And after my sister leaves,

and me here with this final glass of ’13 Toboni Pinot, I think of how we differ so much, my sister and I in our wine theology, methodology, pedagogy and what be. She, a scientist and me the ardent and ever scenically angular scribbler– but we share that harness, the wine, its world and not so much its industry just that force to know more and taste and talk and share ideas– when we tasted the Pinot, this Pinot, together, we encroached reflected in quaking contrast– BUT! We heard each other’s ideas, the enumeration of impression from such a wine, both agreeing it’s still a bit young, but the texture and fruit purpose was well-stated and obviated. I always learn from her, in fact she brought over a Chard tonight that I otherwise would have never tasted, me texting her earlier asking kindly for her to bring over something for me to write about.. which makes two Chardonnays, me tasting one earlier at work that prompted response.. I’m diving deeper into this wine narrative, this vinoLit approach and I can’t turn back, not with this need for more money and more assignments and just more. Sommeliers tout themselves in gigs and bloody résumé building all the time, I mean whenever you talk to them it’s what they’re doing who they know what they’e been tasting what and where they’ve travel and item item mark mark reward reward– and me, I just want to share my Life, my experience in wine humbly and show others, any reader that there’s something to palate here.
Now the Pinot beckons interpretation, a new Time and identity, as Eliot said “next year’s words await another voice.” And in this new year of mine, 36, my delineation of this work has compounded and I’m not sure what the next direction or turn is, like when you’re lost in some new city– you were eager to get there, you get there, and now what, where do you go? This Pinot makes me think I’m on vacation, on the Road, traveling and talking about Literature and writing and wine and writing about wine and Literature and how the two are screamingly linked. And.. then I go into my imagination, this wine and wine as a concept, me here tonight talking with my winemaking sister about this Pinot– Pinot, a varietal she doesn’t much care for as far as the writer holds but even still we were able to transact views and scopes on the wine.. and I sip, think and magnetize my most earnest nerves to the glass tilting motion. And this is why I’m with wine, and why I’m not chasing it as I did when I first started mildly writing about it in ’09–

Read an article today, from a blogger/kind-of-writer that posed the question “Why do I blog/write?” Interesting, but is the answer ever simple? I feel that even asking the question swords a singular staple response, something pounding and symmetrical. What if it’s complicated, what if the answer’s as simple as “That’s who I am. I write. I have to write. I don’t have some accented aim. I just write.”?

All I can think of now is travel. Going to research it in a bit but first I have to go upstairs and close J’s window.. hope he’s asleep, my little Kerouac.. tomorrow a day of somewhat, have to get my dental meds, useless as they are then go to SBUX and write like I’m going to die if I don’t and who knows I might.. need to finish my wild typewritten pages for myownjoy– the life I have now more precious and dire as ever.. I’ll rewrite something tomorrow, something from an author noted, won’t say who I’m targeting but you may know if you me know well.. or not. I’ll pack three books with me–

So quiet in this house now, like it is on the estate, I bet. Would love to see what animals scour that set of blocks.. one more tiny pour before bed, so I can leave this day in wine’s pose.. but then I direct to Personhood: “Is this sitting about the wine or the manuscript?” Obvious, again if you know me, truly. And I can see certain readers filing their conclusions in their assorting aphoristic beltings; oh I’m this… Mike Madigan always.. oh he’s so….. And I can only laugh as I sit here in this Parisian café, listening to the lady by the bar talk about her new apartment by Montmartre. I watch and I watch knowing that she doesn’t know I’m looking at her; she’s wrapped in her own life and her own story and how that bartender appears so interested in her– and me, just here in this squeaky light blue chair looking down at my wine. I usually never write while sipping any wine this good but tonight I make an exception, as I’m invisible, finally, here in Paris writing and capturing everything around me.. the 20-somethings walking down the path, 5 in group, laughing and hanging on each other, telling the other to be quiet, I think, of course I’m not at all fluent in French, still very much learning and feel vulnerable in my muteness and deafness, dumbness and dizzied dote.

Went upstairs and close Jack’s window. Went into wife’s room, OUR room, to tell her but bless her being she’s already asleep, my poor queen; overworked and ever-tireless in her tale to develop her career and carry another little Artist for me. And I’m down here writing, and for what, so people can read my words for free, no payment, so is this a hobby? GODDAMNIT NO! So sever that acceptance– no more hobby behavior– and dig into the old writings.
Starting to slow. To bed the writer need go. Empty glass. Pinot once in its borders and shelves and I have no narrative just a tin stare. And where– impaired but till I dare. To record. Diarist. Scribble and type– Night, good–