and what I the coincidence do as well. Already into the coffee and little Kerouac watches his favorite cartoons. A bit of a day off today but I have to wait for the delivery of a bedroom set and assemble and situate something with Dad then somehow fit in running and grading of the papers.. how is this supposed to take place? I’ll figure it out or not, more than likely I’ll just write– With this new age I’m not not-caring but more so enjoying whatever ebb presents itself then align with it, write alongside it. Pardon my venom last night, but it’s the age, and the older I get I very much get like that around birthdays. But more punctuatedly this one, 36. And why? Not time to deconstruct that ad nauseam as that’s won’t do a thing but put me back in that mood from last night. Today I target zen, wine zen, novelist zen, and the writing practice that will build what I want to build, not just a career as a writer but more than that: a pervasively Creative Equilibrium– And that’s why I’m so prodded by some comments, as it minimizes and trivializes my character– but only if I let it, I realize. And my cousin’s counsel, and the Art I used to study more, the verses of Shakur and other poets like Kerouac and Eliot and Plath, Poe, that seemed to have this reactionary and non-excessive deliberative quality– like Artists in a studio, like Pac.. just create, just voice and write and put it out into the readers’ world.
And those pages ‘for my own joy’… Writing a few of those, but putting them into the novel and I will finish that goddamn thing by the 14th and release it. And always stay writing, like a sick addict, like the show Alice and I watch (“Nurse Jackie”), and find times when I can scribble, escape to the restroom at work to scribble a word or five, just write whenever I can and however I can and place the scene on page, like now: 6:39 up with Jack at laptop and sipping coffee with my cellphone on the island (kitchen) with me, right, and wallet and keys and little notebook left. Motion all around me and I can hear Ms. Alice upstairs in the shower and the day is off… But I’ll outrun it, in my short pieces and the novel, MY novel.
Jackie expresses his lack of desire for school today, and of course I have to be the bad guy, the domestic villain telling him he has to, and embellish saying “oh but it’s gonna be so fun” and “everyone’s waiting for you!” Which may be true but my tone and syllabic emphasis conveniently contort truthful perceptibility.
Want to finish the MOCK SOMM piece, which I haven’t started, reacting to that Rhône blend, and honestly I was surprised by its presentation and sensory presence. A wine like that makes me think, about my place with wine and the story about wine I want to tell, and I want to print them not just throw them onto a goddamn blog — I’m a mess this morning, that character side of mySelf I tag ‘Mikey-a-Mess’. But I’m writing through it, at least — The novel, don’t work on it today.
What?
No, just write short pieces, and release them all, print them! Like your students how they come to class with their printed submissions ready to hand in, smiling and relieves and eager for me to hold the pages– that’s what I today do, execute.
Decreed then.. start with a piece about your winemaking visions, the character, the tireless blending trials and being at that bench — The laptop moves slow now and frustrates me and I feel the call of the Comp Book, and the papers I have to grade but in no way want to and why’s that well it simply takes from the writing, and that with this new age especially is a reality I’m in no form to tolerate. How I’d love to tell the “chair” that I only want to teach one class, how I wish I could afford that– need something to sell, to fill those income gaps I addressed earlier.. how about modern pamphleteering? MY short fiction? Yes! Going to screen those Paris Review videos of that comic artist and that novelist, see what pushes and propels me.
Now my mood lifts.
Here in my studio, the kitchen, this island. And no heliocentric buffoon with a self-endowing acronym job title (ick, and how could anyone be proud or boastful of a title that some corporate body assigned them? I guess some value the whole identity thing than others..).
And like that, I think of something, descriptors and descriptions of wine and the characterization; the vinoLit of it all. Over 800 words already this morning and I can’t forget what I have to do, what I want done going into 36; fiction, wine, more writing and the narratives to perform, to PRINT! 20 pages of fiction and narrative, stay a writer in your age and know that;s all you are, singularized beautifully in paragraphs and prose and verse and the Beat of my own music; a fusing of Hutcherson and The Doors and Tupac and Ginsberg– today, all Literature, all to the mic, all recital; Beat Beat BEAT!
Jackie eats his cereal and plays with the monster truck I bought him yesterday at Safeway before picking up the order from Tres Chiles (from a gift certificate given by our old neighbors Jen & Ken). And my mood again ascends, trying to reach a thousand words before leaving the Autumn Walk base and traveling to the Yulupa zone.. so glad we’re away from that locale. Not that it’s a bad place to live it was just time to move, to move on, to have the story develop and have that Newness I’ve so long craved–
Back from taking Jackie to school and write to a mocha paired with Miles. Davis. The house quiet and I ‘m surprised to be clocking in 5 minutes ahead of schedule– next domestic or regularian duty: deliver lunch to Alice, the good husband’s work. Oh.. and grade papers. Grades due tomorrow night by midnight, and there’s no way I’m rushing through those papers or stressing about them, not one of them, on my birthday. The 1B’s are still in the car. And I’m here– or I should write “But I’m here,” which of cours connotes, and denotes, priority and interest, and it’s not with the grading or at least not now.. my Kerouac books at side, next I write the MOCK SOMM article then some personal pages to print.. yes that’s what I’ll sell, pride mySelf in and on transparency as a writer, nothing to hide and ALL written down.
Switch stations. My usual now, Bobby Hutcherson. Well past a thousand words for this morning’s reflection and catalyzation but I can’t halt Self, not with this momentum– although I very well know I should be writing my MS article– ha, ‘MS’, like I’m a Master Somm but I’m proudly not no I’m an actual writing with a noted education and intimate depth with Literature. In fact, that’ll be my gift to Self: Some new books; Dostoevsky, Sexton, Joyce.. and whatever else.. oh, Austen! This morning, oh the mornings themselves and what they teach the writer about himself and how I don’t mind a bit if others have criticisms or remarks or some self-appointed and -stapled superiority in their voice because their salary is so stratospheric. I still write, I’m still ME my Bear and to this jazz and coffee not at all slowed as I would be if I were sipping some wine or some Craft beer– no, no slowing and no distractions I don’t care who’s emailed me and who’s trying to contact me or connect with me in some fusty social medium.
I know some will read this and think, “Jesus, what’s his problem? It’s his birthday…” No problem. And yes it’s my birthday mañana and I don’t progress toward a ‘birthday’ as others do. I always as a writer take the time to self-analyze, be a bit evaluative of my steps and progress till now. And with this birthday, just a little more direness, urgency. No problem at all. In fact, I feel wonderfully renewed in this new resoluteness! A true Beat! When does the bookstore open, I wonder.. want to go get my gift! No! Not before I write the MS piece– I still have to laugh at that, ‘MS’. If I put that on a card, can you imagine? “Oh, wow, you’re a master sommelier?” they’d probe. “No,” I answer, “ I mock them.” Oh I love it! Gelatinous dusty-brained vermin with their two letter and their knowledge of wine that no one can ever question! Consumers are always wrong, right? And the somms are never wrong, no? Again, I feel spirituous, stalwart, a strong scribbler this A.M.