Not going to get in 3000 words today, just like I won’t more than likely even get in a thousand, or like I didn’t wake at 4am.  I’m on campus, after a beer much needed, and now I’m composed, with character composition, or so I tell self.  Ready to be home.  Tomorrow morning I vowed to workout buddy and self that I’d be on the treadmill.  4-something A.M.  Who knows.  Today was odd.  Not bad, or negative or something bringing me to some lower ebb or rhythm, just odd.  Off.  Off-putting.  How do I get out of it, by pulling self out of it, thinking of my daughter this morning in her pink or light purple Batgirl dress.  How happy she was once putting it on and how much in loud screech objection that she made sure I heard and succumbed to.  I’m here, on campus, thinking of essays to write… about work, about wine, about music, about jazz, about me, about essays…. Sonoma County, the fires last year, making wine, my sister making wine, driving, being an adjunct… anything.  I’m in thought and won’t let self step out of its clef.

Why did I start the piece proclaiming there was something I either wouldn’t or couldn’t do.  Maybe I will hit 1000, or 3000.  Who says I can’t.  If I overthink or excessively measure as I did early today and in fact all the way to this sitting, even when sitting in the Whole Foods taproom seeing self tonight and what I wouldn’t teach and what I didn’t write today at lunch, telling self I’d go to a Starbucks and write when really all I did was have a sandwich at another Whole Foods and talk about he wine industry with an old friend.  Should have written but pushing self with the fact I didn’t is an anti-fact, serving no purpose for purposes of reflection or growth.  Certainly not any kind of success.  I’m putting certain projects on hold, deleting rather than adding.

York Peppermint Patties on one of the conference room tables.  On my second.  One of the few candies I’ll actually if I see, eat.  Too relaxed to teach.  Need a glass of wine, some freewriting, some time with kids, in home, family time that I won’t ever be able to get back and wouldn’t have if I we’re to stay for the whole 90 minutes I’m expected to lecture.  But I was just evaluated.  Received a yell, a howl, a loud choir of praise on page.  But, now what?  What happens now?  Will I be more able to land a FT position, were I to apply?  No. Do I get a raise?  No.  So… where’s the encouragement?

I move away from that topic and back to the day, back to writing, back to knowing that more self-study’s ordered.  An instructor walks by the room, down the hall, into mailroom.  He checks his little box or slot then walks off.  No headphones.  My jazz, Mr. Coltrane, loud.  Or audible, at any rate.