8/3/17. With kids all day, and I’m exhausted. Not in any mood to teach. But I have to. I know. Also, just found a note in my mailbox that said one of my classes may be cancelled next semester because of low enrollment. My mood us low, and venom level is unusually high. This is why adjuncts are angry, why I’m no longer interested in pursuing conventional education. But then I realize, this may just be the shove I need.
17:39. Should just cancel class, when you think about it. Come back here and brainstorm. Found lone stack of lined paper, left, here on the desk I’m alway stationed. Is this meant for me? Of course not, you could say. But then I could say, “Yes it is.” I’ll use this for brainstorming…. I’m not letting my mood, this goddamn department or this harebrained institution tell me where to go and how fast to move.
I write about education. SELF, education. Notice no hyphen. Quite intentional. You could just be a ‘self’, or you could elect SELF. You see the contrast, I’m sure. ‘Education’ is a result of a constructed SELF, not attached to or to credit for SELF. If there was no SELF, there would be no education. And the SELF elects to be educated, by that SELF. Know I’m onto something here, but I don’t have time to fully draw. Go to class, then return early. Latest, 19:30…
4th…. Wife waking unprecedentedly early for workout with friends, or group of friends. Me thinking about going back to sleep but all I did was lie there, doing nothing, thinking of how I should be writing, so here I am… typing in dark of home office, 05:27. No coffee in house or anywhere near me so I do this from inner-promise. Event at winery today…. Will get there early to make sure all’s in order and sound for the soundness of the event and staff members. I’m again tempted to go back to bed but I won’t let self, remembering wife’s leave to follow through on her goal.
What do I want from the day? I’m learning that sometimes you just need to let the day develop and not want anything, but today I’m demanding something…. What? Success. Not just will the event tonight, but in every action I actualize and put forth, that people see me do. Selling wine, talking with guests… everything.
I lean back in couch and appreciate the dark around me, let it motivate and ready me for day. Part of me sees this as just a ramble, or rant, or chant, or bumble… but it’s not. I’m here, present, in dark, before 06:00, well before, and writing rather than just laying there atop the covers upstairs waiting for the next etched air chill to slither through the blinds and hoping I fall back into sleep of some kind. Need make this a habit, my habit…. I brag that I’m a tireless writer, right? So… actuate. ACTUALIZE.
Can hear some sleeping, his soft but intent inhales through nose, dreaming of things that I wish I dreamt about— playing, school, running, the children’s museum on West Steele. Me, my thoughts are burdened by work, bills, staying young and healthy ’s best I can…. Wish I had his dreams. Wait… why can’t I again? Exactly. Learn that mindset is a state, and the state is assumptive, elective. Like wife waking at 5-whatever to go run, so is this, my mental climate, me sitting here on the cushion with my laptop on lap’s top, tapping keys in dark and hearing the little plastic slap sounds echo from the walls behind me and left.