Should be grading papers right now, but I’m not in the mood.

I’m doing what I like, what I prefer over pretty much anything else, except being a daddy.  Writing.  In a loud bar, happy hour, some beer I think I tried—no, I didn’t have it the other night. That one was lighter, like a pale ale, something.  I’m doing parts of my story I enjoy.  Not working this weekend at the bloody winery, as they need me on Saturday and I can’t work that day, then me offering to do Sunday as I always do and them—the globby little “man” of a tasting room manager”—telling me I’m not needed Sunday ‘cause it’s going to be raining, and slow, and whatever other excuse suits.  What the fuck—DAMNIT, can’t I just go there, help a couple people, sip and scribble all day as I usually do putting in my consistent 30 minutes of actual work?  How fucking selfish of them.

With this event, the winery, tasting room thing, as it is only a thing, dies.  I, make it a subject worth writing, a story, give it real life.  Speaking of, what wine am I opening tonight?  What do I want?  Better question, what do I have, what I’ve not yet murdered?  Have the Aperture blend… the Williamson Merlot… the Halleck Pinot and SB…. Don’t have to decide now, but looking forward to a night of vino and prose, some wild essay.  I’m in the simplification stride, knowing next year I turn 41.  Oh fuck, I think to myself, mumbling to myself like a writer who just came out of the woods and for weeks only had himself for conversation.

Light just got more dim, or I think they did.  Writing only wine, but I’m drinking beer. It’s cheaper.  The writer’s on a budget.  Wine tonight.  Wait.  Treat yourself when home.  Just again sipped the brown ale. Odd, but I might have another.  People sitting behind me at a tallboy table, they could very well see this screen.  Don’t care, not allowing the inner care button to be pushed.  When would that waitress person come back around?  Should I have another?  Hate when I ask so many goddamn questions, when I go back and forth, and I know I do that but keep doing it. Interesting or annoying.  OR a lesson, a point of study…..  Not determining here.

Need another beer.

That Pinot already me calls.  And I’m not the Pinot person that brags they drink Pinot, in fact I don’t even pursue Pinot.  I enjoy it, but don’t chase or hunt.  I want wine tonight to talk to me and convince me—ORDER ME—to write only wine, or writing.  Writing about writing, why not.  Winemakers making winemakers’ wines is the same thing, at least as I see it. 

Trying to talk myself out of going to class, but I know I have to go.  And I’m going to pass on the second pint, I think.

Or not.  Where is that girl.

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Schedule today…

Swarm of conversations and notes, projects, prospects.

Leaving at 4:30 to get babies, then to Mom and Dad’s for dinner with babies.

Can’t forget to take running stuff home, since I didn’t get out today. Was with Sales Engineer, down in San Rafael then Petaluma.

Have to be better about record-keeping as I go. First hour, or more, of day was all admin, all catchup. Never again.

Going back to desk now to do EOD and make notes in next weekly report. Feel like one of my students, saying there’s not enough time in the day, then my voice responding “YES THERE IS.” Just write it all out. And if you stick to the plan or not, fuck it. Least you wrote it.

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Woke up, again thinking of simplicity.

How do I abridge my life to a point where it’s only a walk.  Carrying nothing, certainly no fucking backpack, no papers, no books even.  Just me and a notebook.  Lately I’ve been stepping around the office with just the vino composition book I bought recently, in Windsor, before the Aperture tasting.  Losing track of time.  When was that?

In house, Daddy alone.  Writing and trying to wake up, gather self from Pinot Noir haze and thought.  The Balletto last night singing more than speaking, more jazz than anything else.  Music… more music, that’s it.  Just what I need in my wild wine written life.  Have to get office supplies–  Yes I know I changed the topic quick, but that’s me.  Some say it’s free-flowing, or “stream-of-consciousness” which I hate.  So what is it, from the wine, to the page, from me to the page because of the wine…. Tired of writing wine every other word.  Think I forgot how to write.  Truly what I’m feeling this morning.

You forgot how to write from thinking too much about this page or anything.

