As someone who obsesses over work,

and what work he has to do, what I have planned the next day and the remaining hours of this day, I am honestly with nothing.  But I make myself write.  One student tonight saying one of her goals is, was, is to wake at 2am to get ahead in her studies and I assume write a little as she does write poetry and write in short lines, short stanzas, pieces that span only a page.  And I say ‘only’ out of awe, that she does so much to a page in only a page’s pulse.

Was nearly too lazy to write anything tonight.  Told self, “Just a hundred words, per blog.” But I can’t hold self to that.  Should I do what this student plans on doing?  Should I set alarm for 2?  Isn’t that the time of the artist, the writer and poet?  Didn’t I read that somewhere?  On my lunch today grading papers and writing in the Sonic journal as this goddamn laptop didn’t want to let me use it.  Of course, now, I do push the buttons and have a note in my writing normalcy.

Finish the fucking book, I tell myself.  Like my son said tonight as I poised to make his bed with new sheets, “GET TO WORK.” I am.  I say the same to self.  

Sip the Barbera I popped last night. It, she, more calm.  Me the opposite of anything tranquil at the moment.  Working in the home office which isn’t as common as I’d love to tell you it is.  But, WORK.  Work.  What I write about.  Force self to write when I don’t want to.  I do write about wine, but that’s not my only onus and thought light.

Now, I’m like a train with this, these writing thoughts.  I, not failed.  Not failing in my aims.  I won’t allow that.  No one should.  Why would you.  You are here, once.  And I’m not addressing the fact one only lives once…. I’m speaking to myself and you, that where you are, right now, the opportunity and life invitation to bring a project to completion is singular.  You see it once.

You are a train, if you wish be.  Some unknown animal of fruition, bringing works to an offering stage.  There are only stops that persist acknowledged.  So acknowledge none of them.  I see so many of these speakers and motivational-who-be’s profess all this counsel but don’t consider the most apparent reality… the audience member has to decide.  They only elect to act if they bring themselves to movement.  Tonight I could have just as easily poured this red from El Dorado, sat on the floor of this home study, went on phone and scrolled through some photo pour.  No.  We decide to draw, paint new plausible for our Personhood.  Decide to move, be alive, mentally, alive, wildly alive in all movements of your steps and actuating saunter. 

What work does for and to the character is animated in divinely lucrative chant.  Dodge the task, never.  Distractions and suitable sanctions to project-dodge are terminal.  The panacea, always, is preemptive production.  Never, labor deduction. 

10/15/18

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Census

Up still.  Moving still.  I started my 4am story, the pages sequencing from this day forward with the antithesis of control.  Going to get coffee.  First expense of day.  Moving money around, toward my business, and this blogs & chapbooks idea.  Today, back in Berkeley.  Hit a bit of traffic on way back to Sonic but time highly utilized for meditation, thinking of all the projects I now have hovering over me.  Was contacted today to possibly do some wine industry consulting.  Am raising rates, as the questioned project is outside anchoring sight of mikemadigancrEATive.  I’ll see what happens.

In adjunct cell, nearly caught up on everything.  Thought I was much more behind, but apparently I’ve been as tireless as I boast in these posts.  I am axiomatic and pragmatic, to some sense.  Just a couple notes for class, so far.  Tonight I’m keeping simple.  A think tank, blended with open mic attributes, associated with just newly generated thoughts and journal readings and who knows what else.  Making a master list, a new one yes, of all my projects.  I’ll inventory which ones I hit day to day, or try.  6:17 and need that coffee.  Need to write whilst I teach and offer my ideas.  

This morning being at gym— or let’s start with waking, alarm playing its odd tune looped at 4am and me sitting up, rubbing eyes and forehead, saying to self I can go back to dreams for just a bit.  Then a commander, a sergeant of some sort in my character ordered, NO.  Don’t you dare.

