No nap, today, fought against pull and push to do so. Thanksgiving over, wife out shopping at one of those shopping special eve whatever’s. Me, home. Wine. Just finished glass of Claret. The night passed with such cruel progression. Indifference. Babies asleep upstairs. What movie do I watch, my dilemma. My life’s trouble. Think of how fortunate I am with my family and to have such family, to be sitting where I am, here on this we seek to shed, new one one the way… Day of giving thanks, I need to show more giving of thanks, being thankful.

Tonight, I do intend exploring more wine. No aim to wake at 4am or 4:10 like this day. No. I may actually just sleep in. I will. What do I mean, “may”? May have to punch out. Take the night as it approaches me, describe and translate it, or in such order reversed… then wake tomorrow with more thought. More story. More ME. Tired now, forgetting I’ve been up since 4-something. Think 4:10. Has it been that long? Yes. It has. Me, that writer. Now. Time to Self and I sip wine and be here, writing. A writer.

Does the writer want apple pie or Chardonnay? Both sound like they sound, their own precise appeal and connection. I’m not torn between both but urge to be curved by both, somehow. 9:08. Feel like bed but I won’t. I can’t. But more, I refuse. Why can’t I be a human, just have dessert or drink wine. Is it that complicated? Are my thoughts the hinderance, the block and or impediment? I think it may be just that. Not in any kind of a writing swoop, and I can’t figure anything of it out. How does pine figure. What type a figure be me, I, this writer.

I feel like I’m not doing a thing, while doing too much. A mess. Should have taken a nap.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Committed to finishing at least four tracks

tonight, poems and prose to be read.  Jack and I now watch some carton before bed.  Only now do I get a chance for prose.  Yesterday running the half, going to winery to work event that was even more physically taxing than the race, then home.  Now sitting.  And no session today till now.  Today, whole, with family.  Which we needed, which little Keroauc most specifically requested.  So I posted the class.  Now, everything I write will be sold– blog writing like this is what is temporarily rendered “disposable story”.  I may sell it later, but immediately this and other leaps like are merely entries, diarism from the penning cavalier…  My attitude becomes freer and more separatist wing flap than anything before, sipping my Claret and thinking about the day with family, how amazing it felt not to have to be a fucking adjunct tonight– not having to be somewhere cuz they said ninjas to– and then they’ll say, “You agreed to the assignment.” Yes, I agreed, not wanted.  Were there so many other elections to caress?  And like you plate so many more pedagogical aperitifs for the writer.  Don’t care what they think anyway so it’s not worth writing.  You’ll say I’m being negative but no this fearless curvature quips the yay-sayer’s beckon.

9:27M–  both babies asleep, I think.  Emma no longer in her bassinet and img_5719Jackie cuddling with Ms. Alice, temperament settled for evening, and how much a rich stretch it is to finally write.  Wanted to go for a covert run today, at some point, but did little exercises in pool, and will do push-ups throughout night.  Vacation on the mind but writing about it the whole time, what writing fathers think about, or me anyway, while babies sleep.–  Wife just texted me from Upstairs, “Sure is quiet…” We’re both afraid to go in and check on Ms. Austen, afraid we’ll wake the gorgeous little Victorian from her rest and have to do it ALL over again.  Hear movement upstairs, think Alice leaving Jack’s quarters.  And then what…  She comes downstairs.  But to tell me that Jack wants me for a minute to talk before bed, and I think “OH here we go.” I know just how this goes, I go up and we talk then get a little silly, telling jokes and throwing stuffed animals at each other, then Alice comes up to tell us ‘stop it!’, or ‘BEHAVE’, something like that.  So I go up and talk to him, Alice comes in to supervise and calm him down in prep for sleep, I go in and check on little Ms. Austen two or three times to makes sure all’s well in her little pack-and-play thing, whatever it’s called.  And the night is off, at my desk with a nightcap, glass of the ’13 Taylor I took home last night.  Have runner’s guilt, isn’t that funny?  I ran 13.1 miles yesterday and I feel like a pig gelatinous right now for not running.  Pushups, only solvent.

