Yes – it’s been noted by more than one commentator that I use a lot of American spellings. So should you. Put away the pride and ego about ‘proper’ spelling and go native. Get used to it now and start using them in all contexts, not just in the American context.
Of course this is only if you want to be taken seriously in North America. But if you’re reading this I’m going to assume that you do.
So switch to the ‘z’ now.
This is a note from wikipedia about Noah Webster, the original author of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the ‘popularizer’ of many American spellings.
Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in January 1825 in a boarding house in Cambridge, England.[41] His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer, Webster preferred spellings that matched pronunciation better. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: “It is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in America, but he did not originate them. Rather … he chose already existing options such as center, color and check on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology.”[33] He also added American words, like “skunk”, that did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828, registering the copyright on April 14.[42]
Wikipedia entry about Noah Webster
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