Today, not as frenzied as yester. Readying for tomorrow with what energy I have remaining, this morning writing what I did still tired from day previous and thinking of the week’s entirety ahead. No wine tonight, as I keep recalling the conversation with the man who ran the 50 miles and his wife commenting on his extreme discipline in not drinking anything with alcohol and running as much as he did, often waking early (before 5) to run. I’m still radically convicted in that if I do the same and perhaps a slight smattering more, I’ll get everything I want as a writer, blogger, businessman-ish person. My cocktail selected, 7UP, but no more than three in a day. Just finished my 3rd so now to water.
Tonight in the Autumn Walk Studio, a more smooth progression of events in feeding the wee beats and dinner, bath and all, than usually transpires. This only helped the writer get to his keys earlier than usual for evening types, now the clock reading 9:48PM, and my water with ice welcoming me to the desk and congratulating me on no wine, the weekend, week ahead. The exhaustion catches me, though. Nothing to be handed back in morrow’s classes.. alarm set for 4:15, I’ll write for blog and book and whatever I want, maybe work out a bit (pushups, situps, stretches, what be), then ready for campus. Coffee as you may have guessed will be crucial. My mind blanking, wandering, than back to a radiating and encapsulating void. So now what, take a swig of the water on cold cubes, then decide what to do.
Picture I took of clutter on table, not stressing me tonight, nothing bothering me. I’m a strange swoop of Zen this evening, and coming home to Alice making pasta with meatballs, pairing it with my last— or no, second— 7UP was Xanadu for this writing father, adjunct and blogger and whatever else I might be, might think I am.
Random rimes and poem bits scribbled into the small pages, mostly before the winery opened.
The quietude crumbled, as I expected it at any time could, eventually would, with Emma crying from tired as well, garnished with hunger, then Jackie waking and requesting water. All now tranquil and I’m back at keys, affirmed in my new wineless expedience. The first goal with this distance from grape is early wake, then more writing, and running, logging my fitness/wellness maturity, development, mastery. Then see what else happens. I might make some kind of “list”, I thought about it, but I know me and I’ll just forget about entirely, forget where I wrote it, or think of some new approach that conveniently justifies dismissal of the list. So no writing of this ‘list’ like I have before and am still of the proclivity to do. I know intimately well and with elevating ardor what I want, need in my career written. And now, FINALLY, I as well and even more so know HOW to get it.
I feel I guess what you’d call a “second wave”, now. The water acts almost like coffee, odd. I sip again, this even more neutral than a mocktail, mocktail, and know I’m already ready for this week, the semester’s rest. So no stress tonight, not after the weekend I worked. No… I have to up early be, and write something new, something I never have, not this normal Mike Madigan wishlisting. So what then, WHAT? Have to wait for moment, see what the hour orders. And, depends on if I get sleep before the early alarm. Emma dominates the tempo of this house, Jackie as well but with less visible rule. So I write around the calls for food, the asking me to watch a cartoon with him, the helping with bath, teeth brushing, all. Now I am definitively out of energy, that fire I had when I came back down to my desk which was only a few minutes ago. I sip the water ‘gain pretending it’s coffee but goddamnit it’s not. And yesterday’s toll again finds its way to my circuitry. Should just watch some of the news and call the day. This one I took. Last few weeks I’ve been keeping score, the day versus the diarist. Events and mood-effected. So, for instance, those mornings last week or the week before when the lady comp’d my coffee, that gets me three or five, yes five, points. If there’s a line or if it takes forever to get a mocha and I don’t have as much time to prep for class, or write, or if I’m simply not in the mood to teach, then the day gets something. And the quantities of points are all guessed. I mean, this isn’t something serious, just something I’ve been tallying in my head, and only recently. The wave dies, and today has to end. I need to end it, be proud of what I did and am doing, what’s nearing; all the travel, writing, lecturing, change. My book somewhat writes itself but I need to control pacing, tone, shape and argumentative architecture.
Yeah, this water is nothing like coffee. I’m done pretending.