2/18/20
Forget fear. Don’t let it pronounce your character. Write past it. Write further into it, not away from it. Know your narrative and how you do that is to keep the movement alive, and tireless, consistent and honest.
After 4pm. And I feel no fear of anything. Only a tranquility in each beat, each drum hit and note, each drip of reverbing ambiance. About to leave coLAB…. When home, empty backpack. Be lighter… only thing allowed in it, should I choose to carry it out with me tomorrow is the laptop.
Canvassing tomorrow in San Rafael, I’m thinking. In and out of Fiber territory. Not enough fiber out there… or maybe there is. Maybe I should not so much forget my vertical, but don’t be so confined to it.
2/15/20
Running. All I’m letting self think about, meditate in and over, and be. Stony Point Starbucks and of course my music won’t work. No wifi, or maybe it’s my phone. But, again… running. Yesterday did my old route from Sonic for the first time in I’d say over a month. The distance anyway, haven’t done THAT in a month or more. 8.12 miles, averaging 8.32/mile. Just ten seconds under my best average of 8.22 for an 8-miler at lunch. Will register for another race. Which one, and how long. Kind of want to do a 10k, or some random 8 or 10-mile project. I’ll look in a minute, but this morning getting into my car a young man was running, approaching me on the other side of Mountain Hawk Way. I opened the door to car and got in, watched him run down the hill. I thought to self, “HILLS”. Hit them, and hard today. Running will solve everything, all of this that I’m currently in (which I’m not writing about, only RUNNING), everything in business, teaching, writing surely, and even wine and my projects associated with that.
Yesterday having lunch with JC, owner of KIN and the Publican Bar/Pub just down the street in Windsor, and KINsmoke in Healdsburg. He told me his story, how he came to own several business, and what it all stemmed from was going out and doing, obtaining… no self-doubt or questioning. None of that. Then I thought about me as an AE, and running, and walking in the Berkeley streets and how I have to do that more. This morning, and yesterday’s 8.12 and today’s hill project, is the start of something. Yesterday toward the middle of my project, around mile 4 I’d guess, nearly sure, I thought of a tech company. Of my own. Starting with running, and focusing on all forms of health and wellness, happiness… living the life that you decide. The quote from Emerson, about nothing being achieved sans enthusiasm. I’m seeing that the enthusiasm can be compromised, hurt, stalled or paralyzed. Not today. Today is going to see something from me.
‘nother project… 100,000 words in 50 days. This will be the only such aim. And no obloquy, anywhere. Only elevating and healing tells and riles, purposes and decisions. This entry not part of the book, or series of books, but it’s coming. And none of it posted to blog. 2000 words a day without any flicker of failure.
Caffeine starting to work, I think. No music, which is troubling. May go to Sonic as I’d planned, since I know the wifi works there. And, it makes me think of my own company… all wellness, happiness, self-love and talk, education, everything that’s health.
Then, after the Sonic office, RUN. Launch from Mountain Hawk, go right down hill, or start by going left and up, then go down that one street then up another hill. Not sure how many miles I can accrue… may run to Montecito from Calistoga, then run up Fountaingrove. But that’s too much uphill, and far too consistent and extreme extremity of incline. I’ll figure it out.
8:41… more people in this Starbucks spot. Not much in the mood for Sonic, suddenly. Going o force self to go there. Start a new blog, but don’t buy url. First post, running. Why run. And why people that say they hate running should try it. Running is only fractional consideration of what running is, or does. It’s freedom, it’s breath, it’s sight and an angular accentuation of strength.
Started the site, or the startings of the site, ‘#alliwannadoisrun’. Will absolutely have to run more, do more races (which I couldn’t find by the way, or none before April… all good), less wine and get up earlier like the young man I saw this morning running down the hill, wiggling his arms as he began the equator of his decline. Not just running, and not just wellness… but assembly of SELF. Discipline, happiness, LIFE.
YOUR life – YOUR choice …
Perception, in the kitchen.
Running in the morning. Ahead on timeline. IF you could call it that. Great day in meetings, dinner with parents. Still hungry but not eating anymore. Writing novel on her… her… the one wanting more… the character changing jobs, going for creative and not the expected. I should go to bed, she orders. I resist knowing I shouldn’t. In Kerouac beat mode, on beat time. So what then… more story, more in this kitchen. Cards for the babies, Valentine’s Day. What is that. I’ve never known.
