At Steele & Hops, doing a little work and slowly drinking a traditional West Coast IPA. All they have here are Hazy’s I feel. I don’t get the whole Hazy thing, I told my friend Alix. There’s a lot I don’t get, like being an AE anymore. No sales landing still, and I’m at my fuck-it point. Set a phone appointment for tomorrow, see where it goes. Do I go back to wine? Blog about it like Jenn told me to forever ago? Told myself something was going to happen here, for business, for MY business, for ME.
Waiting….. Alix over a the bar talking to guys that are probably hitting on her. Good for her, them, everyone, as long as I’m left to work. I can’t be in a tasting room, pouring wine and saying the same shit over and over.. that’s something that assuredly won’t work for this writer. Tonight, at the fucking desk. There, work… focus on the book, the blog, everything that will get me to the There. Looking at wineries, and thinking of applying but even the image of me filling out an application and interviewing makes me sick. So where does that set and abet the writer.. uncertain. Lost my way a bit, I think maybe. So find it again. Easy, right? Not at all.. where the fuck do I even start. I’ve definitely grown out of teaching. Only rationalization for taking the two 1A sections was money. SRJC pays well and I need every penny I can in this shift.
I need to not give so many fucks, maybe. Like that Senior AE recommended before covid when we had lunch in the city that day, then walked around and dropped in on businesses saying hello and letting them know our fiber-optic services were live in the area.
Let’s just say for the sake of whatever or nothing I start over, COMPLETELY, right now. Here, having this beer, today, now, on Mendo & Steele, at the same table I often write at. Forget teaching, forget wine, forget internet and tech. Shit, that doesn’t leave me with much. Maybe keep one of them. NO – start over like you said. 42 and I’m having these thoughts. Listening to music, so, then, MUSIC. Okay… LoFi hip-hop is where I am, what I’m hearing.
4:01, Jackie’s game at 5:30. The day getting ready to close. I get a text message, respond briefly. Back to wine thoughts, all the tasting rooms I’ve worked at, all the wine I’ve tasted… I keep returning to those thoughts and stories. Nearly tearing up as I remember the days at St. Francis, behind the bar with a group of friends that made it feel like anything but work. I want more of those day, I WILL have them. Soon. Tonight, Cabernet, or something. Something commanding and persuasive.
Ordering a glass of wine next, and some water. Need be collected and composed. The current track has me meditative, thinking of my life’s work, and the rest of my life… how I don’t know when the story stops. Talking with an old fiend over text, her story similar to mine with a certain shift…. Yes, discard certain dimensions, forever. Keeping only ONE.
Vin.
Allix comes by to check in, asks me what I’d like.
“What kind of red wine do you have?” I say, realizing the way I asked, those words, sounds so novice and rookie and civilian.
“We have a Pinot Noir, and a Syrah-Grenach blend…”
“Who’s the blend from?” I ask.
“The Larson Project.”, she says.
I order the latter. Back to typing. Realizing the wine story is About EVERYTHING. Where you are, what you’re doing, where you’re going, what you’re thinking.
Think this bottle may have been open a bit too long, but don’t want to bug her and say some shit like that. See, this is interesting, this is how “industry” people are, and how they think. If they’re polite. I’m not going to say anything obviously, but I know other wine business people I know wouldn’t think twice about bringing it to her attention, or maybe even snapping at her and saying sound douchey shit like, “This isn’t good.”, or “This wine is bad, when was it open?”
And maybe nothing’s wrong with the vino. Maybe it’s the style, or the way they produced it. Should’ve been a winemaker. Though, harvest is coming up, and seeing all these pictures and how the winemaking teams are already stressing and are like “Oh fuck…”, maybe not. I’m fine where I am, I have plenty to write.
