0502

That’s better. Still not 4 but this is the kind of hour I need to wake at in order to get that kind of start in and on day. Today, to be a long one. Starting in office new then driving to SF, then back to office, Santa Rosa, then to class later, 7 to about 830. The solution, not that there needs be a “solution”, as there’s certainly no problem, is to write everything down. What a surprise I say that. But how about actually do it. Not that I don’t, but how about more zeal this time. More singular and definite words, short sentences. More specifics in what I see in the city, on my drive. Where is my voice recorder? Hate using this phone while driving, if you should know, and you should. Not sure why you “should”. Truth, I’m reminded. Truth in the day, these long days. Not sure why it’s on my thinking’s terrain to points of sleep inability. Why am I up? Why am I not asleep right now? What’s on my mind I ask myself. What. Is it the office? Is it the day itself, the drive? Any angst with this new job? I came downstairs to write, hear kids talking and I tell them to go to bed, both in our bed. What am I thinking, this writing daddy, this writer who sees something in the present present. But what. Sip coffee. Not yet. Wait. This hour, the dark of the room and the outside, and everyone out in the vineyards now harvesting their lots. I SHOULD be up. And not just this morning, but every morning. Think I recognized it– It’s that, this. I’m writing a piece on the morning itself, being more tuned in the morning, for it. There is nothing to fear in this day or any other. I have more than a head-start or head’s start on Tuesday. However you write it. I already have the whole day, or have the opportunity to. And it’s not even 05:20.

Coffee. Slow communicative sip, pull from dark puddle. Me, couch, no sound. Awake to have more of day itself. Challenge it. Have it. Know it, already. Beat it at whatever game or field, board it thinks its own. It’s mine, I promise self. All mine. Had a thought of calling tonight’s class, but no I swear to self. Go. Go in tired. Remind them, show them, those enrolled, what a long day is. Teach, if anything, about work. About self. About deciding what the day will say. The day itself has NO say. That’s all us. Me, up now, thank the Craft, not so much collecting or gathering thoughts but being with self. Quiet time, like I tell the babies when they have an unreasonable volume about them at an inappropriate hour or any hour.

39. 40 next year. And still in a search of sorts. Think I found something, actually I know I did, with tech. This new office. A tech company and office and being around characters with more technological acuity and awareness than I’ll ever have. Not that I can’t be them but– No. I can’t. And I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to. No one there is making me, which I love and more or less can’t believe. They want me to be me, this writer and blogger. They hired me for me. Realizing that this morning could be one thing keeping me up, disabling me from going back to sleep aside from the coffee. This morning I’m 39, tomorrow I will be too, but one morning I’ll be 40, then older and older. Age is only age if its acknowledged and credited. What if I stopped crediting it. What if I decided age is unaccredited. Like some two-bit, hair-brained for-profit college. I can do that. This morning teaches me to only see what I want. To work harder. Just now, I grieved a bit, that I didn’t start writing right when I came down but rather used the restroom briefly. 04:50-something. Can’t do that. Here I am, I’m awake, what are you going to decide to do. Am I “figuring out life”? No. But I’m definitely not letting it tell me what’s possible, what I’m allowed to do. What I’m capable of doing.

Waking early puts you in a different world. In a different role. You’re not yourself, not the same character if you’re used to doing this. There’s a challenge and a stress to it but with concurrent ease, meditation. From where I’m sitting in this house, what used to be my office, I won’t be able to see the sun rise but a gradual lighting and progressive brightness, brightening of the day itself. Which saddens me, but only if I dwell. I don’t let self. I listen to the nothingness heard in my home. Son sniffling a bit, the fridge humming behind me, my thumbs tapping on this phone, its screen. Being in the city, San Francisco, wakes me. Those thoughts. Thinking…. office, drive, walk around city with sales team, meet with them, then drive back…. when lunch? Maybe I won’t get one. Grab something, maybe. On go. No fast food. Haven’t had in over a year and the last time it made me quite sick.

Mood turns. Not sure why. Time rushing. 05:40. Only so much time left. Typo… fuck. My frustration compiles like my pages. What do I want from day. Where am I going with this entry. In tech. With writing. With teaching. With 39…….. Stop. I fracture the inward scold before it holds me, holds anything. Yawn. I’m tired. No I’m not. I’m eager. For the day. For work. For more writing. Speak into phone if you can on drive down. Be careful of course, but don’t fall into a complacency mitt.