But holding off a bit, as I’ve been noosed by other pulls from the day, one a picture Alice took of little Kerouac and I walking but Spring Lake, just gone in our moment, not saying a word, looking at the water and the weeds around us, thinking and looking for the next scene ingredient to address in some conversation, some wholeness about our characters—  My little Artist is much more sagacious than anything I was, am, or ever will be.  Not sure if that’s pathetic that my son’s more adept at so much more than his English Professor and Writer fahter but I’m sharing what I observe, and what I observe I’m not qualified to comment on.  He’s a stratosphere, and ionosphere, a mesosphere of manuscript potential, as is his little Victorian sister.  Getting distracted by my ideas which happens when you sip any kind of wine in concert with exhaustion, be it half-marathon-caused or not.  And now, wine gone.  Last sip.  I’m learning that the academic institutional clasps that everyone so much wants to be a part of simply abhor me.  That’s why I have no takes doubled from calling in tonight.  Calling in, and what are they going to do?  The ‘They’?  I can teach, I will teach, I don’t need some building, some department, some curriculum or joke course “outline”?  So funny how they promote and ‘profess’ freedom yet they have these bloody outlines for us.  Where’s the freedom in that?  “Oh, but —— is one of the most prestigious [or sought-after, or high-ranked, or what the fuck ever] community colleges in the country…” Yeah, so I need them?  How does that rattle my written rile?  I’ll be more brave, borderline bumptious with my efforts.  No one will do a thing, certainly not in the academic world— they’re too convicted and concerned with being academics.  Why not writers?—  Think I heard something upstairs.  Emma?  Jack?  The writing father again interrupted by his concern and love for the babies.  What was that noise?  Should get up and go check but I’m too into my words and this moment, at the desk with this empty wine glass I more than plan on filling for one more elixir’d transaction.  Feel like Kerouac, yes my son but also my lit hero, here at this wooden surface typing on these keys thinking about tomorrow but how can I even entertain a tomorrow when today hasn’t closed.  Too many writer’s act in ripples of absolution when in comes to time.  Why not just be in-moment, mold it, act within and around and about it?  Not saying I’m right I’m just offering how I’m writing right now in this home office with an empty glass— oh the most begged and predictable symbol of anyone examining one’s own or another’s perspective.  ‘Is the glass half-empty or half-full?’ As if they’re so smart when they pose such.  No pose from me.   See the glass as something I need fill immediately—

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Only Set

I should be working on an application to something, for something, but I’m not going to.  NOPE NOPE NOPE—  Not with all this free time, freeing time where I can be further freed.  Set my clock again, counting down 24 hours, right when I arrived at sbux this morning.  Cancelling run today so I can work in the home office, consolidate and brainstorm, and ACT.  When the 24 is up, I want something significant to material.  Away from what I don’t need and more toward what my Story requires.  Acquired ‘nother coffee from the cafeteria, so I have more than enough fuel.  Woke this morning to 4AM alarm, and what a shock I went right the fuck back to sleep.  Other adjunct in the shared office, and my laptop dwindles in power.. INVENTORY CURRENT:  Comp Book, laptop, wallet, phone, bag (inside of which is some straying papers, not many, pens and other life-pieces).  Relatively light today.  Key is to travel light as a writer, I’m finding.

Course:  MORE DECIDED WRITER, YOU

Eight lectures; each lecture two pages, double spaced.

Planning and planning, now I switch mode from acting to always-acting.. and again, consolidate…

Other adjunct leaves room, I should go in, charge the laptop and plot rest of day.  Writing, finishing the awks letter.  Again, run cancelled.  Have to change my writing and professional life, and I will, watch, and in a drastic way, overnight, or 24 hours—

