With last glass of this red, and thinking about my time at the desk today, writing and rewriting tasting notes for the winery, how that re-charged and re-catalyzed, reinforced my interest in wine a bit, to just enjoy it as I enjoy it.  A run-on, but that’s what happens when I think about wine, and how I think about anything wine-aligned .. rules are defied, altogether dismissed.

Emma cry, me going upstairs and Alice following, Alice sending me out of room so she can take over.  And a good thing, as she has that Mommy power than I’m in no way capable of mimicking.  Now on floor of living room.  Not atmospheric light tonight, just what’s on in kitchen.  And… tranquil.  Then Alice texts me from upstairs apologizing for chasing me out of the room, and I return with an apology for talking to Em when I should have just rocked her with no eye-contact (old parent trick, I guess).  I’m still learning, I guess.  I indulge in this quiet, and this downstairs writing peace, as it’s my truest of addictions.  More than wine or anything else (and there is nothing else.. if I had any vice, it’d be wine, but that’s so kept in check it doesn’t really impact or “count”).  Now I just think, and think quietly aloud in words, my venom and vivacity contained and colluded.  Summer starting in 4 days.  Have the coffee cued and the tumbler taken from car and put in position for early brewing, as Jack’s lately been rising at just after five.

Glad I had that last sip of red, feel like I had a couple cups of the French or Medium.  Tomorrow back in tasting room, and hopefully hosting some private groups that I can interact with and talk wine, and about wine as I do.  Need quotes prepped, like the one from Emerson where he he speaks of wine washing cares away, freeing him, cleaning him.  Tomorrow morning, my only goal: a toweringly prodigious essay.  500 words.  On anything—  parenting, teaching, writing, wine, punctuation.  Anything.  Anything I would read in front of an audience— no, a class.  A class at Stanford.  Now part of my business plan.  500 word read-pieces.  Would love to write a piece on the tasting room as an analogy for curiosity and self-education.  People overlook that, I think.  No—  I KNOW.

Quiet is odd when you’re a parent.  Which is precisely what gives it its befuddling and ensnaring rectitude.  Right now, no one calls.  Nothing calls.  Just this wood floor, the thoughts and visions of  a lecture at some campus on the East Coast.  I can see the writer talking about the semicolon in some Ivy League hall, the one where I call it “mutant punctuation”, and “insulting page decorative” (notes I made in the Dutcher tasting room on one of the many pieces of paper scratch/scrap by the register [my idea]… always propelled there, with those working en masse with the writer..).

Already thinking about that first cup, cometh morrow.  Yes, that’s addiction, but at this point in my life, and after running 11-point-something miles yesterday, I could give a shit.  And I do and don’t.  I’m in a free-spirited thought frolic that’s not only emboldening but inciting, I want pugilistic percussion with other writers. My mold newest, the competitive wildcat, wholly inviting ring occupancy.