So I didn’t.  I dressed, laced, grabbed wallet and phone and earphones, keys.  Out door by 4:06 I think.  At gym shortly after and on tread at 6.2 speed before 6:30.  I had my eight miles, and when done, I walked over to friend from Sonic, Mr. Abraham, who was in the corner jumping rope like an over-caffeinated rabbit, so precise and so quiet in the swings and diagonal throws with the rope and his hops coupled.  We talked for a bit, and I headed home.  Paused in the parking lot as I hoped to.  Smelled air as I saw myself doing last night when I thought about the walk back to car after 8, if I hit 8.  And I did.  Warmer than I thought it’d be.  When home, sparkling water and look at oven clock.  5:52.  All that done by 5:52.  Before six.  I have to make this habit.  Religion.  I said to myself sipping the bubbled H2O like I’d been lost somewhere remote and had only dreamt of thirsty ending the entire time.  

Now I’m here.  The typing helps, and I know the coffee will fully bring this writer back to his lively literary life.  Need cinnamon in it, anything to keep me in my character’s code and courting till home when I open that blend from Napa.  Or do I want something else?  Do I have anything else?  Need to budget for a massive wine purchase.  Talking about wine wakes me as well.  No surprise.  Very much now up, flying over these keys and laptop and to all walls and borders of this shared adjunct office.  Over and over, going over the morning.  The alarm, tying shoes, drive there and back, the water, and me now after the eight miles, over twelve hour past.

10/11/18

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Newnesses 

Let ‘100’ students go early.  Came to adjunct cell, and here I finally get a breath.  Meeting after meeting at work, among other surprises, but I maintain my character composition and ready for tomorrow’s 4AM rise.  I’m doing it.  Going to write each step in this effort.  Even the failures.  Even the falls and follies.  Now I collect, I envision me on that treadmill, hitting mile 8.  Has to be eight miles.  I figure if I get there by 4:20 I can with no problem or impediment get to my 8.  Eating light tonight, especially after late lunch in field with Brandon, Chinese place I haven’t been to since I worked at the store next-door when it was still Long’s.  When I was in graduate school.  That long ago.  2004.  Now I feel old.  The run tomorrow will have me feeling young.  And that’s not really the aim, just a change of habits.  Even if I wake early and don’t work out, I’ll have risen early, and more than likely written something for either this blog or some poem, some chapbook idea, something.

4AM.  My new topic.  Wine is still there, here with me in my writing back and forth, but the hour of 4AM and what I do in a day, how I make use of every hour, every minute in those hours, now for example I could have very easily left campus and went somewhere for a glass of wine which I very much saw myself doing.  No, though.  I came here to write.  That’s not to say I won’t have some wine after, maybe a glass at Whole Foods bringing in the Sonic of Burgundy journal, scribbling a bit, planning my run tomorrow and the marathons I plan on doing next year the year I turn 40.

No more concern for turning that age.  Age, something numeric and having no contingency on quality or Personhood, behavior, story itself.  Yes, my body may not move as it could when I was 16 or 18, 21.  But, note what I wrote, “may not”.  I can see myself waking tomorrow, having fallen asleep in running shirt, shorts.  I put my shoes by the door, laces untied and spread to sides of shoes.  All I have to do is hop in them, grab keys and wallet and GO.  When there, stretch, then fly.  Have music cued.  Listen to music I’ll run to while driving there, the 24 on Industrial.  I’m ready, after talking at lunch with Brandon about a change he made in his lifestyle and character way recently.  And then someone else, a couple weeks ago, telling me the same.  Then someone else…. My turn, now.

Ce soir, bed early.  Writing should be done during day, morning.  Always.  Night should be meditative and preparative for day next.  Always.  The students, hope they’re using this time in some productive and creative way, and if not nothing I can do.  I can only do for my story, ME, my health.  8 miles.  Walking back to the car after the eight, I can already feel that air, see the sun still repressed and suppressed by night prior.  Sky still purple, air feeling like colors I see— streetlights and stars, parked cars, little winds.  All congratulating me, embracing me after when I just did, what I’ve started.

10/10/18

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I’m awake and working out.

Did first hold right before five. After that, push-ups and planks. Some sit-ups. Not really counting, just wanting to keep motion continuous. Set stop watch, not a countdown. Just keep the motion motioned, what I’m telling self. 05:12.

Conscious of the noise and mood of the morning. Everything I do on this hardwood or just wood floor make a sound, loud thin and audible. Like an airy crack, or crackle. Wife leaves for her workout offsite. I start coffee. Vowing tomorrow morning with the day off I’ll go to gym at 4-something. Not only enhance the shape I’m in, but start a new way, new story. Yes another promise, more so though a plan than remark avowing anything.