Keep sipping the coffee, I tell myself.  Don’t stop with the words, in any respect!  Told the students this morning that “You don’t always have time for a full sentence.   Sometimes a singular word will have to do.” I’m in that position, altogether.  Feel like if I take the time to fill out some app for a distant CC, I’be shedding writing time carelessly.  Stop deliberating!  Quiet in the conference room— written that before….  My photog’ buddy, Dav, on a travel for journalism’s purpose, for his studies.  Just what this writer targets.. should walk around the campus and just take pictures, then go for a drive, go through all the material and write from there.  He’s in Italy, my friend, and records with his lenses and writes.  I should be on the Road with him, or on my own, just gathering, gathering…  In this conference room I feel like a professor and writer but with contingencies, I fucking hate that!  I’ve always said my ultimate of ultimate aims with writing and artistry has been freedom, and freedom isn’t found in an application, nor playing by expectation’s planned maze and stressful trapeze.  I’ll go for a walk, go into the library, walk around campus, then back to the cell.  On way home, drive down Guerneville Road, stop at a vineyard, take pictures, shoot a video maybe, anything.  Zen.. Wellness.. Meditation.  I’ll be on the Road soon, I will be, and when I am I’ll only write by hand, no laptops.  Of course, if there’ a nearby library I may post to blog— no, I will, but the fixating practice will be with ink.

One of the lectures in the ‘Decided Writer’ piece will be on location, finding one that connects with you, that teaches you something about yourself and how you measure your surroundings.

Having trouble waking up.

“Have some coffee then, Mike,” the coffee chants from inside that tumbler.

But it’s biased, right?

Why should I listen to it?  Well.. because for the writer coffee is holy.  I’ve always said that alcohol, even or actually especially wine, slows and stumps, sectionalizes the writer.  I take a deep chug of that sumatra, wait for something to happen—  That’s just my problem, has been one of my biggest problems, my whole goddamn life.  Waiting for something to happen.  So I very much need this detour home with the pictures of vineyards and new sounds, sights that are close to the Autumn Walk Studio that I never knew about.  My whole life on display, so I can understand it better, so readers can maybe understand themselves more usefully, and so I can understand with more grace and introspective geography why I’m so needed by, in need of, words; WHY I WRITE.  Why am I writing right now?  Why don’t I go home early, take a nap, or go to the gym and do some speed work, or drive up to the Healdsburg Square and take myself out to lunch with all this extra money I have before bills and other obligatory shit swallows it?  Because the paragraphs call.  I’m with my vision, loving where my thinking takes me.  Meditation…  Understanding (not just awareness, or “self-awareness”).  Knowing your character, heightened tenacity in self-connection.

Wrote a spoken-word piece in class today, when I prompted the matriculants write a self-portrait, in any form they saw warranted, prose, poem, hybrid, whatever.  Like what I wrote, surprisingly, but I think it’s drained me for the day.  Think I do need that nap— shit, laptop lower on power, down to 16%.  Precisely why when I’m on the Road it’ll be a pen-to-paper mission.

After short break I arrive in the adjunct cell, pull up the newsletter doc, and get to work.  Just need enough readers, what I tell myself.  And I’m quite sure that’s the key.  AND… sleeplessness.  One commonality with all these successful entrepreneurs is long, sleepless, crEATive nights.  Mine, my first, tonight.  Buy 7UP on the way home, and sparkling water (remind remind remind) —

Talk with full-timer friend.  Her views on the profession are bitter, embittered, exhausted and defeated.  Then I think of this blog, a lifestyle blog, me looking at my reflection and wanting to not just be better but more, more for my kids and always coming home happy.  I do now for the most part, but there could be more a beam from me when I pull up to the Autumn Walk Studio.

Back to working on the letter.  The coffee again fails me, just making it so I have to pee every ten minutes it seems.  Annoying.

(5/16/16)

mikemadiganLeave a comment

me:  tired adjunct, 5/11/16

img_3062Just finished working on ‘the awks’, which is already late, me missing my own deadline.  No worry, I’ll send it out on Sunday night.  In the office this morning, Alice back in her classroom after a lovely maternity leave, time with Ms. Emma—  the other side of the door, the theatre classroom, playing some Lady Gaga song, “Applause”.  Like the song, but was enjoying my quiet.  Supposed to go for a run after this, but not sure I have the energy.  The coffee isn’t much helping the exhausted adjunct, after a wonderfully inspiring meeting with my English 5 crew.  That student, ’S’, again propelling me to be stronger and more fluid in what I do as an educator hearing her talk about her transfer to UC, the last classes she’s taking here at the JC, and how she’s walking away with TWO A.A.’s.

