Back from Novato meeting.  New accrued knowledge on fiber install and voice offerings for prospective clients.  Hour and forty minutes left in fast.  When back from run, I’ll eat something.  Thinking one of the sub-par sandwiches from one of the refrigerators, this building’s or the other.  Or maybe I shouldn’t run today.  Take the day off.  Think Bill, the COO, also a radicalized runner, does on Wednesdays.  If I do, I could do back-to-back 7’s Thursday and Friday, which would put me at 27 for the week.  I think.  OR…. Do 5k today, then 7 and 7, then I’d be at 30 for the week.  Like that better.  I don’t know.  I’m going to go out, but not even close to an hour’s worth.

Decided I’m to stay late tomorrow, and come in for 2 or 3, maybe 4 hours on Saturday, after my visit to Aperture Cellars.  The workload isn’t excessive, I merely need to schedule every hour, all days.  Use Sonic Calendar for everything.

Thinking some water is needed.  No more caffeine.  Cut back on caffeine.  MY GOD, I have too much of it in my system.  Natural energy and beat, not something coaxed by the product of beans, some somehow-justified chemical. 

Seeing, the only thing I should be doing at this desk, is generating revenue and prospecting new business.  Expect my entries from desk to be shorter, curt even, seemingly less interested though the fervor and fire still is very much intact and kept.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

8:32

11/13/19 – Day Three for the second pass at 100.  In a mood this morning.  Coffee helping.  Was going to go to sbux for the usual morning latte, but traffic on Stony Point was more monstrous than I’ve ever seen, so I immediately rules NO, turned around in the street off to right, not sure its name, and headed to HQ.  Meeting in BMK at 10:30, then back to office.  Have two proposals to work on, really 3, then have speakers group at 12:30.  Somehow have to find time to grade.  Should I not run today?  NO, you need to run.  Just don’t do one of the longer routes.  Maybe 2 out and 2 back.  That would bring me to 17 miles for the week, I believe.  Growling inwardly as I didn’t wake early, no shock.

Knowing now, from work, I need go further into my truths, into my narration, I’m now understanding, looking at the clock stare back at me with numbers 8:36 AM.  Much to do in day, but I’m turning off the boat’s motor, and letting natural gusts encourage my travel, production this morning.  Really, I don’t have to move intently till 9.  Have 22 minutes.  5 hours left in fast.  16 hours, this one.  Stopped eating early last night as I was tired, done wit the day, decided to be lazy and watch one of those Paranormal shows, a mistake, rather than take notes.  Just little notes, that’s productivity.  Why didn’t I do that?

Questioning self and wondering what’s at the end of this 100-day dash.  I know, and I see it, I merely need practice and tie-in more discipline.

Grading some small works from 1B class.  Letting go of the stress and mood of the morning.  Set appointment to revisit a site in Petaluma.  Going to come into office on Saturday, finish some contracts and get better arranged and organized at desk.  Now, 4am is not something I wish to do but have to.  There is no other practice for a writer and business blogger like me, to know my Now and free self of moods and nay-saying twits around me that only complain and devote energy to citing what’s missing and wrong with everyone else rather than assemble more sight and beat in their own narrated place.

This project, this new bunching of 100 days where I’m to study each step in my character carousal to his There, to what he sees and needs and dreams, me here thinking that I’m thinking too much, and that if I were to wake at 4am how so much would be solved.  Not feeling too much of yesterday’s 6.3 miles, or the day before’s 7, so I might try for 5+ again.  Not sure, but need time to collect.  Not stress, be in my story and lead my one-man militia to liberation.  Sonic….. if I didn’t have Sonic, if I were stuck in a fucking tasting room still, I don’t know what I’d be writing.  Never mind that.  I’m here, seeing IT.  The IT to it all, all this… what I’m writing, what I’ll be speaking tonight in class.

Cup 1, done.  Time for another.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Nothing written today, from being as busy and centered in my AE story as I’ve been.  Which is good, no?  Readying for class, which more than likely I’ll let go rather early.  8 mile run, not feeling anything right now, but know I will in about an hour.  Thinking of going to break room and getting coffee, some water for the #pozvibez flask, or tumbler.

Nothing planned for tonight, and that’s just the way I want it, the way it should be.

Sipping coffee slow, water tumbler loaded, ice and water.  Surprised there WAS any ice in the machine.  IT’s usually ice-less.  Something about that ice machine I just find funny.  An ice machine.  Don’t ask me why, or maybe you should.

