Journal

note

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22:17… home and tired from event.  Running tomorrow morning, somehow.  Not opening that bottle of Pinot I brought home.  Just this note, then bed.  My mood, a non-mood.  Hear the neighborhood’s kids outside playing and I go upstairs and am so proud of our babies early in bed.  Not saying they’re better or anything like that, just glad they’re upstairs.  That’s all.  The Bocce even taught me a lot today— about all… me in the wine world, wine, people drinking wine, wine club member retention and education, hospitality, events… not sure how to inventory and categorize it adequately as I’m kilometers beyond exhausted.  After this note, which will be in a few words, I’m set to relax… just watch a show, no guilt, then go to bed.  Running in morning.  Should charge watch— I mean, Garmin…

Charging.  Now with night’s cap, and reviewing day.  But I’m too tired.  I want to be lazy.  I deserve to be lazy, at least for a couple minutes.  Tomorrow morning, if I fail to run, I fail in other realities and ambitions.  So it has to happen.

Business on the mind, hard to shut off.  Travel… others doing it, and I waiting for chances.  That’s my problem, an obtuse error.  So, reshape, rekindle and revamp—

Felling comfortable in home, this Autumn Walk Studio, and no longer lethargic.

note

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At work and ready for event.  More I think about myself as a “brand” and idea, writer and teacher and wined bloke, I see everything as the same, more connected and singularized and not as compartmentalized.  Quiet now, but not later, with our ‘Burgers & Bocce’ event today.  Was told I might be on the mic a bit to stir the crowd, something I have absolutely ZERO problem with.

Want to run tonight.  And I should… at least 8 miles.  Also, just a note to self, as is most of my writing anyway… look into marathons for next year.  Want to do three.  Want 26.2 to be MY distance.  Have to adjust certain consistencies, though.  Go to bed later, meaning write into later hours… wake up earlier…. Don’t worry, Mama, I’ll get enough sleep.  But I need to push myself like no other time in the writer’s life.  Just what has to happen.  And it starts with today, tonight, tomorrow morning….  Au revoir!

Home after dinner with wife in Windsor. 

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Kin, one of our preferred stops, spots, restaurants with all its activity and offerings.  No babies in the house ce soir, and I think about having another glass of that Meeker Malbec my friend ‘J’ brought me.  A gift.  Waking early tomorrow.  And I know what you’re thinking, reader—  “Yeah… sure you are… no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be as disciplined as your wife.” Well… yeah… THAT may be true, but I am waking early for a run around the Coffey/San Miguel zone.  Air conditioner on, kids no longer with their chatter outside, and I can feel the last of that Chardonnay encircle my functionality.  Odd feeling, having to delete then retype… what happen to a writer like me, but this writer isn’t likely the others… I enjoy running, exercise, health and fitness.. but then I’m here, sipping wine and writing.  Exhausted from the day and prep for tomorrow’s ‘Burgers & Bocce’ event.  Should go to bed now, the writer knows, but a glass of that Malbec as a night’s capping sounds resplendent, and why not.  That’s what life is— short, and instructional, telling me or maybe more so urging me to turn down certain streets.  So I’m here.. on the couch, just typing the night into more night, wanting a salvo of meditation about me, the glad freedom  wheel that will make sense of everything around me, even that which I have no interest in understanding.

Hot in the home office.. so what do I do?  Read something.  Fuck the wine.  Leap back to literature.  Words from Kerouac and Plath, al the heroes right there.  OR, just keep drinking the Malbec till something hits the page that teaches even YOU.  Can that happen?  Has to, oui?  Guess we’ll see.  Night’s cap of certain captains, in cup.  So now, only down and up.  Like Wonderland, my Master’s thesis, revisited.  All over.  And again, again…. Maybe just notes, but with some wherewithal, color and animation, maybe.. not sure what I’m trying to say.  Nearing 50,000 words in this document… and what don’t I have a fucking book out?  Some of these independent musicians have straddled and secured fame and artistic autonomy for their self- distributed boldness… okay… take the rest of the night off, as I’m sure Mama would say.  Obey.  But the writer in me’s addicted tot he act of writing, just putting shit to page—

Well, there’s part of the problem…

from journal/book

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8/3/17.  With kids all day, and I’m exhausted.  Not in any mood to teach.  But I have to.  I know.  Also, just found a note in my mailbox that said one of my classes may be cancelled next semester because of low enrollment.  My mood us low, and venom level is unusually high.  This is why adjuncts are angry, why I’m no longer interested in pursuing conventional education.  But then I realize, this may just be the shove I need.