I’m a fucking student, I remind myself.  OF myself, my teaching, life, what I can do with this life, and I don’t have to settle or tolerate simplicity and excess order, patter, orders from any flabby-thinking title-hugging slug.  I’m independent.  I work for ME.  And I l know Mom’s reading this, so I assure I’m in no mood— or yes I am, one CONFIDENT, strong, sure what I’m doing is the right thing, as a writer, listening to this jazz in my head, turning on actual jazz here in the office— shit, have to go to bank, get checks till the ones I ordered arrive.  Yes, my thoughts are everywhere but it indicates no scatter or lack of focus but more so the drive in this writer to use and taste every minute of his written day.

A run.. ugh, feel more tired just thinking about that treadmill.  Maybe I shouldn’t.  Maybe I should hold off.  But that’s just rationalizing procrastination.  And look what happened to my newsletter…  I procrastinated, and already with letter 2.  So no, one way or a-bloody-nother, I’m getting to the gym for speedwork on that fucking treadmill.

But a nap sounds SO GOOD!

No, don’t do it.

Be tireless with everything, show the world that nothing wears on you—

I know, talking to myself.  But this is the motivation I need and the only place I can get it is in this adjunct cell, this office I share, writing to myself.  But I’m really writing for all of you, showing you that I’m learning as I go, that I’m not above anyone or anything.  We all struggle together.

Stretching in this chair, leaning as far back as I can then returning to the keys.  On the way home: bank, then ready for gym.  Or maybe I should just run around the house.  Or maybe I should stop overthinking it, just see what the story orders of me.  I’m still learning, remember.  I’m a student.  One who never wants to “graduate”.  Just keep learning, discovering, transcending realities and understandings.  Grow with more understanding.  And there I am.  A real student, finally.  I’ve learned something.

Thank you, Me.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

1,000 words — barrel 3

Want to sit for a thousand words but I’m not holding myself to anything.  I’m strangled by time and obligation, and tiring of the patternized words used.  A new keyform for me hopefully.  A slow surmise of sorts.  Told my students that if they’re bored or still in their writing, or “blocked”, then they should do something crazy.  But what can I do now here in this home office with my son upstairs asleep and me just here looking at The Bell Jar, and the papers I still have to grade.  Next week, digits doubled for term, and soon I’m liberated on my front.

The members today, at their party, for the most part content and conversational.  Me, in awe of the wines poured and the surroundings, another ride down the hill on the back of that tractor, or on the flatbed bed pulled by tractor.–  I realized on the way down that tomorrow has to be the day, where I wake at 5AM, no matter how tempting it is to go back to that pillow, under that sheet.

Last night’s Cab me calls but I dispute its beckon.  Thinking of myself as a winemaker looks interesting from the eyes out, from the vineyards in.  Hard to punctuate what I feel and what to say, sing, but it’s on page.  Maybe I’ll remember to explain and expand later.  Or maybe I won’t.  The house is quiet now and I feel I have to type in the same volume and octave as everything else so I don’t stir anything or anyone, little Jack.  More I think about teaching, here in the home office and how the full-timers are so sure, some adjunct too, that they’re experts when it comes to form and stories, literature be it poetry or narratives or short stories but have never even self-published or blogged anything, infuriates me.  But I return to my moment, this office, or room as soon as you step in the Autumn Walk hut.

What if I decide to teach nothing next term?  I won’t do this, of course, as I’ll have two babies at that point, but it’s just something to think about.  I can’t enact the craziness I encourage of my students, or at least in this vein.  My mood sinks, as I realize I’m weighed down by my age and place in life, my maturity if you could call it that and how I am, just me, this Mike– goddamn it!  I just want to write crazily and travel and not look back at anything or anyone, come back home to my babies and tell them everything I observed and lived, read it to them from the journals.  I still can, right?  Desultory directions only encourage the writer, and the characters around me yes drawing them and drawing from them, everything I can gather and when I think I’m stuck I’ll embrace and enact the crazy in Mike–  Frankly, I’m just sitting here on this couch just as I did in the condo and wonder how I should write, how I should change and if change is the bloody solution.  “Solution?  Solution to what?” I don’t know really.  Just helped Ms. Alice prepare a mechanized swing for Ms. Emma.  And now the whole wholeness and immediacy of another baby in this house constricts me, yes pleasurably but does constrict.  Alice went upstairs and I back to this couch to finish my thoughts but I lost them.  They perfectly strayed.