More meditation, more questioning, more drawing of what here is now, a month ago in the wine industry doing the same thing over and over and o…… And now, this. Waking before six. A thousand words and for what. What will I do with this. What will I do with me today, these opportunities. The day will tell me, I’m sure. And I’ll tell it something in return– I’m deciding and writing how everything’s to progress and situate. The pages are mine, all of them.

9/18/18

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0602

Up. First sip of cold coffee. More than ready for today. Monday. A day which hasn’t scared me in years. Now I look forward. Still. It waking at the hour I want. Practice. A fight. A battle. To see that number on the oven clock and write while in its pose. I’m more than fascinated by people who wake early. And, earlier than 6. I’m smitten, a fan of them. A follower. Admirer. I’m the one in the upper deck and back far seats with binoculars pressed to my eyes. But no more. Was, I should have said.

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Day 11 – 

Sat down in break room/arcade/snack shop, immediately started writing.  Told self I’d grade papers on break, but not after the busy morning I’ve had.  I very much deserve this meditation, this collection in words, with my paragraphs paired with leftover pizza and sparkling water wife me bought at Costco, yesterday? No.  Saturday.  Anyway, I think of business.  This business that I’m now in, melding customer service and PR with hospitality and sales, tech, language, storytelling, everything that I am as a … everything that I am.  Truly.  This morning’s meetings with T showed me what I already knew but punctuated what I need more pay attention to.

I’m learning still, at my old age.  Learning to learn, learning to write, write everything down, make the moment and everything in it especially at a new job my own.  New knowledge, in every step and turn.  No exaggeration.  I can’t get anywhere close to enough, here.  Of everything.  From the product I represent, to the services… how do I make this my own, I think.  The same way I did, and still do but on my own terms with wine.  Words.  Speaking.  Performing to a lesser emphasis.  Here.  Present.  My story and in my business, my business in this business, learning about the internet and why Net Neutrality is important, how I as a consumer of information is impacted.  I’m learning, and that’s my fix, that’s my addiction and story.

I still have a semester to get through, and I have to get creative tonight if I’m to grade what I have to, what remains.  What I had more than enough time to get to over the weekend but decided to instead write as I now do.  I should be eating this pizza, taking down this sparkling water, but I collect and mediate, recover on page.  Not that there’s anything to recover from.  This place, this company, everyone around me in this break room put me in a cumulonimbus composition of passion and creative… how to approach prospective buyers and how to approach the office every morning.  Writing down plans and goals for each day.  Yes, I’m doing so each day, and assessing the writer’s progress.  What I’m doing, how I grow, what I know and what I learn, how I grow from what I already know and the shapes and sequences newly-learned.  Feel like my story is only NOW truly starting… that the great consolidation of things and vignettes in my greater story only now’s noted.  Finally.  I shouldn’t say that, though.  I know.

Hunger catching me, I take a bit of the cheese pizza that I bought for the kids.  My babies, missing them this morning and driving here I thought of them and felt my soul sink, that I needed more time with them over the weekend.  But how could I have had more?  There were things scheduled, scenes already set.  Plainly, and I write this all the time, I need to wake earlier.  Last night didn’t sleep all that well, so ce soir I’m going to those sheets and pillows unusually early as I told wife.  See if I do it, and if I do hopefully it’ll trigger an early wake.  If I make a project of 4am, who knows what it’ll do.  I’m certain contribute to what I do here at the office new, this tech gem that found my story with a quickness and timeliness that very well could have saved my life, I see. In many ways.  Not just hyperbole.  I’m vocally convinced it did.

Have my eye on one of those canned coffee drinks in the shop’s fridge.  Not sure why I’m stuck on that at the moment, but I am.  I love the surroundings, here.  Do I miss the walks around the crush pad, in the tank rooms, in the cave?  Yes, I guess, but even those started to get old. They were just the same, replicated in each curve and angle, scent from barrels and tanks, cave rooms and tables.  Even my day yesterday in friend’s tasting room annoyed me, a bit.  People coming to taste wine but not really understanding them so they didn’t buy, or did but only a bottle here and there.  Thinking the next time I’m in a tasting room will be when I have my own. My own flight, offerings, when I’m pouring the wines I and/or my sister’s made.  Wine… still in head, don’t be confused. The industry though, as I’ve so many times in days recent said, put on the pages of this blog, is no more in my manuscript.  No more counting register, drying glasses, making those infernally pestering cheese plates.  No more.  Sipping what remained of that Pinot last night, and not much mind you, I thought of how just a moth ago, August 10th, I was in that room.  Behind the bar.  Pouring for people, giving tours, walking ‘round the crush pad and strolling with a joke or two cued into the lab to greet my buddy Chris… an act I do very much miss, as I loved the wine and winemaking discussions with mon ami, Mr. Chris… talking to the winemaker and asking him about growth in the vineyard.  Just under a month ago.  Time, here, flying faster than anywhere else.  More than enjoying myself, more than growth, but lesson that I need capture everything.  Note everything, and I do as there’s a lot to this new job of mine.  Field Sales Supervisor, a title which sounds rather industrial and clinical, boring and emotionless.  But its not, and certainly not how I’ll make it my own.