Can already feel the little I’ve done. In legs from hold, abdomen from pushups just a moment ago tallying 100, and arms from planks and pushups. Time for coffee.

Didn’t post thousand words from last night before class. Will today from whatever coffee spot I can find in the Sunset. Sight 1 for day is that, coffee and composition in the City. Second, hit a few doors with the reps. Then, a poem while walking whatever avenue we’re on. One of the views yesterday from 28th and something, I just looked out at the ocean like I saw something or someone in it. The air’s olfactory makeup told me to keep walking and keep watching. Feeling some goal or aim, some aspiration or creative desire sprint from San Francisco, for me. And if it weren’t for Sonic I wouldn’t even be there having these observations and reflections.

05:31. Waking this early, a badge of sorts. Hear son move around in his bed, and if he wakes early and breaks this sitting, I don’t mind. It’s part of the story. Part of the story but the whole of who I am– writing daddy getting in whatever time I can to write. At work at my desk between little addresses of some spreadsheet, or organizing, or prepping for some meeting. The subject is me. The story, each page, and I never need be sorry.

The workout, over. Me on couch in qualified dark, fan light overhead on my dim setting so I can have some isolator writer mood in here. I keep forgetting it’s harvest right now, and so many of my vino people are out there, right now, pulling clusters from rows and into bins, into a gondola pulled by tractor, a driver up early and away from his family, doing what he needs to them feed.

05:36. I feel like one of them, right now. One of the early. One of the characters they defies law, the expected, that doesn’t sleep in. They can’t. Their minds won’t let them. Mine won’t let me. At all. This morning I’m alive with Sonic and supersonic thoughts of speaking, words, fearlessly sharing ideas from one city to next on work, business, writing everything down and so many say that and never do and if they did, my god, it would not only help what they do but wildly and poetically shape their business and their place and placement in it.

Could go back to bed even if a writer wanted to. Hell, even if my body and functioning orders em to. My thinking’s of a beatific defiance this morning, and only accepting sentences. As a workplace, Sonic tells you to be more of you, it challenges me and how the wine industry never could– Telling me to not only keep doing what I’m doing, but intensify. AMPLIFY. Diversify. Play with form as you do in poetry, poet. And more. More.

05:41. I ask myself where the time went and nowhere, nowhere. It’s still very much presented and around me, present. Gifting me with this couch and all the musing I need for a day in the city. Will I wake as early tomorrow, or early as I have written… I have to. I know how I’ll feel if I don’t. I know my mood if I won’t. Set alarm, every movement today for tomorrow’s early steps and words, lines, however many miles I run on tread or however many reps I finish. Not waking early, and I’m citing hours like this, is in no way literary. Writers don’t sleep in. We can’t sleep, for the most part. We deplore rest, and idleness. Just laying in bed and scrolling, sitting on couch watching a show, or just hanging like a coat from some hook, some executed prisoner from a tight meanly knotted and enclosing circle.

05:47. I love this. I do. I don’t have to think about what to write. It’s right in front of me, blatantly. No sun or suggestion of it through the glass door to right. This is true morning to me. When the sun steps and straight lay stands communicating with the world, its day. It’s started. The day is off and you better find a way to catch it as right now you’re surely not ahead if you haven’t been up. I’m here, knowing I’m ahead of the day. Time again, my topic. Twelve hours from now, I could very well be in traffic. On 101 somewhere. San Rafael, the Novato narrows, Petaluma. Somewhere. I have twelve hours to do something to my story… I do it. Start the timer. 12 hours. Get to work and collect in writing for a bit, then attack tasks. Reps get in before ten, so we head out early. Quick, this Friday. My writing will equal, rival, buzz by pacing.

Son definitely awake. 05:52. I could get a stet in day, again. Teeth and shower, dress, pack, take stuff out of bag as to bring laptop for written lunch and be lighter while hiking the SF streets. Keep the motion motioned. To halt is to fall. And I can’t. Not this close to 40.

