Solano, and my mood has seen the rollercoaster this morning, and I’m sure but not sure what it’s from, so I log more in my mood log, this collection of writings or whatever it is– I can’t surrender my visions of writing, blogging, running and growing my own business, which is what I feel like doing, to be frank. But later I meet Glenn at the crush pad and I know my disposition and cognitive translation of the moments will change. Just focusing on wine and making my own, selling my own bottles, going on trips to Florida or Vegas, or Seattle or North Carolina, and telling my story of an adjunct who just became fed up with the system, not the literature and not the students, not the reading or the authors, the stories… but the system itself. So to further stretch this funk away, I think of the authors I most love, Plath and Kerouac, Hunter S., Faulkner, Poe… and how they get to me and why, I want the same for the bottles I produce, the wine I pour and how I talk about it the same way Plath tells her story and “confesses”, as so many like to label her (“confessional poet”), I’ll do so my motivation for making wine, starting my own label.
A maintenance guy keeps walking back and forth behind me, out of this adjunct hole then back in and to some back room. Should have stopped at the Starbucks nearby, worked there. But I’m here and I embrace the moment I find myself in and keep writing, trying more to rid myself of this goddamn mood– think poetry, wine, little Kerouac, my family, everything I love and that forces the moody writer to smile. That’s what will get my to the winery and my office, to the Road, sooner. This morning spent near $10 on a breakfast sandwich and mocha– shouldn’t have but I needed to do something to make me more elevated, with a luminary mood and different disposition, do something nice for ME. And why not, I never do. Which is partially to my compliment as well as character corrosion.
My friend Paula yesterday, telling me of her nursing studies, how now it’s becoming more visual and tangible, more real, more than just a bloody classroom and textbook. And that’s just what I need from wine, its world. So….. What’s my next move? Start the website.. order your cards.. put more into vvv.– Messing around with technology right now when I should only be writing, writing what’s around me, now 4 other adjuncts; one math, one English, on “medical terminology” (whatever that is)… and one more math at the table next to me. The math man sits at one of the computers, in the chair but doesn’t look at the computer, just stares off and swivels around every so and again, sometimes looking at me which I find annoying and uncomfortable and with my fragile mood don’t see as anything positive. Want to leave, want to get back on the Road and just head back to Sonoma.. meet Glenn at the pad and talk about nothing but wine, winemaking, how wine is pictured in his mind. Again I’m distracted, that has to be from my state in this room; not wanting to be in here or at this school and I never will again, devoting everything to wine and writing about it and my fiction; my classes at SRJC. It’s too late in my life for mistakes like this, taking classes at Solano or Mendo– The math man leaves, then the woman– and I’m more centered a bit, as there’s less crowd in here, less of that adjunct film and atmosphere, that feeling of attempted passion but materialized inevitable bitterness.– Nearly got pulled away from this page again but no.. now another adjunct enters, I think she teaches, not sure, but she leaves as soon as she opens the door. I think she may be a student with some part-time admin role here..
And the jazz plays on for me, “Good Old Soul” by Tina Brooks, that rhythm that tells me to snap out of it, that this is my day and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to, that’s not part of the story I’m writing.. and what I’m writing is to art and freedom, wine and its trails and traversings around me day to day– the wine I sipped last night, that 2013 Rouge blend, the blaring coherence of it and the delicate but rich and assertive steps it takes on your senses. One of the wines that reminds me of where I need to be. And with that, I smelled the fermentation again today on my drive, it telling me to calm down, enjoy the drive and the Road and the coffee– enjoy the days you have and all the characters and words that round themselves in your wiling envisage. Vines, soil, barrels, the glass, the glass full– the notes I take and many times they’re just notes, arranged to formal prose later. Now the song takes a calm turn into a piano solo, and I just want to leave, drive more, go back to my vineyard walk at Scribe, sit and write in my Composition Book, poetry and prose and a blend there in and of.
Now just two adjuncts. Me, the other English. She’s in the conference room, earphones in, grading papers. I’m refusing to grade papers this morning. I deserve a surge of moments to myself, no interruptions or distractions. Only dreams in this early stage of day, of my wines, my travels, returning to the life of a student like Paula– Today I’ll ask Glenn to teach me something about making wine; when something either goes wrong, or the wine is lacking something but you can’t quite pin what. I also want to know what his approach is to “selling” the wine.
I’m picturing myself right now, in my tasting room, opening bottles, preparing for the first appointment; 4 people from GA, first time out here and certainly the first to my little Room off the Burg’s Square.
The math man comes back, sits at a different computer, begins his latest swivel pattern, reminding me of planes at an airshow.
And I feel my mood falling again– what can I do to stop it. What can I do to shift the momentum more in my favor and more in my moreness. And I know.. I know. Rather than these momentary and jerked knee writings, finish something; a book. OF ANYTHING. That’s always slowed me– and I’m 36. Do it al-fucking-ready. About me about wine about writing, about teaching and becoming so disenchanted that you can’t help but curse “the profession” as they say over and over. And think about all the people you know with their own businesses. Literally CRAZY people with their own offices, that travel quite often and make a significant annual sum. Are they more skilled at what they do that you with words? With your paragraphs and poems? Your lectures and thoughts that you have the bravery to push onto a page, share fearlessly with the world?
11 more minutes of freely writing, then I have to plan for class, go over the Plath chapters and talk to them more about this blasted CME, which encompasses “Composition Mastery Exam”. And this is for a developmental section. Have you ever heard of something so insane, so asinine? MASTERY? What a joke. Anyway, I do have to prep a bit, the maybe get some more coffee from the caf’, or at least some water. How about water to calm me down. I’ve had enough caffeine. How I can’t wait to get out of here, for the semester to end, to never have to come back to this bloody dingy campus again.
And the math man was just staring at me. I hate it here more than I can articulate.
`
I looked back up at him. “Hi”
“Hi,” he said.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m not looking at you. There’s an interesting picture behind you.”
“Whatever,” I thought to myself. Still rude. Still uncomfortable.