Why am I forcing myself to write on this couch, my scribbler sarcophagus; innate and inane and immobile.  And as a writer, I have to ask: “WHERE is my writer story set for, and WHEN?” And I’m not just addressing or entertaining time with ‘when’, I’m talking about character development and me in my zen factored with Personhood and so many other existential variables.  I love the meal of journey, thinking of it.. just imagining the here-to-there-ism of it all.  And writing along the way, everything, from the fold-down trays on the planes to the clouds you see below the wings, those passing mountains that you swear you’re the first one to optically ingest, to the wine they have onboard– atrocious, yes, but you sip anyway, you don’t care, this is an adventure and you’ve never done it before so you throw yourself in, quick and lovingly; the angel’s spin to a musical nondigital bliss–  I’m curious what I’m capable of, terms of testing my written and studious, vocational, efficacy.  Tonight I watched a show with Alice but as soon as it ended I noticed myself relaxing with her and not doing much of anything but idling, immobility– that won’t complete a MS, and Ms. Emma nears in her landing.  So I rose from the couch to Alice’s irritation and made for the study.  Where I began this entry, reading a new book, and now I sip the rest of last night’s Hawley, and forget about all chains, readers who might intersect with these lines and think “wow he writes only about wine, how boring,” or, “What is the point to this?” I don’t mind, and I don’t mind them, pay them even a small cup of mind, not even one of the tasting room’s regulated 1 oz pours.  Life is mine and it’s finally talking directly to me with rich stage-worthy dialogue; monologues and soliloquies and sharply stark sentences propelled into the audience’s space, leaving more space for growth and written diarist escape.

I formulated something by happenstance, or maybe not happenstance but by inadvertent intent, meaning I intended it but didn’t know I did; some subtexted dance of the Unconscious–  Rescinding certain thoughts, and just going for characters, this new one, not so new, and her name not important in this type but I know her, readers will want to know her, and she will know herself better after I write her.

Only a little wine left.  I study my character, the wine’s more so.  It’s more interesting than me.  I’m writer to it, revolving now around it, that little purple Cab puddle in the coffee cup (was too lazy to reach up and get a wine glass)–  It doesn’t care about me, it’s the celebrity.  I’m paparazzi.

(10/17/15)

mikemadiganLeave a comment

MOCK SOMM: Sanglier Cellars, Sonoma County, “Touché”, Grenache, 2012

IMG_7923It had been a while since I last tasted the Grenache from one of my favorite little producers in the county but I thought it warranted, last night just wanting to have something a little different.  It wasn’t too hot outside as it had been and the commonplace SB or Chard didn’t hit me in thought and meditative angles.  “I need something red and celestial, gentle but assertive in certain corners of the palate,” I internally intoned.  So I pulled the last Sanglier Grenache from my cellar.  And immediately I was riled by the spiral of earthy red fruit, meaning mostly raspberries and pleasant medium-red jam-reminiscent tremolos that talk to the palate and encourage those second-looks which aren’t bizarrely over-analytical, or even analytical at all.  That’s not why I opened it, I didn’t want to be a wine critic and I didn’t want to be critical, I just wanted a charming musical soar of a red and I was sure I’d find it here in Sanglier’s translation of Grenache.  And I did, oh… I did.  Small run on this bottle so I’d get some soon, if I were you.  Just don’t buy too much.. this writer needs some more.  [JOKE?]  And with the food I’m used to ordering or enjoying here in the writerhut, like Mexican or light red pasta, or even a burger from this place my wife and I love down the street, it’s perfect, versatile and vivacious from sip one to last.  The blend on it’s 75% Grenache and 25 Syrah, so it’s linear in its note sequence of the fruit complexion and tempered oak talk, but not in any way simplistic or plebeian.  This is a bottle that any Rhône or red adorer should have on their home shelf.  Perfect beat and bravado but as I affirmed nothing excessive in volume, or ‘voltage’ as I sometimes say.  The Touché will have saying to yourself, “Touché”, a bit seductively startled that a Grenache could have such depth and amorous modes.