Going to have capping of night, then to bed go… running in morning. Have to write more on the run, the run is life, is love is reason, is the counter to the counter, the counterargument to anything pessimistic.
Sitting in this kitchen, at the parent’s house… some could judge, and that’s fine. I’m so focused on my control and centeredness of things. Some will argue, object and counter-cross-object and puff their legalistic language in so many climates and shapes, but I just don’t listen. Right now, I’m righted in my Now.
More than simple perception or sight, I don’t know how to define it and I really don’t know how. I don’t care to. I think of the poets I study, and the diarists I admire, like Ms. Plath and Pac, Hem with his letters, and Mr. Sedaris, and I find so much funny. I’m going to delight in life, knowing some will say something.
Distracted by messages. Should go to bed. And keep with my stance, keep with my keep, assert the sight and acknowledgement of everything around me. The world is funny, Humans are funny and barely deserve that capital. No one in this kitchen but me. Running when it’s dark. So.. go. Light jazz in back, and me just going from thought to thought, possibility to new newness with this new movement. Some would maintain a detriment in my narrative, but the peripatetic jabs are only a lucrative tell. Somehow, they ought be.
Wake earlier. Run more.
Aims with which I’m starting day, before meeting at 9 here in Rohnert Park. Never written at this shop before. No significance to it, just noting.
Also, write more. Could if I didn’t wake so close to 7. This exchange has thrown off my clock in a blizzard of forms. Trying to right self, be more in balance. Like Dad suggested… write in shorter form.
Fragments. Notes. Spun jots.
Move quicker. Think I’ll go to 24hour Fitness here in RP like I planned to last night, but then reasoned to run from Mountain Hawk base, and didn’t do that even.
More discipline.
More strength.
More fearlessness.
More forgiveness of SELF.
More love, sight, knowledge, humility, ZEN, acknowledgment of the Now… why you’re there and what you can do with it. With yourself in IT.
Smile.
Love the opposition, and rather than see it as opposition, love its invitation.
Lastly…. HONESTY. And no reluctance in telling truth. Even if it slightly or significantly harms you. There will be elevation and a distinct climb rhythm that follows.
2/12/20
Sent out another contract.
Back from meeting with leads group member. Busy day, and one of proverbial production. Going out to dinner with Dad. Think Monti’s. Not sure. Haven’t eaten all day, and not from election, just the way it worked. Product of my production. Zephyr of new ideas and stories land on my brain branches and tempt me to stay in this chair. How many people do this, stay at work longer than they have to. I do, as it’s not work. This is truly who and how and what I am.
The Mike Madigan form re-written, to more expanse and echo, communicative yields and movement. New Beat… one I’ll forever keep and replicate, within which set new slates and abet new gates.
LA LA LA
Didn’t even see one of my bigger prospects came through. So I already made quota for the month. So what, when the rest of my story is in ruin. Not sure what my next step is to be. Just focus on work, I tell myself. Not just focus, but drown yourself in it. Stay late. Arrive early.
Stony Point Starbucks again, with a 4-shot latte I bought at another shop. Not much sleep last night, and today I’m going to devote more than all dimensions and dialects of my creative might. But what do I pull from… of course, what I always suggest students do…. Where you are, what you’re doing. Like Dad’s piece the other night, the pages that painted the picture of a flight where everything that could go wrong, did. He claimed it wasn’t much writing as it was a report. Just my point, I thought in my head. That is the merit, that is the thesis. Everything that occurred, and a bit of inclusion of the narrator’s sentiment.
The exhaustion hits me again. Then an infuriating fury of furious indignation overtakes me. Zen it out. But how. Work. Don’t just focus on it… obsess in it. Be IT. The it to it all. The story and where I’m sitting, utter candor about everything transpiring around me.
What type of character will I be when this storm is over. What I’m thinking. Lonely writer finding himself in a coffee shop, with his phone’s music app not working and it beating on his patience and inner and universal composition. Need maintain. No options other. What do now… he keeps asking himself. Mike checks the time, 7:44. Make calls starting at 9. That means go home. Don’t want to. So what’s the other option, not do them? No… can’t do that.
Mike asks himself how he found self in this scene, with this circumstance set. Again, not of real impact or significance. Some people would just instinctively blame him…. Blame. Interest idea. Once blame is written and claimed and put to page, then what. Where am I going tonight… out to coast, possibly.
