Planned on writing a stand-alone piece today. But, not in mood. Just want to type. Odd character to right, sipping coffee, staring in my direction. Not looking at him, as I don’t want to be engaged. I’m blank in this session, and I feel time just running from me, this year in flight, from the author. Decided to get a croissant, this sitting. With hopes of some shape of Paris return.
One of my coworkers just walked in. She asked me how I was doing, disclosed my exhaustion. Told her that I wasn’t even in much mood to write. Not just from the work week, but this day, this morning. Just not connected to the coffee house. And this is the first time. Why am I even writing now, when I don’t want to? Just sipped strongly from the mocha’d cup. Maybe that’ll help. My budget, ever thin. Don’t think I can afford sending out multiple mss. And, so I’m meditating, maybe I shouldn’t. No. I bought the url for this blog, so maybe I should just add content, as much as possible, disseminate the name along with its content, and see where it takes me. I can wish all I want for what I wish was present. But what’s actually in front of the writer is what stands tangible, unavoidable. Too much in this coffee shop. Thinking I might go back to the office humorously early, just sit at the desk and scribble on the legal pad, yellow. The successor to the Comp Book. A young girl just came in to sit with the odd character at right. Young, probably about 19, 20. Cute, bubbly, statically flight. More young characters invade. More commotion, more uneasiness for an author. Some businessman sits in my regular seat, punching into a calculator, wearing orange-tinted reading glasses. He looks bothered, like the calculator’s lying to him. He looks through stapled papers, the front page peppered by post-it’s.
Need to journal jump, over to the legal pad. Spoken word, could set fire to page, finish with a stand-alone poem. One I could perform. Been missing the stage, lately. You’re probably tired of hearing about it, my immature longing. But how is that immature? Bob Dylan still performs. Paul McCartney, R.E.M (if they’re still together), Sting, Jay-Z. Time, 1:11p. Left office at 12:46p. 35 minutes. What to do… Thought the businessman was leaving, but he’s on the phone, looking through his papers. One of the young characters at the table, my 2 o’clock, has a guitar at his back. Wandering musician, artist. Good for him. Always armed, at ready. And, they leave, like regular adolescents with attention spans the length of a slug’s antenna. No, they just spot switched, over to the nook. The businessman rises. But doesn’t leave. Selfish ogre, go away, with your citric lenses! I want to yell. But, it’s not my seat, no matter how much I try to sell Self on such subscription. And he leaves. Now I move.
Ah, my little area of the coffee shop. No office return premature. No sir. I’m positioned to write. I view all the characters from this sweet vantage corner. Chaining my momentum to their circular energies, synergies. Meaning, I’m hopping from these charcoal-colored keys for ink, blue borders on yellow paper fields. Just going to push to page next. The stage, needing confusing writing, like a cosmic illustration not before recorded. I’m thinking 3 pieces, to start. Or more. Not planning it. Or anything with writing, wine, writing about wine or any other tonal tussle. But, even in this free-formed Literary practice, I still consider where the pages are going. More youngs enter. Not in the mood, again. Preparing for departure, as their racket even spreads to this distanced nest.
11:37p. Friday night. After the Carpe Cab, and a little ’09 Carneros Pinot. Ready for bed, but watching a ghost-seeking documentary-esque program. Would love to do something like this, and bring wine. Imagine that, wine blogging in a paranormally active arena. Why not? I couldn’t do what these gentlemen do without wine, anyway.
When I do start traveling, I’ll look for haunted concentrations. New Orleans, on my list of travel targets. And as I hear, understand, there’s quite the Literary community, in those delicious streets. And ghosts, supposedly. With my budget so starved, all to these journals, the “blogs.” So, I figure, at this point in my short journalistic hegemony, I can say whatever I deduce prudent. That Pinot I was sipping, encouraging the Bottled Ox to bust through barrier. I disagree. There’ll be no busting, confrontation. I’ll simply pass. And if there’s antinomy with my autonomy, that’s when volume elevates. But I’m not aiming for collision. Life’s far to concise, unfairly abbreviated. Ox out of the bottle, sipping another Pinot pour. For the page.
My calculations, not lying. I’m sitting here, in my house, my one-member separated Literary Lounge, imaging what’s closer with days crawling. Where the first spot I’d wish visit? … New York. Has to be. The city of cities. I’ll be there, on that historic concrete; in some wine bar, discussing sips with locals random, new characters.