Three months ago, if you’d have asked me if I’d have been content to drive around in a stuffy, weird-smelling pickup truck listening to nothing but Mexican oompa music on a spotty radio station, I would have said hell no.

I love the amazing jade green color when the sunlight hits the waves just so.

But due to the circumstances that are my life (and certainly my choosing, at least in concept. See: Life is like a box of chocolates for the potential depth of that statement), there’s only one station that comes in – AM or FM – on the truck radio, and that’s all it plays – jangly, lively Mexican music that is almost exclusively about amor or  ’don’t forget me’ or ‘kiss me’ or ‘remember me.’ This, in turn, is dotted with the very occasional WTF offering like George Michael’s “Father Figure” or The Backstreet Boy’s “I Want It That Way”.

Those are the moments that I find particularly thrilling, in that memory lane/clash of cultures kind of way. Yay English! And – seeing as I went through a George Michael phase in Middle School (who didn’t???) – yay Father Figure, a song to which I actually know the words. Truthfully, to my shock, I know a surprising amount of Backstreet Boys lyrics. That I can’t explain so well. Collective unconscious?

Anyway, mostly it’s just me and the truck and the dust and the loud noise of the not-so-awesome power steering and the cranked up strains of Mexican music.

And so it is.

Me before my hamstring-destroying deep sand run yesterday.

Well, except at 6pm when they do the news. In Spanish. And I catch every tenth word. Which is roughly the same as understanding absolutely nothing.

So in contrast – and although I wouldn’t exactly say I enjoy said Mexi tunes –  on a sunny day when it’s warm out and the light hits the ocean just right and you feel kind of free and independent and generally good about life – there is a certain infectious, exuberant ebullience to the liberal (if not excessive) use of brass instruments and accordions and words about love and loss.

And it’s kind of growing on me.

Or maybe that’s just the tequila talking?

All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone

- Blaise Pascal

Channeling my inner Holly Golightly.

In the last week and two days I have proven – in spades and in excess – that I am capable of sitting quietly in a room alone.

Hell, I thrive quietly in a room alone.

I’m like a low-maintenance houseplant.

Or a cat with access to a dripping faucet and an open feedbag.

Go about your business and don’t worry about little old me. Just leave a light on and let a neighbor know I exist, okay?

All the same, I’m kind of appalled at my own absence.

Five days?
How did five days get by me?

Well, for starters, I’m sitting quietly – minus the ticky tacky tapping of Macbook keys – in a room alone all the livelong day (and night).

I could be on Mars for all I (or you) know.

Secondarily, I’m writing a chapter a day.

I should be proud of this, but the thing of it is, my (overly, I now realize) aggressive schedule had me writing two a day.

Two!?!?

Who do I think I am?

Joyce Carol Oates?

(I once read that on a real roll she writes 40 pages a day, so she is my Parthenon of big-time page quota writing)

Doing my laundry old school. Feeling very salt of the earth and wondering to myself, "Do I own any clothes that aren't gray?"

Anywho, I’ve been writing a chapter a day, which honestly isn’t easy, and due to my own strange (inspired?) idea to have the first ten chapters be parallel and modern-day retellings of the life of Christ ages 30 to 32, they’re tedious as well. In addition to the time spent doing said writing, I spend about two hours a day reading Biblical interpretations.

Which I kind of hate.

Okay, I hate it a lot.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hate Jesus…but when you’re dreaming about the man in a scholarly kind of way, you’ve possibly/probably/definitely gone too far.

Anyway, I’m working like a dog and making daily progress. Despite this, I’ve been growing increasingly despairing.

“Why?” you ask.

Well, if you’d been paying attention, you’d know I’m growing increasingly despairing because I thought I could write two chapters a day, and it just ain’t happening.

So self-admonition and “mañana, mañana” kick in until today, when the landlord sneeringly asks me, “So are you getting any writing done? Or do you have writers’ block?”

“No,” I told him, “I’ve written nine chapters.”

The sheer look of shock was enough to make me realize that although I may not be JCO (see above for secret decoder ring), but I am doing pretty darn good.

And then he stammered, “Wow. You’re a disciplined writer.”

I only buy cereal that's at least four times the size of my head. And yes, the house really is as round and pink and freakishly fluorescent light lit as it seems here. I've grown accustomed...

And THEN he went and made my day (sort of) by adding that he’s happy if he writes a chapter a month.

I don’t have any clue what it is that he’s writing, but whatever.

Doing some quick math, I calculated that on his ‘aggressive’ plan, it would take me three years to write this book. So two or three months instead of one ain’t too shabby.

And it certainly isn’t three years.

So yay me.

In other news:

• The first day I got a funky tan from my ever-present necklaces, but I have hence removed now-not-so-much-ever-present necklaces and evened that mess out.

• Last night, in a fit of “I’m sick of corn tortillas and beans” I made cabbage rolls (any of you with any kind of Eastern European or Russian heritage know what I”m talking about), and they were wonderful. And I ate more for breakfast. And more again tonight for dinner. And there are still five left. Happiness…

• I was trying to trim an errant hair with oversized scissors and cut a chunk out of my eyebrow. Oh well. It’s hair. It’ll grow back.