He keeps coming back to a horrendous idea. Dismisses it immediately. Would solve nothing. Keep writing… examine Mike’s character, where he is and what he’s doing I tell myself and maybe it would make a fine novel or memoir or stack of nonfiction shit pages I don’t know but I know the one thing that will shield me from anything is this… writing… no matter what some people might be saying about me. Knowing my NOW, freeing self in current Now and to another entirely possible. Through work… WORK. This and selling, or speaking, something. Last night realizing that this is the arrangement of my now, and that writing is evermore crucial, demanded…
Funny detail about this morning and me sitting at this table…. Another small thin bag ripped open with a plastic knife and opened used little cream cheese container just left here, for someone else, me, to remove and or clean. I did, and had to laugh to myself. Odd unexpected humor in the morning, and in this test I’m in… and I am being tested. My character and composition, my ability to deploy and adopt, purpose zen where needed. More than any intersection, tested. The only movement is work. And solitude with pages. So I’m not a lonely writing… I’m really not in a solitary slouch if the words accompany.
Where…. What…. And why. For the character. Music still not working. Hearing people talking and don’t want to… Two cops. Or, no. One. Over there talking, about something. Uncomfortable, and only want to be alone, by self, how will I make calls with this mood, this temperament. Why am I in a position to have to make calls. One day I’ll get there, where all I do is wait for referrals. Zen… composition… character. I’ll find more collection and quiet at the coast, with the water, waves, if there are any seals or sea lions or whatever out there.
All I can think about, my kids. And I tear up in this coffee shop but then somehow swallow them with aid of page, these sentences, where I am and what I’m doing… writing like Dad does. Why does everything have to be a long fucking paragraph, I think… Dad taught me that’s not the case. So this morning, would look like…..
Mike wakes just a touch after five, gets in car and heads to Santa Rosa.
Heads to Starbucks on Stony Point, works for a bit but then decides that there’s too much a possibility he could be spotted, or interrupted, so he hops again in that garbage can of a Prius and starts travel to 101, then 12, then Stony Point.
Finally, quiet. Writing… get to a hundred pages he tells himself.
Words. A hundred WORDS.
The Starbucks volume elevates. Mike become more annoyed, agitated, centered in the current occurrences in his story. People talking, one cop talking to one person in distance. They left the table.
Cold now. Mike thinks about driving around in warm car. That’ll cost. Every penny counts in this story, this chapter or vignette, set of chapters, days… whatever a reader would say.
Then, I feel more collected and eased than I have in days. And can’t explain why. Thinking of Kerouac and some of the letters he wrote, his novels, Big Sur when he was in like-statements. I’m not worried, I’m not sad, remorseful, happy or anything. Just on page, in this chair, at the back table. Ready for my drive to Berkeley, and meetings later. Must be the latte and its 4-shots. Think it’s finally working, thankfully. Couple emails coming in, responses.. still haven’t submitted that contract. What am I waiting for. Not sure. What do I, want from the day. I.
ME.
ME.
What do I want.
More pages and conversations, just not with people. With characters, the one I was writing years ago but for some reason stopped. I’ll return to him, then her. Forgot about her… but more interested in him, and his story, study of character and language, what he eats in the morning if anything.. maybe he’s like me and almost never has breakfast. Would he leave a ripped bag with crumbs, a plastic black knife, and that disgusting crumb-cakes cream cheese…?
2/7/20
2/5/20
9:16, and writing on the floor, poised for bed. Early tomorrow with leads group. Hopefully a run at some point tomorrow. When… not thinking about that now. Ideas for a blog, then another, then a book, then wellness, then self-improvement something or…. Dad’s stories, about the flight where everything that could go wrong did. He argues it’s not writing but a report and that if he had to expand upon all the points it’d be over ten pages then me responding why not. More and more I appreciate the cruel curtness of life.
Watching news, weather changing… Spring coming, maybe, not sure but the news says so. What will the impact be on me, my re-write, my sight, everything in this story. Event tonight with people speaking of me as some noted speaker, and I tell them NO (kindly)… I’m a writer. I speak like everyone does, or can, but I write. Was humbled, and gave an intro about the speakers group, then had tacos and only one beer. I say ‘only’ as you might think this beatnik would have two, or follow the first with a glass of whatever that dive pours. NO…. calm and balance, ZEN in the re-write.
