8:55pm

Home from class.  Tired and hungry and not looking forward to leads group in morning.  Don’t think about it, I tell myself.  No more peanuts, have actual dinner.  Even though I’m only in the mood to snack.

Finished other half of Cubano from the Gilman brewery, and the Bear Republic beer I finally opened up, canned.  Thought, I want to really test self, both in discipline and every day and night notes, practice.  So, reasoning… 100 Days of No.

Beer.

Meat.

Dessert.

Starbucks or any other coffee I pay for at some devilish shop.

TV at night.

Lunching out at work.  Meaning, MEALPLAN.

Want to change my character, as I read others doing.  Right now, no TV.  And no dessert.  Just words.  Shit, so that means no Peet’s tomorrow morning, no fucking latte.  Can I do that. Demanded.  Breaking pattern to see differently, to be another character.  Just thought of another NO…

BEER.

No more.  I’ll keep wine there.  Needed, given certain business interests and connections, stories and writing and what be.

Playing with character, MY character.  See what happens.  No so much to see what happens but analyze and study the progressions and effects.  This’ll be a class unto itself.  Where I study the character and form, vocals and narrative, STORY of Mike Madigan as I do with the English 1B sections this semester.  Need name for the project.  And not just the NO project.  Or maybe that should be it.  Not like the whole fucking Nancy Reagan ‘Just say no.’ shit, but a nod to yes rather than no.  To gain more than loss or giving something up.

the NO project… starting tomorrow.  But tonight too.  No dessert, but a glass of wine then bed.  Make coffee in morning.  And for one hundred fucking days.  It’s the story I’ve decided to direct and write, live and promise.

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1/1/20

3:35pm.

Watching Emma play with her dolls, in her room. Leaning against the right side of the door frame and wall. Meditation. What to do for rest of the day’s design. How does Mike want to develop as a character, in his story.

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10/9/19

Two years ago, the fires.  And now… me heading to Berkeley by myself.  Out of the wine industry, done with 4-shot latte, and not touching NaNo project till this evening, or later in day.  Maybe this morning, not sure.

Have to leave at 9-9:15.  In meantime, write.  Plan day.  Write what I want into existence.

Chardonnay last night, with something wife made.  Can’t think, with people talking around me but like I tell my students just write, ignore it. Last night’s discussion on Plath has me wanting to write my own opinion paper, about her writing after asking students “Why Write?” Prompt for last night’s meeting.

Just noted to self… “Write what you see and what you know, what you love and where you’ll go.” This morning I’m intent—no, more than that.  What the hell am I? Something I’ve never been before, I feel.  The technical aspect of what I do for Sonic does a bit unnerve and intimidate me, but I ignore it.  I can act.  Or not act, but assimilate, have a different fate.

So……..  Driving soon.  Travel light.  Only a work folder, or pouch, or whatever the hell this thing’s called.

Writing about work has me with exposed fangs, wanting more work, more projects, more invitations for creative.  Woke at fucking 6:20-something this morning when I so profusely wanted to be up at 4.  But, the run, and I think the Chardonnay blocked what was sought.

Some people bringing their kids to work, with nearly every school in Sonoma County closed for the day.  All except for wife’s.  Can’t figure that out. Jack to work with her.  Wonder what he’ll do there.  This morning Jack showing me how many notes, letters really, he’s writing.  If he writes a certain number of letters, he earns stickers, and eventually his name will be mentioned on the loudspeaker at his school. His aim arrangement and orientation teaches me about me, what I need do with my nano novel  I remember thinking how tired I was last night instead of just diving into my novel.  When home, tonight, just open the laptop, do touch-and-go’s on novel.

Gears in switch.  Prep for Berkeley drive, gather materials, though not much.  Posted something, texted wife, moving miles in less than a minute.

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Re-writing something.  What I say in a quick into.  Sounds basic, but I need to do it, for my own character composition and sight, practice.  Lunch approaching.  Planning on going right at 12.  Where.  Do I stay here, or go out.  Go out.  Treat self.  Bring legal pad.  Write plan for day’s remainder.  Appointments…. How else, other than the phone…. Brainstorming.  Plan and blueprint to prospecting.  Write more about Sonic…. Post about it.  Not too much, but a couple times a day.

