2/18/14.  Didn’t write this morning, as I wasn’t in the mood.  Rather, went to winery early, as to hop onto their clock in the same slide.  More than one way to get a raise…  And what evolved today?  Nothing notable.  Well, nothing I’d note here on this blog, anyway.  What I saw of Joyce last night, in that documentary, toggling within my thoughts, as the first sip of the ’10 single-vineyard Cab settles into my vexed vat.  Some of the questions people ask about wine forces me to grin, yes, but also into a frustrated furnace turn.  “And what’s the percentage of Petit Verdot in this?” the man from, I think Indianapolis, asked.  I told him, “6%.” But what I wanted to say was “Why are you asking?  What do you care?  If I told you, what would you do with that information?  Do you know what percentage increments of PV do to a blend like this.. do you have any concept of its significance?” Everyone wants to be seen as a wine expert.  Why?  What does that do for you?

Went to lunch with Dwight, to a new place in Kenwood.  I think it’s technically a gastro-pub, or something like that.  We simply shared a very small app plate, calamari.  I enjoyed a Coke [no, not diet, this time] much as I was tempted by their beer menu.  I’ll say, though, I wasn’t impressed.  And while I was there, I thought of where I should write tomorrow, after ‘100’.  Yes, I SHOULD work on the Solano app, but that’d be too responsible, too normal.  I want to write.  And no, I still don’t have a single plan sewn for after class, around 1p.  Should I drive to Healdsburg?  Do some writing at the Hotel, Bear Republic?  Or at a coffee shop– and that’s another thing, I don’t know if I want to do the expected coffee & composition carousal that I always do…  Maybe I should write at the Hilton, on Round Barn.. no, too far.  What about Monti’s?  OR the golf club, up the street?  Or how about Matanzas Creek, the winery up the road about 5 minutes?  I’ll let the day’s progress tell me.. my characters order me what to do.

This new character, C——, has me in knots; cognitive canyons, from which I don’t know how to, or if I want to, escape.  Interesting.  And what does she want?  That’s what it all, and always, boils down to as a fiction writer: what does your character want?  Something the writer to Self should pose.  Repeatedly.  ‘What do I want?’

And now, less than 11 hours from class, the first session in a week because of the holiday, I’m more calm than I’ve been in days.  Certainly more than I was this morning.  I very much know what it was, but I’m not dunce enough to here it type.  C—— understands, working for her corporation, having to be that, the role, the seller, the smiler, the That.

“Is this a true Bordeaux blend?” he asked.

“Yes.  It’s very much true,” I responded.

He sipped.  “Are you sure?”

I almost rolled eyes.  “Oh yes.  I’m sure.” Hope I sounded enthusiastic.