Diet for day… Coffee, only healthy snacks, no full meals till dinner, and then do note to lightly eat. Speaking of my beloved coffee life… I sip…

10/5/18

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Sonic Jot

Next day, the second where I feel like I’m on a rocket ship, just ascending and appreciating altitude.  Third day of victory, of production, producing, feeling my life and creative tide just going and rising and taking me with it.  On lunch now, peanuts and a ginger ale I bought from shop.  Stomach still a bit uneasy from that vegetarian burrito, yesterday.  Work today is more than enlivening and exhilarating.  I did feel this a couple times in the wine industry, but with no consistency.  Can’t remember the last time at Roth I had three consecutive days of pure life and topic ownership.  My story becomes its own storm, now.   Its own Now.  In this large warehouse-like quarter with Sonic everything all around me and everything that Sonic embodies, from the communicative facet to people just visibly enjoying what they do.  I’m definitely space-bound.  My work is no longer work but something that’s redefined and redrawn and re-purposed my literary purpose.

Walking someone through the office and into this break arena earlier, I could see the amazement and disbelief in her facial shape.  How the company encourages its people, how the “employees” are more so investors and partners, family members to the immediate and distant motions.  All motions overlap and intermingle, creating a creative concurrency.  Their own currency to be exchanged and interchanged…  I notice my own face change shape, sitting here.  Taking another sip, not needing any real lunch but just the snack I have and everything on either side— left and right, 12 and 6.  All these corners and visuals decide on magnifying my manuscript’s physiology, writing new one for this writer who anymore writes about work as he’s embedded and invested in work that binds to his moral and ethic etch.

I’m horribly saddened, honestly, when I hear of people going to places they hate for work. Of course someone could ask, “Why would anyone do that to themselves?” Yes, an easy question to ask, but not so easy to answer or attach any formula.  It’s not that they do anything to themselves, but haven’t found their pages, haven’t landed in their story.  What I recognize, appreciate and further analyze in my sitting here is that only now do I see.  Did I find not only a home, but a topic.  A book, and another one.  Me, a writer, literary guy, beatnik from the wine industry, now more fiery and eager and moved to words.  AT A TECH COMPANY.  But this isn’t some simple tech company, or start-up or wanna-be startup village.  This, here, the creative is basal, inherent.  Expected.  Sonic, like a university hopping around in exponent climates.  Here, you’ll hear people say how they write everything down.  You see other writers here, other thinkers, people seeking to enjoy where they work—  More than just “enjoy” it.  Live it.  Be it.  The IT, to it all.  What they do, yes, but more who they are. That’ how I see myself.

My story just arrived.  At 39.  Late?  No.  Lovely timing.  If anything, it’s more than punctual and optimal, just before 40.  This place has me forgetting I’m 39, if you should know, and you should know if I’m with your attention.  I just fixate on the day, whatever project to which I tend. The company’s name, Sonic, denoting and connoting sound, and speed, something audible, and then I think of course of music and being a literary bloke hear Kerouac reminding me that the only truth is music.  Here, in the break room and in the office proper, between enclaves and hamlets of encouragingly and electric and eclectically adorned cubes and desk, you hear it.  See, feel, then a sixth and eighth sense.  Someone you acknowledge or you think you do adequately but only know you’re there, in it all.

New writer, new vision.  New understanding and embrace of purpose.  I am writing a book, about this place.  More than a place but a dimension, a warp of time, timing.  Forgot about the ginger ale, peanuts.  Hearing co-workers talk of their projects and ideas while on lunch.  They don’t talk about any TV show, who’s dating who, where they’re going this weekend. But work.  WORK.  It’s not work. It’s more than passion.  It’s creative escalation and an impassioned saddle of axioms and projects.  Seeing each day as its own book, not just a chapter.  This is not a new chapter in my life but a new life, a new armada of books I’m about to write.  This day— what would it be about?  Learning, something new.  Spreadsheet.  Yes, me doing spreadsheets.  I was deathly afraid of them, before coming here, and up until yesterday still quite unnerved at the thought of toying with rows, columns, cells, formulae.  No longer, though.  My self-certain, assurance and general fortitude eclipse any anxiety.  Moving at a speed I’d deem supersonic, frankly.  And I don’t see myself working, I don’t.  I see the growth and the metaphysical and ontological model re-write itself over and over, from this company’s thesis. New song, everyday.  New chords.  New opus offerings and new interpretations of everything around me.  And, again, spreadsheets are part of this paragraph, part of this elasticized praise for where I now sit, in this lunching province. 

