My summer self

This is as good a time as any to start a blog, I suppose. This summer Alecia and I are going to France for work. We'll be gone two months and return sunburned and exhausted. But before France, we're going to Spain. One week. My first overseas trip.

I have an image of my summer self. I'm sitting at a small table beneath the shade of a wooden trellis. In front of me is a half-empty bottle of wine and a squat, stemless glass. In my image, I can smell- no small feat- the red liquid that already stains my travel-dusted shirt. I'm scribbling in a moleskin. For the first time in three years, what I'm writing isn't an attempt at money. It's not going to go out to a slew of producers for immediate or studied refusal.

I'm writing a book.

I'm writing the book I've been meaning to write since I began calling myself a writer under my breath. It's a beautiful book about a motorcycle and a lost father and the soul of America.

Around me the Spaniards, some fat with slicked-back, thinning hair, some lithe and graceful and bosomy, drone on. It's like classical music, listening to them. I don't understand a word they're saying, so I can't get sucked into their lives. It's just a beautiful murmur.

I finish my work for the day and drain my glass as my wife comes to find me.

That is my image.

Here is the likelihood: I will drink a lot of cheap booze, stress over a script, and a week later, go to work. Both are fine ways to spend a summer.