New blog about business, and creativity, communication in sales and marketing…. Posts jotted down.  Keep moving.  About to get off phones, switch prospecting mode.  Get out of the office.  Go to Petaluma.  Have three spots to hit, three targets.  And again, just say hi….  You need to take it away from you and what you’re trying to do, or what you’re trying to convert, accomplish, pick your word.  You need to re-write, and be open to re-writing your story and character.  IF you have a blog, post about it, post all of it.  Don’t worry about vulnerability.

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Day THREE

Driving down to Novato.  Mood from yesterday persists but loses its grip.  Pressuring self to convert, to transact, to do something.  Feel like I’m in a holding pattern or some tireless circle.  I don’t know.  But today is new, newer.  Keep moving, keep speaking I tell myself.  Note everything.  Aims for day—take self out to lunch, enjoy conversations with business owners, learn about business today.  Anything.  Any dimension to business, to growth, to autonomy.

What do I write at the day’s lit thread?  Learn.  From everything.  Talking self into a different direction and pace, vocal color and composition today.  So… the drive, my first stop.  Targeted.  Had a thought of being better at this than anyone in the department, just a few minutes ago.  Write how I got there.  This is all attitude, all perspective, all how you see something.  Sipping coffee and somewhat enjoying my free-flying prose.  Sal says he vaguely planned but never took off.  I’m choosing to take off, not worry about missteps and follies.  This third day is about the motion beginning.  The story starting.

Forgetting yesterday.  And yesterday was only what it was ‘cause I chose to see it that way.  No one said anything to me, I didn’t get “in trouble”, wasn’t “talked to”. Nothing like that.  I chose my estimation of it.  Okay… so, today, change.  Worried about nothing, writing everything.  Quite looking forward to the drive, if you must know.

Returning to certain remarks and suggestions I’ve made in the classroom.  About inward jots being invaluable.  Need to write to self more.  And I am.  Is that what this is?  I don’t know.  Looking at clock and soon have to leave.  Keep it simple, telling self.  Break the aim down to its most basic composition.  Talk, land appointment, go from there.  That’s it.  That simple.  Blogging and writing, making money from that…. Same thing.  Set appointments, have conversations.  Conversations and appointments, learning that’s what I should do, and that’s all.

Going to kill my wine days, I’m thinking.  What is it doing, I see this third day.  Nothing.  Not that much.  And I want the distance from wine to get closer to its story.  Be more like the tourists with their wonder, with their impression and absorption of everything around them.  When they walk into the Lancaster cave and that awe they vocalize.  I want that.  I want to write that, and truthfully.  I want to be wrapped in madness with wine, not pouring from behind a bar anymore.  No more vague planning.  Time to take off.

Hungry, but not yet in the mood to eat.  A little fasting to start day.  Maybe another cup for the ride down.  Remember, if you’re reading this and in sales, or just starting out in some new sales position—conversation, calendar.  That’s all this is.  Anything else is minutia, really.  It’s just a layer.  Everything is.  Product specificities, install dates, contract conditions…. Doesn’t matter.  The conversation and the calendar are all that have immediate or even distant importance.

8/6/19

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8/1/19

Office getting quieter.  Many gone home.  Staying here to get head start on tomorrow.  Desk a little bit more organized than before.  Only a little.  Well, maybe more than a little.  Set three appointments today, which isn’t bad.  Was hoping for one more, but I have tomorrow and a new set of prospects to hit. My approach to my agency is connectedness, conversation, helping others convert and grow their business.  There will be a return, I know.  Thinking about how the day started with my late start and rush to a meeting, having a meeting after that with one chap in business and explaining what he does, me writing in my head ideas for my practice.  Mothing of mimic, but from the unintended encouragement of the conversation itself.

My P-O-Z Agency is all words.  That’s it.  All language, communication, the poetic hand in business.  Little over 20 minutes till I leave.  And before I do, more notes to self.  More notes for the meetings I have queued for tomorrow, one in morrow then one at lunch.  Keeping the motion not only constant but ravenous.  Hungry, a constantly present and pursuing atmosphere and phantasm.

