…and the first note in my pursuit, Gorgeous American Grim: A Study of Voices; Plath, Hemingway, Kerouac, and Poe.
So that’s what I’ve been doing, what I’ve been thinking…May work at a new spot today, Acre Coffee in Montgomery Village. Just need two hours, and I won’t let myself write anywhere or anything but notes in the Comp Book. For lectures, ideas, the PhD chase… MY research. I could play with this word, Grim, in the lectures come Tuesday.. see what the students think it means and how they take it, what they think of.. see how far I go with this idea.. and I have to tie it in with Morality and Moral Philosophy. There’s an American “Philosophy”, and Morality, but how does it become shaped by someone labeled “Grim”?

Just took about a page, maybe a bit less, of notes on my topic in the Comp Book. Jackie draws on his chalkboard and I think about my life as a teacher, what I want to teach him and what I want him to learn from me, and from his own Self, his SELF-education, and I will be stressing that; that much of what you learn, the most valuable holdings will not be acquired in a classroom. TV off and we both thrive in our own images and visions, he over there now on the boards other side with the adhering letters, all in alphabet, and me over here staring at the Stanford site, the PhD entertainment and fantasy, which isn’t much a fantasy anymore, but I will have to wait to apply as the app for Autumn ’15 was due over a month ago– yeah, 12/9/14. No big deal to me. I can still write, I can still lecture and teach and I have my students, my eager scholastic characters in their seats with the post-it’s in their notebooks and all over the Kerouac texts. That’s what I really want to do, what I really want, not wine, not pouring for some drone on the other side of the counter (unless it’s just for fun, not as a fulltime gig, to be taken at all seriously..).
“Hi Daddy! I a getting my ABC’s…” he says, then continues his studies. If my little Beat only knew how much I envied him…
1:16, new writing spot.. Acre Coffee.. love it here.. just graded for 30 minutes, now I write for 30 minutes, then I’ll return to my teaching/instructional/grading and marking obligations. There… timer started. Others here working, writing, and other, there was one man working on what I could only describe from how he had a large paper piece rolled out as architecture, or design, or something of that kind. Left, a couple both work, screens up with notebooks surrounding, and in the corner over there, about 11 o’clock, a young lady sits in a tight crosslegged positioning, with screen up, she may be writing, not sure, but she’s focused, in fact I envy her focus, not sure I can be that narrow at the moment. Would try, but… Like the open nature of this stage, not too many tables (an what I mean by “too many” is excess, like a Starbuck or Peet’s), and the front door is open.. and the day outside, the sky, I can see it all, all of it. People walking by, probably going to the Boudin’s next door. Young guy walks in with bag and large book to read, a place where people come to work and think and be into themselves and what shoves them in thought– But I keep getting distracted by the fact I’m not at the winery today and that I’m free to think and write and grade, develop my topic of Gorgeous American Grim, see myself how I want to be seen, especially considering how I’m to be seen by Jack, and Alice, my family, everyone whose opinion matters, or influences my decisions. Just sipped the last of the coffee.. earthy, for sure, and with a raw pungency that I can only describe as twiggy, or herbal, or caramel-y. Almost have the 1B reactions completely graded.. I’ll start 1A tomorrow, or maybe tonight.
New idea for 1A: explore the notion of America and “American” in Road with the students.. And tie it, again, into Morality, how the characters demonstrate their values and codes and collectivity through the pages.. need to further erect this idea but I think it’ll prove provocative when we launch into a discussion.. will bring my Comp Book, or little pages– yes, the little page– to Mom and Dad’s tonight.. write down singular words as I did in the tasting room, any thought for the lectures, and stay in the wheel of Gorgeous American Grim.. how the “grimness” provides that story and forum of honesty..