5/31/16, 6:28, and I’m up. I don’t want to think of anything specific this morning but I am. The novel. And money. And bills. And writing. This point in my life, supremely singularizing, putting all in the bottle, this OX and all his interests, curiosities, and affairs. Andy from work, from the winemaking team actually but works time-to-time in TR with me, gifted me a Paso Cab yesterday that was just bottled last week. Can’t forget to make a note somewhere– And the other wines I want to open, in my “cellar” which is really just the back of the closet in this Autumn Walk, or “A Walk” as dad writes in his calendar notes that he sends by email to Alice and I, base.
Running today. Will take an Aleve today. Maybe two, and bring the knee brace Katie bought me for my birthday, get back into it. And no eating anything till after 12, at least. Had a lion’s plate last night with all the leftovers from birthday dinner, Mom’s enchiladas and the rice & beans Alice made, was making as the writer came home and when I finally arrived home the 29th after work.

All in the bottle, I tell myself. This blog and the wine and the writing, stories and running and Wellness, ZEN.. Literature, teaching (which hopefully I won’t be doing as much of when Fall lands on my pedagogy plate). Just keep an inventory, I tell myself. I made a ‘hashtag’ list in my phone, and I hate that I put so much emphasis on something so seemingly juvenile as technology, that phone, and social media, I mean there’s nothing Literary to hashtags and the like AT ALL. But… it does help me center my writings and consistencies, and a swell way for me to properly market myself, my writings, and this blog– Mike Madigan, as a brand. I know just where I’m running.. 3 miles left out driveway, toward MacCrostie & VML, then turn around. 6 miles, think that’s a swell aim. Then home to help with Jackie.. ‘parenting’, another of my bottled topics…..

Was looking up everything wine and winemaking while at work yesterday, before moving to event/wedding mode. And again, that’s not going to be a focus, or even an option, when I have my wine story and tasting room, but I still want the awareness, the knowledge and experience. And, I’m sorry to again mention it, driving those hummer go-carts, or golf carts, such a thrill for the writing with the wind and zooming down the hill looking at Mt. Saint Helena in the natural frame left. But the wine, and winemaking.. everything dominating my sight and visions and hoped-for foreshadowing yesterday and plainly lately for the writer; the fruit coming in and the punchdowns and the feel and thrill and pressure of harvest. Fruition! Everyday has to be harvest for me and these pages and the marketing of my work. I see that now! I have to be a true OX! One always moving, always carrying one story from page one to final and then selling the work no matter the project size. Have to fill in the income gaps and be serious about it like that comic book writer I saw speak on the Paris Review site. Either you do it or you don’t, I tell myself, AM telling myself on this couch right now. And the quiet, the driving down the hill in that Hummer, hearing the wind against me and the trees and imagining writing from Mt. Saint Helena, somewhere up there, about something, like Kerouac from Sur, alone and only noting, no tech, a penman disconnected. All in the bottle. And from a renewed OX. Did the even do something to me yesterday without the writer knowing it? Was it the pages I scribbled agains the Hummer, waiting for the call to come back up and file those chairs–fold then file–then drive the people to the pavilion for dinner and more cocktails? This energy is not common, what I feel and my quaking eagerness for more story, for my run today, and for Life; the Zen it’ll bring, TOTAL Wellness.

Coffee.. another tally in the bottle of this Ox. And an Ox, a being of strength and duty and completion, the ox will always carry his cargo or people or accumulated items from destination 1 to 2. A consistency of devotion, follow-through, sincerity. And as it happens, 2015 is the year of the Ox! And I find more in the Chinese calendar. That the Ox is of enormous significance, truly impacting the story. And I, this writer and lover of wine and all tellings wine-riled and connected will follow my motifs and prowesses. And that’s how I want to be seen and read, as I’ve so many times paginated; an obsessed writer, one never stopping and always journaling and typing and keeping my story in motion, carrying the pages from 1 to finish, like an ox, maybe slow-moving but inconceivably strong and set on fruition.

Almost at a thousand words so I may well keep with my assignment, trudge up the hill like an Ox with more cargo than it probably needs. Waiting to hear Jackie upstairs.. went in an got him around… hear noise, probably malfunctioning smoke alarm.. shit.

And it was, the alarm in J’s room, losing battery power. But the stepstool not big enough, not tall enough I should say. And the day’s off and running and this Ox has to catch it somehow.
7:42 and I’m downstairs with the little Beat, as he plays with his monster trucks I rush toward the morning thousand marker. Washed dishes and wiped down counters, a homeowner of me yet made… Nearly forgot, over $30 in tips yesterday, putting in my winemaking envelope, and forgetting about it, not touching it for anything. Coffee cup one in motion, and I know today will be great for the Ox.

My personal pages vended. IDEA: 20pp for $6.

And???