ZEN.
#professormikey, having some
Patio quiet.
5/14/20
Prius not starting when meeting was over and all I wanted to do was get a latte and go home, work. Now, the work day is distinctly disrupted. Everything I’m doing now is to replace that goddamn shitboat. I always complain about it, but never do anything to step closer to a new ride. That stops, and the steps to my new ship start today. Everything else brought to ZERO budget…. Start charging for blogging services…. Calming now, after getting a latte and getting home. Have to meet tow guy there in a little. Day disrupted, but it’s still a day.
11:02. Just like that, knocking on noon’s door. After towing rumble is resolved, hoping to go for a run. As long as I can go. No wine tonight, or at any point. Focus, production, speed and swiftness toward my office. Only—
Back from taking car to shop myself for new battery. And of course, it started when I got there to meet the tow guy, so tow not needed. Already 12:10. Not sure I’ll get in a run with a Zoom meeting at 1, then one at 5. Desk a bit messy, thirsty and hungry. Sparkling water, hold off on lunch I tell myself.
Couple sips into the Black Cherry can, and readying for my 1pm. After that… not sure. May have to get back to the car shop by then.
Just got email back from Karl, will read in a second. 3000 words is hard to hit in a day, especially in quarantine, like this with the covid cloud about our Now. Stay on page, I tell myself, and think about the day after and after, after. My shop, one with a value and principle belief in and allegiance to conversation, interaction. Wine remains in my thinking, the shop images… but I want something else to happen first, I want the wine shop to be a wholly enjoy able ebb. Not the only basket for eggs. Tech first, wine second I note, and the tech has to be ALL written. So really, writing first and wine afterward.
Want a sandwich, Oliver’s…. Could do my Zoom in the car, right? Don’t want to do that. Did already this morning with the leads group and my presentation, which was really more a classroom dynamic, Q&A, but still me maintaining a thesis of making something up as you go, quoting Dan Jasper the first time I heard him speak, which I am, but am not. This morning’s turbulent ignition has me in a web of electric self-finiing.
Jack in here with me, on the couch either doing a learning program, or watching a cartoon, or kids show on laptop with headphones. Don’t care. The house is quiet, and that’s what I need now. Harmony. A placid place. Will email students, last night’s group, in a minute, speaking of beings in here with me… last night’s meeting was a reminder to me to be more ME. To not think so much, and to have everything stretch from the contours of running and writing.
The day starts to slow… cruising altitude, -esque. With my quarantine view of our street…. Need a change of window views, street, structure, architecture in which I, we, live. Take full advantage of tonight’s quiet, I tell myself. Again, all work, no relaxing, no ease, no tranquility… well, tranquility in the production. Keep the story developing. No kids in the office with me laughing in a way that indicates a stirring of the crazy.
Thinking today…
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.
I need time
to assemble and re-assemble.
We all do.
We all deserve to.
Walking in the cave.
But something different about today….
Always in the story.
And scenes narrate the sense and its placement and decided setting.
On campus. About to walk to room. Emeritus 1610. How many fucking classes have I taught in that room. I don’t even think I’m capable of calculating or inventorying. Notes prepped, more or less, and Kerouac’s book looks back at me, almost like it’s posing, “Again, Mikey?” Yes, again. We all need answer to our calls to travel and break cast, sever mold, free self from shackles and inner battles.
The American Dream, in this book explored. Or is it more than anything American? Maybe it’s just human, me right now in this conference room where I’ve written thousands of times. This campus, these thoughts, my first term teaching here, fucking 12 years ago. But I’ve grown quicker, more hungry, with more loving and creative ire.
project
Day TWENTY-THREE
Starting at Jimtown, as often on a Sunday in my wine life. Since shooting from pillow and sheet, thinking re-start, and re-write. We have ever opportunities and invitation for re-writing the story, for starting over if we elect. Right now, more decisions to be maddened closer to Day HUNDRED, so much of the page stack not yet written, and unread. So, proceeding forward into horizon.
Thinking of essays this morning, what this day is, essay-wise. The argument. The centrality, and reality, manifold duality. Where I am, Jimtown. What I’m doing, writing before Week 2 of the semester that wasn’t supposed to happen. What I’m learning, already—no rush. In this re-write, I see more. I’m calm. There will be certain facets certainly cut off. The idea of work, what it is for so many. What it could be, why so many don’t let themselves be happy. Why they don’t create madly, and let the vessel go to crashing. Making decisions, this morning. About everything. Everything for my positions, for my identities, narratives…. Writer in a tech company, as an Account Executive no less, and me in the classroom. Write everything. The new bridges won’t frighten if not allowed. Everything is everything, and the every-ness of each stretch is connected.
Back room at Jimtown, wine life Sunday but there’s more than just wine and this 23rd day in the project. But…. Place. More music, more verse, all opportunity and doors open sing to me, to US, this morning and all days. Stress is permitted. In this room, in your room, wherever you are, decide to be MAD. With your story fiery and tireless, moving to your frame envisioned. I share where I am and my work story from wanting for others to make theirs completely under their compositional control. Thinking too much will not lead to creative, will not lead to production and the architecture of your aptness.
Just now, caught self thinking, and overthinking. This morning is precisely what this “professor” needed. Readings starting this next week, for the two classes I somehow inherited. Teaching, and teaching what. WORK. For students to not only take ownership of their work, but see it as a self-educating ebb. In my staying thinking at this table, I wonder if anyone else has ever written here. And what discussions have been had here, and on what. Who has sat where I’m sitting, what families have been in this part of the back room, and what did they talk about. Where do they live, full-time. What brought them to Sonoma County.
What I do for work, blogging and writing about work, but thinking about more than what’s to be thought of, irrelevant of what the clock was, is. Dismiss my inner-pessimist, and have the day speak to me. Where I am, what I’m doing in the back dining room of this market, quasi-restaurant. 9:16, should get on the Road in a bit…. Walk a vineyard, let the clusters help me ideas muster. For the day, for the week. Can write anything into tangibility in your re-start and re-write. Looking at every antique and tool and thing in this room, where I’m working. Seeing the images, work to itself even if not written. It, they, assist in compounding and composing character.