Done with dinner, now
what. Kids left some card game in
in living room. Deal me.
Wine is
my immediacy.
from book…
…stories and music and poetry— this Bobby Hutchinson song, Camel Rise…. Wine is all of this. How I can afford coffee, how I only now at my old age “know business”, as is said. Me, now, at the kitchen counter writing thinking about my day and what I want from all of this, where I don’t want to be versus where I should be versus and blended with where I am. An equation glorious but as well just as much a kerfuffle scenic.
I look at the word count of this document. 31,822…. And I look at past entries and the day number is off. Who cares, I say to myself. Focus on the Now, NOW, right now in this kitchen and the Nicholas Payton notes. Definitely hungry. Need breakfast, or should I hold off, see how my character reacts. Not sure what I’m thinking or feeling this morning but it’s certainly something and I need to not so much find out what it is, define it, but actuate within its congruency, or incongruence— Again, don’t try to define it. Me in the morning, thoughts and Philosophy, new approaches to everything already in place….
Wine proves to be educational,
revealing. So I follow it to what it wants to show– moons and sunsets, stories and scenes.
Journal de vie du vin —
Home, after errands and getting pulled over by a nice SRPD bloke for partially running a red light which I couldn’t believe I did, and not sure how it happened. May have just been playing in thought and imagining my eventual vineyard and bottles in club/allocation member hands. Nice policier, letting me go sans ticket, and shaking my hand wishing me a nice day. Don’t think that’s ever happened, such a pleasant parting with an officer, but it did today. And now, I just want to meditate and collect in house, sip this medium roast and eat a blueberry scone wife left behind for her weeklong solitary hubby.
Kieth Jarrett, “When I Fall In Love” playing and I realize that with my subjects, wine and life, I’m more than ‘in love’ and more than focused and contained. Why was I stressing last night in the whole “Oh what am I gonna write about” pull, push. Not thinking about that now. Just listening to and enjoying Jarrett’s notes. Some reading I want to do in a sec, the wine book Mom bought me for birthday…. OH, and the gift certificate I want to spend at B&N. Still lots to do today, and I know I can get it all done.
Two bottles bought at Bottle Barn for laundry and wine stay-in, tonight. One, a Sauv Blanc from Russian River with a 15.1 ABV which I find a bit odd—or no, entirely odd—but am looking forward to tasting it and seeing if or if not the alc’ is massaged and hidden in the wine’s flavor framing. Bottle 2’s a red blend of some kind. Was only $15.99 I think and I thought why not…. This bottle, from Napa, has me more than interested and eager to write about its composition and what it says to a wine writer like me. Excusez-moi… it’s from RRV, bottled in Napa, and a Rhône blend, which I more or less assumed. An SGM, Syrah-Grenache-Mourvedre tie. Both, I’m excited to try, and see if the day’s luck continues.
Feels later than it is. Time current, 11:23. Feels like 13:00-something. And I’m still a big groggy. May not get in a run today, after all. Won’t let myself stress about it, and I have more to do— like stop by St. Francis Winery to say hello and see how all are doing after CEO Chris’ passing. Life is curt, abbreviated, and cruel in its curt abbreviation. So I’m not stopping for anything. Wine insists I test myself daily with assignments. In love with the chase for stories. I’m not just after “material”, or “content”. Keep moving, I tell myself, “Do what you tell your students to.” Like? Well, like following through on ideas, keeping things simple… FOCUS. Any more strays from me, and I’ll myself a fucking ticket. A journalistic ticket for not following through on my beat, my shift.
Looking at the red blend in from of me. That name, “Juicy Rebound”, and ‘Rebound’ suggests new stories to me, to look for new intricacies in this new role I’m in. Guy the other day telling me how he found the first two wines “disappointing” for a ‘Reserve’ flight. I just nodded my head and poured his a Pinot, then the AV Cabernet. His facial shape changed, connoting acceptance and agreement, pleasure. Should have given him a ticket… a tasting room ticket, for acting like a hasty-witted measle. Not letting his thought break nor enter into my eased echo of zen, here in the kitchen, typing at island counter.
from book
…just enjoy your coffee. Stress is so conceptual, I’m finding these past 24 hours or so. The whole time at work yesterday, or maybe not the whole time but much of it and even when in front of my students, while lecturing, I was so preoccupied and punctured by what I had to do last night… what I had to write, what I was having for dinner. I was stress about all around me, even what wasn’t around me. Haven’t felt quite that way before. And no, I didn’t have any wine to relax or rid myself of those nerves. Last night was a no-wine night. I wanted that feeling to remain so I could study it, and know how to deal with it, write about it later which I now am. Tonight, with my mountain of loving laundry, I will do touch-and-go’s on the bottles I pick, probably form Bottle Barn. No work for the writer today, but I have to accomplish something with this day. Set of, sequence of, continents of, wine snapshots… and they could be short (for book)… just people tasting, the couple in yesterday from New England, for wife’s birthday, beautiful 40-something woman named Jessica, with her husband, sweet man named Jeff whom had everything planned for her. They were headed to Calistoga where they were set to spend a couple more nights at some resort. Can’t remember the name but just her excitement to taste more wine and stay somewhere in Napa Valley surrounding by everything wine and wine people, wine professionals and traveling wine consumers like her reminded me to focus on wine frames— the pictures, the visuals. You don’t need much for a book, believe me. Yesterday itself was a book, me driving the people from Southern California—around Santa Barbara somewhere—around the Roth property and seeing the first signs of Véraison, grapes changing colors and he not too frantic about taking pictures but his wife, also out for birthday, couldn’t get enough angles and enough closeup shots…
note —
Iced coffee. Someone sits next to me, and my mood falls. Today and this week is about doing something different. Doing several things differently. Focus on me, my work, what I’m doing, and throw myself to this new assignment. Last night’s wines told me something about wine… that I need observe more, more others tasting than myself actually tasting. Taking a break from wine, a long break, I’ve always entertained but never actuated. How would I react? How would my character be influenced? Guess I’ll find out…. I’ll learn more about me and the writer I want to be.. closer to travel, seeing everything in the world. The man next to me disappears but it still there… magic of focus and a project, something to write… this whole day will serve as the day’s lecture, for tonight, class…
Tirelessly attack your goals and curiosities…. Kerouac and Plath, my focus authors…. both having poetic thought anatomies, but so wrapped in stories and storytelling. Exhibiting tireless flight, even in their burdens, the crosses, their emotional and vice-formed anchors that slow and propel their movements in musical tandem.
Iced coffee… should have ordered a mocha. But I’ve ordered that too many times, prior, on other coffee & composition mornings.
Observe…. What people say about the wine… how they react to what you say about the wine… how they look walking in… how they survey the decor and atmosphere. Observe, and do so differently.
Mood takes off. Cruising altitude quicker than I expected.