Further into my zen studies, practice and acknowledgement of character consolidation, temperament, time, collection, composition… like now, with me on floor, back against bed, news on only for that “white noise” effect. I’ll be honest, not looking forward to waking as early as I have to with this leads group, but I will. Re-write, of everything. No need for permission, no need for any angst or anger, pessimism or edgy post.
This re-write of self isn’t to appease anyone, not even self, or apologize for anything, but to lift stages of Self, and understand the character and narrative note with more namesake and communicative property.
2/4/20
My sister’s birthday. She, turning 39. Time again reminding me to move quicker. With more efficiency, yes, but with more. Of everything. Intention and sight, focus and fixation, containment. Going through leads….
Sending more emails than I have I think in weeks. 3:!9 now. May head over to the office in a bit. Canvassing and prospecting these small businesses today in BMK, not the Now I want as an AE. I need bigger houses, tech, or something tech associated. Found a couple prospects through research…. TECH. What….
Yes, just tech. Everything tech. Software developers, video game designers, software engineers… everything in that vertical. Honestly, I’m getting annoyed by all the one or two-character coves when prospecting. I’m going more than at a high velocity, to be in altitudes of mirroring height.
Added some companies to Follow-up grid. Now, zenning… meditation, collection. Today, marking a couple appointments, making a handful of connections and conversations arriving. Still in odd tilt from past few days. Telling self to be enveloped and engulfed, CONSUMED by work. More and more sights with my concentration on tech, or anything tech-associated… it all returns to having clients be at ease, pleased.
After this last cluster of minutes in day, head to parents for sister’s birthday. More than likely will spend night there, work more tonight and research more tech dimensions and enclaves in Marin, East Bay (Berkeley), some SF. It’s more than internet or phone, it’s principle and pervasive solution for businesses. Thinking of not giving life to wine blog, vinovinevin, but beginning a tech-centered blog… a stream of notes and musings and findings, associated with tech, yes, but more business and best practices for tech companies.
Brevity, in everything. Not going to keep repeating the word “tech”. Ugh….. Brevity in all communication, expression… let your prospect respond.
Knowing Now, FREED
Starbucks down the Road from Sonic’s HQ. I feel more Zen in all molecules and movements than I have in some time. From being honest with Self. You have to be, finally… about certain things. If you deny, or interpret it conveniently, then only more trouble compiles. I’m not going into specifics, and I don’t have to…. The specifics aren’t the intention of such a note… it’s the pattern, the habit, and practice. Diving into Zen practice, Zen ideology, and habit, mind, more than just some trendy mention of mindfulness, more than even me being here physically acknowledging certain realities, and behaviors. Knowing your Now entails so much beyond the Now itself… but what brought you here, to where you are, where you’ve been… why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you’ve done certain things and traveled in particular directions.
This morning, waking around 5:30 and heading here, to this same Starbucks where I’m not sitting and working and thinking about the past couple days…. Here I am, like this, in this sense and mind. A mind and way I love, where the Zen envelops me and teaches me about the directness of life, directions in one’s story…. There are choices, then there are circumstance possible given from some other being or force, or collective individualized intent.
Not sure what I’m writing, or even why I’m writing, but I know there’s a trajectory I want to avoid. For all sakes, for all pages. So, honesty. This Monday has tested me in certain arenas, then encouraged me in others. Realizing that there need be a shift with the ship. One step, I guess…. Sales Meeting in 1 hour, 11 min. Then class later. Then home.
One jolt in my world, anxiety… separation anxiety from my kids. Writing it makes me tear, but I know fortitude is the only electable echo and forward. Eating carrots with ranch, part of some lunch box that came with a sandwich, and a sparkling water. Collect, I tell myself. Wait for more connectedness from the day.. more instruction. Think about your kids… how you want them to see you, study your actions. Be deserving of study.
My age, and having these realizations. What does that mean. Where am I going. What more can I do. Well, I finally know. So no attaching self to past. No more in-place holes or ruts, stalls or cells. I’m here, I’m doing it… re-writing the character. Writing the entire story. Me, where I am and what I’m doing… knowing my Now and its entire composition. Sonic provides more composition, more than a platform but specific composition of a bridge to get me from one reality to another. What I put into circulation, how I treat my bones, veins, brain. Staying on the page, the first motion to line dividing sky and sea. Music.. all of it. I’ll make it all music, musical, a healing composition. No matter what happens next. Unafraid, eager, writing more, clear images and steps… a renewed beat and beauty in my promised truth-speak.
2/3/20