Thinking about this word in new view.
3/21/20
Stay in the chair.
Force yourself to write, read, even when you don’t want to.
What materializes will educate you.
This… this coffee. Tired of it. Going to treat self to the meanest, most caffeinated latte in the history of lattes.
Back from getting latte and only drive through access. You can’t go inside and grab n go like before. I ran into one of the baristas I know and she delivered this news to me. Was looking forward to going inside for some reason. I shared my thought that the drive-through only dimension doesn’t help with the panic. The barista somewhat nodded and offered a micro-apology.
Back home now and kids are into everything. Feel bad for them. They have been playing outside as recent as yesterday, Jackie and I playing hoops and Emmie riding her big girl bike.
Poems. Write more. This time is more for verse than paragraph, I’m learning. In the moment expression and reaction.
Not in the mood to prospect. Okay, then take a break. It is only 12:15. I could say I’m on lunch. Pretend. Or simply just do. This kitchen and nook, where I now sit thinking of something to write and thinking of my literary studies, my authors, what they’d do. I of course lean on Kerouac, but then Sedaris and his wit, jokes, and observational oscillation from one tick and step to next. This is quite funny, really. They ordered me and everyone around me on my block, in the city, the county, and everywhere else it seems to shelter in place. But I just walked out. Shelter in place, well what if I desire a new place. I’m tired of the snacks in my house, and the non-view out my window.
A couple people walk in, have their lunches. Both looking tired. One sits on a couch and has his what looks like either sandwich or burrito. Both look tired. I’m beginning to tire of my writing and this whole thing, wonder what I should do… check in with family, see how Jack is doing in the woods on the walk with his friend.
Think I’m getting truly bored. All my writing spots are no longer writing spots but take-out spots. I’m thankful I have this office. Haven’t looked at the blogs, yet. Will, promised, after this “lunch”. An employee and her boyfriend come in again. First coming in to carry our monitors and computer tower. Not sure what they came back for. I’ll learn in a minute when they walk out. See so many on social working from home and just watching Netflix or doing something else alongside working. I will use this lull, that’s not a lull, but this condition and circumstance set to do something wild with my writing life. My blogs, blogging, blogging for others. More ideas….
My office will be in Cotati. No, Petaluma. Just far enough but not too far. Speaking will be a dimension to my efforts as well. And I’m not a speaker. But, I can speak. Everyone should feel comfortable with their own voice. Everyone. Not sure what pulled me to this address, but I wanted to have it noted. When I speak, either in class or Toastmasters, I’m always compliments. Which humbles me, yes, but as well teaches me something about me, and my abilities. I need to be speaking more…. Organizing more thought. Not being so scattered in my writings as some have suggested. I don’t fully agree with the cite, but I acknowledge the architecture of the argument.
Am going to prospect. Write short emails, just the same way I speak and present regardless of group. I will stay moving, busy, starved. I will find something. 13 days to kill my quota. Have to keep communicating, no matter what pandemic is fashionable.
Drinking the coffee fast. I can feel my veins pulsing, protruding, shoving me forward, forward. No writing spots… it’s okay… I have now, here, where I sit. This building. The people in it, though not many.
Stay Moving Stay Busy Stay STARVED
3/17/20, Tuesday – Hi. I’m still alive.
And so are millions and billions of other people. Not making light of anything, just my attitude. I thought this morning driving here to the Sonic office about style, and about influence, how lately I’ve tried to be more Sedaris-esque, or Lawson-y, rather than completely Mike Madigan-ish. In fact, no -ish. Just all Mike Madigan. Either way, here I am in the nook. Have a call at 9am. Just want to sell something. I know people are slowing up, or down, but goddamnit I want to SELL. I know this goes against everything I wrote and posted yesterday about going back to the drawing board. Shit, still need to edit that restroom piece. Where is it?
Found it.
Quiet. Saw one employee walk in. I should take the day off. And quarantine. There’s that word again. Quarantine. Maybe that is the right idea. I could finish a whole flippin book. Right? Couldn’t I? I mean, I think I could. This new journal, not sure what’s so new about it. It’s another journal. Maybe that’s what I should’ve titled the doc.
Didn’t hit ANY of my homework aims for last night, in terms of wine writing, or …. Anything. Who cares, I tell myself. This is a crazy and crucial time, just the right excuse I need to be dismissive or lazy, or not get certain things done.
That was a joke. A bad one, but still with joke intentions.
I’m just sitting here, sending emails back and forth. May email a prospect some numbers in a minute. Two prospects, actually. Then wait some more. Yes, waiting… waiting for what. Godot.