Should get off clock in a bit.  Head to campus, plan something for tonight.  Like what.  Planning… planning something to write.  A narrative on you.  Start there.  Right now writing a plan with tomorrow’s checks.  Payday, hate that I look so forward to it.  The next 100 days project will be enormously focused on finances, making my money do something for me, for the family, for business.  Less eating out, buying more for home so the house will be the restaurant, the wine bar, the café, the everything.

And, another thing for the next hundred days, write more freely. Think less, if at all.  Freewriting and humor need be free and not at all concerned with inhibition or if the humor won’t land or connect.  Freedom in writing, something about it has a seductive nudge and note that I can’t ignore. I of course endorse and advocate it, speak of it with the highest of loves and esteems, but I don’t practice in a way that aligns.  Right now, I’m thinking… about what.  Yes, now I’m going to make fun of myself… about class, about what I do till class.  Tomorrow, the drive to San Carlos, the meeting with the property management guy, then the drive back and that fucking traffic on 280 or like last time on 101, then 19th Avenue, then the narrows (Novato).  Fuck I’m a mess, and not from anything around me.  I’m creating trash and contamination in head through thinking.  So, now, and in the coming project…. NO. THINKING.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

4:07.

Busy day, and I love it to its crucial and intricate bits.  Ready for class, and leads meeting tomorrow morning.  Run planned for tomorrow, early.  Thinking another 10:30-er.  Want between a 10k & 7.  8 if I’m feeling crazy.

Not much to write except for some new contract types I learned, visit to business along Bennett Valley Road, wanting to surprise Jackie at his school, say hi and give him a hug, but I had to get back here to desk and take care of what was needed.

Snacking on some cereal I had sequestered in drawer.  Didn’t write out lecture for today, so just quickly jotted notes.  Going to talk about book, writing… need to do something different. Think much the reason I’ve become disenchanted, or disengaged with teaching, or anything, is because of pattern.  Pattern is poison.  Do more than switch it up, as people say.  And I hate when they say that.. when I, say that.

Talking… learning, about how THEY learn.  What they want to learn.

All that’s left to do for me is EOD, and a couple other shifts and arrangements, re-arrangements.  Teaching self again to write without thinking… freewriting, right?  Supposed to be FREE, even of self.  So… free self of self.  What?

mikemadiganLeave a comment

11/6/19

8:01.  Had some coffee at home that was in fridge chilling from a few days past, but now some more.  This morning, my mood in the highest of atmospheres and my ambition is with fangs out, ready and hungry, fearless and formed uniquely in the early hours.  No distractions at home in morning, no procrastination, just left out front door.  Not wearing the shoes I wanted, but that’s an easy amend, mend.  Will write out aims in SW journal, but not before coffee.

Coffee cooling.  Then make list for day. What is it in this morning?  I’m flying without flapping or moving and inch of a wing.  Now… even with people around me grieving, complaining, or gossiping, I’m focused and fixated on my place, my story, here at my desk.

Will write something on happiness.  All I’m feeling this morning.  Eyes on my page, my work.  Not talking at all.  Here early… listening.  Machine-gunning through what I need do.  Happiness is something we self-proscribe, perceive. If you want to be NOT in a content composition, then you can actualize that.  Opposite is also easily attainable.  Today I’m choosing joy through productivity, and not letting others’ words get in.  This is very much in my AE log, my manual—or maybe not manual but map to AE autopilot, when you can converse and transact, interact without anxiety or double-clutching, second-guessing or self-doubt.

Cards all over desk, still. And there’s still a few I haven’t touched.  Today though is about re-terms.  Existing customers that haven’t yet signed with us.  I have a visit later, with a new prospect, that I’m quite sure will sign with me.  I’m partnering with another AE on it, one more senior obviously and I’m quite excited to see how he’ll approach and speak Sonic’s identity and set of remedies and availabilities.

Stay learning, stay a student….  Last night in class I voiced once more the idea of avoiding mastery, staying a student, developing your own style and voice through movement and constant creative perpetuation.  Today, embodies and enacted, forwarded.  Forward.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

2:37pm

Been going all day.  ALL, day.  Meet contractor at house in a bit, then coming back to office.  Prep for class, and start framing 2nd 100-Day operation.  Going to write the entire thing, if I can. Still have to finish my goddamn novel.  What a shock, I feel all over the place.  Sipping coffee, then some water after this.  Get up and go to market in back of building, get sparkling water, Blackberry Bubbly.  So quiet in office now.  Did some whole department, or 2, go to some meeting? There’s a voice, one usual loud one, then the laugh.