Stomach, solved.  Today did so.  Cured me of whatever that restaurants plate did.  And I forget it, universally.  I’m made more healthy and assembled as a writer in tech’s clef and step.  Anything past workplaces instilled, left, far in days behind me. Today’s book, then tomorrow’s, where I’ll be at Month 6, and yes I have a specific aim and tangible destination for such.  Never did that with wine’s world. I didn’t need to, as no such thought was ever invited or encouraged. The culture of not only writing and taking notes here, but education both from self but colleagues makes me feel like I’ve discovered some cryptozoological wonder, asking myself What is THIS? and Where am I?  Imagine that, being not merely in love with where you are, what you do, where one works, but seeing yourself as healthier, happier, more composed as an immediate consequence. 
10/3/18

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10/1/18

New month and new challenges, new invitation.  First month, Q4, and for me everything is in a poetic synchrony.  Breakroom writing which I haven’t done in some time.  The whole day with projects, an interview with a new candidate which I thoroughly enjoyed, emailing someone in company with new idea, and more ideas, more, more than lily going to have to come here early in A.M. to catch up on some addresses as my laptop, the work one, not wanting to agree to do anything this morning.  I’m mean to be here, in this chair, in this big lunch room, sipping coffee and not needing to eat as I finished the rest of the sandwich wife made for me end of last week— actually that’s a lie, I didn’t eat any of it last week, forgetting I even had it in the fridge.  I felt horrible and swearing to self that I’d today eat it, hoping it’d be edible, not molded or gross or off in flavor dote.  And, it was perfect, just what a writer needed to have this sitting.  Writing at a tech company.  Am I a tech writer?  I guess, in some form.  Well, now maybe yes.  Yes I am.  I’m in tech, coming from wine and education, finishing out my last semester at the JC then setting everything, all efforts and projects and proverbial promises in this basket.  All new axioms enacted.  Both journals at my left, new thoughts let to beget here on lunch hour.  Not sure when I clocked out.  Not certain how much of the hour I have left.  Who cares.  Know I have till 1.  Which means, 38 minutes precisely.

Was supposed to have lunch with new friend and co-worker in other department, Abraham, in the “MDU” division.  Take him to lunch actually to thank him for all his kindness and help this past Saturday, at the event.  But he didn’t know that was today, or that I wanted to take him to lunch, something lost in the translation and delivery of my offer.  So, Wednesday, two days from now we lunch.  I’m actually grateful to the craft to Craft it worked out as it did so I can write.  And now, in the field, now more eating out.  That lunch I had in the East Bay, Saturday, at the BBQ place on San Pablo was messy, too expensive, non-flavorful, and just upsetting.  Should have had a sandwich at the Subway in front of which we parked.  Btu no, I had to do that.  No matter.  Now forward, I write.  I’ll find somewhere quiet and jot.  All specifics.. who I canvass with, what new I learn of the company and the product we offer in field, about me in my role, educating the reps, and new reps that come to the company.  Now, I’m writing, I’m doing what I do, ME, who I am and what I do but more who I am which is what I do.

Teaching tonight.  Nothing prepped.  So what.  And, no wine tonight so I can wake early tomorrow and put to blog an enormous number of pages.  And obnoxious slew of page-storming.  More of that from me, now, here, and because of here at this office.  Technology isn’t technology, at least to me.  It’s relating to the community, connecting people, service and in a way the wine industry only boasts it is but never really embodies.  No nugacity in my being here.  Everything is significant, significantly sown in new Newness, new significance.  Two journals on right, me jumping from one idea to the next. W hat this place does to me.  Tomorrow morning I’ll wake earlier than early, and do something, get me closer to my end-Road here at Sonic and with my own projects.  I’m not promising, I’m affirming I guess you could say, adamantly affirming my affirmations, inward and outward then back inward, inwardly.  Coffee, bag, guys over there playing video games, me here writing which doesn’t make me anything, I’m just a writer in a technology pond.  I’m humbled and welcomed and fascinated by the contrast.