• I have a girl crush on Ellie, the fast-talking Mexican maid. Not my maid, mind you. I do my own laundry and dishes and sweeping and cleaning. Not that I mind. It’s kind of a simplified, hand-hewn Little House on the Prairie-type existence. Anyway, back to Ellie, she’s so sweet and doesn’t seem to care a lick that I only understand about 30% of what she says. And she’s willing to try all kinds of words until she stumbles into some vocabulary I recognize. The same cannot be said for everyone…  Enough said.

• I miss TV. A lot.

• I am really damn tired (it’s a little after midnight here) due in large part to the aggressive ray of sun that shines directly on my face every morning at 7:00am and my persistent very late night bedtimes. In other words, I couldn’t let another day go by without posting something, but in just a few more words that’s all there is to say. Be good. More soon.

(The alternate title for this post was “Listening to the youth of today, I’m pretty sure we’re all doomed,” but once I realized that the subjects of said title were en route to a vacation in the Middle East, I realized that their shock and awe display of stupidity had the potential to break wide open and spawn an international incident.

Thus the new title.

See you during a hostage negotiation, boys.)

So, to catch you up, I’m sitting here listening to these two (American) guys in their early 20s talking in the seat next to me on the plane.

And I use the word ‘talking’ lightly.

Basically one is edifying the other on the glorious diversifications of alcohols and their varying and sundry drinkability.

Clearly, a young alcoholic in the making, he is also a poet and a scholar, as you will soon learn.

His traveling companion doesn’t say much, preferring instead to giggle his responses.

Only they were both overweight and the real Beavis had chin-length hair. Otherwise? Exactly.

The two of them first caught my attention as my ears picked up on the sound of the Wizened One (let’s call him Butthead) instructing the Giggling One (Beavis) on the best bang for their airplane-sized mini-liquor $7.00 buck. Butthead went on a lengthy discourse about how awesome Courvosier is (which Beavis seemed to have never heard of. Obviously he doesn’t listen to much rap) and became notably upset that it was only available on trans-Atlantic flights.

It’s a common stereotype – the hard-drinking, brain-dead young man from the States – but you rarely encounter them in the wild. Usually, you have to go to frat houses and sports bars and keggers and the weightlifting section of the gym or lay a trap with a copy of Guitar Hero.

However, today is your lucky day. No such field trip is required. Sit back, pour a glass of your favorite 90-proof whatever, and enjoy:

“My favorite alcohol is probably cognac. And brandy is not the same thing as cognac.”

——-

“It’s called Scotch because it’s made in Scotland.”

——-

“I don’t drink American beer at all. I hate American beer. American beer is gross.

Mexican beer is good.”

***Five second pause***

“Alaskan Amber is probably my favorite beer.”

———-

Me working on, well, this actually here in Todos Santos, Mexico.

“What? Jungle juice?

Oh yeah, that’s fruit juice and 150 rum.

They call it jungle juice.

Do it in a five gallon bucket.”

———-

“I had sake once. It was disgusting.

It gave me an alcohol fever.

Any alcohol hot is gross. And it gives you an alcohol fever.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I loved the conviction with which he said it.

——

“There’s a big difference between Canadian whisky and bourbon. Yep. A big difference. There didn’t used to be. But there is now.”

———

“Spanish Fly is really good.

Especially with Thai food.”

Is Spanish Fly even real? I thought it was an urban legend or made up aphrodisiac like Funky Cold Medina?

————

Again, these guys were not remotely this thin. In truth, they were chunky monkeys.

Butthead: “A Mai Tai is like Chai tea.”

Beavis: “I don’t like that creamy stuff.”

Butthead: “Chai tea isn’t creamy. It’s like black tea with honey. And then you put rum with it.”

——–

“Me and my buddies get a big old water bottle and put Everclear in it. Everclear’s like really strong alcohol. And pineapple. It’s really good. Strong. It’s REALLY good.”

——-

And in the end, (despite the fact it was eight o’clock in the morning) and after much discussion about how to spend their $14.00, they ordered rum and Cokes. Hold the Coke.

So just rum.

Like pirates.

Ahoy, matey!

Shiver me timbers!

After deciding to save their mini liquor bottles as souvenirs, the rum kicked in and the deep thoughts really started flowing:

“There are plasma guns too. It’s the same stuff that’s in the TV. Plasma.”

——-

Beavis: “What day is this?”

Butthead: “Thursday. But it will be Friday when we get there.”

Beavis: “So today never happened?”

Butthead: “Right.”

——-

People were actually turning around in their seats in the rows in front of us to get a look at these jackasses.

——-

Butthead: “I heard Japan is very expensive.”

Beavis: “I think to fly there, but once you’re there, it’s cheap.”

Thus proving the old adage that birds of a feather do indeed fly together. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, Beavis was every bit as misinformed as his pal.

