Writers write, right? Admittedly I haven´t yet- but I will know. This is my way of saying, yes, the rumors are true : after a long and come on, let´s admit it - frustrating relationship, my girlfriend Morelia and I are calling it quits after 800 years. Some of you are going to be shocked to hear of our break-up, others are merely going to registrer surprise that we  are over 800-years-old. Explaining the former is easy- we are both in the tribe of the " undead" . How I could have lived with such a selfish joysucking presence for eight centuries, I  can´t explain. Maybe...it was..the times...

Okay, we met, a lot of singles did back then, at a witch drowning ( they were cheaper than burnings and more popular as a result). Anyway, it turned out that we both knew the " witch " in question from archery class, and so afterwards. Morelia and I both wound up at the same party, chugged some mead together, pranced around the maypole, and the rest as they say, is the rest.

Morelia seemed sweet at first and was really the first person to encourage me to write. At the time I had my heart set on being a jolly Saltambanc - if you´ve seen the Cirque de Soleil show you get the idea - but after listening to me spin tales about my days as fatally incompetent dentist in Brugge and Antwerp ( two of my favourites sounding cities), she said I should become a " a writer of tales ".

The first couple of centuries kinda flew by in happy medieval haze, but I did not get much actual writing done- my fault admittedly- See, at the time we met I was 204 year old-virgin, so a lot of my " creative day " was used making up for lost time. So for the first century or two, even though that sounds like a long time- trust me, it isn´t- I never really got beyong the outline.

 I eventually got deep into the outlining stage, working every morning from about 1390 to 1550, but various continental plagues and religious war prevented me from really being able to focus. Then one day (oh maybe it was around 1566? I´m not good with dates, but I do remeber it´s when we had  the blue house in Rotterdam), I began to suspect that my wife was not taking me seriously as a writer when she made a crack that inmortality might not give me enough time to finish. Wow, you can imagine. That stung.

I was getting over that vicious cut when, to top it off, just before the Renaissance, she cheated on me. To her credit, the guy was  an astronomer, and at the time astronomers were like rock stars. Also, the bastard had promised to name a planet after her and then didn´t ( if you want to get a rise out of her, calle her " Neptune").

Still, her betrayal and skepticism really shut down the old creative faucet in me. I slipped into a funk that caused me - and I will never forgive her for this- to miss the Renaissance and whatever then happened in the 17th and 18th centuries, as I spent most of the time icing her and drinking with five succesive generations of my neighbors. Looking back ,I just thank God we never had kids, although there were pregnancy scares- in 1497, 1520, 1578, 1608, 1707, 1856 ( twice!), 1907 and 1998 ( broken condom)- because, as any undead will tell you, you never stop being a parent, and I don´t think it would have been good for my work.

Her taunting grew steadly worse throughout the 19th century as I failed to produce more than a couple of tepid paragraphs. Finally, one day I cracked. I decided I should move to France and give being a Saltambanc another shot. This turned out to be a very bad idea, as my Saltambanc act ( unseen for five centuries) tended to worry people rather than amuse them. I was briefly institutionalized and my dancing dog and merry hat were confiscated.

Emerging from the asylum, I felt creatively recharged. After a decade or two, I bought myself a new notebook. However, by now it was the 20th century and there were a tons of distractions. I was a huge fan of the world wars and abslotutely loved the rise and fall of communism, so  I didn´t really ever opene my notebook until the Berlin wall fell. Whenever I mentioned my" work" she would just sulk, and it might have gone on this way for all eternity but luckily, on Tuesday, June 14, 2002, at three in the afternoon, I finally caught Doctor Phil on Oprah. The show was about careers versus relationships and how sometimes one has to go and that it isn´t always the career. Lightbulb! Hello ! I made up my mind on the spot and finally broke the news to Morelia that night. She seemed a little skeptical of my reasoning but I´m sure that will be taken care of when she sees the witty part-cutting, part-affectionate dedication I plan for my first novel. Or screenplay. I haven´t decided- it´s still gestating.