mikemadigan1 Comment

Pinot and the Penner

IMG_6856On my last Pinot glass, and feeling relieved and free, with this consolidating urge, all writings funneled and filtered into one effort or voice, or book– that’s what it is!  I say to myself.  I need only to write books.  This wine tells me to fall further into wine’s story and into the voracious vortex that laments my wine curiosities.  and I won’t lie, reader, I very much feel the wine tonight, oh yes I do like Hemingway at La Coupole, scribbling away at my novel and — then I think of something else to do.  Away with this notebook, I tell you– or laptop rather (that wast he wine typing, there)… earlier writing in my little notepad on the patio of this Autumn Walk base, looking out at the street, watching Jackie play with his friends and even when there was no one there, on that pavement, I thought of the moment and how terrific, utterly, it was and is to be here on this street as a writer, watching you only son interact with the other younglings… another sip of this Boekenoogen ’13 Pinot.  Knowing I need to have my own label directly in motion at 2016’s beginning, seeing my son in the tasting room, greeting people and telling them we’re pouring this, that, a blend and a single vineyard whatever…

Getting up at 5AM tomorrow morning, somehow.. last glass nearly finished.  But then I look down at, to left to couch’s side, and I see I have at least two maybe three lion-like licks left.  Shit.. why did I pour myself another glass?  I blame myself and the day back at the winery today and how it, Arista, even more made the writer yodeling in wine’s promise.  So now what.. I guess just drink my glass last, and watch a movie, one that will keep the writing writing in morrow’s harsh morrow.

(8/29/15)

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Matured in Vintage (wine/vino/vin principles, code)

cup 1
cup 1

5:54AM and at keys, no not as early as I wanted but I’m here typing, thinking about taking on other clients and if I do that how my own writing will suffer.  But enough of that now, the story for the day outlined and submitted, to ME, and I approve wholeheartedly.  Coffee already accompanying my movements and the wine ideas still very much building and fermenting and catapulting themselves at my thinking down here in this Autumn Walk hut.  Jackie still asleep, and me pressured by the pressure I put on myself and the timeline with my daughter getting here in the Winter, or late Fall (guess that’d be late Fall, early December).  So the end to these means is me writing much more, teaching less (meaning no more Mendo or Solano), and building my business.  I’m never leaving the classroom, certainly not at SRJC anyway.  Have to get deeper– or rather ‘further’ into wine’s story.  And how?  Go out there and get what the consumer or even local wine-inspired figure wants: the visuals, the story, the moment-to-momentness of wine itself.  I’ll find that today in Napa’s downtown.  And one more thing I have decided…  I am starting my own label, I will be making wine, next year.  If I did this year it would only be a hobby that would stress me out and I wouldn’t be able to monitor the fruit and the fermentation as I should, be there at the crush pad with it as Glenn was when the SB arrived last week, at that “Punch Down” facility right down the road from here, actually.

I have it decreed in my Comp Book, and now here, for this semester and forever, that my goal is

cup 2
cup 2

to make my own wine; a humbly organized label, maybe 3,000 css, 5k maximum, and only over a couple types.  I don’t want to make as many different wines as some do.. or maybe I do, that way they all, ideally, sell out.

And this would be a secondary business.  Not a hobby but like what Glenn’s winery is to his larger more mammoth vineyard business.  And my site wouldn’t be a wine “education” site, just a general sharing and through that sharing people would become privy, or “educated” if you will, on wine and what happens behind the scenes and in the trenches as I used to do for that factory winery in Kenwood– entertaining and engaging, all pieces short and to the point, truly using brevity as our boon.

Definitely going to Napa today to acquire material, images, maybe a couple new wines.  but if I can’t taste why would I buy them?  Going to have price and ‘value’ be my aims.  And only a couple bottles.  Have to watch all spending…  Just checked accounts, made CC payment, and I’m equalized, “golden”, more than stable.  In fact, financially I’m doing quite well, with the college checks to roll in at next Month’s beginning.  Need to launch my site sooner than soon.  And I’m thinking have it be a WordPress site and not a Weebly-based one.  Again, to think about, but I’m quite settled on WordPress as it’s a blogging site and I’m very much a blogger, not a web designer.  But…..

