I love her back.
With pages.
When you need it.
You get it.
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.
inward jot
9/21/18
Coffee. Didn’t think I would have any but a nice bloke named Art helped fix the machine. Something with the paper inside he said. Not sure what that meant and I had trouble finding his repairing ability and magic powers but am cosmically grateful for the cup I now enjoy. He had his dog with him, Murphy, a mix of pit and rot and German Shepherd or something. Cute little guy that I though a puppy but really 8 years old. Want a bigger property to have a dog for kids. Working on it.
Out in field today, again. Meant to wake early as I always do but needed more sleep, waking at 630-something then ironing some pants, into shower, getting coffee and wee treat for wife as she has day off, recovering. Me in break room. Saw co-worker who also enjoys Kerouac’s work, walking her dog as I approached front door. Asking her how her morning was and she told me great, woke at 4:45 to go to gym, workout, and here she is. The mornings, I need something from them. More hours, more time, and I have only self to cite for not waking when I want. Prophesying the next 8+ hours. Selling with team, walking around the East Bay today, I believe. Want today to be wild, more wild than any day this week. Written, written madly. Bag on table, person behind me getting napkin from some odd and stray little stack. Writer at a tech company. Love it. Love this place. What it does and what it stands for but I try to find more. Not letting self get breakfast as I did the other day, and yesterday. Yesterday having some croissant sandwich with egg, cheese, meat… felt disgusting afterward. So none of that. And none of the doughnut array a guy who next to me sits brought in this morning. Was tempted. Told him, “Maybe later.” But no. Going for a bit of a literary fasting, ration, penury for sakes of prose today.
An office, versus a tasting room. Then thinking of every job I’ve had, reflecting only now at 39, and where I’m going as I seem to in every entry… Do I want a snack? NO. Fast.. deprivation, a sort of literary and page torture training. What will it do to the psychology of this writer, how he touches the keys, how he writes… what will it do to the book, book? 08:30. 20 minutes about, to collect. People come in here for morning fixes, one man just now grabbing some dry cereal and some cold caffeine or coffee drink to pair. This place fascinates me. The video games, stacked chairs, a jungle of deliberation and fascination, like Duke and Gonzo in the casino, at the bar surrounded by lizard monsters. I look around and see business, me building my story and “brand” if that’s what you want to call it. I just want more, like everyone else. The coffee to me speaks in radiant and radically riled voice and unspoken syllable sets. Going to write everything down today. From today’s poem, poems, to notes on team, the field, sakes ideas, me-ideas, everything around me secures the affirmation of dream-actuality transformation and actualization.
In ten years, I’ll be…. Don’t want to say. By the end of the semester, well, I do want to say. Teaching on writing. Teaching independently. Independent and NEVER dependent on the JC for classes and teaching opportunities. This break room teaches me to write faster, write more, about the coffee and the coffee machine, Art and his dog Murphy, the people getting their breakfast bites, and me here writing like a beatnik having finally found his his IT, moving with supersonic insistence toward a storm of ideological adorned page-forms. Seeing something, then writing it. Living it. Odd embodiment of passion and presence, passion for what’s in front of me and present.
Feeling a but of a famine rumble. Ignoring it. Writing rethought it. If I had something to eat what would I have. Certainly nothing in the fridge. Then what. What do I want. What will I do if this ravenous inner-stomp heightens in any way. Not sure. Just keep with the words, the— TODAY. Today is the IT, the IT of it all. The coup de foudre, for me and this book. Not failed, in any pour, in any sound, in any movement or issue. Today is all any writer should be focused on. I’m here, at work, about to share ideas, about to speak to people, about to learn, about to be more me than the bloody wine industry could ever echo or hasten or hurry. I’m finding not only work here, and nuggets of knowledge, but visuals that confirm the reasoning for why I’m here now.. to work over or about an hour early and diving into pages, a book project.
So many of us fear work. I see that as a decision. I see that as a surrender. What do you want to do for the rest of your life? The answer should always be “Everything.” Try everything, experience everything, WRITE everything. That’s what succeeds in solution, answers, happiness with I think everyone quests. Everything…. “Try EVERYTHING” I started the semester with. And now I the like enact.
More coming in for snack, something to eat. The writer tempted, but I find gems in this starvation and deprivation, a re-allocation of self and functionality.
08:47. Want to be back at desk, soon. Start day. Initial tasks. Notes for field, for me in field, observations from yesterday. Coffee already going cold. I think of last night’s wine. Which one. The Rosé, of which I only had one glass, and the Barbera of which I think I had maybe 1.5. OR two. I deserved it, I reasoned, keeping the 1A class over 90 minutes which made for a 12-hour day, give or take.
