All right with our world. I’m writing and quite rested. Jackie however coughed a bit last night as removed me from bed, attaching himself to mama bear… Tonight, whence home from Mom and Dad’s I’ll devote the pressing of keys solely to the Krystal project.. and stay in the winemaking character, what they see what they want and how they battle with themselves and an employer should they make wine for some all-acted label. I want to accentuate her muliebrity but as well her agile brilliance and interpretive qualities. She’ll be my greatest character, and I’l narrate from the posture and politeness of her brother.. wanting the best for her and in my own story with my own struggles building, with an eventual everlasting ‘position’, or employment.
I texted Katie yesterday to run some ideas by her.. she’s on a trip to LA at the moment, but when she’s back I have to get this off my mind, I have to tell her what I’m thinking about how we can have a concerted trip with wine, and make a could bucks while doing so.
‘Cuvée Krystal’, a possible title, I guess.. but sounding a bit flailing, like I’m just trying to title it quick, or just inadequate. It’ll be the working title, for now. And I’ll publish every page to the blog– then when I’m done, it’s DONE! I sometimes get confused on what Mike Madigan’s subject is, I mean that one dominant thread in my writings– is it the Adjunct War? Is it wine (much as I hope it’s not)? Is it writing itself? Being a dad? WHAT? This book will answer everything– this is the project to end all projects. And start new ones..
Didn’t taste a lot yesterday as I thought I’d run, but by the time I came home (I even changed at work to run around BV as soon as I parked here on Yulupa) I was in the kitchen to drop everything to floor and just jump from door, I was disinterested, tired, and a beer sounded better. So.. character change.. run tomorrow, around 6! At least 6.2 miles.. Want to do my 14 mile run this coming Wednesday.. taking off from the Howarth– or maybe just from home. Yes, from home. OH, and is that my topic, being a runner, or wanna-be runner of late. I’m thinking about too much this morning, overthinking to the point of deaf-and-blindness. Not useful.. on my immediate plate, Jackie, with his cartoons, toys, peaceful morning before the trek to Monterey with Ms. Alice, to see Grandma Cathy and Molly the pup, his great uncle Mike and his daughters. More activity, more motion, more story for little Kerouac.
And me, here with the coffee already done, I find myself conflicted. Do I stay up late tonight writing, organizing, or wake early tomorrow for run? Can I have both? Yes, but limit time tonight to about 12:30 or 1. And if I launch at 7, or even eight, I can fit a nice run into the day, surely.
Today, March 28, 2015, and I feel like I’m a writer and nothing else. When I think that I work at a winery and teach at the JC, I have a hard time believing, like I’m lying or I’m making it up or it’s a story or short story that I’m writing– that I’m finally consolidated, writing for a living. About wine.. or parenting.. or running….. OR whatever I want! AH HAH, I think, there it is, I don’t have to have a dedicated device with the types, but some vision, or just let the story stampede as it wishes, which is more Artful if I further examine. And wine, now, since the filming yesterday with my new friend Tome, and this story about my sister, and what she does and how much she travels, and the winemaker I met yesterday (only producing a couple hundred css per year, sharing a tasting room with two other such producers somewhere in Napa), I can only closer align my own story with wine and how it speaks, how people react. In the tasting room I often imagine it’s my Room, and I’m pouring wines that I’ve made, watching how people react and monitor or keep track as best I can what they buy and the trend of preferences.
All right with this world, this paginated domain of my ideas and observations. I’ll be bringing one of Arista’s Pinots to Mom and Dad’s tonight with pair with some pork roast dish, with sautéed mushrooms. But which one? I’ll taste through some and open a couple special, lower-pro’ bottles for guests and taste to see what tidal voices make themselves visible. I want the wine I choose to bring to my parents’ house to have not only a unique twist or turn on Pinot, but on wine encompassingly, as a topic and idea and presence at a table.
The adjunct knows there’s classes ahead, well.. one, for Summer, but not Fall. Signups aren’t until April 17. Too far for him, his patience was wearing and eroding, and he would be 36 soon. How long should he do this for?
I love teaching but the system, the game They have us play, the politics and amorality around campuses in this country, especially California morphs me mad (and not the positive enriching madness Kerouac spoke of). In one of his entries he stated something like ‘I’m quitting school to write full-time’, something like that and that’s pretty much how I feel this morning looking at my son.. I don’t want him, this little Life that very much depends on me to have some part-time laborer, and underpaid one as an adjunct, for his father; his patriarch, his leader. My dad, always was in control, with a steady position, one he controlled and at which he was exceptionally talented. I have the latter, the “talent” if you will, but everything else is seismically unstable, a constant quake of professor.. I remember one semester that I told them I wasn’t going to book a class, as I was already signed up at another campus (think this was ’08 or ’09), and the then-dept admin said “Well, if you don’t book for too many semesters in a row, you’ll be taken off the list.” A threat. FUCK YOU! And, as it all tumbled, they actually didn’t have a section for me. So I was to be shoved off the list. What if I didn’t have these other campuses, I thought. What if I really DID depend on SRJC’s sections? And, I then thought, whatever year it was, “What if I had a family, a CHILD, to support?”