Jack still not up and my first cup done.  So next, this writing dad… make cup 2, go up and gently wake my little Beat, and go from there.. don’t plan so much.  And, just a Self-note: max clients, 4.  Not a page of paper or word more.  FOUR, no more.

(8/25/15)

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Back In Class

IMG_1003And I have to applaud myself for working/writing myself out of a mood which was generated by my email getting hacked, some dimwit sending out a letter saying I was in fucking Turkey.. and needed money.  That, and I have grading for Summer to do, then planning for Fall, then the pick tonight at Old Camp.  But I calm, as it’ll all get done, I know.  I have managed to clear my desk a bit– oh, just remembered I need to charge my cameras, phone.. everything before the launch tonight.  No run today, as I have written on my calendar.  Thought about taking a nap, and that probably would help but I wouldn’t be working– have to stay working and writing.  Have notes typed up for meeting with Chelsea tomorrow.. need to designate notebooks for classes, and don’t EVER overlap.  Simple, simplified.. less is better.

Alice to bring home lunch in a bit.. not much more I can due right now but rightly write freely here at the desk, in the home study.  I now truly embrace the idea of “nothing new”.  No new projects, no new directions, no new anything– well, new clients I’ll take, but with a keen eye, careful and not at all with whim.

IMG_1005

While at Costco with Alice this morning, I motioned to look at my phone and she told me not to, “Be free for a minute,” she said, then seconds later disclosing how she intentionally left hers at home, again emphasizing freedom.  And she’s right.  Why should this email hack bother me at all?  AT. ALL.?  Kerouac didn’t have email.. a phone.. neither did Hem, Plath.. I know I’m in the blogging arena, and that comes with emails and social media, and this goddamn laptop.  But I don’t have to be chained.  In my little black book of ideas for mikemadigancrEATive I jot: “plan for tomorrow”, “less is better”, and “nothing new less you have to”.

Enjoying some music here in the study.. go plug in battery/charger for camera.. done.  Mind IMG_1008swirling and I’m having trouble stopping it, which I suppose is a benefit, a boon for me as a business owner, right?  Thinking the content tonight should be 50/50, video and still, but I’ll see.  I have to feel the scene and see what the story tells me to do.  Words come first.  I’ll bring my little notebook but I doubt I’ll be able to see anything out there, in the dead of night/earliest of mornings.

IMG_10097:24PM.  And after the most fierce battle with tech that I’ve found myself engaged in, in months, if not a year (calling what I thought was an IT number but was only a scammer.. luckily I hung up and disconnected internet connectivity), I’m back at the laptop with renewed appreciation, and total embrace of the simple approach to writing, my business, life.  Alice had it right this morning, put the phone down.  It’s down now, believe me, and with under 5 hours, actually just over 4 hours till departure for the vineyard, I’m in the mind state and frame I need.  And to add to today’s attack on the writer, the SF prospect passed, stating her editor didn’t like my revisions.  Of the original sample I sent.  And honestly, I’m fine with it.  She very much tried to help me, which I appreciate.  And who knows what her editor wants.  I don’t care what any editor wants if you must know– well you already do.  I’m focusing on the wine, the winemaking, the vineyards, wine writing, me, my family, building this business so my babies will have the option to share one day the office with me.

IMG_1010_1

Jackie home from swimming lessons, which I took him to, Alice staying home and resting which she needs, carrying little M.  While watching him, in the water, me not looking at my phone and seeing so many parents looking at their screens completely ignoring the processes of their IMG_1013children in the pool.  The instructors were far more attentive that those parents.  But not me.  I watched everything little Kerouac did in the water, sitting on Ms. Ashley’s lap and letting her take his arms to make the stroking movements.  My phone now still in pocket.  There it stays.  And the email that was hacked, letting it die.  Never using it again.  Now only my vinolit address used for business.  And to everyone who tries to contact me through the old address.. well…..  If the story wants us to stay connected we will be.  I’m moving on and distancing myself from this technological terrorism and dependency.  I’m going to continue to be the odd one who doesn’t look at his goddamn phone every five seconds.  I’m going to always be the lunatic watching his son swim in the pool, or the view of the vines or how the tree moves with gusts.  I’m an artist, not a device dependent drone.  I’m alive, they’re not.  They’re less than alive.  They’re devices themselves, with vices about their movements and interactions.  Not this writer.  At present, this laptop not connected to the internet, and I love the detachment!  I love the art of my movements and my breathing, the way I push the keys even feels better, much more richness in the sounds.