My pep, a strain to contain, hold or quarantine.  I’m learning too much, and not just about tech and the internet, client and customer relations, but about BUSINESS.  Am I a business blogger, now?  My knowledge need speaks from this new business I’m in.  I didn’t have this on property, certainly not behind that bar pouring down a tasting flight.  Meeting another fellow new hire after this lunch/typing session.  I know what I’m to say, then don’t.  I’ll learn from that, as well.  This is all learning. My business in this business, in this office, new, is learning, helping others learn.

9/10/18

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Standing and Writing 

Photo on 3-14-17 at 10.47 AMCoffee.  A day off.  But I don’t want any kind of a day off.  Busy over the week but that’s no permission for non-submission.  I’m writing today, and that’s all there is in my character and mind. Today I’m Jack Kerouac.  More than Kerouac, or Hem, or Carver, Faulkner, I’m ME.  I’m the me that had wine last night and doesn’t have to worry about speaking wine from having to speak about wine, today.  I’m free.  I’m free of wine’s industry and telling me what to do, busy tasks for the sake of staying busy… no.  No more.  I’ve said this before, but I feel obligated to again put such in these day’s pages—  Wine is what I write, wrote, again write.  Not the bloody industry.  Or maybe I am.  Maybe I should.  Again, my tell-all of wine’s world and functioning and lack of.  But that’s not where the knowledge is.  That’s not healthy to obsess, and to do some tell-all is from vindictive voice.

Head a bit foggy this morning, from that last glass of whatever blend that was.  Think Merlot and PV and maybe something else. Martin Ray’s Bordeaux varietal project.  Still see myself having my own label, someday.  Some little tasting room… but enough dreaming.  What am I making happen, forcing to fruition today?  A run.  And not on a fucking treadmill.  Just plugged in the running watch, that Garmin thing the wife-ish person bought me for xmas or something.  She bought me one of the best models and I have not used it satisfactorily.  So, then, a run.  Write and write and write….  I descend upon self whenever I don’t write or don’t hit some word amount, and I know why then have no idea why.  Today, new.  The Newness invites me to travel from thought to thought as Neal and Jack went from State to state.  I think about my life, where I am in it, riding from house to house on appointments yesterday with that tech whose name I can’t remember and so horrible I feel as we had quite an enjoyable day.  Finally eating lunch in west county, Occidental, eating sandwiches I bought for us under a tree, watching people drive by on that narrow main street drag.  The first house, not a house at all but a traitor on a bigger property, Windsor.  Felt bad for the bloke, later in his life and that’s all he had.  He was of elevated soul and disposition, saying “I’m great!” Then I felt bad for being bad.  He’s fine, Mike… I said to self. When we called to make sure he was home so we could do, or the tech, DAVID, could do what he had to.  Left Windsor then went to Healdsburg to connect something at this lady’s house, who lives with her photographer husband.  This house I found especially interesting as the house had a beautiful side area, completely shaded and set up like a cabana, or gazebo bar or lounge area.  Then in back of main structure to their shared studio.  Walking up small and steep little bright dark-blue stairs to a loft, the studio area itself where her husband’s photog equipment and her web developer area situated, catty-corner to the other.  There was a couch which I can only deduce was either a little gathering spot for the artists and their musings, gatherings, or a waiting area.  I thought to myself this is just the studio I want, just the office I’m aiming for.  I saw my office in a second home, in Healdsburg.  Just blocks from the square as this dwelling was.

