Early, rushing and moving as quick as this non-caffeinated vessel will let.  Drop Kerouac off at school, then to Starbucks to finally kill these mind-deadening articles…  Then hopefully I can run.  Meeting Alice here in home at One for lunch.. then after that to grading, to campus.. if I can finish these articles quick I can just launch from Yulupa & Bethards as I used to.  And I plan to head to Howarth, a run as I used to– this morning I’ve only been thinking about the blogging, and the writing I’m doing for these sites.. not sure it’s quite what I’m looking for or at all what I enjoy, and it’s not– why, the formatting, the rules, the handbook they emailed me on how to write the way they want us to write .. AND, the articles aren’t credited, my name will be nowhere around the article.  Just a contracted word generation.. Kerouac would have never done something like that.  Nor Ginsburg, Hem, Faulkner.. I’m Literary, and I’m tired of seeing myself tempted by wine and food and tourism edges and the way you have to write to be paid by one of the pubs.  Which isn’t much.

Writing a MOCK SOMM piece today.  And no more delay–  clock screams 7:43.. should get the little Beat out the door.

Need a day.

Off.

Just one to live and do nothing.

Not even write.

But I’m not sure I’ll let myself do that.

Maybe I should.

In the SBUX on Yulupa & Beth.  Had to go back to A-Walk as I forgot little Kerouac’s blankets and changes of clothes.  So I arrive here ready for work, ready to make the adjustments and edits to those numbskull articles I “wrote”.  Go into WordPress, can’t find two of the drafts, and one has already been edited.  The rhythm of ‘things’ and the general pattern of communication isn’t conducive to anything Literary.  This morning my old friend, who now lives in Colorado, sent me an article of a guy who’s on some mission to write 100 novels.  And the act itself is some grand project he’s undertaking and sharing with the world.  And I read that and feel ashamed with this kind of writing, or the kind for the sites, I mean.  I should aim higher, and not settle for this assignment or ones like it– shouldn’t say that, I didn’t, I thought it would be something it’s clearly not.

Emailed editor, or contact to see what the status is and what the hell’s happening.  Nothing back yet.  This is just what I don’t want nor need for the day.  Still nothing.. why do I let myself get into these stressful pickles?  You know what, to hell with her.  I’m writing for me.  I will not have my day or my blog or my efforts revolve around her or her pigeon-brained website.  How’s that.

Still nothing.  Going to stop checking, shortly.  Had the idea of– don’t want to jinx it.  I know what it is, I don’t need to record it here for fears of losing the vision or measure for myself–  Back to the 3pagesperday ideology.  I’ll start in a minute– now that’s real writing, true expression and the only bloody thing I should be doing.  Why waste writing for someone else?  Especially if my name will be NOWHERE around the piece that they butchered, and that evokes no thought or emotion or trouble or trial; not thought, no interpretation, no dialogue, no character development.. nothing!  Just that a tourist goes to a winery or hotel and spends money, contributes to the economy, or the owner’s pocketbook.. evil editors and their knives, their minds and mouths– draconian slurs…

Wine.. more and more on my thinking platter, how to work with it and that I don’t want to take the SOMM courses I looked into yesterday.  And why did I capitalize that?  They don’t deserve the emphasis.. and frankly, even the somms I do like or don’t mind being around have that beat to them, the one that wants to outshine and oneup everything everyone else does.  And I don’t want to be part of that.. I just want to write about it, about the wine and how its made and the winemakers and the spells in a bottle, like the Pinot I finished last night; thick but still gentle and convivial, open and caring; communicative and colorful.  Nothing esoteric or elitist with its riffs; just inviting and playful, fun and entertaining, frankly.

Heard back from editor, told me “the ball is moving on” and that she’s going to do the edits.  So no work for me on that plain.  Part of me’s frustrated, the other quite relieved– if you could see me now reader: me smiling, listening to my music, drinking my mocha, and I have over 2 hours to write, finish my three pages.. sell them.  And I will.  I will send them by email from my vinolit address and charge $2 for a three page read.  And the focus will be fiction.  Each piece its own standalone, its own piece, I will be in control and not have to be edited or checked or conforming to some fucking manual.. and MANUAL!  On HOW to write!  Who the f……. ever heard of such a bloody trudge?

My students would be proud of me, here, now vicious and animalistic, a page predator, devouring editors, and leaving their carcasses for other writers.. or we’d just toss them to the side and look for the next manuscript mutilator to tear, consume, dispose.  Nothing outside Literature and the narrative I’m intent on writing.. nothing.. not at this age, not with Jack and M2, my wife, my family– Mom making sure I get enough sleep even at 36, Dad with his never-depleted knowledge stream.. my sister the winemaking mentor for the writer/wanna-be oenologist–  Lectures.. tonight’s, written out and distributed to the students, telling them that it all must be embraced.. the net must be cast, take something that means something to you..

Have to use the restroom but I don’t want to lose my seat–

Started again chipping away at a short story I started yesterday in the adjunct cell… about two students, together romantically and working together on a Philosophy project, or presentation, and one of them, the narrator, wondering what happens after this, this being school, the project and the class.. the what the what the WHAT.

This café this morning, telling me to forget about that blog, and to make sure those vile bilebags pay me!  I will be invoicing them later, and I have more ideas on my approach to food & wine, and the wine blog and wine itself.. my wine thoughts.. so many ideas.. oh and now I’m hit with another idea for the short story.. how to market it and what the characters are meant to do.. the music tells me to keep writing and not end the sentence and to make a dent on the novel today if I find time, yes I will but after lunch with Alice, after I get the sandwiches from Oliver’s.. oh what a morning, I’m so relieved that cubicle whore editor took the pieces away from me.  But I will be paid.  Should have demanded the money upfront– next time.  Don’t punish yourself, Mikey, just write on and don’t stop.. writing the wine how it wants to be written, not how a publisher wants to.. Kerouac saw editing as lying.  So, hmm, that would make editors, this one and all like her, demons, the devil, evil and soul-stripping.

But I move on and rise above, fly past and grow onward in my story.  This current song has me relaxing, looking at the time on my laptop and it dialing ’10:07’ and I don’t worry or  stress or fret or become tight in my figure or flex, I just relax, see the hotels I will see and the writing I’ll do from the balcony, thinking about how joyous Jack’s expression will be when I return from my trip.  And there I go.. daydreaming…..  Time to leave this deluge of narration and thought, my moment, and get to work, on something I actually want to write, the short story about the two students and what’s for them just beyond their final project in the Philosophy class, and what’s for them later, later in life, when they ‘grow up’.  And then I wonder, what’s for me, what’s for me and can I ever grow up?  Why do I HAVE to be a writer?  Cuz it’s who I am, not just what I do or what to do– no fuck that, I don’t want to do it, I already do, several thousand words a week, sometimes a day.  Yes I treat it like a job as I want my children to see it as my job, “My daddy writes,” or “He’s a writer.” When asked what he does.  It’s that simple.  He writes.  And teaches.  A little.  But the roof comes from pages; novels and stories, the blog, notes… all of it.  Jackie already knows that the laptop is where Daddy works.. makes me grin….. 

(6/23/15)