So I sequester myself in the morning, that 2017 RRV Pinot Noir.  What do I do with her.  How do I translate her tongue.  Mystery, and a loving obstacle that if I do pass it, overcome or solve, I see more.  More of me and why I’m writing as I do.  About wine.  Doing everything I can NOT to be like them, the other wine journalists and writers lazily tossing overused and I’ll concede slightly catchy adjectives and description-chains to a magazine page and there they are, known wine people.  Disgusting.  I can’t do that.

Simplicity.. me and a notebook.  Where is it?  Did I forget to bring it in?  Did I leave it at the hotel?  Airheaded writer–  NO, it’s over there.  Right there on the table.  Was jotting something in it, I’m sure, actually I’m quite sure and admittedly excited to review my jots, I remember getting onto a new page.  Must have been the Balletto.  What did she say, sing….  More music, more song, more a whisper, something like a tryst of senses and superstition.  I had no expectations, no predictions, no demands.  It was just the ink, and the juice.

8:34 in the morning.  So what then after this entry.  Don’t think about it.  Get cash, go to the office store—no, don’t do that.  Just go get a latte.  This home-brewed shit isn’t saying a thing to me, other than it’s coffee and I need to keep writing.  It has caffeine, yes, but that’s not what I’m out for. Nothing is steering me but me. Maybe I don’t need caffeine.  Maybe I just need this quiet, this still house with no wife or kids.  Just me.  Not even Coltrane is playing, or some echoing slow BPM Lo-Fi beat.  Nothing.  Simplicity.  Finally at my old age tasting it.  And what do I think?  I don’t know.  I don’t want to dumb it down to simplistic descriptors.

Pinot Noir…. Now every Pinot I sip will have that ghost in my vision, all in my being and sight.  Should I be happy, fearful, encourage, curious?  Russian River, its terroir, now writing.  And I try to enjoy this coffee.  That’s all that’s at this kitchen island counter.  The way it should be.

11/30/19

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3:34pm.

Notes for book….

Simplicity.  Minimalism.  Less.. today I’m obsessed with just that.  That alone and not.  Anything associated with ease, a tranquil progression for the remaining time I have alive.  And who knows how much time the character has left in the story.  No one does.  Brought home work laptop as I conspired, and now cleaning through it.  Should go to  Office supply store, get a memory stick.  Wait.. don’t I have one here, somewhere.  Nearly positive I do.  I have one on my keychain, from Sonic, blend of a memory stick and beer bottle opener.

Wines for tonight… what at dinner, at parents’ house, then something here. No TV.  Keep the night simple.  Wine is about singularity.  Not so much simplicity, but not adding layers or ancillary contents and continents that not need be in that particular world.

Write about every wine you taste, drink, or/and think about tasting and drinking.  With Mom and Dad at Bottle Barn I acquired by way of gift from my still very sweet and motherly mother a bottle, blend, that’s meant to praise and honor, tribute Coffey Park.  “Barn Raiser”, its name.  Saving it.  Not to be opened yet.  Rather, the 2017 RRV Pinot from Balletto.  Had this wine a dozen times, at least.  What will she say to me tonight?  What is her plan?  I have mine, of course to sip and type, finally finish this book on wine and her versified and rhythmic, diarist, literary shapes and sequences.   More than I can handle, nearly.  The ideas, and this book… have three wines from the weekend—no, 4, to note further.  Funny how I sipped more of the Duckhorn SB than I did anything else.  What does that conclude or infer.  Maybe nothing.

Maybe everything.

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Day 19

11/29/19

In the office, getting done what I need to.  Think I’m brining this laptop home with me.  To clean it up and add to certain projects that are here, in this whatever and whatever and screen.  Haven’t done a goddamn thing with the second wine essay.  And that’s all I have.  2.  Better than nothing I reassure myself. 

No run today, tomorrow then.  I know, famous last words that are more infamous than famous.  Setting alarm for 4, I swear it.  No big deal, oui?  Woke at 4 yesterday and went downstairs at the Ritz and wrote in the lobby, then the bar area by the window, that fireplace which I’m not sure was real.  Didn’t stick hand in to check or anything.