Then in Occidental, we drove out, out to West County’s distant dimensions.  The lady’s house had some flawed connections, or some blockage in the phone line itself.  I didn’t quite understand what’d transpired till after we’d left and David to me explained.  What I thought was quite literary about this house was the envelopment of those tall redwood trees, if they WERE redwoods.  How nice it’d be to have a place like that to write, to have a studio or some office to finally finish my fucking book.  Then to lunch.  Saw one of my former students, which was quite startling and pleasantly perfect for the educating day I was having riding along with my new tech ami.  While the sandwiches were being mad eI used the restroom in the Union Hotel.  The original Union.  It felt historic, which it is, but something else I couldn’t place.  Not haunted per se, but something, something was there, something had been there, there were years and years of vacationers there and however many stories and characters… something there had me.  History, wine, wine’s world and town, more history and directions.  The Roads…

While in the deli I looked at what wines they had.  Nothing too commanding or provocative, but even still I thought of what it’d be like to be just passing through the town, having lunch with whomever I’m traveling, opening a bottle of something, and just watching, observing the town breath, learn from it.  Since being with this new company, I’ve seen more possibilities in everything, everything that makes this writer who he is, how he wants to be seen.   From the writing itself, to business interests and aims, tech, blogging, photography, wine and food, Sonoma County, my running, health, truly all parcels of my person.  Now seated, and measuring, forecasting what I want at the end of this latest 30-day whatever.  Not sure if it’s one of those challenges, or just some new representative sample.  Of what I do where I am, when I’m there.  What I do with time when I have it as I do now with the babies on their first day of weekend, a day off for us all, watching their little cartoon from under their little blankets.  They lose their littleness by the day, and I know will one day read this, or one of my pieces or books.  So this 30 days, which was shoved into action really from curiosity and something I saw from one of those business/speak self-proclaimed authorities to know fucking everything about everything.  So I answer with humility and curiosity, hoping the humility eclipses.  What will happen in 30?  I stand back up, look at babies, knowing I need to have them ready for wife character in under an hour from now. 

To the Road.  MY, Road.

9/8/18

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inward jot

img_7243Not writing much yesterday, and now getting to keys today, the first day back after long weekend.  Not sure where to start other than even though I was directly bitten by the wine bug on Sunday with the Italian wines tasting, I’m back in business mode here in my newly told tech steps.  Thinking about what a real business this is compared to and not compared to, just autonomously, the wine industry.  Everything from training and the creative, to the guy educating me on everything that’s in the office and the operations of the business urging I make this my own, that I can make it my own, that such is encouraged.  In many respects, I can’t believe I’m here.  But I am.  And I don’t focus on nostalgia or overthought.  I’m present and knowing what my focus here will be.  Storytelling.  Educating, speaking, writing, as L—the guy doing the training modules for me—said he did, does, writing everything down.  Taking lots of notes.. precisely his language.  And I’ve known that about myself ever since ever, but arriving here and starting my training and learning more about the company has punctuated my already known identity.  Frankly, I don’t see a lot of me changing, just improving.  This office hired me for me, who I am, who I’ve always been.  I see so much, now, in my story, in the Mike Madigan the wine industry questioned and made myself question.

Brought lunch today, a microwavable breakfast bowl… which I guess makes this brunch.  Some people around me playing games, others talking, and me in disbelief and total belief of where I am, what I now do, then only able to believe it.  That this IS the reality.  45 minutes to write, collect myself in this pages set, this blog, this room, this table where I do touch-and-go’s on a bland breakfast bowl.  Should have put some sauce on it, in it, something.  So now I just go over in my head what I have to do for class tonight and—  WAIT.  No class.  Today’s some teacher in-service day, or some activities day I of course can’t attend as I’m here, in the office new, where I put all storytelling strides toward.  And I see more story… someone in the wine industry for as long as I was leaving entirely and finally getting to enjoy wine for wine and not part of some industry, now in tech not being excessively tech-lifted but making it his own.  Using his strengths as a lecturer in Literature as well, a fondness of words and rhetoric, his own composition for this new job he years ago never would have thought he’d have.  I’ve taught myself about self, my self, the person writing this at lunch, working at lunch on his story, knowing where he’s going… this is more than an exciting time for me and my writing, my narrative, but a sped and animated transcendence from patterned circuitry to a more mobile manuscript.  True thought and understanding of placement and thought arrangement and assembly.

I’m a literary wine bloke in tech.  Huh….  I have to write that.  I will.  I AM writing that, sitting here in this break room, with this bowl of eggs and minced sausage bits, petite potato squares, or rectangles.

9/4/18

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from this morning

Photo on 7-12-18 at 9.04 AM…I learned from her patterns, the desk and the bookshelves, the table and how it was arranged.  Where the wine industry sought to have me be and stay sequacious, this new assignment has me feeling more and valuably observant, more sagacious.  I guess.

