2/15/19

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Thoughts.  The composition of thoughts, then deconstructing and exploring the composition, each contributing stand in what assembles to comprise that thought.  What I thought about on the way here, to the office.  Coffee finally at my right, after the cup I made earlier was watered down and not at all at hoped-for/needed temp.  Thinking of a publishing house, one small and independent, memoir and poetry.  Never having to seek a publisher.  Did some arm workouts this morning, and now at the end of a 14-hour fast.  Feeling quite together, character-driven. Feel the hunger and am a bit tempted to break fast, but won’t.  Refuse.

8:51.  Here tomorrow.  Running tomorrow, first run since race last Saturday.  Legs are nearly completely back together, run-ready.  Want to diversify workouts, not be so cardio-heavy.  Today, I wrote in the Germany Journal, is Day 1.  Day 1 of what, don’t know yet.  Of how many days, don’t know that either.  Starting to see the grand consolidation of everything Sonic and all matters Mike Madigan.

Sip coffee, hearing co-workers talk.  I’m in character, right where I should be. Last night’s Grenache, making me realize the importance of travel and adventure, music, speaking, ideas, the composition of thought, thoughts.

9:04.  Hunger speaks to me but I thoroughly ignore.  Breaking in a bit, around 9:15.  Going to the new Zen Cove that was finished the other day, seemingly for me—what I have in my head, that is for me, for writing poetry, for building my publishing house.  Was paid today, but not as much as I thought. Nice paycheck, but my math was wrong no surprise.

Nearly done with a poem.  Part of book.  Part of something.  Sip coffee hoping it not just suppresses appetite but immediately puts it to immediate death.  What to have for lunch in field.  Don’t think about it.  Words, if anything.

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For class, reading.  Writing.  The journal.  Open mic, but for something else.  I want tonight to be reflective of my mood toward the academic institution, but with kindness.  A dose of defiance.  I have no class for Fall and I don’t know if I would take one were I offered one.  After today’s talk on Kerouac, I feel more self-sufficient, -reliant.  I don’t want to need them.  Then don’t, I tell self.  My thoughts on it all are non-thoughts.  But one.  It’s time to move on.  It’s time to test self, teach independently, be free of the composition confines of a campus classroom.

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2/13/19

Getting started.  Ready for my talk on Madness.  Form, Accentuation, Manuscript.  The order of disorder, but who’s to say it’s disorder…

8:23.  Taking a little breather.  The aim for day is to get so far ahead of schedule, for monthly efforts with the book.  No more thinking.  Thinking is done, I say to myself sitting here drinking my coffee, writing notes for one of the Leads.

Poetry, entries, essays, madness in everything.  Wrote the sentence in one journal, now to write one in another.  Rain outside, more than I thought would fall. Overheard someone in neighboring department say that it’s likely we’ll see an average of .5 inches every hour today, and that there will be flooding, and that she saw a firetruck pulling a boat behind it.

Little less than 2 hours left in 12 hour fast.  Sip more coffee, I tell self.

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Santa Rosa, Ca.

Forgot to stamp my geog’ to the entry.  Need to do so as a reminder and motivator to get me to the Road.

10:13.  Just under 7 minutes left in 12 hour fast.  Contemplating getting lunch for self today.  In fact I’m considering making such one of my daily aims.  Treating self, important.  We forget to do that, too many times, I feel.

Now what do I do.  Keep giving self projects, till speech at 12:30, or shortly thereafter.  Madness—Freedom, Accentuation, Manuscript.  We’re all writers.  OH I can’t wait to present.  This place, Sonic, allows me to build the story of me.

11:05.  Good position for and in day.  May go to in-house market, get some little treats for self rather than go to Texanita or the other Mexican place I love, up the street.  Would mean I’d be in-house all day.  So what.  Fine with that.  Need use the zen cove, the new room just a few steps from where now I sit.  Write notes to self, notes for tonight—antithetical, what I’m thinking, just as Sonic is antithetical workplace.

