journal

4/3/20

Jack watching a wildlife documentary, the one we were watching earlier on Yellow Stone and its wildlife.  Emma upstairs for a nap.  Feel like I could use one.  But I should be working.  I am, kind of.  Co-worker texting me saying you can order beer from Moonlight Brewing up the street and pick it up tomorrow.  Should I?  Need something to do… besides gather notes from inside the quarantine dome.

Sparkling water, not coffee.  Coffee and wine, wanting to cut back on both as to elevate and amplify production, as well as just be more present.  Coffee you might think does just that, and it does to a degree, but it drops you. And the fall and landing are impediments to movement.

2:13… A NAP.  No… stop thinking about it.  I am.  I swear.  No emails coming in, and no phone calls or messages.  A stall in the day.  Keep moving, that’s the not-so-secret pill, apply, coat if you would.  Would you?  Why do people write that, or say it (even worse), “… if you would.”

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9:39am.

Latte from Oliver’s.  Not bad. Only thing I’m permitting self aside from sparkling water, during this fast.  Just made two calls.  Both voicemails.  Looking for other businesses….  IDEA.

Writing notes in a bit.  Couple more calls…

Left voicemail.  Marketing firm in Petaluma.  Never heard of them… looking at their site and getting ideas for my businesses.  Visual… more photography.  May go for a drive later and film and shoot in a vineyard.  Where I’ve said I’m the most me, but now I’m starting to not just acclimate to the current work office situation, but needing it.  See a story in it.  See more stories.

Kids in the other room playing some learning game with bird sounds, sitar riffs, and some gentle kid-focused ambient music.  Keep writing, I tell myself and stay in the chair.  This latte isn’t the best I’ve ever had, honestly.  I should buy a latte or espresso, some coffee drink machine when this is all over and I have my own office, which again Jack asked me about yesterday.

I’m picking up the journal….  On the desk.  Went into kitchen to check on babies.  They’re taken by the challenges of the screens and the puzzles… fill in a letter here, there, then this song plays.  I tell myself again… DIFFERENCE. 

Stopping typing.  Write students a quick email, then scribble notes in journal.

How would I sell this, this situation, I think to myself.  Shelter… IN…. Place.  SIP.  Huh… as in, wine?  As in …. This latte?

10:25.  And selling this stage, this corner, this office, my kids going crazy and the virus still out there.  What if a virus could be something beneficial?  What if it already is?  Not with people falling ill, or worse, but in this.  With my family, in house, safe, SIPping the latte and typing as I am.

11:58.  Lunch, I guess. Other half of the burrito I got yesterday.  Stuck in house, not stuck at all.  Thinking of the idea of a “secret sauce” as some say and not having it be a secret at all.  In fact, blaring it to everyone, and showing that you’re the only one that can do it that way.  Interesting.

                Took a picture of this desk.  This work station.  Why… to capture that I’m here, producing, working, being the most me of the me-ness I can put to page.  More than productivity, more than staying busy, or moving as I say, even more than staying “STARVED” as my article’s title asserts, but breathing, and not thinking so hard.  You don’t need to.  Everything you need and have and should want for growth or advance is right HERE with you.

                Sparkling water in a bit, some new kind or brand I found on the Oliver’s shelves.  What I took since I couldn’t find any of the Bubbly, or do they spell it Buble?  Don’t know how to put an accent on the ‘e’, on this basic bitch of a laptop.

                Co-worker emailing me and saying she needs a beer from Moonlight, up the street as we’ve met there before with her husband.  They’re big fans as am I and more and more and further we get into this stay-the-fuck-home decision.

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4/3/20, Friday.

8:20.

Flight email sent to Mark.  Babies in office with me, working.  Each stating they have their own offices in here with me.  Had the Kenwood Cab last night.  Nothing too memorable.  Would I have it in my shop, yes… but not as a featured bottle or anything.  Or maybe I would have it as some value feature, even though I hate both those words, especially when they’re close together.

Blogging should be more meta… Emma says she wants a pen resting in and on her ear as I do now.  Then she says she doesn’t.  She ate the last bagel, making some people in the house irritated.  The lockdown is a lock-IN.  In my own ideas and practices.  Like I told Mark this morning, I’m going to go about everything in prospecting new business differently.  Not sure what that means, exactly… but visibility, communication, questions, asking them about THEM.

