me, knowledge need, pages and pages
So I open the bottle of Monterey Grenache I bought at Bottle Barn a bit ago. Not letting it sour or soil the soul of this sequence of time I have to Self. First sip, and I’m spoken to by subtlety’s illustrative principles.
It’s still not speaking to me, doing what it’s supposed to do. This it. An it. Not capitalizing, not surrounding in any quote marks, even the singular. It’s a thing. A monster. A devil. Guess I have to buy a new laptop.
Throwing myself into this project. What project? What is it meant to accomplish I’m not sure but I have something new here, a book, maybe. Again this morning I see a day ahead of me, one to do something and record everything. But enough promising, enough cyclical prose, this cold coffee I made last night orders and loudly notes. This house, like a parallel plain with no kids. The quiet is unnerving, really. I stay working, productive, typing. No wine to speak of last night and I’m quite glad if you should know. Was too tired, too drained from day and wasn’t in any kind of oeno-analytic act or mood, desire. Not at all. Building my collection again. Becoming a “professional consumer” as I told my friend yesterday at lunch. What the hell is that. I don’t know. But it sounds cool. Sounds like a job I’d want, could designate to self. Couldn’t I? Of course. Where do I start. One bottle. When and where do I get it. How ‘bout Oliver’s on way home. Done. Agreed. Get two. One for immediate consumption or at least near, proximal drinking and the other for never. Drink it when you’re fucking 70 or something. Forget about it. The project becomes wine-burdened as I knew it would. It had to. People call me all kinds of wine names and distinguish as some wine-whatever. I’m none of that. I don’t want any of that. I’m a recorder, recording everything, about wine and all else. The day in front of me will feed me ideas for this professional consumer curiosity and who knows what else. Wine leads, I write alongside not following but blindly in tow. What am I after tonight… Pinot? Cab? Have too much of that with regular shelf-pull. How about a Zin, or a Rhône blend, or a….
Woke at 4am to run and I did, and here I am on campus sipping coffee I took to-go from office. today, more than eventful and full of story. One of which training a new hire for Sonic and preparing for a talk I’ll give tomorrow or sales approaches and general narrative of the company. I feel my business impact and career building. I see it. And I excite but also temper my expectations of self, and what to demand of self. Writing everything on paper today, not taking the literary lunch I wanted to or professed in the Sonic Journal that I would. I went to Texanita, treated self to a lunch I saw as deserved, where later a friend by the Story’s construction and orchestration walked in, and we talked about business and business ideas, what to do next, and how to be involved in wine’s world and business tangibility but on our terms.
The coffee next to me, getting cold. I will finish it, only to give this writer enough energy to get through a short meeting with English 1A where I’ll pass back some papers, give a HW assignment, one light and not too strenuous or cruel, then talk a bit if needed, then go somewhere for a glass of wine to celebrate the end to this 9th week of the semester. The single digit weeks are done. DONE. Time flies by me with more hunger and rapidly, cruelty than I can postulate, here profess. Maybe it’s not cruelty. No, it’s not. Time is just doing its job, as I am now here on laptop finally recounting my day and thinking of all the coffee I drank, all the tasks I completed and all the notes I took from this morning when I had “open mic” with T to where I was at desk thinking of ideas to tomorrow pose.
22 more minutes budgeted to write in this laptop journal. Thinking I need a new laptop. Yes already. Bought this right after Emma was born. That’s nearly three years. Why not get a new one. Business expense for my #mikemcreate business as well as the #professormikey project. Wait, ‘pm’ isn’t a project. But what if I started something called “the #professormikey project”? Why not. Okay.. added to list. First order, the remaining weeks in this semester. 9 more weeks, I guess you could say.
Tonight…. Urge students to have a ‘ME’ project. Extending from the idea that I’ve shared with hem and at Sonic, in business, that there’s magic in the meta. Always in what you already have, what’s right in front of you.
Have Coltrane playing. Part of this ME project. What I’m doing while doing it. Will get a bottle of wine from Whole Foods. Something new. Tonight I’m a wild wine writer, of some shape, shade, sort, sense. The room I’m in quiet, no surprise. For being up since 4 I’m surprisingly motioned. But wait, it’s the coffee. I can’t take credit. Less than 15 left… no way I can take credit, not even a teaspoon’s worth. Love this room, right now. This song. Next semester is where my sight goes. One class. What was it? A 100 or 1A? Doesn’t matter now. I fixate and focus on me, here in this room, the song coming to its close, me writing and writing, thinking of my book. When the fuck am I going to finish my book? Any of them? At least I’m writing. At least I’m teaching…. Sharing ideas, more so.