As for Japan. Yeah. Good luck with that.

——-

“Time is relative.

What that means is there’s only time with life. In heaven there’s no time.

And that’s just the beginning, if you can grasp it, that there’s going to be different flavors you’ve never tasted. And colors you’ve never seen.”

And – although he didn’t say it explicitly – booze you have yet to get stupid drunk on. Not  that God endorses that. He thinks you’re perfectly stupid just the way you are.

Out like a lamb

Surely I'm not the only one who finds this image retarded.

In case you’re living under a rock or not a native English speaker or both, that’s the little ditty they say about the month of March. And today is March 1st. All day long.

Kind of wild how fast the time goes.

It’s also wild in that today it is 60 degrees and sunny here in Washington, so I guess it’s in like heaven out like hell?

In like a puppy, out like a coyote?

Who knows?

Only time will tell.

And in my case, time will not tell because I won’t actually be here for the month of March, as I leave for Mexico on Thursday.

On the other hand, in case you were wondering, the origins of the expression can be found in astronomy. It has to do with the relative positions of the constellations Leo (the Lion) and Aries (the ram or lamb) in the sky at the beginning and end of the month of March.

Oh.

Now that I researched and read that, what I wrote above doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The original definers of the constellations had very active imaginations. I probably would have named this one Dead Orchid.

No matter.

I’m sticking with it.

Largely because I’m all about obscure and boring info lately, and partly because I’m pressed for time.

Why’s that you ask? Well, to explain further, that’s because today  - March 1st – I start my new book, and in preparation I have become (dare I say?) a Jesus scholar.

I know. Weird, right?

Weird, but true.

The new book is kind of a second coming fantasy meets tragicomedy meets blasphemous romp.

Actually, it’s not meant to be blasphemous at all, but I’m sure somebody somewhere will think it is.

And regardless, today is day one both of March and of the book. And it’s important that I get off to a good start, so I’d best get back to it.

Which means this is all there is to the blog today.

Thanks for playing!

Better luck next time!

The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.

-Woody Allen

Although in the last year I have written two books (one a memoir about my solo backpack trips through Europe in 1993 and 2008, and one a sci-fi novel about the world 100 years in the future after we’ve destroyed our own food chain and decimated the environment), I can’t necessarily claim to know what I’m doing.

Paper and pen are a good place to start...in 1888. Can you even imagine writing a whole book in script? Holy hand cramps, Batman!

At the same time, I have become pretty clear on what I did wrong, so perhaps my stupidity can be your gain?

Thus, without further rambling introduction, let me tell you how I approached the novel-writing process…which is your cue to pull a George Costanza and do everything the opposite of my instincts.

1. You’ve got a vague idea…so get writing!

Who needs a story arc, character studies, or even a clear sense of where you’re going? You’ve got a big idea and dream…so start putting words onto paper willy nilly. It’ll all work out.

Or something.

2. Have absolutely no sense of how long a chapter should be or how many of them there are.

Anarchy is the name of the game, baby. Look at Charles Bukowski: If you’re not totally out of control, you have no business calling yourself a ‘writer.’

3. Plot? What’s that?

See #2.

4. Take absolutely no notes on the names, ages, or other details of your characters.

It’s more fun to make up new names and vary the dates in which the whole book takes place. Change things as you go, because it’s soooooo much fun when you get to the end and everything is a giant clusterf*ck. Yay! Chaos!

I have been cultivating passive clarity for the last week, and I feel pretty darn good today.

5. Never, ever, ever edit along the way. Just write and write and write and write and plan to worry about it later.

One cannot appreciate how much it takes to create a clean novel until you’re knee-deep in hundreds of pages of your own free-association drivel.

6. Avoid ‘later’ like the plague.

Need I say more?

7. When taking large breaks for varying reasonable and irrational reasons, don’t re-read whatever was written previously, just carry on to the best of your recollection.

You will never fully grasp what a simple creature you are until you’re doing your first read-through and find that one character says or does the same thing six different times.

8. Go on endless tangents about characters you later decide to cut or intricately detailed, off-topic back stories no one in their right mind would ever want to read.

It makes things a little bit better when you get to number nine and…

9. Realize you are well on your way to a 1000-page novel

And no one wants to read a 1000-page novel, let along a 1000-page first novel. At least you have the rubbish referenced in #8 and can swiftly cut back to a nice, savory 750-page tome.

10. Have no idea how it ends

That way, every waking minute of your life can be consumed with the potential fates and prospective destinies of a bunch of imaginary people that only exist in your brain. Added bonus: Makes engaging cocktail party chatter!

As you  might imagine, things will be handled differently during attempt #2 (commencing next week). As it stands, I’m already working and re-working the chapter outlines and character studies, and I haven’t even written a single page yet.

Today he ate part of a brand new bar of lavender soap I bought for Mexico. Psycho.

Live and learn, people!

He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.  -James Gibbons Huneker

Tomorrow: How not to raise a dog.