in a winery patio.
5:41am
Capitola, CA.
Parking lot above the police station, suggested by a police officer just a second ago when I pulled up beside him, barely able to speak from the effects of the cold or whatever I have.
More than awake and ready to dominate and control this race. Will get coffee somewhere in Santa Cruz not Capitola when fine.
Will start walking down street and toward start in a bit. Right at 6….
Good thing I double checked. Was in wrong spot. I thought it started in Santa Cruz not Capitola. So here I am. Saw coffee spot driving in. Boardwalk in front of me, some rides, lights, those pointed rooftops you’d see at an amusement park.
5:59. Leaving car. Get bib, then walk around. Hope they have somewhere for my keys. Hope. Should have bought one of those belts, precisely for keeping your car key. Mom’s right as always, as she said the other day– I need be better prepped.
Just saw two women runner walk by.
Leaving car.
from a journal
5/10/19
Friday. But you know my opinion and stance on Fridays. So what. It’s Friday yes and to some that’s something, but I don’t care. I’m working tomorrow, and the next day, the day after that. I’m a blogger, writer, writer before a blogger and always noting something, so days off are days of others, not me.
Resolving to not spend any more money, today. Not one penny. What about lunch. I need something to eat at that time, always do. So what do I do. Use change. Yes. Get as many quarters as I can, that’s lunch. The quarters don’t matter, today, this meaningless Friday.
At the coffee spot same as yester’, with a 4-shot latte and the back table all to self. About 40 minutes to self before I have to get to office to be a professional. Professional. What. I’m learning. Educating myself closer to 40 I get, knowing that all I want is the world, every Road I can find, any wine I haven’t tried, and sip and scribble overlooking a street, a canyon with a river somewhere in Switzerland. That’s my most vocal and mobile and noble of “goals”.
Every morning should be this, time with self. Friday or whatday.
This morning…
This block, though… not going away. Thought yesterday while on the corner of Lake and Funston, then started walking on Lake toward 12th, that I write a set of writing rules for self, not really anyone else of for some limp purpose of composing a ‘hot-to’ of writing’, but just for me and something I reference when feeling, well, like this. This morning.
First, write where you are and what you’re doing. Focus on singularity. One thing, or person, word or scenic ingredient.
Then, write freely. The only type of writing is freewriting. Some might assert that all writing needs structure, and I simply respond with two motions—1, what is “structure”? And 2, “What if it doesn’t, then what?”
I’m seeing more and more the more I attempt to have my writing be a certain way or present itself with certain attributes on page, the less it’s me. Them ore insincere it is. Not that I only want to relay what’s happening—the who, what, why, where, when, how and whatever else like a journalist or tech writer—but be fully present. Like now, in the office. I notice the mood shedding as I’m moving, doing what I want to be doing in my office, working, sharing observations and self-instruction that I’m convinced will, or could, help someone else.
One from other department walking into building, saying with congealed, slow-moving emphasis good morning, and then not saying anything. Not many calls coming in, for that department. Not much heard other than my typing. Honestly the loudest thing on the floor at present.
thought
The day isn’t after you.
You are after it.
Like a wolf, salivating and enveloped in starvation.
No nap, today, fought against pull and push to do so. Thanksgiving over, wife out shopping at one of those shopping special eve whatever’s. Me, home. Wine. Just finished glass of Claret. The night passed with such cruel progression. Indifference. Babies asleep upstairs. What movie do I watch, my dilemma. My life’s trouble. Think of how fortunate I am with my family and to have such family, to be sitting where I am, here on this we seek to shed, new one one the way… Day of giving thanks, I need to show more giving of thanks, being thankful.
Tonight, I do intend exploring more wine. No aim to wake at 4am or 4:10 like this day. No. I may actually just sleep in. I will. What do I mean, “may”? May have to punch out. Take the night as it approaches me, describe and translate it, or in such order reversed… then wake tomorrow with more thought. More story. More ME. Tired now, forgetting I’ve been up since 4-something. Think 4:10. Has it been that long? Yes. It has. Me, that writer. Now. Time to Self and I sip wine and be here, writing. A writer.
Does the writer want apple pie or Chardonnay? Both sound like they sound, their own precise appeal and connection. I’m not torn between both but urge to be curved by both, somehow. 9:08. Feel like bed but I won’t. I can’t. But more, I refuse. Why can’t I be a human, just have dessert or drink wine. Is it that complicated? Are my thoughts the hinderance, the block and or impediment? I think it may be just that. Not in any kind of a writing swoop, and I can’t figure anything of it out. How does pine figure. What type a figure be me, I, this writer.
I feel like I’m not doing a thing, while doing too much. A mess. Should have taken a nap.