Students telling me about their struggles, goals, one moving out here from Chicago and contrasting everything from her town to the moods and attitudes of Sonoma County characters.  Wondering how much I’ve lived, how much more I need to see….  Another student talking about how she feels old, being in her early-mid 20s and seeing all the friends and people around people around her with good jobs, degrees, certifications and whatnot.  How much can I relate to such a sentiment, such inner narrative.  As you know, I can.  I noted in the margin for her to go easy on herself, “Breathe… everything will work to your vision!” I noted.  Should write that to myself in the margin of this doc.  Not sure my laptop can do that, but….  Graded another paper. Student addressing the aspect of chasing down goals, and as he mentions with persistence, hunger, design.  Being creative.  He wrote about how inspired he is… 

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8/3/18, 1

I’m going to enjoy my day and nothing will obstruct such.  I’m going to enjoy work, the people around me (even those of which I don’t particularly enjoy the company), and know I’m doing what I need too doing, a good or mediocre, or excellent job.  I am where I should be.  I’m working, I’m getting closer to that obnoxious happiness for which I reach, sprint.  Couple more minutes to self.  Will take lunch early, come back here to write more meditations.  Short ones.. those getting me to happiness.  For my children… I see those faces and know I need be doing more.  And I will.  Intensify efforts all.  And, more imperatively, smile.

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I just thought of something.  Wine is a

story in a story… part of the collective narrative. My addiction to knowledge and learning more about my story and life’s principle consistency.  Wine is an ingredient, a brick in what wall.  No walls around me, but the wall on which I sign my name over and over. 

Thinking this morning of what I’m to do for the rest of my life… THE REST, of my life.  Writing, yes, but trying to decode life, purpose, knowledge itself, and share carelessly what I find.  One gem in this morning— ignore what stresses you. Literally, just turn it off.  Think of your dream home, some business you want to start, your winery, your children… focus on your There, and you will get there.

Photo on 1-22-18 at 12.36 PM

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08:30.  At winery. 

More thoughts on a new step, a new direction and new knowledge, experiences, writings and whatever else the day has.  Can’t stop thinking about the call, yesterday.  Newness, what I’m looking for.  Heaping storms of Newness for the writer.  Should have taken the day off, honestly.  For sakes of, well, so much.  Short stories about the tasting room and wine and work, teaching… everything in my head circling.  At a pace I can more or less manage, but still the thoughts me provoke.  To think more.  This morning’s early wake affects me, presently.  Hard to think and write, but I do so anyway, poems speaking to me and me writing them down after this entry.  Mumbles, in head, new choruses and verses to recite.  Deciding that certain paths need end, and end when I order them ended.

Spoke yesterday with someone new to company, and we talked about traveling with our own wines, pouring them in other countries and states, and here in Sonoma County.  Dreams… the visions, thoughts becoming tangible and what surrounds you.  No more dreaming, no more simple envisioning and hoping, the wish-listing writing I feel like I’ve been doing for years.  Writing, like this, the healer, the purveyor, the deliver system in this solitude which can at any moment broken be.  Sure someone will walk in, sit at their little cubicle place, spot, and start their work day.  Writing… the cure.  This new possibility stemming from yesterday’s call, lights and lights, new illumination and education.  For me, the babies…

Need a day.  May leave early, today.  In fact I’m nearly assured I will.  When home, rest.  A bit of writing, obviously.  Poems, record them… songs, whatever else there is.  Alway something to compose, jot in the July Journal or somewhere else.  Festinating in this chair, on this page, language’s acolyte.  There’s always something new to write, always a new song, always more tracks to deliver.  Waiting for email… for something, but that’s the block that I don’t need.  Just keep writing, I tell myself.  Learning to nurture the nature of the forward, my books, my pages and stories, the creative of my moment.

This office is far more agreeable than the Napa office I worked in 2011 and just a touch into ’12.  Not sure why… maybe knowing there’s vineyard just on the other side of that wall, I don’t know.  But I’m not as unnerved.  In fact I’m not at all, with the crush pad crew just below me, racking whatever barrels they have to, or in the lab testing alcohols or acids, what be.  I’m at more than a winery, but temple, a place of instruction and learning, knowledge, what I think I write about anymore.  Knowledge.. learning from each moment, each sight and observation, each serving as a standalone piece.  I don’t need to dream or contribute items to any wish bay or list.  Everything’s here, where I am, where I’m being sent, to this new story, a new stage.  

Waiting.

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