17:39.  Should just cancel class, when you think about it.  Come back here and brainstorm.  Found lone stack of lined paper, left, here on the desk I’m alway stationed.  Is this meant for me?  Of course not, you could say.  But then I could say, “Yes it is.” I’ll use this for brainstorming…. I’m not letting my mood, this goddamn department or this harebrained institution tell me where to go and how fast to move.

I write about education.  SELF, education.  Notice no hyphen.  Quite intentional.  You could just be a ‘self’, or you could elect SELF.  You see the contrast, I’m sure.  ‘Education’ is a result of a constructed SELF, not attached to or to credit for SELF.  If there was no SELF, there would be no education.  And the SELF elects to be educated, by that SELF.  Know I’m onto something here, but I don’t have time to fully draw.  Go to class, then return early.  Latest, 19:30…

4th…. Wife waking unprecedentedly early for workout with friends, or group of friends.  Me thinking about going back to sleep but all I did was lie there, doing nothing, thinking of how I should be writing, so here I am… typing in dark of home office, 05:27.  No coffee in house or anywhere near me so I do this from inner-promise.  Event at winery today…. Will get there early to make sure all’s in order and sound for the soundness of the event and staff members.  I’m again tempted to go back to bed but I won’t let self, remembering wife’s leave to follow through on her goal.

What do I want from the day?  I’m learning that sometimes you just need to let the day develop and not want anything, but today I’m demanding something…. What?  Success.  Not just will the event tonight, but in every action I actualize and put forth, that people see me do.  Selling wine, talking with guests… everything.

I lean back in couch and appreciate the dark around me, let it motivate and ready me for day.  Part of me sees this as just a ramble, or rant, or chant, or bumble… but it’s not.  I’m here, present, in dark, before 06:00, well before, and writing rather than just laying there atop the covers upstairs waiting for the next etched air chill to slither through the blinds and hoping I fall back into sleep of some kind.  Need make this a habit, my habit…. I brag that I’m a tireless writer, right?  So… actuate.  ACTUALIZE.

Can hear some sleeping, his soft but intent inhales through nose, dreaming of things that I wish I dreamt about— playing, school, running, the children’s museum on West Steele.  Me, my thoughts are burdened by work, bills, staying young and healthy ’s best I can…. Wish I had his dreams.  Wait… why can’t I again?  Exactly.  Learn that mindset is a state, and the state is assumptive, elective.  Like wife waking at 5-whatever to go run, so is this, my mental climate, me sitting here on the cushion with my laptop on lap’s top, tapping keys in dark and hearing the little plastic slap sounds echo from the walls behind me and left.

from book…

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Friday.  Which means nothing.  Just arrived at winery and I have about 12-13 minutes to collect self in words.  Today, I only want to sell, raise not just awareness of this winery but the tangibility of it.  IT’S HERE.  I’m looking at this new post as somewhat of a challenge but a motivator to me to do something new, to help. brand, to re-write a brand while maintaining already-established brand consistencies.  I’m blending my projects with their projects.  More than synergy or marriage, or the obvious pun of ‘blending’.. more than collaboration, more than fusion, or infusion…. I don’t know what it is, but I’m HERE.  At the winery early from nothing but pure, colorful and tall motivation.

Sip coffee which gets colder from the room being a bit chilled to deter, or really kill, fruit flies, and I further settle into day.  One idea I have for generating sales and traffic is to be insularly focused.  I’m going the have the Cabernet be today’s anchor.. theme and idea stream.  Not any of our reserves, but the Cabernet.  At lunch, next chance I’ll have to write, I’ll update you on progress, how people respond to it, and of course how much I’ve sold.

To the left, view of production area.  Out back, more barrels being steamed in prep’ for harvest ’17.  Me, producing what I’m producing and what I’m about to produce.  Always tell students to “make the topic your own”.  And like Dad one time told me, “…everything you’ve instilled in your students has now fallen into your lap…” And what an opportunity.  Still can’t believe I’m in this post, but I am, and I have to get over any shock, or daze.  Get to work.  There’s always something to do, there’s always something to create.  And I’m creating, regardless of what day it is.