No poem written today. Still have to finish the 52-line piece I made loud advancement in the other day.  Blockage everything out, forcing self into hallucination where I’m deaf, only hear the keys and some jazz, jazz… I need some but don’t want to play any as the fight agains the noise around me is colorfully stacked in reward and gems philosophical.  Catch myself overthinking so I look at the first sentence… no poem written today… I’ll change that in a minute, in the closing frames of this lunch break.  Everything in this room is poetic, a form of poetry and poetic narrative, music and song, jazz, a jam session of sounds and the people in my head, audience, hearing everything and moving their heads forth, back, smiling, then I smile too right in front of everyone here and don’t care if I’m observed.  This new job, how it has me thinking, how it has me moving more poetically-intoned and intentioned than even the SRJC or any other campus.  People in and out, debating over what to eat for lunch from the fridge, talking about their dogs and how they have to fill bowls by their cubicles for their fur-amis.  More leave, the others keep playing their game.

Snacks at my desk, so I’m not tempted or tampered with by the chips and cereal, whatever else is in this room with me.  Solely coffee.  Talking, about work and other, this conversation and that—  A poem hops into my head, want to write it down but then I get another idea.  The office has me furious and lovingly frazzled with pages, ideas for story, more stories, what I want from life and my own story.  Nearly didn’t make it here, and I won’t be doing this come Wednesday.  But I’m here now, I tell myself.  What am I looking for, from this job, from this office, from this internet service we take to communities?

More sittings like this.

More of this. 

ME, here.

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Work early.  Breakroom, or whatever room this is. 

Big, cold, with snacks and games, and time for me.  Time for me.  What I need after yet another hectic morning being the writing daddy readying the kids all on own, for whatever reason.  Short story ideas, brewing and simmering, fermenting in brain telling me to write them.  Don’t want to yet disclose what they’re about, but they’re there.  Very much there and present.

Yesterday’s inventory:  25 yay-saying shapes, two poems, writing in Sonic journal and Burgundy.  Thus far, this day… Thousand words to blog written from phone, and now this, this sitting.  Ten more minutes to self.  Probably could have come in at 9, but I want to collect time.  Learn more about this company.  How it works, how the people work, see self working harder than anyone around me or trying.  Writing the entire day, in the city and before I drive down there by self, and when back.  Remember to bring adaptor chord, so I don’t have to listen to flimsy Bay Area radio stations.  Need a certain mood, today.

Sip cinnamon dolce, cold, and continue in sitting.  Everyone happy it’s Friday, I can tell.  But I work tomorrow.  I work everyday.  My way.  Writing.  Was paid today but haven’t checked account balance.  Not in the mood to see money, the numbers, the account balances and reminding me of bills on their way.  Just want this, quiet and writing, self-instruction and meditation.  More jotting inward, knowing what the day has for me.  How do I make it different.  What can I do to either spice it up or make it more a writing piece.  Packed lunch for self, but have to take co-worker to lunch, someone from sales crew for hitting a goal, satisfying a challenge I offered out a week or so ago.  In fact, yes.  One week ago, today.

The coffee has me moving, not to any impressive writing speed, though.  A few minutes left.  Okay, It think to myself.  Put everything on these blogs.  Advertise self better.  Put everything out.  And this is more than some attempt or effort for “personal branding”.  This is life.  LIFE.  The story I’m in and what I’m not writing.  Blogging… huh…. Remember when it was recommended to me by wife’s sister.  At first I dismissed it.  And here I am, nine years later, at work but before work, writing for a blog.  One on life and work, being a writing and working father, trying to do what I can, dueling with moods and occasional low self-sight.  This morning, though, no such chemistry.  All in sky, in flight, looking down, above weights and thorn colonies.  Remedied.

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05:18

Feel like I’m up horribly late, as it’s not 4, but I’m up after wife leaves for her workout or boot camp or whatever kind of fitness class. Coffee made last night, cinnamon dolce late cups from Safeway, the Starbucks type. Woke restored, rested having gone to bed well before ten. Had trouble falling asleep I should note from late night coffee before and during last night’s 1A. Took last sip of it around 8:50 something, latest. That instrumentally disrupted my falling into any kind of useful sleep.

Dog barking outside somewhere and I just hope it doesn’t wake one of the babies. Jack asleep in our bed, Emma in her own. The train passes. “SHHHHHHHH!” I think. That could wake them, too. Hasn’t in the past but I don’t know. Love Fridays, this semester. No class and I can just focus on my work in the office, in the field. Enjoy my drive down and back and think, use all moments as a writer should. Think I’m, WE, are in Sunset again. Where Dad grew up. Looking forward. Will get down to the beach, hopefully. Want to write near it as it did in car yesterday on 24th I think it was.