Going for a drive in a bit.  Need new pants on.  Babies continue to workl, Emma reading aloud.  Me thinking of new approaches to everything, EVERYTHING.  Parenting, running, waking up earlier which again I didn’t do today.  Tonight, be here… in this chair.  Not on the couch working as I tried to last night.  Yes, tried…. But I do have notes on the wine…. “Placid and a whisper Cabernet form and realization…” Made me think of this AE story.  Write about only that… the morning, the calls, the afternoon, the canvassing when I can actually canvass…. Everything’s being an AE, I see.  The idea I jotted a few weeks ago, ‘ME An AE Sea’, speaking to this writer.  Just write this…. Yes, I’m straying from my wine writing singularity, but not.  Not at all.  New journal, new character and Personhood this morning.  All for business, much for me, and whatever for whatever else.

Going to store, get bagels.  What else… sparkling water.  Yes.

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12:35.

Measuring productivity a little more closer.  Started timer…. Looking for leads.  Have territories defined and settled, Marin County and Berkeley.  Now looking for businesses owners.  Writing letters.  Emails, really.  No more than 4 lines at an absolute maximum.  Reposing certain Sonic beliefs and past posts.

In this time type, marketing yourself and speaking your story and intentions, everything YOU is more than essential.  Talk about essential employment, you’re hearing that on the news all the time now I’m sure, this is essential.  You ARE an essential worker, especially for YOU.

Going on 39 straight uninterrupted minutes in the chair.  Ready for class tonight.  Tomorrow at 4am, going to start conversations with everyone I can find across all my verticals.  In fact, I don’t believe in sole and singular verticals….  I believe in vertical collectives.  This quarantine beam is making me sharp, more intricate and decided in my production, in my business containment and practice.

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9:44

Jackie wants to play outside but is told it’s schooltime. I agree.  Why, as it keeps him contained and away from usual crazy.

Promised Emma I’d play upstairs with her after mom does her hair.  Email is quiet, not hearing back from people.  So now I feel a bit in survival mode, touching up my CV and one letter, later writing another letter… all sales and marketing.  What am I selling.  Me.

What I’d teach anyone, in narrating self the aim is to sell, and if not sell then connect.  Get people to listen.  Think I found something in this, and I have to credit the quarantine.. how so.  I just do.

In bed by 8:30, wake by 4am.  Have to institute and imbibe a formula, and there it is.

Finishing latte, then what.  How about another letter…. More than networking, conversations, have one wherever I can.  That’s the aim of the day… new conversation.  With others, with family, with self.

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3/31/20

A call at nine, and that’s all I have scheduled for today.  Kids are playing with each other in living room.  Loud, but at least civilly.  Going to write in journal in a bit, page for the day.  Last night’s class, speaking of journals, making me think more.  Revisiting certain projects and missions.  Hard to write right now with kids as loud as they are.  But at least I don’t have to separate them or be the ref for some scuffle.

Last night a couple of the students making jokes about the quarantine, using the same kind of humor they find in Lawson and Sedaris…. Then I started thinking about it, about this whole thing.  A pandemic named after a bad beer, or the official name, “COVID-19” which sounds like a Star Wars robot character that didn’t make the final draft.  I’m stuck in the house with crazy kids, or maybe they’re not crazy but just want to live.  Want the same thing we all do and that’s for shit to get back to normal.  They just communicate differently.  Think that’s all.

Shaved finally, showered (also finally), and dressed like I’m going out to the field.  Giving me a sense of if not normalcy then like I’m not trapped here.  No Starbucks run today, not letting myself.. what day is it I wonder.  OH, Tuesday.  ‘Cause class was last night.

The room got brighter.  Think the sun’s appearing and I think both kids just noticed, Jackie coming in here and asking if they can play outside.  Jack knows I’m working but asks if I can watch from the window.  I tell him to brush his teeth and check with his mom.

Last night woke at 3-something and couldn’t go back to sleep.  Had a sharp suggestion internally that I’ll either be laid off because of this covid shit, or there’ll be some seismic opportunity from this quarantine.  I don’t know, I can’t see any sort of future, and neither can you or anybody.  Kids laughing upstrair laughing about something.  I want that, I want to be able to see humor in this, but each day is harder.  Am I making it difficult?  Need be more lawless and Lawson about the quarantine.

Why do I want to work so hard?  Like Dad even suggested the other day over the phone, What do they expect you to do?  Not going to make my quota this month more than likely, but it’s not my fault these fuckwits aren’t getting back to me or turning in their contracts.  Even if one landed, I’d be fine.  So I’m doing what I’m supposed to, like a good boy.  That’s me being a growling journal-goblin.  I’m in a mood, I know… TOPIC NEXT.

