The Desert Road: the weather inside.

Dear Laurie,

If every ceramic object vanished overnight, what would we miss first?

Regards,

Roger

Dear Roger,

The Toilet Bowl. 

XL

ps

Although I really tried, I have failed to write a decent response to a ceramic question worth publishing this week. I just wasn't in the mood. As someone new to writing this is eerily similar to spending a day in the studio churning out perfectly good pots that all feel flat and lifeless. The absence of fizz. This is the first time in this project where writing has felt like a job, something I had to do but couldn’t really be fucked with. I am in a hotel room in Wellington, visiting my daughter who is a full-time theater rat. A cruel southerly wind is swirling up the country. Seven hours from home and a page of words short. The weather is closing in. 

I am slightly uncomfortable after gorging myself on tapas at a Spanish restaurant last night. It's all my own fault because I am a massive glutton. I also drank too much beer and then got a big ice cream on the way home. I should have just swallowed a hand grenade. I’m 50% remorseful and 50% proud of myself. 

It's always nice to come to Wellington. To visit old friends and mope about people watching. I like to drive out to the south coast and look across the ocean to the snow covered mountains of Te Waipounamu a.k.a. the South Island (which is such a dumb name). I wind down the electric window and breathe in the crisp frigid air. Having exercised, I returned to the CBD for lunch. 

Bacon and eggs and a short walk to the library. Now it's snowing in Wellington! The first time in over ten years apparently. Everybody's rushing to the windows in giddy excitement, breathlessly filming the weakest snow fall in history. The hushed chatter shifts immediately to global warming. Bucking the trend I straddle a heater and proclaim gonad warming as the next big thing. Nobody laughs. My daughter is mortified. Fucking nerds.

It's snowing on the Desert Road, closing the main trunk line. I can’t help but pity the wild Kaimanawa horses out there in the tussock somewhere freezing their balls off. It must be shit to be an alpine stallion in this weather, or a mare. Because I’m in Wellington, I wonder if there are any trans horses. I imagine a secret hot spring where the herd hides to wait out the winter. Like those Japanese spa monkeys, lightly broiled but with better hair. A frenchman salivating in the bushes.  

Sometimes you need to take a horrible shit to make room for the next delicious meal. I review today's atrocities in Gaza while booking a lovely Mediterranean restaurant for dinner from a disabled toilet. I’m not even hungry but I could drink. A short nap at the hotel followed by an Uber ride 100 metres down the road because it was raining and I’m having a fat day. Three proseccos and a glass of corky pinot noir. The schnitzel was delicious as was the cumin butternut. The parfait was initially hard to pronounce but I got my mouth around it eventually. Two desserts and a fart walk home. This too shall pass. 

Image: Kaimanawa Horses, (author at left)