12 or so minutes left. Need time to post. A blogger, me. Maybe I don’t need a goddamn book. Maybe that’s unnecessary pressure this writer puts on himself that I should just deject, reject, aside set. Yeah do that. Don’t want anymore coffee. Or yes I do. Tomorrow morning waking at same time not to run 9 miles as I this morning molded but to write. Try and touch 3000 words before I see any sliver of any sun. Need in office early be. Start writing right when there, ready to present ideas, talk to colleagues, listen, build and grow and learn. All of this at a tech company. Still can’t believe it— But now I see it differently. A creative colony…. An expansive think tank if you would. It’s not just a tech company. Not at all. No. It’s… something different. I don’t know. Don’t want to wait my remaining minutes trying to categorize Sonic. The office deserves more than a singular room, box, cookie-cutting category.
Approaching the 8-minutes-left steps. Wine speaking to me, or maybe I’m just more drained than I before forecasted. Wrote in notes for tonight’s meeting, DO NOT JAIL YOURSELF TO A CATEGORY, in the ME project. Categories are excessively definition. Definitely confining. Using rest of time to write, I’ve decided in these final eight or whatever, how ever many minutes. I deserve this.. this freewrite, this sensately rain of types and button pushes after this day that’s only as long as it’s been as I decided to wake at 4am, for the second time in two weeks. I know 4am well, now, and knowing it better, thoroughly and as intimately as I can is a stark stride, aim, vision and conviction.
Leading myself to something, a new story, with aid of external elements and echoes but from my own command and composition. Stomach quaking a bit, I ignore it. I focus only on this room and the chairs in it, the books on the shelves, the business I’m operating and other business efforts I myself decide and fly. Like a new vessel, ship or plane, transporting self to new shelves and books, pages, stories. Budgeting time no more. Now just writing, enjoying the story, this ME project. All me. Where I am in this day, this cold coffee and the Sonic Journal at right, me in chair thinking about wine and dinner…. Wake early again tomorrow. Good. I have to. I should writer a book about 4am. No, just blog it.. that’s sexier, right? Is that my goal, have a ravishing and seductive style and rile to my writing? I don’t know anymore. I’m just enjoying myself, ME.
MY project.
10/18/18
There is no happenstance in patterns.
In YOUR patterns.
Got through small stack of papers.
This semester and I are now officially feuding. I will be sure there is not a single paper to evaluate.
All papers, graded when handed in.
My assault plan is to halt all before there is any assault, on either end.
Wake earlier. 4am, or face failure.
Sunday will be the grading day for me. Learning learning. More knowledge, more knowledge on knowledge itself.
Week 9…. oh week 9. Today’s lecture, on semester consideration. Noting your progress. I’m doing the exact.
I never thought a tech company would make me more a writer. Make me love going to work so amiably and loudly. Make me so vocal and ravenous with new project production, make me more a figure for personal branding, and branding, marketing creatively, more of ME and who I’ve always thought I was. The work I do at the tech office is dimension and shape-shifting in a way I’ve never known or seen thought I’d be a part of. I’m creatively present, a wild wine writer more so than I was prior. “vino tech lit” I have written on a post-it at my desk, on those cubicle-esque walls. But I’m in no cube. No box like that Napa wine-pedaling office. No, this is a the flavorful contrast dreamt before. And now here.
Yesterday in street with one of the sales leads talking about destiny and where we are, what we do, and if something happened in way of some fortune found us, what we’d do. We both expressed dreams and of course acquiring something we’ve always wanted be that go back to school and earn multiple doctorates or buy property somewhere, or just rent forever and travel, or something else.
Now on my only day off between both work weeks I compose self and compose here, writing freely thinking about starting a wine business of some kind. Like what? I don’t know. This is the coffee talking. Definitely the medium roast acting as my medium and meaning for me to finally finish a book. Not just post tirelessly on this blog. Travel… sipping something in my hotel room night before a talk on writing or writing about wine, business… something. Just writing and see what happens. More free than simply freewriting. And why does this goddamn laptop want to make that two words, free and writing. It’s one. One unified and assembled effort and concert. Every day very much part of my musical character.