One aim for this next project, firm and immovable daily DO list.  How many items, doesn’t matter.  And I don’t have to hit each thing, each day.  Just attempt to touch as many as able.

Don’t want to call anymore people, nor email.  Feeling patterned.  How do I make atomic my AE steps, presence, voice, consistency of conversion.  Absolutely shock the whole fucking company?  Had an idea on my run, my shitty 3-point-something run, where I became exhausted right before the intersection of Stony Point and Sebastopol.  But I’m here, and doing what I can.  Hearing people cough, hoping I don’t catch anything… How to get There, that’s what we all ask ourselves, or the ceiling or wall.  Don’t lie, you know you have too.  Where is that throw of thought going, I couldn’t tell you.

Nearing 3pm.  First word for tonight’s talk written…. FREEDOM.  How we get it, why seek it, is it ever attainable.

4:41.  Another contract, the re-term I’ve been fighting for, comes in.  Ready for class tonight.  Not bringing laptops home.  Get here early in morrow’s morrow.  Bringing the AE journal with me, the endless falls of tips and how-to’s, musings and suggestions.  Two contracts in today, and I know I can’t celebrate.  What worked, how did I approach, what did I say. How do I amplify and actuate some transformative atomic brushstrokes?

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Can feel the run, now.  Hours later.  Soreness in legs, exhaustion in general operating.  Planning on early run again, tomorrow.  Sipping no wine, tonight.  Only sparkling water wife bought at store for us, but mainly me.

Hoping to wake early tomorrow morning, and I mean early.  The god hour.  4am.  Have at least 2000 words in NaNo project.  Also start writing aims for the next 100-days project.  Clearly writing out all aims.  1, to have actual and documented steps toward my wine label.  Another, register for runs in Oregon and Colorado, both high elevation.  Have enough money for car, either have own offsite office or a membership at that ‘Lab’ place on Mendocino, significant income from independent instruction and speaking.  Going to start a massive and fanatically creative return to writing, literature, lecturing.  Won’t elaborate here, one I’m too tired and two don’t want to hex any potential.  And there is potential, a mammoth amount.

In class tomorrow, for the first time in well over a week.  Listening to Coltrane, at low volume, no TV, pushing me, telling me to be in more a jazz mood and mode in the class.  Just in the moment.  Not thinking, just creation.

For 1A tomorrow, going to speak from self, on destiny, on careers, on people in our lives.  What do we do with what we have, and once we know how often do we further consider what we’re doing.  How much do we leave to chance or destiny, and how much to we value and trust in self action?  Right now, I’m writing from making self do so, choosing to capture where I am and what I’m doing.  On couch, with Coltrane, seeing the day tomorrow, knowing a change and lovely, loving shift in my story is about to land.

All I, WE, have to do is write it.

mikemadiganLeave a comment

Playing at the park up and then down the street, down a little hill,

I’m definitively into my zen tilt and happiness takeover and project.  Sipping Rose in a plastic cup I found in Mike’s cupboard I think about wine and what I want with it.  Again.  Kids unaffected by this, this evacuation.  To them it’s a getaway, a vacation, something that has no flames, or threats, evacuations or dangers.  It’s fun.  They make it fun.  Actually, no, they don’t MAKE it anything.  They just see opportunity for enjoyment, to relax and play on that slide and those swings.

Not going into Sonic tomorrow, and I feel guilty, but then don’t.  I want to and need to be here with the babies.  Write. Get out of my comfort zone as much as I hate that phrase, but that’s just what I need do.  Saw a bench at the park or rather just in the not-too-distant distance in front of and on the side of a large grass field that you might think is used for polo but I think it’s just a grand and nearly overwhelming grass field for kids to play on.  Soccer, chase, tag, what be.

This house I could see as an office, or some property I’d own for either a rental or just an office.  Rather big for just an office but it’s what’s smattered in my inner sigh sense, blogging in here for weeks, just locked in and forcing self to produce a book from the blog.  The blog has to come first, and the realizer and readier for whenever I’m stuck or feel I’m recycling the same sentences, is the Now.  Write the Now.  Where you are and what you’re doing.

Jack and Emma watch the Grinch, one of the dozens or hundreds of versions, and eat some Cheerios from a red cup, the kind you’d see at a frat party.  Jack spills some and I tell him to pick it up and he tells me he will after he comes back from China.  I laugh a little but try to be serious and then tell self fuck that.  Have fun with them.  Be one on and of the playground.