Texted Reps and Leads, cancelling work, or notifying them work for day is cancelled.  Now, I work further… Madness.  Being mad, embodying madness in all steps and turns of head, blinks and breaths.

11:21.  Back from Market.  $2.51.  Sparkling water, gum.  And now back at desk wondering what I should next do.  Reading through others’ observations and progresses.  Coffee still on desk but I’m done with coffee for a bit.  Time to just madly jot, write whatever comes to me, head…. Beach, travel, Monterey and Pacific Grove, more poetry, more music.. me, music.

11:26.  Notes to self, on post-it’s.  Still raining outside, saw while walking to market through glass doors.  Do I want to leave office, for lunch?  Why am I thinking about this, so much.

 

2:19.  Taking remainder of lunch at desk.  Didn’t go out as the speakers meeting went longer than forecast.  And, to my benefit.  Bought another sparkling water for meeting with Tasha.  Writing down more ideas for class tonight and for me principally, for the story, my story—Madness consumers and endorses me for more pages, more of my book that I will finish by month’s end.

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2/10/19

Morning following morning of marathon that was only a half for my, my thoughts are on and in literature, writing, teaching self and being taught from experience.  I don’t see yesterday as a victory or a defeat, but a prime lesson.  Instruction on everything.

Morning with family.  Kids on couch with their mama, my over here at kitchen island, writing, in Kerouac’s novel, wanting more of what Sal did, what Dean did and thought he did.  In travel, in wine, in music.  The wine I had last night, bought with son at store.  Jack telling me we need to buy some wine so can “do some business” as he put it.  Everything I need for my Road, for my travels, here.

 

Mike thinks about his day off, what he wants from it, how to approach it.  Thoughts, everything in thought, what’s in his thinking and the ideas that pass that he won’t remember, that he won’t write down.  Mike Madigan, analyzing himself and what he does.  Wanting to feel what Sal and Dean did in the car, at the jazz clubs, at all the unexpected locations with new people they’ve only known for so long.  The reason and reasoning, thought and philosophy to everything from people at a house to beer and tacos, to the sound of cars being parked in a lot, crazily.

Mike forgot about Sausalito, about the marathon, about running altogether.  He thought about wine, again about self-publishing and wine, what to do from there.  New ways of approaching wine and teaching, books… Sedaris’ essays, Plath’s poems, Kerouac’s novel, Hughes and all his pieces.  Mike would re-read Road, note every sentence, including the first where the narrator lets readers know this is about him, Dean, how he felt right when he met Dean then onward into his life.  Mike has a son, daughter, since knowing them he sees the world with more reverence and hesitation—How does he live every moment as deeply as he can?  Why does he spend so much time thinking and overthinking rather than writing, living?  He didn’t have an answer.  Not this morning.  He wouldn’t.  He didn’t need one.  All he needs is them.  Those two.  Their mother.  The house.  Writing father seeking more reason and reasoning in everything, all that he does and what’s around him in his current scene and current.

Thought—everything in the appreciation of Now.

Living is literature, he finds.  He’s always know this and Mike has always seen wine as more a literary presence than some chemical or agro result.  Mike returns to wine, for this thought.  Sitting at the kitchen counter and looking over at the bottle of Grgich Merlot, ’14, that last night he explored and let speak to him.  He refused to let wine leave him, or him leave wine.  He’d write each sip, even if twelve essays or pieces or sketches came from the same bottle.  Wasn’t that the point?  Each sip, different.  Each second there is more in the jazz of what you poured.  Maybe this is the business little Kerouac was talking about, yesterday in the Oliver’s wine isle.

Wine speaks to Mike in a way it hasn’t, ever.  She tells him to move, move quicker.  Edit nothing.  Just express.  Self and the Now, thought and reasoning in what you sip, the appreciation of the Now… no going back, now.  The story is set.  Now he writes.. Several books.  With wine.  A marathon of book output, then another, then a marathon of written treks in the vineyard rows.  He sees it.  All.  All sips and steps.

