with 4AM.  But I’ll rise from the sheets like a resurrected something and do what I’m meant to do at this stage in the story.  CHANGE.  Did something radically different today…  At lunch, co-worker Ryan went to acquire sandwiches from Dry Creek General Store, or ‘Dry Creek’ as we chisel it down to.  I ordered a vegetarian sandwich, which I don’t think I’ve ever done.  Diet today consisted of plain bagel and mocha this morning from sbux, veggie sandwich, veggies when home with cheese quesadilla, and the leftovers from Alice’s chicken parm.  Now, coffee and mint-chip Milanos as night’s capping.  3rd day of no wine, beer.  I gain more elevation like an excited new pilot at the yoke, soaring past clouds, seeing what was behind become furthest from any simple farness behind him.  I’m him, gaining elevation, looking at my decaf cup, knowing I’ll do this tomorrow, that I’ll wake at 4AM, beat that hour till it means nothing, till it has the feel of 6, or 7, 8, or even 9.  Soon it’ll feel like sleeping in.

Forgot my little pages in the car, I realized when I landed in the tasting room.  So I made one from some scratch pieces I cut up a week or so past, stapled them, scribbled when I had the chance.  One marking:  “I’m the hardest-working, quickest writer in the world.” That’s how I want to be seen.  And yes, to an extent image does have importance, prominence in my mind.  I’m a writer who wants to be not “the best”, but recognized like none of the others are.  So I’m here at my home study’s desk surface, 10:06PM, when I could be in front of the TV like so many others are, watching some fatuous reality show or watching the news repeating the same story over and over again and whipping and washing their own biases—

English 5 in the morning, 1A in afternoon.  Tomorrow, back in professor mode.  Have to do everything different.  Have to make it not just exciting and educational, enriching for me, but getting me closer to the Total Wellness I’m needing.  I won’t lie, I was watching the news earlier and I saw Trump has all but the GOP nom’ in his pocket.  This makes me… well, it makes me fucking sick.  But he’ll be confronted by everyone and everything, all political parties and sects, divisions and directives in this country.  Some are worried, thinking about moving out of America, but not me.  Why?  1, there’s no way that droning hedge-pig is reaching the White House.  And even if he did, I’m not going anywhere.  No WAY, will I let a fobbing idle-headed flap-dragon like Donald Trump move me out of MY country.  If he does somehow reach Washington, then he can have it.  I’m not changing, and neither should you.

Tomorrow morning…  4AM…..  Do you know what you’re up against?  This is a Mike Madigan that even Mike Madigan doesn’t know.  This MM is strong, stubborn, focused, and with a stasis that even the most disciplined and lethal pugilists would envy, study.   Tomorrow, tides not only turn, they will BE turned.  By me.  These colloquies, inner edicts, narratives.  My story changes, now right before 37.  The writer I am is becoming a ‘was’, an exiled ‘was’.

Still one Milano left, a bit more coffee.  May just eat the cookie and sip once, spill rest into kitchen.  Have to get ready for planned scuffle with that hour, the 4 o’clock basilisk that currently has me with a back against a wall of would’s, imagined pages written at a cruel hour but certain to produce material and story that would carry me to the Road, to my travels; extensive dimension alternate that would keep me in this trenchant talk.  But I’m not as wild as I want to be in these typings.  Fucking why.  Why can’t I completely let go and deliver what the universe wants me to?  Fuck what it wants me to do.  What do I want me to do, that’s the better more useful question.  4AM is going to get its ass kicked around the bottom floor of this house, watch.  In fact, don’t watch, ‘cause it’s going to be disturbing.  3,000 crazy fucking words before class, and I’ll walk into that class room with more material than the students are expecting.  It won’t be like any of the other sessions we’ve had these past 15 or 16 or however many goddamn weeks we’ve been meeting.  Maybe I have been reborn, in my own ideas.  A new thesis, for me.  For more than just getting to the Road, seeing the world, traveling, or even acquiring Total Wellness.  Maybe it’s for something else, something I’m not aware of yet, some otherworldly rune.  Maybe I’m just getting to know my most candid of Selves.  Honestly, if someone like Donald Trump can get himself this close to the most powerful leadership position in the world, I can certainly get what I want.  But, again, I’m not sure I know what that is.  Not yet.  I’m studious, though.