Kids going outside.  All they want to do is play.  Jack tells me he’s like an adult and can watch little Emma.  I tell him to look out for cars, and that I’ll watch him from my quarantine view.  He says okay and heads to the garage to get something for Emma.

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… there was so much from yesterday I meant to write but didn’t get around to it.  Like how Emma would go out our driveway turn left then go up the closes driveway on her left then do it again.  Was her own little lap, loop, on her “big girl bike” as she’s so quick and eager to call it, share with other people that she has such transportation efficiency.  And Jack with that race car that Mom and Dad got him.  The green one that’s a total beast of a remote car for a kid his age.  Just perfect, really, as he loves to drive it off sidewalks, into his sister’s bike, into puddles, around the block with me walking.

Businesses are people.  People are not businesses but people, stories, lives, love and pain… past and the current pages.  I have to remember this when I sit to write as I am now or when working, prospecting but not prospecting, but looking for people to know, meet, somehow work with.

Again quiet.  Jack in the other room reading while Emma naps.  I sip this coffee slow so my energy is assured, or more or less expected.  Just heard from a prospect, not going with our services.  I expected that, honestly.  More an SMB opportunity than something Enterprise level.

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Monday.

Something like a day without a name and you only know it’s Monday ‘cause someone else said it.  Sending emails, looking for connections, contacts, the same.  Prepping for class tonight in a virtual sense virtually has me certain of certain things.  Like what… well, where I’m going. What I’m meant to do with my pages and words, this quarantine, the blog, the books, the books that come from blogs… can a blog come from a book?  I don’t know if there’s an order, or anything in this type of day.  Monday… the first of the week where I’ll run all days and wake up at 4 going forward.  How will I do that.  Bed earlier than I ever have.  And no matter how cold or chilly or whatever it is outside I’m getting out there, and running.  No excuses, no thinking about it, just running.

Writing in the quiet house with family gone… relieved, and already missing them.  Yes, this quarantine if that’s what it is has me wonderfully all types of all fucked up.  Should be prospecting, should be networking, should be should be SHOULD BE…..  Taking a break.  Already lined up one appointment, followed up on some email communication, and now what.

How much do I have in wallet.  Not sure why I’m wondering but I am.  Shit, okay, like six bucks.  Shutting down the spending.  Famous last words that I spoke as recently as I don’t know yesterday…?  The quiet forces me to consolidate, simplify, recognize what I’m taking with me when this period passes.  Quarantine indeed, from several attributes and realities, exposures, character voices and intrusions.

Monday in its metaphoric step and street assures what comes next.  And, frankly, it’s everything.  Everything I’ve written that I will and would do, see myself doing, presents itself to me and me to it when this quarantine’s over.  Frankly, I’m celebrating the quarantine, and you should be too.  And if not celebrating it then seeing it differently.  See the boon to it, the boost in its anatomy and what shape it takes in your day.

You need to stop thinking, completely.  And just start writing, creating, moving, changing what you want changed.  It’s Monday, so start in this sitting, where you are and what you see in front of you.  Looking at phone, don’t make calls.  Call to self… collect.  Where are you going… what do you see for yourself.  What story do you want to be read?

Education in the day, in what you’re doing, how you deal with this whole thing… by not “dealing” with it at all.  Living in it, creating through and out of it so that reality you see and have always seen for self finally lands.  Something landed, today.  A Monday.  Another but not another… the contract, the speak, the Newness to it, to you.  What will you do.  What new and renewed truths do you pursue?

Think it’s lunch.  What do I get, make, look for.  The indecisiveness in this quarantine has a rich and unexpected value-quality to it.  Need explore that more.  You, AND myself.

3/30/20

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from this morning

Drinking coffee from home, here, from that old ass Keurig thing.  Did I spell that right?  Guess I did.  Want a latte, this isn’t as tasty or literary, or animated, sexy like a latte.  Latte is just fun to say.  Coffee is boring.  What’s to this cup but something hot and containing caffeine?  Should I do Starbucks, just one last time? Swear I’m going to quit, just not swearing on anything, like a book or relic, some person’s lungs or anything like that.  Yes, one last latte. I will even title it so, the last latte, but with caps eventually.  Looking at my cup here on desk, and want it to go away.  I feel it just oozing boringness and more stress into my story and this desk, scene, workstation homed.  So yes, I’m getting wallet and some cash, and going.

                Kids… how do they stay as lively and excited as they are?  I guess from Jack’s way of not caring so much.  And haven’t I encouraged others around me, sales reps and community college students, so?  So…. Do so, Mikey.

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