Again quiet. Sip again.
06:36
Coffee.
Day off.
With son.
He’s going to show me things today… teach me, I’m sure. Quiet house with coffee, thoughts, visions, and frustrations… why am I typing on this phone, again?
Enough. Done.
Comparison– the winemaker that’s in the vineyard as much as in the lab, on the crush pad, tasting. Then, the writer who only types and the other who had colonies of overwhelming towers of filled notebooks.
Got it.
(6/11/18)
this morning
Cold. Ice everywhere. Now with a 4-shot mocha, doing all differently today. Shrieking as I always say that— So, the people around me in this Starbucks, some reading the paper and others just talking. I’m at a corner sofa seat with a low table, leaning over to type with forearms on laps. Listening to beats and thinking about today.. Go way outside of character, I tell myself. Yesterday, two people I took around the winery and vineyards, telling me they loved the way I speak of the vineyard rows and wines that were in front of them. Funny, I thought, as I’m rather tired of the language I use, much the reason I throw in French every so often, or find some obscure and technically dead word. Bespoke, today. For me. For this Mike Madigan that woke up and can only think of the scenes in verses. I turn up volume, see self bobbing head then stop, focus on the paper I’m writing, what I’m doing today. Don’t stop writing, I tell myself as I do the student but I’ll stop to sip the mocha or look around, pat nose with the folded paper towel I brought from home…. The outlet to my right which I don’t need use, charing the laptop yesterday… the mocha… this chair, me, saying something but what. In a deconstructive dive, hearing one voice say “I don’t know what to write about or how to get self closer to travel, this morning.” Then the other which orders me to write about everything, everything around you no matter how seemingly bland or without-gravity.
Why do I write about wine. Wine is Writing. It’s Literature. Every bottle is a letter, a note, poems storming to your senses and thoughts, making you think of things from the past and what you want from the current installation and splash of sight. Nothing today me trammels. Not with wine here with me, the vineyards and all the dimensional activity and delightful visual distraction…. Like randomness of thesis, rhetoric and ravishing beats everywhere… The business plan for the day becomes clear. But I won’t write it. Won’t hex it, or put some unwanted block at my 12 or the day’s. In the eight hours ahead, I write a collection of poems. Put all on blog… wined poetry, wine in poems and poems in wine and the people visiting from everywhere to taste wines and take pictures, spend time with the other. I spend time with the day. The day’s my date. I rush further into my sitting here, at this coffee spot I barely knew was, till recent.
The Romance of the day is the day itself. What’s in front of us. US. This is not a me-piece but a paper addressing and heralding what’s already present. Can never grasp why so many grieve over absence rather than celebrate the already-present. I probably will never understand it so I can only do what I can do. Wine… more than wine. Last night sitting not he floor and sipping what of the Chardonnay I with me home brought, deconstructing and internally reviewing the day… thinking of the day next, today, NOW, what I do. How do I get myself closer to the world, seeing more of it. Contextualization. ME, here, thinking on song, combination between wolverine and fawn and philistine acid dream— Unseen lean, atmospheric in her frenetic furnishing. Wine… doing things to writers like me. Every morning. Day. And especially when I’m not sipping. She’ll take me to travels, I know. I’m almost there. Feel the plane seat and the landing and what I’ll think, first steps off the vessel.
Two prophetic shots of the 4-shot, sipping deeply and intended. What we want. This is turning into another me-piece. I realize. So, more of US. WE… living and able to have whatever we want. The panacea is tirelessness. In whatever effort you boast and, or envision. Hopefully both. Then, soon, hold. This sitting, showing that we have time and time has more of us than we of it. Love… love your moments and everyone in them. These people around me that I don’t know, haven’t said a word to, probably won’t in this coffee shop visit… adored by me. They are the moment, part of it, part of this sitting and sight, even though I only partially see them from the eye’s corner.