Wines yesterday, and last night…. Jot my wined notes from last night.  By far the most characterized and distinct, distinctive, the Chateauneuf.  Took a pic, can’t remember vintage or precise location, but it was one of those wines that made me clearer vision’d when it comes to wine and my relationship with her.  What to open tonight… Going to Bottle Barn with parents in a bit, going to cruise, look, hunt for more writing assignments, more essays.  Felt like I could talk forever about the Duckhorn SB I had last night with Jimbo.  Shared my thoughts on her, not so much an assessment but just a reaction and Jim essentially ordered me to write about wine that way and get it out there. Which I do already, but need do more of.  Driving back, as a inseparable ripple from his command, I thought of affiliate marketing, retail, sales and sales consulting…. Not sure where the idea is headed, but it’s headed somewhere.  In tandem with these essays.  Taking a notepad home, meant for quick and in-the-moment scribbles and musings, possibilities and visions however fantastic and fantasy-blown.

Looking at pictures in phone from last night, nearly forgot about the glass of Dashe Zin I had with Jim and Uncle Mike.  I never have Zin, or order it anyway, since I never find anything terribly animated or innovative about it.  But this bottle and is communicative ebb taught me about Zin translation.  There should be not just temperament, but color, shape, an invitingly expressive architecture about her. Maybe I’ll be buying Zinfandel tonight, hearing her speak to me as the Dashe did.  Have to stay in budget, as I need to fire up this wine blog, the one I’ve had for a while but let the url/domain expire. Why’d I do that.  Busy, lazy, one or both.  Doesn’t matter, you delirious planet of a wild wine writer—OH SHIT, have to type that page on DTC, send to SSU professor in wine biz dept. 

You can bet this Sonic laptop is coming home with me.  12:40 now, will leave at 1.  Meeting Mom and Dad at BB at 3, or that’s the plan.  What between now and then… Stop at a winery?  Need to, and want to, get home and have lunch, the leftovers from night last.  Maybe pair with some Rose, the Inspiration Vineyards beat I have open in fridge

12:48, leaving soon.  Just typed I want to say 90-100 words on DTC wine practice.  The drive back, really starting as soon as I pulled away from the Ritz, assembling ideas and Roads in this writer’s head.  Everything I do here at Sonic will get me to MY office.  And even when there, I won’t leave Sonic.  I can’t.

So then what do you want, well past now, with Sonic?

To speak it.  To affiliate sell and market.

I more than believe in what they’re doing here, and that’s just what has me intensifying wine projects, and prospecting in the wine world.  Wineries should NEVER do business with companies like Comcast, or devilish AT&T.  A bit off topic, but not. Not at all.  Sonic has me in wine, and wine has me committed to learn as much as I can as quick as I can at Sonic.

Month 6 of my AE story beginning Monday.  My plan…. Inventory conversations.  All of them.  With people inside the company, as well.                                                                                                                                                                            

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Notified that we’re cleared to leave at noon.  NOON.  That’s much sooner than I saw happening.  What do I do.  Where do I go.  Jackson’s?  3rd Street?  Finish the fucking story, an old friend reminded me from HST’s F&LILV.  In the tech office, and no one wants to be here, but I feel perfectly perfect and composed.  Jackson’s could work most optimally, I’m seeing.  Seeing myself working and writing in some tucked away seat, maybe on that mezzanine, sipping an SB at first then a red.  Even if I do a solid 3 hours of wine writing work, that would leave 2 hours till class starts, at least.  Why is the JC making us work today?  Are the trustee idiots working?  The president, the emperor, the VP, the committee chair board wizard or whomever?  I should just cancel class.  Student texted me earlier and asked if her friend from out of town could come to class with her.  Of course I said yes, but she shouldn’t be going to class.  She should be with her friend, enjoying her evening before thnxgiving.  Now gripped by a mood, one where I just want to write and do nothing else. Finish the story.  How…. Wait, an idea.

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Time for a break.  Where I’ll touch one of my projects.  Will come into office on Saturday, work for at least 4 hours.  Needed, especially with everything I’m to do.  Writing, finishing a book, taste new wines and write about them, sell wines on blog or at least connect people with bottles…. Find wines for people.  Be not so much a buyer, but… something like that.  Or maybe I shouldn’t let myself work anymore in wine’s world.  Just write.  Only put pages about wine into the world, with literary overlay.

No breaking, just a separation from desk.

Just got off a call, guy was not so eager to talk to me but he did and I just listened, and I landed an appointment.

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