As someone who obsesses over work,
and what work he has to do, what I have planned the next day and the remaining hours of this day, I am honestly with nothing. But I make myself write. One student tonight saying one of her goals is, was, is to wake at 2am to get ahead in her studies and I assume write a little as she does write poetry and write in short lines, short stanzas, pieces that span only a page. And I say ‘only’ out of awe, that she does so much to a page in only a page’s pulse.
Was nearly too lazy to write anything tonight. Told self, “Just a hundred words, per blog.” But I can’t hold self to that. Should I do what this student plans on doing? Should I set alarm for 2? Isn’t that the time of the artist, the writer and poet? Didn’t I read that somewhere? On my lunch today grading papers and writing in the Sonic journal as this goddamn laptop didn’t want to let me use it. Of course, now, I do push the buttons and have a note in my writing normalcy.
Finish the fucking book, I tell myself. Like my son said tonight as I poised to make his bed with new sheets, “GET TO WORK.” I am. I say the same to self.
Sip the Barbera I popped last night. It, she, more calm. Me the opposite of anything tranquil at the moment. Working in the home office which isn’t as common as I’d love to tell you it is. But, WORK. Work. What I write about. Force self to write when I don’t want to. I do write about wine, but that’s not my only onus and thought light.
Now, I’m like a train with this, these writing thoughts. I, not failed. Not failing in my aims. I won’t allow that. No one should. Why would you. You are here, once. And I’m not addressing the fact one only lives once…. I’m speaking to myself and you, that where you are, right now, the opportunity and life invitation to bring a project to completion is singular. You see it once.
You are a train, if you wish be. Some unknown animal of fruition, bringing works to an offering stage. There are only stops that persist acknowledged. So acknowledge none of them. I see so many of these speakers and motivational-who-be’s profess all this counsel but don’t consider the most apparent reality… the audience member has to decide. They only elect to act if they bring themselves to movement. Tonight I could have just as easily poured this red from El Dorado, sat on the floor of this home study, went on phone and scrolled through some photo pour. No. We decide to draw, paint new plausible for our Personhood. Decide to move, be alive, mentally, alive, wildly alive in all movements of your steps and actuating saunter.
What work does for and to the character is animated in divinely lucrative chant. Dodge the task, never. Distractions and suitable sanctions to project-dodge are terminal. The panacea, always, is preemptive production. Never, labor deduction.
10/15/18
Newnesses
Let ‘100’ students go early. Came to adjunct cell, and here I finally get a breath. Meeting after meeting at work, among other surprises, but I maintain my character composition and ready for tomorrow’s 4AM rise. I’m doing it. Going to write each step in this effort. Even the failures. Even the falls and follies. Now I collect, I envision me on that treadmill, hitting mile 8. Has to be eight miles. I figure if I get there by 4:20 I can with no problem or impediment get to my 8. Eating light tonight, especially after late lunch in field with Brandon, Chinese place I haven’t been to since I worked at the store next-door when it was still Long’s. When I was in graduate school. That long ago. 2004. Now I feel old. The run tomorrow will have me feeling young. And that’s not really the aim, just a change of habits. Even if I wake early and don’t work out, I’ll have risen early, and more than likely written something for either this blog or some poem, some chapbook idea, something.
4AM. My new topic. Wine is still there, here with me in my writing back and forth, but the hour of 4AM and what I do in a day, how I make use of every hour, every minute in those hours, now for example I could have very easily left campus and went somewhere for a glass of wine which I very much saw myself doing. No, though. I came here to write. That’s not to say I won’t have some wine after, maybe a glass at Whole Foods bringing in the Sonic of Burgundy journal, scribbling a bit, planning my run tomorrow and the marathons I plan on doing next year the year I turn 40.
No more concern for turning that age. Age, something numeric and having no contingency on quality or Personhood, behavior, story itself. Yes, my body may not move as it could when I was 16 or 18, 21. But, note what I wrote, “may not”. I can see myself waking tomorrow, having fallen asleep in running shirt, shorts. I put my shoes by the door, laces untied and spread to sides of shoes. All I have to do is hop in them, grab keys and wallet and GO. When there, stretch, then fly. Have music cued. Listen to music I’ll run to while driving there, the 24 on Industrial. I’m ready, after talking at lunch with Brandon about a change he made in his lifestyle and character way recently. And then someone else, a couple weeks ago, telling me the same. Then someone else…. My turn, now.
Ce soir, bed early. Writing should be done during day, morning. Always. Night should be meditative and preparative for day next. Always. The students, hope they’re using this time in some productive and creative way, and if not nothing I can do. I can only do for my story, ME, my health. 8 miles. Walking back to the car after the eight, I can already feel that air, see the sun still repressed and suppressed by night prior. Sky still purple, air feeling like colors I see— streetlights and stars, parked cars, little winds. All congratulating me, embracing me after when I just did, what I’ve started.