I need to play more.  Not think so much. Not work, but only create, write, stay up late and pepper the manuscript’s streets with verse, pages, my phylum of music.  Keep pushing these keys and refuse to let self stop, the wine tells me.  Don’t allow distractions, obstructions.  Poetry is the vein, the blood, the beat, the blog, the Now ME.

Playing with the wine, the pink puddle in the plastic cannikin.  Turning left, seeing Broncos play Raiders.  Thinking more of my office.. what I want in there.  Anything that antagonizes, promotes, encourages creativity, bringing something to life.  This bought with Sonoma County wildfires plates a dose of déjà vu that I wasn’t expecting, to just live and write wildly and edit nothing.  Kids getting restless, and me too.  To finish this fucking book, and light MY story on fire.  Several fires.  And be so lovingly monstrous that it can never be extinguished.

Cuz F This S …

mikemadiganLeave a comment

3:59pm

With Quarterly done, and me tired, having sent out two re-term contracts and nearly one for new business.  Just an updated version of contract, with an added stipulation, or condition, not sure what you’d call it.  Can’t send it out yet, wait for contact in office to be there, so put off till Monday.

Still full, and sluggish from lunch.  Will call this other prospect Monday as well.  He’s trying to dodge one part of what I’m going to offer him, but as someone earlier urged I do, show what he’s gaining rather than what he wants to take out.  Don’t fight him, or argue with him, just SHOW benefits, value.

Everyday in this creative corner is education beyond anything I’m used to.  Written that or something similar a dozen, hundred, times.

People around where I sit talking, ready for weekend.  I’m indifferent but not.  Tomorrow off, have to get dry cleaning, promised Jackie I’d do something fun with him, but what.  Bowling, batting cages… something creative.  Couldn’t get him a hot chocolate this morning, or actually I could have but didn’t ‘cause I thought he and Emma would have been off to school by time I’d be back.

Not in the mood to do anything else.  Should leave early, and I can with my autonomy here.  I’ll think about it.  Hmmmm……

mikemadiganLeave a comment

PIIE

Poetry.  In. Is.  Everything.  Wrote a piece while standing in line at the Starbucks down the street. What I bring here with me.  Last night in class talking about destiny and future, what we will be, how we get there… and blocks to getting that.  We are the blocks, often.  Or rather, we allow the stalls and falls, the walls that we see and have ourselves sold are there.

No run today.  Want to make sure right foot is okay.  Hurt a little on run yesterday, but not obtusely or loudly to the point where I had to stop.  The heat stopped me, obviously.  Can’t think of what to put to page, or what to do with this day.  Feel self getting a bit sluggish and deflated from the day-to-day.  Not complacent or numb, anesthetized in action, but wondering how to change pattern and habit, here.  What…. POETRY.  In every bloody thing I see.  Thinking of that Plath interview I played for the 1A section, and myself I don’t know how many times, where she said that someone can write about anything with an informed and I think she said free mind.  I know what she meant, or I think I do.  And my former student Amber, now posting so much about Plath, I’ brought back to origins, initial intentions with my writing life.

Look left, she’s on my shelf, with other literary beacons, instructors.  I’m looking to them as to what to do, next.  How do I approach today differently than others.  HST would say, Just get out there and take a ride, you already got the ticket kid…” Something like that.  I can believably hear his voice saying those words, same voice as in one of his interviews.

Wrote quick piece.  Haiku.  Student messaging me if she has to type her reaction or write extensively in journal.  Have to grade that stack as well, the 1B section.  Power may go out again today, I’m honestly hoping class is NOT cancelled.  Want to write a lecture for today, speak it….  POETRY.  In everything.

Goddamnit, get up earlier.  If could have two hours of writing before the day even starts…..  Do.  Not more thinking.  Poetry is about thought, NOT.  Poetry is about reacting to your immediate scene and sight.  Where you are, what you’re perpetuating, actuating.  Don’t see myself getting knackered by such a practice, with all I want to do and how I move and how I assume all projects and beats.

Deke myself out of pattern, usual steps and jigs.  First no more caviling.  Step, celebrate, speak, make a verse of each sitting and step.  Think of the reciting at North Light Books, or in Berkeley when in graduate school… quitting prose, and if I do play the paragraph parade it’ll only be free entry, nothing of stoic structure or stance.

Mood gripping me but I’m parrying its kicks.  Like Dad said, “At my age, I can’t afford mistakes.” I, yes younger, put self in same mind.  The same thinking and philosophy.  A kamikaze is ME.

mikemadiganLeave a comment