Business plan for day… don’t plan too much. Educating myself as the morning educates me, us all, everyone around me if they’re open to being instructed. I have 29 minutes till a writer has to rise and get in car, drive to the winery, set up for day, open wines and start with poems effort. Funny, had that feeling again that I’m sick of what I’m writing and deplore my word select, topic election— Then I tell self to tais-toi! Shut. Up. That will do nothing for you. The truth is in the moment and the moment is musical, more than me or you, or even us. It’s an intangible collective. Poetry…. I’ll die for it, I’m realizing. Or, I would. Wine is poetry, music, rime and something for-pined and metaphysically timed. More than impacting… not bottled. I swear, if I see one more winery use that ‘wine is bottled poetry’ utterance by RLS, I’m lid-flip. Wine is free. It is NOT bottled. Yes, it’s in a bottle, but it’s activity and composition and intrinsic philosophies and didactic makeup is not in a bottled state. The wine is in a bottle, but not bottled…. How I see her. The sense is blurred and clear, concurrently. That’s why I write so urgently, and I pray purposefully.
No breaks, no time for pauses or lulls, anything that begets the dull. Keep self in motion, and reciting… the goal for the day, a salable MS… poetry… odd prose.. wine-honed and no. But everything in my life revolves around her. So…. This chair, now too comfortable. I could just hide out here all day. No… have seen people from sister property here. I’ll be found. So, I charge into the day, saying “L’amener sur!” Student, me, being taught… more French, all poetry, more wine, more people, soon travel. Morning thoughts, rhythmic and relaying delightful divots.
NaNoWriMo, 3 Days
Could have been here earlier, but Jack got sick in back of car and I had to him hurry to wife’s parents’ home in Oakmont. About to walk into winemaking team break room but they appeared to be in some deeply involved and serious discussion about what to do for day and week to vintage’s wines, I’m sure. Driving over Fountaingrove through all that fog and with ruin all around me, listening to whatever chilled, downtempo track then played, my thoughts were everywhere. I couldn’t center on much. Thought of what a metaphor and statement that is for me, and how that has to change. Feel like I have what some, especially my students, would call writer’s block but I won’t let it materialize and certainly not take over this writer, dominate is diction and destiny in these final NaNoWriMo doses.
Coffee wasn’t ready when I was allowed in room, see if it is now…. Full cup and jazz in ears. Switched from that desk where my back would be at door to the usual folding desk I have here in middle of floor, in cubicleville. No need to be blocked, or stopped, not with all this wine around me and the classes I have to tomorrow teach. Yesterday, brainstorming heavily on my wine business, my shop— and do I want to be an online retailer and merchant or do I want a physical shop, location? Much riskier with a structure. Find myself annealing, new sculpture of self, then another new one, but all having to do with this world and industry I’m in. Don’t stop with wine musings and thoughts no matter where they fly and which thought branches they land on, it’s wine-related.
Opened no new bottles last night, but sipped from a Pinot I had open from whenever. I don’t allow self to get complacent, tasting the same wines over and over and having to describe them to people day after day. That’s where wine meets the literary. Find another way to narrate. Should make myself after these morning thousand get out into the Cabernet blocks on the higher part of the property and take a couple still pictures of the water on the trellising wires, the leaves, just walk around. So much to see in the world pertaining to wine, this county— Mon Dieu, this property. How many rows do I have to walk, still, for the the first time? Don’t want to think about it, just get out there. Made a list of wines I’d have in my shop, yesterday, on a piece of receipt paper. Just found it, in pocket… Dutcher Crossing, St. Francis, Kuleto, Roth, among others. But how do I get started, what do I investigate in this second day of brainstorming, or dreaming, or planning? Need to have all notes in one place, in one of those little notebooks I took from this office, the black one that has some notes in it but it doesn’t matter. Just taking notes… wine in all its shapes and sirens, widening to me and sirening to my receptive ends and wanting me here in the office, then out in the vineyard.. no reason to be still with all this around a writer.
I’m here now. Forget about earlier. My poor little beatnik not feeling himself fully, and if I had my shop I’d have him either come with me or someone else could stand and watch the shop while I work and sell from home. The morning tells my thoughts to be everywhere, to be mad, to burn and burn more then simmer and be like the fog over the Fountaingrove foundations, streetlights which I’m not sure are ever anymore turned on. Belauding the tanks as I walked past them. I’m here. At the winery. A Monday, a day people hate in their lives and workweek but a day I can barely wait for, seeing the winemaker with his team in huddle, musing new approaches and ways to touch the ’17 characters to pull the most expression they can. At a winery, but more than just “at a winery”. Part of it. Speaking its language, its tongue, her hue and decisions that the winemaking team isn’t privy to. “Wine is alive, a living thing..” How many times do you, I, hear that? It’s more than “alive”, and she’s not alive as you and I are. But more. Far reaching into metaphysical variables and vortexes, intersections and shapes, scapes.