First sip of cinnamon dolce. I need to wake, more. Wednesday night not getting much sleep, and I think I’m still impacted. Directly affected. So what now in this dark room, this sort-of office. Working tomorrow as well. Sunday and Monday now off for the time. Where I am– home office in dark on couch sitting up with blanket across upper legs, fighting for energy. If I didn’t have this coffee the writer would not be a writer, would not be writing. My mood now, stumbling, as if drunk off the effort itself. Why can’t I be up earlier, at my enamoring hour of 4AM? Quite an order, I know, but so many at the office have told me they wake at such a clock arm arrangement. Girl from Belmont and the other local who wakes at such time to go to gym to work out.

Want to cut back on coffee, work from energy natural. Told self yesterday only two cups, but had a third before class, the one that interferes with rest. No wine last night and I think that could have done something as well. Trying difference, contrast to the pattern. Inviting the unexpected and irregular. Another sip… I am tired, there is no misconception here with me. Typing this on phone so the key sounds and taps of laptop work doesn’t shake my littles from their rest. Autocorrect doing the most odd of oddity things. Trying to ignore and set goals for day. Visions. More than goals. What I for self foresee. Yesterday it was 25 yay-saying notes and two poems. Hit both. Today, I round down, put less. One grand poem. One large and vocal. One to read, one to brag, one that reminds everyone including me that I AM one of poetry. Of verse. An affirmation of sorts, a reminder, a re-birth and punctuation of character.

05:39 now and I find a beat in this sitting. Having only a veggie burrito last night for dinner, before class, my abdomen growls at me in precise fury. Okay… so what then for breakfast? What about more sleep? No. To both. Maybe some dry cereal but no big breakfast for this writing. Not this morning or any other. Looking to get more fit, closer to 40 I get. I breathe, accept the day, this dark and quiet room. Thinking, I need several full days of writing. Just writing. Then take them, I answer. At work, write. In car, use voice recorder. Before you leave SF, write. Type at night and in morning. That’s respectable. That I can actuate. So…. nothing stopping me. No blocks. From anything. Books. Touring. Music. Poetry. Running more. More time with babies. Nothing.

Writing my way through morning and notice the tired falls into some dark flat. It goes away. I’m more than awake. Sipping slow this cinnamon so I don’t have more than two cups in this day. Two cups in tumbler I sip from, now, so my plan further pervades.

Think son is waking– No, outside sprinklers. Someone’s. Not ours. I collect in the quiet, on couch. Wife works out, I write. This is difficult to have if you have even a glass of red, or white, the before night. This morning I’m more of what I see, what I dream, what I have for self put internal and mental, prophesied pages. Smile on face this morning from all this morning is and says to me. Writing, the act of, confirming my character and the room around me. The poem I write today will be story-shifting, will alter my world. Will be the equivalent of “Daddy”. Saying everything, attacking anything holding me in place, what kept me in the wine industry for 12 years. So relieved to be out, to be away from all those people, both sides of the bar. I’m actually out. Can you believe it? I barely can. Friend Thomas not calling me in days to help out in his tasting room, and I’m relieved. I’m done. Easy as that consulting or mere assisting gig is just off the Healdsburg Square, I don’t want the industry in my life anymore. Not to say I won’t present myself as industry to get 30% off, but the tasting room and I have seen our final day.

05:54. I am hungry. What do I want. Do we have any of those breakfast sandwiches in the freezer? Should I just snack on some dry cereal, avoid unnecessary calories as a someone in the office and in the field with me yesterday does? Answer obvious. See myself changing. Character, sight, habits, ways, writing, everything. Even in last night’s first lecture on Plath, I felt it. More vigor, less humor, more analytical and cautious with what I offer. I’m getting closer. To my There. Today’s poem, oh today’s poem. It WILL decide me. The next year. The next ten years. Jesus, I’ll be 49. Yes, there is no time to play, no days to just let happen or roll with, no nights to just enjoy wine and make little hits. This is my job. My life’s work. Writing. Being the act of writing itself. Not only epitomizing, embodying, but being KNOWN as writing. Understood that I am act and dream of living by and from and in words.

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