IMG_1015Going through the camera I see so many images that I haven’t used, and the video camera I haven’t used has material as well.  And no connection to the internet for these tech pieces, so no chance of getting hacked.  Yes, I know, but still tech.  A compromise you could say.  In the vineyard I’ll go from camera to camera, and if I can write notes, single words not burdening myself with full sentences or any kind of proper grammar as these editors want.

Funny the email said I was in Turkey, as I’d love to go to Turkey, have always wanted to go there and write about the streets and all the merchants, the customs and scents and buildings, wherever I could go.  And the danger that people speak of and warn Americans against, what fuel for the writing. For THIS writer, dodging and hiding from whomever…  I need travel, and this hacking event today, if you could even deem it an “event”, only made Mike more resolute.. nearer to book’s completion, my travels, and more enhancement of life quality for my family.

IMG_1016

Still quite a bit of clutter and paper piles around me.. evidence of the battle and how it diversely crushed my day’s routine.  Maybe I won’t go to bed when I get back here at 2-whatever.  Maybe I’ll come to this swiveling chair, to my pages, to this new me for which I have today to credit.

(8/12/15)

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Products, Production, Productivity, Produced

IMG_7683Haven’t felt this productive and accomplished in some time.  Writings for clients, done and posted.  My check book, BALANCED.  Bills, paid.  I’m feeling very much even this afternoon and now I reward myself with some freeness in writing time.  Just remembered I have two more checks to write but no matter, I can very much handle it.  Have to return to my 3 pages a day, and I will, soon as my schedule in me settles.  Still have to grade Summer papers and prep for Fall, as well as gather the collected poems I put together.  Yes, a lot on the writer’s plate, but that’s how he wants it.  And now, here in this quiet house I very much have to take advantage of my moment at this desk in the Autumn Walk study.  Planner on left, mapping out the morrow.. going out with Glenn tomorrow night at midnight and picking the Old Camp Vineyard at midnight till 2.  Can’t even gather how excited I am about this dark pick, haven’t done such since 2012 when at that other place.  But this will be all the more resplendent and memorable, 1, as it’s Pinot Noir, and, 2, with a man I greatly respect.  Didn’t spend that much time with Glenn IMG_7696today but just in the short time we walked the Old Camp lots and had coffee and the place.. what’s it called….. Blue Beagle in North-North Santa Rosa, I ingested more knowledge of the harvest and this vintage and what it’s like to be one fully living as a self-employed and sustaining wine business figure.

3PM exactly, Alice scheduled to meet me here at 4 to leave and get little Kerouac before his swim lessons.  So much to organize.. already scribbling items on the calendar for morrow, not putting on this goddamn laptop’s datebook as I don’t trust this app or laptop as far as I wish I could throw it.  Busy, busy.. self-employed, love it..  had the chance to visit and old friend, Sophie, at her new base at a RRV winery on Olivette Road.  Bought one Pinot.  Can I write that off?  Poems, don’t forget to type those poems, especially those three you wrote the last days of class– see?  I’m mad with how IMG_7700busy I am, but again I love it more than I can here convey.  So full of vision and life and in no time I’ll be on the Road, traveling and writing and bringing stories and presents home for my babies.  And wife.  Just as Mom and Dad used to when they flew for the airline.

What else can I get done in this efficiency spree?  Sent a sample and a revision to a prospect, and this one seems to be testing me, but I could be wrong.  I should here today whether or not I’ll be let on to her project.  Hope she contacts me soon, as there’s little space left on my calendar.  And in the end, really, I’m the one making the call.  Empowered writer, writing books, running a business, and his blog, and running (11.1 miles yesterday I think was the final count), teaching 3 classes, and .. what else?  Sure there’s something else in their, in here, in this room with and somewhere on this desk in or atop or under one of the piles.

(8/11/15)

mikemadiganLeave a comment