Just wrote, “Tasting Room Bar” in the little book, today’s little page. Yes, I dodge risk by having the shop online, somewhat, but I don’t want to be without risk. And this, this tasting room and its bar, is a measured risk. Actually, it’s not really measured, and not much a “risk”, as the tasting room is where I feel most at home, most comfortable, where all this writing comes from. Not measured, as it’s entirely instinctual, what I have to do, what I’m meant to do. The poetry in this world and this stage, domain and frame is musical the same way Miles tells his notes to me through these little earphones. Wine’s a business, I know, thank you, but to me and anyone hearing me it’s an intangible. It’s haunting, ghostly, omnipresent.
Feel like I’m just getting warmed up with these inaugural reflections and observations… one of the winemaking chaps walks down the stairs to the floor, to check on something I’m sure. I in my head walk to the front door of my shop.. to the counter, set down keys and coffee, turn on lights and start inventory, what I need and what I already have plenty of. Merlots… want a couple more, after all it is the beat-up Bordeaux that made a writer serious about wine and its meditations. At Thanksgiving, had two open on table, a ’13 and ’14 from Roth. I still side with the ’13, and that’s just the kind I’d order… so, order put in. Check on Cabs, Zins, Pinots, Sauv Blancs…
NaNoWriMo
11:18. Been a day so far but finally I can sit, go through the few pictures I was able to pocket and store earlier from a vineyard off Guerneville Road. Sometimes you need to take yourself out of the picture to understand it better. That’s where my head is, presently. Could have woke just before 5 this morning but didn’t. No dwelling, just staring. At my pictures… the one of the leaf, the one of that wheel or jagged pulley. Wish I could have stayed out there all day. Wish the whole day could have been out there then it wouldn’t have been as it was.
Can’t upload one of my photos, or any of them with the reception here on campus so I 
just write. Refusing to be pinned and penned in that shared adjunct office I come here to the conference room. Have thirty minutes to write, and I have no idea about what. Today has shown me a harsh side to days, principally. But I’ll write through it. Out of it. What if I gave the best lectures of my career over the next few hours? I could do that, right? I will. Just talking to them. Will be in Room in 27 minutes. Which means logically I have 17 to write. But write about what. I’m an adjunct instructor of English here in the conference room of the English department fulfilling no part of my contractual duties. Should be grading, but no. Why. Want to feel free. Free from the day. Just for a minute. I know… this isn’t very wine writer-y of me. Not sure I care or even want to talk about that dimension of my direction, if it’s a direction.
All this change in my pocket. Every time I move it jingles and annoys to infinite annoyance. Write on. Write past. Or better, write further into. Ignore the annoyances not, but rather take them head-on. Defy them. Challenge them.
I’ll slightly edit and post shots later. Right now I need a meditation. A separation. Not so much a release, but reason, reasoning. Getting distracted by life and bills, obligations, appointments, and all compounded by certain ingredients since the fires. Nothing I can do now, and why get annoyed with what you see on the drive up ‘SM’, then on Coffey? Just drive, keep going. Focus on the vineyards as you did this morning. Look through my old photos for something of focus. And I find something… leaf during fall transformation. Need a walk, now… well, you’re going to get one. Across campus. To class. My mood falls, tailspins, just want the day to walk vineyards in France, Spain, Portugal, anywhere but here— Not right what I’m feeling but it’s what I’m ping-ponging, tirelessly back and forth in my total totality.
Reminding self that all I need is what I have in front of me— watered-down cold press coffee, which is still working and this typing speed is evidence of. My fire, my untitled syllabic tidal wave over and from, through and past my own thoughts. Since yesterday at the Windsor coffee spot, I don’t want to write around others. At all. May type a bit in Maggini Hall once I get there. I can tell the day is infecting my decisions, actions, perceptions of what’s around me. Take more pictures… even this plastic cup has an artful value and voice, presence and code. Just took a picture.. not sure if it’s worth anything but— of course it is. It’s my moment, now, here, me in this restless rile and tussle with my own ideation.
Know I should leave now, but don’t want to. Want to take time for me, ME. Why not. This whole day has been attacking me and insisting I do this, that, not get to my pages or work on book, this writing father, part-time teacher and winery person, wanna-be photog’… but maybe I don’t have to wanna-wanna. No… why should I? Going to note in Composition Book what’s to be done in class.. first. Conversation, Creativity… solving everything.
Maybe this is a talk with self that I needed to have. Feels that way. Mom always said that would work, has been for years. Need some sparkling water to dilute this caffeine impact, even me a bit. Print role sheets… shit, should probably do that now. But I don’t want to stop. Want to go through more of these vineyard pics, visit and revisit them as tasting room guests say.