Coffee cold and not that interesting anymore. Usually don’t mind cold coffee. After all nearly every night I make coffee and put the pint or mug in fridge as to have iced coffee in morning if I’m planning on writing early, which I always aim to do but rarely actualize. Tomorrow, a run. 8 miles or maybe just see what I can do in an hour on the tread. I don’t know. I don’t know how to gain the most from this time to self. Wife putting on hero coat and taking our two excessively energetic mini-beats.
Travel… Greece, Spain, France, Russia. Write everywhere, run everywhere. Changing habits, intensifying and diversifying certain facets to my story and character modes. Dishwasher steaming, already done. Haven’t done any of the chores vowed accomplished by time wife and Emma and little Kerouac return. Papers to grade as well. Don’t want to think about. Wont let self. Rather just listen to music. Hear the notes. For all of us. You, reader… this author. WE, not merely the ‘I’. Writing for both of us. Thought this before, but not too much practice and maintenance of such habit. That can change realizing in this sitting.
Never wrote so much. And at a tech company, which seeing now is more a creative firm, a sizable thank tank or education and philosophy colony. Partner in office showing me the proverbial possibilities of where we are, what we do, what the office’s circulation and respiration relay and rile, realize. And now, just before 40. What can anyone do but embrace what they have, use it, kinetically utilize each scenic ingredients. Taking pause, meditative stall justified in this kitchen, smelling steam from done dishes.
Work more than about the ‘I’ of anything. More then inclusive, the aggregate, community and composition. Story singing, then immediate reaction from one writing this, this writer seeing more in his surroundings and “job” which is anything but. A life, a story new, making him more a writer and more a wine seer and verse molder than his months before. His last day in wine’s industry and on some ineffective business model’s clock, 8/23. Nearly 60 days out. Seeing more. Understanding. People working around him, teaching, making more routes possible in multitudes never before forecasted.
Needing to return to me, I wonder what brought me here. IS it wine’s laughable conception and abetting of professionalism and you being able to have any type of career there, or is it me understanding who I am. Finally. I don’t know. I have to focus on me, the I of it all for just a minute. Here in kitchen with wife and babies gone, and coffee colder than I want it to be and about to switch to sparkling water, counting down days and weeks till semester is done. Setting aside two hours tonight, returning to papers and more of me in this final semester.
My business, my story, the story inclusive, everything eclipsing the other with love and adoration of what the other province does. The other night at dinner with wife, tasting two new wines, drawing in head what my eventual wine business will look like, what the room will say, narrate. This new assignment at the tech company which is anything but just a “tech company”, throws my thinking into new throws and destinations, more honed to road that reaching any destination.
Seeing my eventual office, somewhere here in Sonoma County. Not having left the tech company, but achieving something there which will deliver my own office, somewhere where I can work and there is no toys or other kid articles around my operating space. Want it in Healdsburg like the one artist studio next to Duke’s, his or her entire work space on display. Not sure I want to be that accessible, but something like that. What me and that co-worker yesterday spoke to each other in Berkeley, telling me new possibilities. Thought of them the whole drive back to the office. And now here. Where else, to?
10/14/18
At school and tired from dinner. Just a vegetarian burrito but still feel a bit of a food-tuned slowness coming over me. I ignore it. Chew gum I bought in cafeteria. Have books with me for night but not sure how long I want to stay, to be honest. Just talk to them, tonight. That’s all. Just talk to them about their Plath observations and thoughts on their essays. Not planning anything tonight. Nothing. Everything on sight, on spec, in the moment, bottomless from the bottom of my mind.
Couple minutes before 6:30. Long day, but not really. Woke just before 6 with Jack, started shaving and didn’t have to iron any clothes so I was ready rather readily and with speed that doesn’t show most weekday mornings.
Want tonight’s class to be exciting. Theatrical. I say that a lot, “theatrical”. How about animated, interesting or engaging. You know what I mean. You know what I want from tonight’s session. Yes…. Rubbing my eyes… UGH, I think, Why did I have that burrito? Focusing on moment. My stomach has 30 minutes to digest everything and lose this full feeling. Phone sounding, reps still in field, doing their thing, canvassing. Feel bad I’m not there with them but I have to fulfill this, this obligation, this last semester.
