFers, I thought it was lackluster and boring and much too long. And now, it's getting late for dinner, but I'm not hungry thanks to the two cakes a fellow WWOOFer spent the afternoon baking. Yum.

I've started to read The New Yorker online and perhaps will start reading the Atlantic Monthly as well, because over the years I have read some really good and admirable articles in those publications and while I am struggling here to get on the stick with my own writing, I'm hoping I can get some sense of form, or at least structural ideas from the fiction written there. I don't know. and that frustrates me. I am easily frustrated when it comes to this. my own writing that is. hah, or lack thereof, I have written really anything new for a while. Damn. I just get tired when I start thinking of it. But I can make myself do it, I just go through about a week of feeling shitty about it and then POW, like magic I get a really productive 6 hours where I write a novel or something (thesis. hee) so we'll see. But it has reduced my mental workload to think about writing series of essays instead of trying to crank out a rough draft novel that will shift the Earth's axis. So yeah, I'm working on essays. I think I'll do another poll, the results of which I will ponder deeply on whether I should post some of my rough images, ideas, etc. on here for all y'all. Whatever. I gotta write some shit and have somebody at a cool magazine or something think its great. Brian suggested I write a screenplay that will get picked up so that I can get my Screenwriters Guild Association certification so that Melissa's mom can set me up in some Miller Genuine Draft commercials. He thinks it'd be a good way to jumpstart my acting career. Wouldn't that be nice? I have NO idea how to start writing a screenplay. I can't even remember what the one's I've read looked like. but yeah. writing. cool. I often think about writing when I remember I have to get a job for when I'm back in the States and I get depressed about job hunting. I get depressed not so much about the idea of getting a job (i'm actually sort of excited about it in a twisted way) but because my resume actually is a pile of monkey dung. there's nothing on it really. But hey, peaking in high school isn't that bad right? Whatever. I'm holding out for that dream job. While working on revitalizing the modern aristocrat. yes, that's right. The modern aristocrat. .... think about it....

i guess i could just bum around, take the GREs and apply for school in the fall. The deal is though. I need money to go around the States visiting all my friends for that year before scoring a sweet pad in Santa Barbara and jumpstarting my genius scholar career and before my schedule gets so bogged down with speaking commitments and lecturing offers. i don't know. maybe I'll just try to the lowest shittiest job for the biggest evilest corporation America has to offer...McDonald's is always hiring and I'm sure I'd make a great Starbucks barister. Or maybe I could do sales for Kraft Foods. I did honestly look into applying to Conde Nast Publications (they do GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and a bunch others). Ahhhh. wasn't life simple in college? wake up, run, go play beach volleyball, check email, go to lunch. play beach volleyball, go to practice, eat dinner, check email, play halo, do some reading, go to bed. yes. that was nice.

ok i'll let you go. you probably have work in the morning, or work you should be doing now, or you're probably really tired from your long day at work.