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1/25/19

Lunch at desk.  Writing everything down as I always do but with more craze, more wild and rich, loving recklessness to my steps.  Pizza here in office.  Pizza Fridays.  Everyone looks forward to this.  The company, so generous it’s nearly overwhelming.  Love it.  Learn from it, I do.  My company will be in this exact track and train of thought, tradition.

May start another blog—no I won’t.  Promised self I wouldn’t do that.  The idea would be something involving client and customer communications.  Not so much “customer service”, but how the work is relayed and worded.  So much in business is done not so much wrong but with unnecessary obstacles.

Brought 2 pieces of vegetarian pizza back to desk.  Saw others doing the same, eating at desk and watching a show, or playing a video game of some type.  I need this time to write.  I don’t need to think, I don’t any longer and I promise my self loudly this, time to think.  Just move.. all around blogging, and I will trap everything here.

I must wake early, tomorrow morning.  And run.  Ten miles, minimum.  Walking hills in Sebastopol earlier with Field Sales team, taking the hills like I were racing.  I walked them, yes, but with the same attitude as one running, like “I am doing this, I am taking this hill, now, NOW.”

Field Sales, an interesting voice and beat, beast.  One of constant motion and depend upon, demanding a tireless momentum in re-writing your presentation, your words and how you deliver the words.  Audience awareness, not so much brevity of speech but containment.

Where you are, what you’re doing.  More value in that than you estimate.  If you take a second, and inventory what’s around you, all the topics and ideas form their own idea den and paragraph lab.  You feel inspired and moved, exhausted and creatively ablaze in a way you’ve never known.  The holy contour of life wraps itself around you, begins instruction.

Need another piece, and maybe another.  Hungry earlier while walking the hills, Mike was.  Now, still hungry.  Mike, eager to go to this event, which is celebratory of past year’s successes and advances.  Like a rally, or gathering at a spot on Rohnert Park.  Not that far away but just far enough where I can enjoy a Coltrane track or five, maybe more.

Two friends from another department but that sit in the same isle as me here in office leave.  Taj and Leah.  Both kind, very inviting and helpful when I need some inquiry quelled, and they both like wine.  Asked both of them if they’d want to have a glass with me at the Rohnert Park spot they both said yes, told them I was thinking about getting more pizza then they tell me, or reminded me, that there’s food there.

 

“What the fuck was I thinking?” I say to them.

 

They both laugh.  Taj tells me my stomach’s telling me to eat.  I agree.  But will wait till RP.

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1/23/19

End of a day long, or just a day I perceive as long, on a repeat cycle unintentional but amusing, at least to me.  Up at 5-something writing on phone, get kids ready or help then get them in car which my son little Kerouac was more than intent on doing so that helped, then the drive.  Drop off little Kerouac at his morning daycare then take Ms. Austen, little Emma my love loving loves, to her schoolery.  Then to work… meeting, then another meeting after prepping all morning for both meetings and day in field then drive to Berkeley.  Walking streets with Sales Reps, then lunch, then a little more walking then drive back to Santa Rosa office.  Need to write about my drives, the Road, the commute, more.  I know.  Tonight, I have less than what I had when walking through door back home.  In just that small give of time, I lost a tremendous amount of beat.  Why.  Who knows.  I don’t.  Now with a glass of the red blend I bought the other day from Sanglier, during my short walk and saunter if you could call it that around the square.  Already 9:57.  I’m not giving in to my exhaustion, or this tired.  I won’t.  I can’t.  I’m closer to 40 now than I was this morning, goddamnit.

Done with dinner, at kitchen island counter, in my studio home.  No way I’m running tomorrow morning.  Will tomorrow night, seen in head right now looking at clock and wondering if I should just surrender and give in to this tired, what I now feel.  What if I didn’t.  What if I embraced it.  Write exhausted and a little sculpted from the wine.  I come home to sleeping babies.  Haven’t checked on them, but they’re up there, in their respective dreams and visions.