Feel me get into professor mode, what to say when at class’ front, facing all the registered characters for the class I’m meant to “teach”. Work… make it your own. Don’t look at it as a task, but what you’re made to do— NO. Who you ARE.
Have so much to grade and the stack keeps rising, heightening its attack and talk. Another swarm to land tonight. Life of a teacher, adjunct professor or instructor, whatever they want to call me today, this week. How is it that they decide? How is it that anyone or any institution or company can call me something, give a title or identity without me signing off? You might say, “You did when you took the job.” Okay. Though, I never agreed to a title that’s ever-changing, and I never agreed that anyone or any THING can decide when to change it.
Day catching me as it nods into night. Feeling a bit more awake. A bit. Part of me does want to get coffee, but that will harm sleep. And I’m going in circles in this quiet conference room and wasting me time to self, this time to build and collect and prep if I choose to. I don’t. I leave the day’s page blank and we as a class will fill it. Idea by idea. That will be our collective prompt.
Feeling like a professor now. One who will be teaching independently by semester’s close. Tell myself to stop thinking so excessively and I do. I stop and just write, not in the Plath book. Tell myself which quotes to offer but then retract as that’s a promise, a plan, a step back. I just walk into the class being me, lecturing on writing and reading my loved author, and how they see her. What’s their assessment of Ms. Plath and what she notes and narrates through her contemplative turbulence..
In the book’s development here in the tech office my story I see myself with more Self, more presence and placement and more to observe. The newness of being out, out of the wine industry and with a company that only demands creativity and contentment.
People here more than encouraging of what you do and making it your own. Sonic to me means something heard but as well speed, as well ownership and understanding, kindness and playfulness, a precise cubist walk and sight of what’s around you. Sipping coffee in break room I’m reminded why I’m here. Making it my own, only owning my own onus as I so many times talk. Today’s something, I know, I see, feel and solve. The story not solve, but shoved in a more enriched stitch.
Rest of day, getting certain spreadsheet things done, then sending emails, writing more ideas, journaling everything. Recording everything. Writing EVERYTHING down. I do have to smile that a tech company helped me become, and I will say, more of a writer. You never know. You can be surprised. Don’t judge. Tonight in class I’m going to go through readings with students but I want to focus on some other creative prompts, write more, discuss things more.. how to write more… how to write more consistently. Why write at all? Why be here at all, in an English class?
Back at desk in ten minutes, stopping this current paragraph set in five, now four, minutes. Learning from the day and my time here at the office new, how to do everything differently. The wine industry could never do that, many opportunities as I gave it to teach me something new and give me some new path or some new assignment. I’ve learned more in the last month dealing with wine outside its industry, about wine itself and writing about it, than I ever did while in the tasting room. I have to laugh. Tech now, writing, still into wine and in wine, in wine’s stance, thinking about what I taste and eager to sip from bottles that I’ve never before heard of like the one last night Thomas gave me as an anniversary gift of sorts.
Pulled into conversation. A nice one with director of sales. Never in the wine industry did I have days like this, anything like this, where I’m learning at every turn, in every convention, in all my blinks and breaths and turns of head. What do I write about… I think work, now. Work. Not “productivity”, not “health”, not even “education” or knowledge, or philosophy. Work. Doing what you love. What you want to do, as you have a singular set of time to do it. And you don’t know what that time expanse is, what it entails.
After yesterday’s longer than extended and boa-esque day, I’m home after day of lunch and wine with wife. More wine here in home, and meditating, thinking about what I’m doing. Coffee made for morrow. Dinner done, dishes cleaned. I’ve been a husband-like character, and then daddy putting kids in bath and readying them for bed and little Kerouac going right to sleep after me sitting next to his bed as he requested I do, as always. Now I’m here. Home and on floor. No TV. No writer shows. Not a single distraction as distraction is death. Something I offered to ‘100’ class last week. Something Dad told me years ago, that distractions are death to a goal. The wine I sipped earlier, given to me from Thomas today when wife and I stopped by for visit, she finally getting to meet him… not impressed. Not that the wine’s bad, I mean it is the wine of this session, but it’s one off those ‘okay it’s here and I’m a wine writer I guess, some wild wine page-churner, I guess I’ll sip it’, wine. It’s over there, by the toaster, and stove, in corner of that counter. Thinking about all my writings tonight, how I did write a bit yesterday but only in journals and those are in the company car. I’ll show early tomorrow to get them. I can’t let that happen. Why did I. Doesn’t matter really as it’s MY company car and I brought the key home. By accident yes but that’s what the story wanted.