Many times I feel I’m writing about nothing but then I see I’m writing me and I estimate this author as a bit more than a ‘nothing’. Oui? Time to go, I know. But don’t want to. Here, all’s clear. No— go give the lecture of your life. Print role sheets first. Do it now, before you forget. You always forget to do that or mismanage your time to a point where you just fucking can’t. Yeah… this isn’t a wine blog. Well, maybe it could be, like … wine is life. Doesn’t everyone think and say and suggest that? Too m any people around me now. So leave… leave! I will.
Much later in the day, evening, I sip a glass of some Pinot, think from ’12, and look at more pictures. Photog’ is now me, coinciding with my written vivacity…. Another shot, another, one from today along G-ville Rd. Want to take pictures of everything, write about them. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, what are the thousand words worth, if compiled? A book. BOOKS. A career. Took three pictures of my glass, Pinot with its light red/magenta/floral brown sugar shade. Only thoughts and thought going through my veins and circuitry, a distilling of poise and dereliction, commingled in fruition fission. A book. A career. Then, I’m fearless. Tireless. Today’s lectures and my pen-to-paper pulses, cardiac and synaptic in voice.
A day. Now, ending. But I want it to keep going. More images. Lower level, emptier, me calm, in visually chameleonic Equilibrium. Pinot knocking on my inhibitions, then merely opening the door— no resistance. No more ruin, only rebuild, only color, greens and blues and bright cinnamon browns. I sit on the knoll, writing, corner of Coffey and Hopper.
from book
Day 7, 8/1/17. Up, going, a little late. Will finish grading today, later, and put a harsh dent in book. No coffee in house, I noticed, so I may just fly over to Hopper and get one. Had $0.50 “refill” yesterday in tumbler rather than my tempted mocha. This morning I’ll treat Self to mocha, maybe. Need something today, not sure what.. just woke feeling drained, and I’m sure it’s yesterday’s inventory at winery, my first. The process, though, I must say, was rather fluid. But yes, I’m tired this morning. A day off from wine life but not at all from teaching and writing. Teaching myself not to succumb to stress, and not think about wha tI have to do, take some inventory in head. Rather, just do it.
Wife still asleep with Emma in her arms, and Jack and I are down here. Cleaning ladies get here shortly… The to-do’s just pile and pile, and I tell myself to just “go with the flow” or not worry, teaching myself to not stress is the hardest class I think I’ve taken, ever… ever ever. The grading will get done… stuff for winery will get done. It’ll all get done.
Sometimes you have to tell yourself that. You can control your life, and what transpires in the sequencing scenes, but only to a certain degree. And that’s what life is… living it, not so much controlling it. ‘Take the ride’, Hunter said, oui? So that’s what I’m doing, living. Enjoying the ride.
Little Kerouac tells me he’s still hungry and that he’s going to make himself two waffles. I tell him only one and he tries to debate, starting with the strategy of antagonism— mimicking everything I say in hopes it pushes me to surrender. I yawn, as he halts in his assault, realizing I need more coffee. More? I need SOME.
vin jot
2014 Roth Estate Merlot, Alexander Valley. My Friday night. Well, kind of. Teaching tomorrow and have other stuff to address and take care of. Would love to go for an early, early run, but who knows if that’ll go. You know what…. I’m just going to enjoy the moment. Right now, here, now. Jackie not going to sleep but rather playing around in his room, or as he said “cleaning up”, so wife brought him down to hang with us for a bit. I just left him in his room and it’s a mystery as to whether he has any intention of sleeping. I barely have the intention of writing. I’m making myself do it, at this point. No coffee in house, so if I wake early to write and run as I hope to it’ll be with the most innate and intrinsic of energies.
My glass in the kitchen, make it last longer. Have tried this before but tonight I’m honestly not in the mood. The Merlot tells me to remember what it’s done for me. You might say almost immediately, “What?” It’s THE varietal. The one that pulled me in closer, closer to examine and feel wine’s complexion and song on levels further than I could have foreseen. She tells me to not try to command my composition but let it write itself— wine, Merlot, me… further in intersections elaborate and ethereal. But something’s off and I can categorize or identify what— WHAT? Like I’m on a first date… or first day at a job… nervous. For what? I swear, if I say w… one more time….. I need a sip. I need the rest of the glass. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I can’t work all day at these wineries and teach at night. But I had a great lecture this evening. Fuck.. now I’m just confused. Might open another Roth offering…