16:32.  Got my car, saw the house.  And, the neighborhood.  Horrible.  Sobering.  No words.  Had a late lunch, still need to shower, left laptop in Dad’s truck.  Still stressed and scattered.

There is no break or pause in this.  New fires keep sprouting.  Need another break…

More high winds anticipated.  When will this end?

16:57.  Restlessness sets in.  All those images of the neoghborhood, the smells, the smoke and little flames…  Still can’t mentally accept this is happening, and why were we, Alice and I and everyone on our street, so lucky?  Just working with the moment, moments one at a time.

Spending another night at Katie’s and hopefully heading to SAC tomorrow.  Guess little Kerouac’s having a tough time with all this, and being away from me.

17:31.  Beer 1.  Taking my time, tonight.  Not liking the way World News Tonight’s David Muir reports from my neighborhood.  So dramatic, self-serving, animated, produced, manicured.  Paunchy flap-mouthed giglet.  Can’t talk about it anymore, will only anger me immeasurably, even more.

Don’t want to talk about these fires anymore.  So why am I?  ‘Cause I can’t believe it.

The sky clearing, hoping this is over soon but— No.  Not talking about it anymore.  Putting a dent in the book tonight.  Wine, how it answers everything.  And you don’t even have to drink wine.  Just walk a vineyard, visit wine country, talk to the people who live out here.  “What do I do with my life?” Someone could ask wine.  Be open to what wine’s world says.. it’s people.. take in everything.  Work in a tasting room, even part-time.  It will show you something, many things about your story.  Only now, after these fires, going back and forth from Santa Rosa and Sonoma do I understand this.

Wine speaks in understandings.