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1/22/19

Morning Worship

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Morning air, metallic, not cold and not chilled, but still.  Somehow sweet and encouraging.  Helped start kids getting ready for their first day after long weekend.  Back at school, back to pattern and routine.  Son excited and into what needed to be needed and done but daughter not so.  To coffee spot on Hopper, mocha for wife, latte for moi.  All out door except me.  Here now, before my days starts its taxi to runway.  Jazz, latte, room with no sounds but typing on this leant laptop and Art Pepper, his saxophone.  Haven’t heard much of his work, if any considerable amount.  Unexpected and not in any way forecast, something like this.  Collecting before my first day back into routine, first day which isn’t much a first day at all.  Just a day, a day I don’t want to be “just a day” or jus another.

Mornings and I have had a shift a bit of late in our intersection and elemental overlap and principle placements.  Always wanting to wake earlier, studying the early hours, the earliest of earlier earlies and how I react to them on page.  Some just wake early ‘cause they have to, from a commute obligation or something of the type, and this is similar, this morning and the ones approaching, but a stern contrast in their composition.  How so, and what so, I know not yet and I may not for some time, but I’m here aware and conscious of my consciousness at this hour.

Was watching a philosophy professor from I believe Yale last night, on YouTube, lecturing on death.  Or, the first lecture of the semester.  Not sure what the course title was or what module specifically in their Philos’ program, but he sat on the desk, legs crossed, attempted hip or friendly, inviting visual—in fact, not attempted but quite believable and genuine this man seemed and sounded in his word arrangement and immediate tone—and spoke of death and its idea, significance.  Thought, “Why not do the like with the current, time, right now, what we have and what we see around WE?” What’s done this morning, or I think.  Jazz and caffeine, 7:35 and I have to be out that door and into my day because that’s what grown-ups do I guess. What this character need do, to support kids and family, buy next house and “advance career”.  Do I need help doing that?  Do I need the company at which I labor, a company I very much admire and respect and seek to emulate in a multitude of tunes, to see what I want to see?

Keep looking at the time.  Why.  Habit and obligation woven into one trove or planning and worry, of have-to’s.  Unplug laptop, stuff, device in backpack (like I’m a student, days I miss, I want to be a student—So why don’t you be?  Time will allow and then seem to not but you know the morning, you know the time around and present about you, NOW–), drive to office.  Keep same jazz station playing in car.  Let mind go wherever it wants, on some visual and self-encouraging gallivant and saunter through possibility enclaves.

Yesterday walking around Healdsburg, mid-ish afternoon, taught me about the Now, where I am in it and how mornings need be obsessively heeded, more carefully read.  Need wake earlier, and not just some day, Monday through Friday, but all days.  See what the morning says to me and what blessings if you would, should it or will it disclose, speak and teach to an eager and needy me.

 

8:14.  To make day even more interesting, I don’t work.  My team, Field Sales, not working, as yesterday was MLK Day and we need to observe it so we don’t work today, or something.  So now, at Aroma Roasters on Railroad Square, my favorite part of Santa Rosa which is imperative I visit or write here as I exponentially quick grow tired of this city.  Have noticed this feeling in the past few days, quite prominently yesterday when walking with family around Coffey Park.  Ordered decaf, not sipping yet as it’s blazes hot.  It doesn’t want me to sip or have her touch a single lip.

Morning continues to show me something about where I am and what I’m doing.  Class tomorrow night.  What do I talk about.  Don’t think about it now I tell myself but I can quite literally feel self lose the ability to wait for tomorrow night. Lecturing—No, not “lecturing” but sharing ideas.  People around me in this coffee house which has much more a genuine feel and literary integrity than a Starbucks I’ll say.  The morning, still cold.  A few degrees up, but not much.  Can hear the people around me even with the jazz in my ears.  Imagining self as a student, a student in my class.  Having short reactions to type then longer essays, having to keep a journal (though this semester I advocated for THREE, one for class, one for self I think I specified on syllabus, then one for wherever whenever whatever).  I’m a student but not but entirely so, learning from the morning and its holy contour of an hour, the divine direction of where this day goes.