Just sent a quote to prospect, the one I was stressing over this morning. Wished someone well, a good day and to stay healthy and safe. I guess that’s what you do in these times. What times. I don’t know, the times you’re told to do something like that. I meant it, just noticed that everyone’s doing it. Not going to say anything else. Cuz then I’ll be that guy. Vocal commenting clown. So, I sip the latte.
Third estimate out, and it’s not even 10 o’clock as my Sales Engineer pointed out. At least I’m being productive… why do I say that, I’m always producing, moving… need to give self more credit. Not too much though, don’t want to be that guy either.
Everyone telling me there might be a “shelter-in-place” order for Sonoma County. Trying not to cuss, but I so what to say that word right now. Would feel so good. PIG-LICKER!!! That’s instead of. Too lazy to look up Shakespearean insults graph. This quarantine could offer an interesting opportunity in terms of writing, I’m seeing. Think that might be selfish. Is it though? Look at what this thing has done to me, to us. I could pretend I’m in some dystopian film, one that wouldn’t attract many ticket sales. Or maybe this is a blockbuster. I will write this… all of this.
Don’t want this new journal to be all COVID-coded.
this morning in journal
Going to start calling in a minute.. I swear. Advertising and marketing offices in SF. Go for bigger accounts, I tell myself. Learned my lesson from the small business visits, and even one account I landed but was a complete bother …. Or maybe it was my attitude. Certainly my fault for not qualifying better, I get it. I’m in the Enterprise Dept and that carries something, something I guess I need to know better.
9:07am. Yes, getting a little anxious. Just get on the phone and call as many people as you can. Have one business queued… a marketing firm in SF. A little hungry though, already. Should I eat, go back home and work? Yeah, we all know how that’ll turn out. I’m thinking hit the co-working space. This is what goes through the head of someone in sales and who writes, and when a national state of emergency is declared. But is that an excuse? Is this an entry or an essay?– I’m a fucking mess.
Miss the students, believe it or not. One of my students reading last week about her first car.. Can remember what she named it, but she named it, and told this story about every detail, and how she heated it but eventually missed the car—the smiley face hanging from the rearview smelling like old people she said. And the color. Want to hear them read more… want to hear myself read more. My students are quite immediately and directly ordering me to finish shit. Stop thinking, and just write. Just get on the phone and call these people, these businesses. That’s all I can do, right?
Okay…
9:53. Call in just over a half-hour. Cold in the nook, here. Getting hungry again. The coffee I made at home suppressed hunger but not for long. Now I’m genuinely uncomfortably cold. More anxious..
Day starts with
meeting with team in the field. Will be visiting businesses. Trying new prospecting approaches. Meet people, KNOW the people. Learn something about them. My aim for day is PEOPLE, not prospects.
Perception, in the kitchen.
Running in the morning. Ahead on timeline. IF you could call it that. Great day in meetings, dinner with parents. Still hungry but not eating anymore. Writing novel on her… her… the one wanting more… the character changing jobs, going for creative and not the expected. I should go to bed, she orders. I resist knowing I shouldn’t. In Kerouac beat mode, on beat time. So what then… more story, more in this kitchen. Cards for the babies, Valentine’s Day. What is that. I’ve never known.
Going to have capping of night, then to bed go… running in morning. Have to write more on the run, the run is life, is love is reason, is the counter to the counter, the counterargument to anything pessimistic.
Sitting in this kitchen, at the parent’s house… some could judge, and that’s fine. I’m so focused on my control and centeredness of things. Some will argue, object and counter-cross-object and puff their legalistic language in so many climates and shapes, but I just don’t listen. Right now, I’m righted in my Now.
More than simple perception or sight, I don’t know how to define it and I really don’t know how. I don’t care to. I think of the poets I study, and the diarists I admire, like Ms. Plath and Pac, Hem with his letters, and Mr. Sedaris, and I find so much funny. I’m going to delight in life, knowing some will say something.
Distracted by messages. Should go to bed. And keep with my stance, keep with my keep, assert the sight and acknowledgement of everything around me. The world is funny, Humans are funny and barely deserve that capital. No one in this kitchen but me. Running when it’s dark. So.. go. Light jazz in back, and me just going from thought to thought, possibility to new newness with this new movement. Some would maintain a detriment in my narrative, but the peripatetic jabs are only a lucrative tell. Somehow, they ought be.
2020
New conversation.
New composition.
Time with family…
Freeing self of angst.
You know the Now more when with family.