KEY POINTS:
Look, it's not terribly pretty. It all started with a crush on Bob Clarkson and his endearing scrotal references during my first Kiwi election. He was the first to toy with my nationwide affections.
Think back. That was the same election that gave us the Maori Party "kidnapping"
where the teenage victim, who had defaced some campaign posters and was then ordered to clean them, was brutally taken out for breakfast before being released.
You are the same people who gave me photos of the Prime Minister's husband "kissing" another man just because The Sopranos season had been cut short and there wasn't a lot on.
How can I thank you for all you have given this new immigrant so far?
I've been here two years and I know everything about this country there is to know. I like to think I'm just an armpit "Movember" win away from being whanau.
Okay, I admit maybe a year ago I thought the haka started with "Com-edy! Com-edy!" But there is no way I believed friends when they told me over drinks one night that Robert Muldoon was a brand of Scotch.
Now I'm right as rain. I know things. I stopped saying "quite frankly" at the start of every sentence the minute John Key took over. I care about Rodney Hide's figure. I am no different from any other woman in Devonport who argues over whether they'd want to have Jeremy Wells' or Oliver Driver's baby.
You have to put this unbridled affection in context. I come from America, the Land of the Long White Old Boys. We punish people by invading, decimating infrastructure, and inflicting huge casualties numbering in the tens of thousands. You punish people by telling them you don't want to play rugby together any more.
Mmmmmwah!
Everywhere I go, when people hear my American accent, they ask shyly for a report card. "How do you like it here?" is the most common question I get. How can I answer in a way that makes sense to them?
Do I tell them that I love that our countries have the same torture laws, but you actually follow yours?
I love that your Government doesn't send out Christmas cards, like ours, signed, "xxx, Haliburton & Friends".
I'd rather hear "gone by lunchtime" and "baubles of office" as the top two teeth-grinding press cliches than bear the American reality behind "staying the course" any day.
Let's face it, overspending on an election, a Thai tile worker, some dicey emails, and a few mailbox pamphlets do not a creepy nation make. You have work to do.
When New Zealand was ranked the third-least corrupt nation in the world this year, you tall-poppied the story on to page 12 of this newspaper. Buried it. I'm surprised you didn't print it in Wingdings font, too.
Women love the modest, strong, silent type but you've got to let the world know that in real life you don't have hairy feet like hobbits. I have to tell friends in America that I live north of "Mt Doom" and a little to the left, then they get it. My mother cried at the news that I was moving here because she thought the movie The Piano was up-to-date. She counts my fingers every time I go back to visit.
I guess I just didn't expect the reality of this country to quietly surprise me as much as it has.
Months ago, in the middle of the day, I found myself compelled to turn on the television and sat transfixed.
I watched as thousands of people farewelled the Maori Queen up the mountain, and still can't explain why it moved me so. Bored preschoolers walked in and out of the ceremony, sometimes audience heads obscured the frame, and I couldn't understand one word of the language.
But one thing I did know: I had never seen such a seamless mix of simplicity and majesty.
I don't know the names of more than a handful of All Blacks yet. I can't figure out MMP for the life of me. I'm still too self-conscious to greet anyone with my Maori-Spanish, "Que Hora!". I don't get why there was even discussion about the legality of hitting people - any people, of any age. I will never understand the level of domestic violence here. I can't fathom why you haven't put a statue of Fred Dagg in Auckland harbour the size of the Statue of Liberty.
But one thing I can say - maybe only after some serious Cheney torture techniques are used to get it out of me - this country is getting under my skin.
Don't worry, we both know this rose-coloured infatuation stage won't last. By next year I'll write a diatribe urging someone to do something about the giant, visually challenged, lumpy Santa hanging off Whitcoulls on Queen St. I don't care if he is a tradition. If God had intended Santas to be that ugly, he would have made Christmas come in summer. Okay, it is here - and that's just wrong. But you can't help it.
Be patient, old American imperialistic habits die hard.
I know this love may be unrequited. Most of us came here on a witness protection programme and a prayer anyway. Just treat us gently, we've obviously been through a lot. We're the ones with the moony expression in our eyes, ordering Robert Muldoon on ice.
Happy New Year New Zealand.