Email notification on phone.  Old instructor friend I met I think at Napa Valley College, when I taught there a seeming galaxy and a half ago.  Ella.  Now a high school English teacher, full-time, ‘cause you can get FT teaching high school, or teaching high as I often joke, not at any college court.  She writes, “Do you have any suggestions for teaching narrative at the high school level?” Not sure what to say back, so I say, write, nothing.  I don’t want my studies disrupted.  The study of this morning, the odd and just dropped-in-my-lap present of not having to work.  And that I ordered decaf.  That I’m at Aroma Roasters when usually I’d be adjusting a formula in a spreadsheet, or taking notes for week, or…. Something.  I’m here.  In my praising pose, loving everything around me and what happened.  I shouldn’t just not answer, so I do.  “Sedaris”.

“Is that appropriate?” She writes.

Again from me, nothing.  I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to spend the morning messaging back and forth.  With anyone.

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1/18/19

Mike starts with the normal morning tasks.  But he sees them differently.  With more love, more curiosity, more pace intention and momentum.  Mike tells Self that today will be let to go as it will and Mike will step in only when demanded, and by step in he means grab the wheel and steer in direction different.

Mike gets the necessary items for day done with surprising speed.  He does in fact surprise himself.  He says to Self he’ll be more farouche in his creativity and composition habit for day.  And all days forward going.  Misses class, still can’t believe what happened on Wednesday happened.  Well, he can ‘cause it was raining dozens of cats and double-dozens of dogs.  He needs coffee, he needs to walk around, he needs to itemize and inventory everything, be more calculated, or calculating, tally and examine his calculations.

Weather today, not making much impact on Mike’s perspective.  He writes down three aims, visions, for day–  A thousand words, run tonight, shorter sentences.  Quite simple, to the point, contained and contributing to Personhood and character coherence.  More than self-coaching or education, instruction, or even discovery or exploration.  Self-sight.  Being participatory in his read of Self.  Self, always needing capitalization.  You need to see Self as something prominent if you’re to progress, he says to Self.  Mikes smiles.  He finds something.  And that’s another aim… always present tense.  The Now is Godly, is God, is all Gods and Goddesses.

9:04.  Mike gets another cup of coffee.  His first here at office but third for day, morning.  The morning with everyone walking around happy it’s Friday and excited about the Quarterly meeting and assembly, food trucks later, and of course beer.  Mike vows to Self that beer will not be had.  Not only does he not drink beer very much anymore, the marathon was much closer than he estimated.  He needs to get into runner mode, extremely extreme runner mode.  Get new clothes for race, go for run tonight, at the horrible least 7 miles, 10 if he can.  He tells self that he will have sparkling water, and if there’s none in the tubs of ice he’ll buy one from the market, perceive it as a running expense.

Mike remembers that he has Monday and Tuesday of next week off.  He will run both days, over ten miles each run, and NO treadmill.  The morning sings more to Mike, encourages him more, has him centered and centralized in his own eye and poetic abide.

The office, Sonic as a company and character and business poetic voice has him feeling not so much fearless or invincible, but directed, set, assured he will get whatever he sees.  His sight is strengthened by Self, Sonic, the day, the way of ways in the morning and approaching day.  Mike tells Self that he will see his aims for day, that there is no other Road.  The marathon’s closer, 40 is closer, the new year’s been here for now 18 days.  Storm, Mike says, “Storm loudly and make music never before put to sound, to anyone’s ears or eyes, any senses.”

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06:09

Starting day earlier than you have in a while. Coffee cold, just as you knew it would be.

Time for shower.

Budget money for day.

Start the day.

Let it get you closer to IT.

There.

Bring There, here.

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1/17/19

Mike refuses to have lunch in the field. He tells self that he needs to save, for new laptop and other business efforts and projects and ideas. He stops for a second, at this desk. Sip of latte, bathroom, then back for last minute prep before Reps arrive. Mike remains into his morning, intimately and elementally connected to it. Today, exploring discipline, how he not only exercises it but with it plays, creates.

Mike sees his office, travel, a finished book, his kids reading that book and asking him questions. In a class where they’re enrolled and he’s the visiting writer. He laughs, then walks down the hall and for more coffee.

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