11:46.

Short poem done.  Not sure what to do now.  Go upstairs and check on Jack, or stay here.  Go mad.  Let the quarantine symptoms in, all of them.  Stay at this desk and just go batshit fucking crazy.  Writing like a madman, like I’m confined to a cell… solitarily solitary, playing a form of prose solitare.  Am I winning or losing.

Imagine self to my tasting room, having people over and talking about wine, nothing else.  No business, no if they want to join my allocation list or fucking wine club if I decide to have one which I more than likely won’t.  Just wine… wine…..

11:59. And into the afternoon.  Already the day slows down.  Before covid I’d notice the day start to slow around 2, or 3, 3:30.  Now, around noon you notice a bit of a halt.

Pulled Coelho’s book.  The first paragraph, the tree, new growth… Newness, in the church.  Belief in self….  I have an idea.  Write it down.  I’m Santiago, today.  No herd other than my thoughts, sights, the possibilities in this quarantine.  Read more books.  After this one, I’ll read Irby.  Then, Sedaris…. Then, of course, Kerouac.  Going to read differently, more participatorily.  Asking characters questions, myself questions. What is Santiago’s sight on this first page?

Another idea.  This one I don’t write down, saying to self “If it’s to be part of the story, you will recall and sow it into your character over and over, the story will move…”

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journal

8:39am.

Back from a Starbucks run with little Emma.  At desk.  First thing, budgeting and money movement.

Done.

#prospectesk note … When you transact, do you just transact and acknowledge the numbers? OR, do you study what you did… how you interacted with your prospect, how you found a point or points of connection?

When the contract is signed, is it really all done? Or is that the opportunity to begin a new facet and arrangement in your sales practice?

Ready for my day of organization and going through old leads.  Will be sending out one contract which I hope comes back by EOD….  Going to start writing a sales notebook… not a “coaching” tool, or a how-to… just a sales story compilation, notes.

Into calls, made handful.  Submitted contract, looking through business cards.  Taking a break… Coltrane playing from phone, left… quiet house.  How do I want to approach the next hour, and the one after that, the one after….

Call at 2pm.  Done with latte.  That does it for caffeine, for the day… no coffee in house.

Just off phone from a nice call, nice guy working for the big Art Gallery collective on 4th, San Rafael.

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8:23

Forgot to write a letter for a student.  Rec letter for some college, somewhere.  Feel bad, so I’m re-writing and re-arranging, adding to a letter I recently wrote for a 1B student from last term.  Seems like forever ago… can barely remember or even see live pre-covid if I try..

Lecturing self… shorter sentences.  Not so long.  No more octopus tentacles in paragraphs.

Everyone wondering should we open up, open BACK up, as a country. Where I stand… part of me says fuck it just do it and be careful.  The other, stay home a bit longer.  I need to finish this fucking book.

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5/16/20.

Saturday.

Coffey Park, Santa Rosa, CA.

7:28am.

Still in Santa Rosa, still in this corner office, or at this corner desk.  Jackie up early, watching a move.  Me, tried to get a little more sleep but then deciding I’m working.  At desk, till some idea strikes me.  Photography, this business I want to give more life to… happiness and the composition and constitution of it.  Canadian Geese I heard earlier, always reminding me of a certain part of Sunriver, before we owned our house in Circle 10.

Had a Grgich Merlot last night, finally decided to pull the trigger and buy it at Oliver’s.  $30-somehting I believe, while the Cabernet is $50 something and I’m not willing to surrender such for anything from Napa. That sounds like a remark against Napa, or some sort of dig, jab, or criticism.  It’s not.  I just want to invest in my home, my county, SONOMA, before too much anywhere else.  But anyway, the Merlot…. Everything I wanted and needed last night, Friday night after a crazy week, and before today where I want to make something happen.  Force something.  Grab life not by the throat as I’ve heard some say, somewhere, but rather by the hand.  Dance with her.

Have to write the final exams for both 1B sections, and put together an invite, Zoom.  What do I want the premise or anchoring thought of the Zoom meeting to be, not sure.  Just so we can see each other, talk.  Have coffee, relax.  I don’t want it to be planned.  I want it to be, something for all of us to use however we want to.

House relatively quiet, Jack in the other room watching a cartoon, or movie, and for once it’s at a volume where I don’t have to ask him repeatedly to turn it down.  We don’t have to have that back and forth, that tug war of stubbornness and I get my way/you get your way, thing.

Open the blinds, see the streets.  How many times can I write the same thing, a different way… the quarantine desk, the quarantine view, the quarantine symptoms.  Sip coffee again, do another rep of 20 or a couple more with weights.  Find the humor in this, I tell myself….  The same thing over and over.  Not today, I ratify.  Not eating the entire day, and drinking as much water as I ever have if not multiplied by 10.  Okay maybe 8, or 5.  I don’t drink enough water, I know.  As a runner I should be drinking a water tower’s worth every night, right?  And this is my only coffee injection for the day.  Cut back on that, for sure.  And known that for a long time, if I can be honest.

Just became lighter in here, or was that my imagination.  Now dimming.  Is this a quarantine symptom?  I stop, but then order myself to write, keep typing… then think again about the final, 1B. One possible question, “What have you learned about your own reading and writing habits and practices, and how do you plan to maintain them?” Don’t want the semester to end, that’s evident.  Why would I. Great group of students and each meeting teaches me, about ME… writing and how I move further into the covid world with pages, ink, or these keys.

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notes

1:46

Jackie in his zoom class.  My meeting done.  Car to be done by 5. Which puts a squeeze on my 5pm meeting, potentially.

2:42

Emma playing Christmas music, dancing around the family room floor, lipping and sometime singing the track, pointing her figure lecturing in conjunction with.