As the office quiets, I want more.  I want to explore more of this—where I am and what I’m doing.  The decision to leave the wine industry and pursue something different, something new and an equation to solve, or play with, explore.  Just see what happens.  That Newness, the new experiences craved by writers.  And that’s what this is, do note, a writer, of wine, wandering in tech and the internet’s frame and dimension.  Not so much to find something, or maybe it is, but to observe and learn and keep observing and wandering.  I’m in a stage of my story where there’s more life in what’s around me, the seemingly plain and mundane, that I ever before estimated.  This office, this company and its collective voice and steps, its BEAT, its music, has done such.

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9:58pm

Woke up just a shadow after 5 this morning.  No mood to write.  Sipping water now after only a bit of wine and craft beer.  Need to finish a book, that dream, or dreams, last night, this morning motioned.  In the city today, in the 10-month office of that startup, having me wound in thought like hyperactive cat, or something.  Not sure what I’m thinking right now, tired as I am.  Just knowing I need to finish my the book, or not—yeah, maybe I don’t.  Maybe I just need to post more.  To this very fucking blog.  Put everything into the world, every thought.  A book will come later, won’t it?  I’m tired and shouldn’t be writing.  Just before 10, should just go to bed so I’m assured a run at lunch tomorrow.  Need one, after how I ate today… the breakfast burrito, then that Italian chicken sandwich in Novato… then pasta for dinner, and a dessert (which wasn’t too heavy and crazy).  I know, it’s the exhaustion that has me overthinking.  SO, bed, writer. Go to fucking sleep.  If you want that office in Healdsburg, or the city, or offices in multiple towns like the show shop you met today, with two spots in NYC and one in Australia?  Or was it two in Australia?  One in NY?  Bed…  Couple more sips of the iced water…

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7/30/19

Flight plan for day.  Be mobile.  Move around.  Go outside the usual print of the day.  Don’t have to start moving for a bit.  Physically moving, that is.  An ’09 Chardonnay last night utterly stunned me, how it was still alive and saying something, wanting itself known and heard, felt.  The post-it on my desk, reading “Circles Paths Questioning” so much in line and tune with last night’s screw-top Alexander Valley Burgundy.  The Chardonnay writes the day’s flight plan, where we’re to land, what our altitude will be.  Today, all music… all song.  Each scene and movement in this tech office is a track.  Walking back from leaving the lunch I brought in the fridge I cringed a bit thinking how today could be just another day, mirroring yesterday or others past.  Then I said no, no, I’m pronouncing my proclamation to have today be all music.

Latte starting to work, grip soul and structure of this day’s story.  Asking me, or making me ask self, “Would I produce a Chardonnay?” Not sure I would.  I’ve thought about it, and in these entries talked about it.  But serious consideration of Chardonnay production…. Not sure.

Was shown something that has me afire.  Now I vary and make more colorful my approach and productivity composition.  Not limiting self to one thing, one path or promise.  But multiple.  A myriad-esque approach to this, what I do as an AAE.  Interesting role, this is.  Putting me more and more in a vineyard in Bordeaux, or more than likely more immediately here in Sonoma or Anderson Valley.  The person showed me  not knowing what was in my head, where I was in the week’s story.  Which makes it all so much valuable more.

Sip latte, wondering if a run will happen today.  Think it will.  Right now still moving a bit slow and only wanting to explore this new idea I have… not writing it here but in the Kerouac journal.  Haven’t done so, yet.  This idea is so consuming and seductive that I may need to take a break, go for a walk and sit in breakroom, or outside in back of building as I did that one day.

Business cards all over desk.  Part of puzzle.  What is success, being successful… far as I can see it’s not stopping, and reaching some peak of total creative and functional autonomy.  Distracted by the idea itself, now.  It’s more than value, more than a monetary potential, but….. not sure what it is.  What species, what phylum, what form or category, sub-category.  It’s present and I hear it.  The IT to it all.

This is not just simple mobility, staying moving.  No. It’s…. why do I have to define it?  Why not just build from it.  I will. For my vineyard, small little wine story.  And yes, I’m thinking now, Chardonnay has to be in the rally.  Today, a Chardonnay, one like last night.  Seemingly past its presence and persuasive power but not at all.  Not thinking, just writing.

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