I haven’t had that much wine, but enough to have my thoughts in cosmic curves and turns and tells of my now, me sitting here and thinking about my babies upstairs and recent talks with Dad, certain motions he’s intoned but not directly said. Tomorrow begins a massive creative and character-meant revolt, a campaign of sorts but no I hate that word. Makes me think of the wine office in Napa. Tonight I’m just not he floor. Typing. While others eat dinner inter bed, have some beer, and watch a fucking reality show. Not me. I’m a writer. OR I tell myself I am. Pretty sure I am. They’re not. I’m here, writing. Doesn’t make me better, but makes me more ME. The wine, still tasted. Dad and I going earlier to Bottle Barn for beer, so he and I could have our traditional before he and Mom left. We did, and watched Emma with her sass and little Kerouac with his vocality.
That bottle over there, the one Thomas gave me today. Like an unpopular kid on the playground— no wait I was him at one point— A plan that doesn’t fly so well, so straight, so steady, making passengers nervous. Either way, it’s odd. Have no idea the composition and I’m sure I cold figure it out but why bother. What would that do. Is that who I want to be? One of those consumers? The wikipedia-reliers? Think I’m still tired from prior day, that Albany event. Floor reflecting light, toys around me, one of Little Mama’s shoes, toys, headphones? I’m in Dad Land. Me. A wine writer, thinking of one day having vines of my own and the babies helping out their auntie Katie with harvest. Doing anything. Pressing, sorting, smelling, washing barrels… what be. And me, in this vinifed poesy.
9:15. Closer to time bed. And me, on this couch, setting down phone like its some needle, some addiction. What do I need to check. And why so often. There’s something missing. In work. In life. Right here on this couch. My kids will read this one day— Are you guys reading? Cheese? Mama? What do you think? Won’t tell you what to think, but I’ll tell you what to do, to try to— Write. If anything, your aims. What you want from today, the next, the week. Goals, I hate that word. But true visions and aims, there’s a voltage and climate, a BEAT to that. Go for that. What Dad did with flying…
I’ll be up tomorrow morning. I’ve sworn to self. Like presidents to at innaug’…. Not so much with the current one, but anyone can see what the writer’s saying. I see something, and tomorrow when I’m up at 4 sipping the coffee I made just a matter of ago minutes, I’ll produce. Production isn’t just about number, but quality, a feel, an atmosphere, a general and pervasive understanding of self. Yesterday in Albany, a city I’ve visited only a 10% handful of times, I saw people and families, life and community. After a long shift in scene, in territory but I didn’t care. I was there, talking to people and seeing what I did, all the restaurants and residents and gear children call for their parent to follow them to the area of dance. I watched, filmed from my phone, from my seat, thought I should do more film work, capture more of this— moments in street with people doing this, THIS, living and enjoying the evening with each other.
Hungry, suddenly. I hold. Not eat. Nothing done that could endanger tomorrow’s early wake. What if I actually do it. Make a project out of it like I noted in my notebook, the 4AM idea, the book, written only in that single inky stride. Tomorrow, tomorrow… there’s is always— but not tonight. This Coltrane track molds me in an everywhere of everywhere’s. So people won’t be pleased by me ways and pages and progression. And do I mind. No. In fact I love their lack of settlement. I feel HST, as when he was in Vegas looking for some dream, American or otherwise. My insurrection starts with now, this cushion on which I sit, this night, everything in this house and where everyone is— wife watching some reality TV something that does a nothing’s nothing and squeezes life from the one watching it, poor gal. Babies en haut (upstairs), me with a week ahead. Another week. Shouldn’t say it like that. But I did. Can’t back take it. Yesterday in field and after at some event that did what I’m not really sure, and now here after day with wife at lunch at Campo Fina and two glasses of some Chardonnay, and into later hours goes day. I can tell things are different. That’s what belies, that’s why skies, that’s what why’s. I see everything. Tonight’s declarative, with a manifold reasoning. Couch. 9:39. Late. No more wait. Tell self be more a writer. How. Wake earlier. MUCH earlier. Singular day.