Back at desk.  Set stopwatch.  Will not get up for at least 90 minutes I tell myself.  Even for bathroom breaks.  So sip the coffee slow, I tell myself.

2:59

Jack attempting homework, but complaining.  Having to write about something at which he excels and could teach others.  His mother washes a couple dishes and says she will help him soon.  She goes to him as soon as she’s done, but nothing she says suffices  Obvious quarantine symptoms.  He then mocks her, and is told to not be rude.  Then quiet.  This locked-in-place changes the character, the mind, the sight…. Everything.  How I parent, how they be kids.

3:04

Idea from director to check out leads in an area close by.  May be how I start, now that I think about it.  Maybe don’t go down to Marin.  Or, do some light combing of certain buildings, and streets.

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12:25.

Want lunch.  Don’t want to wait till dinner for Mexican food.  Cranky.  Don’t know what to do. 

Prospect.

Not in the fucking mood.

I’m moody.

A moody writer.

Blog everything.

Put everything out there.

Truth in it all…. Develop a new blogging platform.

How the fuck do I do that?

Not in the mood to run.

Jesus…. What a wreck.

Just want to travel, drink wine in some barely-standing mountain tasting patio in the Alps, or in Burgundy (but I’m fucking sick of Pinot….).

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4:50pm

Sipping iced coffee.  Put ice in the coffee I made last night, in the tumbler.  Class in a bit over an hour.

Went for a 4-mile run, and feel off.  I need to run in the morning, period.  Have to force self, and forcefully, with a true and renewed and imbued force.

Family outside, ready for their walk.  And me, readying my journal for notes, offerings on essays and stories from life… their lives and mine.  Me a part-time professor or instructor, teacher or whatever I’m to be called but anymore I don’t care.  This could be the last semester, ever.  President of the school cancelled physical classes through Fall.  So it’s possible a student many not again see campus till January 2021, or later.  Makes me sick.  Make me unexpectedly angry.  Makes me want to celebrate, have the rest of that champagne in the fridge.

Done with it.  Going to be 41 this year, and the part-timer thing…. I’ve just outgrown it.

Coffee, much better when it’s cold.  Not that weird not-hot-anymore degree.  Would sip again, but I can already feel it working and I don’t want any trembles or quakes.

Heard email alert…. Wonder what student that was, what excuse.  One thing I definitely won’t miss… the excuses, the stalling, the knowing I did the same fucking thing when I was their age, when I was at the JC.  And SSU.  And, yes, in my Master’s program.

Jack’s on the patio playing some interactive game with one of his oldest friends, where she can see his face and he hers.  He’s telling her which way to go, and I’m trying to get acquainted by listening but am lost….  Who can blame me, Jack giving directions, yelling at his friend and I can hear his voice echoing off the houses around us.  “No…. GO STRAIGHT.  Turn around…. Now go left… LEFT!”

Snacking on cracked-pepper crackers.  Not exciting, but sufficing.  Not at all exciting.  And shit, these are spicier than the last time I had some.  Need a beer.  But I just ran… so what.

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note

Everything I see is meant to show me about me, where I’m going and why.  It is for all of us.  Not just me.  And that’s another aspect and dimension to quarantine’s instruction… it’s more than you.  It’s more than the singular consideration of things and moments day-to-day.  Collective, much more collect.  And, play more.  Have more fun.  Try everything and just move without method or any blueprint, plan or forecast.

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journal

7 mile run.  Come home have lunch, battle allergies and restless, crazy kids.  Two of them, listening to not one of my orders. Their only sense of order it the antithesis.

I did all the laundry’s best I could.. now finally back in office.

On run… more ideas than I could ever hope to remember, but one, a short story for time being called “Wash”, starting with a character in the tasting room at beginning of day pressing WASH on the machine, and at the end, thinking about a wash in a situation, or cleansing himself somehow of some stress, some angst or voice he just doesn’t want to hear anymore.

Thought about ‘sketches, notes, quips and ticks’ … a collection of writings for one of the new notebooks Mom bought me.  One, to start, if I actually start…. “Some people profess their awareness then when you turn their head goes back to its home in and under pebbles.” Another, “Running in a vineyard, what do I make of it and how can I focus on the leaves and rows, growing clusters over my steps, need to find some harmony there.”

Opening a new Pinot tonight, one from the Arista set.  The Russian River.  Hoping these allergies go away so I can at least mildly smell it.

Thought about my office on the run, be it in Healdsburg or now I’m thinking Petaluma… want those modern and simplistic desks, and for me NO desk.  Just a couch, most of my files and what be in a corner, supplies in a cupboard or tall cabinet.

Knowing this Now, then the Now that’s there waiting for me… blogging everything and—

Kids are quiet.  What are they doing up there.  The day, and they, don’t stop.  Is it time for wine yet?  Just wait a couple more minutes.. till a little after 4, as to dodge and not deal with any guilt.

Goddamn allergies…. Sniffle, wipe with paper towel, paper towel gross so go get another..

Should start that story, now.. With the character pushing the button then turning around and seeing someone there, right at ten, right when they open.  He owns the small winery off River Road, but doesn’t want to tell anyone.  He tells them he helps with winemaking and the tasting room, which is true, but not the entirety of what’s true.  What’s his name…  Ralph.  As in, Emerson.

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2:59pm

It’s the fluctuation of mood and climate in the house that’s difficult to manager and translate, or quite frankly deal with.

There’s conflict, then peace, laughing, then lecherous steps in voice.

Emma in the office more joke-thrown and known than she has been all day.  She bounces a marble on the wood floor and I tell her to stop and she just laughs at me and does it again and what can I do but give in and laugh with her, at her, through her.

The as soon as there’s calm, there’s conflict.. Emma protesting the mandate of room-cleaning to acquire popsicle.

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