10/10/18
I’m awake and working out.
Did first hold right before five. After that, push-ups and planks. Some sit-ups. Not really counting, just wanting to keep motion continuous. Set stop watch, not a countdown. Just keep the motion motioned, what I’m telling self. 05:12.
Conscious of the noise and mood of the morning. Everything I do on this hardwood or just wood floor make a sound, loud thin and audible. Like an airy crack, or crackle. Wife leaves for her workout offsite. I start coffee. Vowing tomorrow morning with the day off I’ll go to gym at 4-something. Not only enhance the shape I’m in, but start a new way, new story. Yes another promise, more so though a plan than remark avowing anything.
Can already feel the little I’ve done. In legs from hold, abdomen from pushups just a moment ago tallying 100, and arms from planks and pushups. Time for coffee.
Didn’t post thousand words from last night before class. Will today from whatever coffee spot I can find in the Sunset. Sight 1 for day is that, coffee and composition in the City. Second, hit a few doors with the reps. Then, a poem while walking whatever avenue we’re on. One of the views yesterday from 28th and something, I just looked out at the ocean like I saw something or someone in it. The air’s olfactory makeup told me to keep walking and keep watching. Feeling some goal or aim, some aspiration or creative desire sprint from San Francisco, for me. And if it weren’t for Sonic I wouldn’t even be there having these observations and reflections.
05:31. Waking this early, a badge of sorts. Hear son move around in his bed, and if he wakes early and breaks this sitting, I don’t mind. It’s part of the story. Part of the story but the whole of who I am– writing daddy getting in whatever time I can to write. At work at my desk between little addresses of some spreadsheet, or organizing, or prepping for some meeting. The subject is me. The story, each page, and I never need be sorry.
The workout, over. Me on couch in qualified dark, fan light overhead on my dim setting so I can have some isolator writer mood in here. I keep forgetting it’s harvest right now, and so many of my vino people are out there, right now, pulling clusters from rows and into bins, into a gondola pulled by tractor, a driver up early and away from his family, doing what he needs to them feed.
05:36. I feel like one of them, right now. One of the early. One of the characters they defies law, the expected, that doesn’t sleep in. They can’t. Their minds won’t let them. Mine won’t let me. At all. This morning I’m alive with Sonic and supersonic thoughts of speaking, words, fearlessly sharing ideas from one city to next on work, business, writing everything down and so many say that and never do and if they did, my god, it would not only help what they do but wildly and poetically shape their business and their place and placement in it.
Could go back to bed even if a writer wanted to. Hell, even if my body and functioning orders em to. My thinking’s of a beatific defiance this morning, and only accepting sentences. As a workplace, Sonic tells you to be more of you, it challenges me and how the wine industry never could– Telling me to not only keep doing what I’m doing, but intensify. AMPLIFY. Diversify. Play with form as you do in poetry, poet. And more. More.
05:41. I ask myself where the time went and nowhere, nowhere. It’s still very much presented and around me, present. Gifting me with this couch and all the musing I need for a day in the city. Will I wake as early tomorrow, or early as I have written… I have to. I know how I’ll feel if I don’t. I know my mood if I won’t. Set alarm, every movement today for tomorrow’s early steps and words, lines, however many miles I run on tread or however many reps I finish. Not waking early, and I’m citing hours like this, is in no way literary. Writers don’t sleep in. We can’t sleep, for the most part. We deplore rest, and idleness. Just laying in bed and scrolling, sitting on couch watching a show, or just hanging like a coat from some hook, some executed prisoner from a tight meanly knotted and enclosing circle.
05:47. I love this. I do. I don’t have to think about what to write. It’s right in front of me, blatantly. No sun or suggestion of it through the glass door to right. This is true morning to me. When the sun steps and straight lay stands communicating with the world, its day. It’s started. The day is off and you better find a way to catch it as right now you’re surely not ahead if you haven’t been up. I’m here, knowing I’m ahead of the day. Time again, my topic. Twelve hours from now, I could very well be in traffic. On 101 somewhere. San Rafael, the Novato narrows, Petaluma. Somewhere. I have twelve hours to do something to my story… I do it. Start the timer. 12 hours. Get to work and collect in writing for a bit, then attack tasks. Reps get in before ten, so we head out early. Quick, this Friday. My writing will equal, rival, buzz by pacing.
Son definitely awake. 05:52. I could get a stet in day, again. Teeth and shower, dress, pack, take stuff out of bag as to bring laptop for written lunch and be lighter while hiking the SF streets. Keep the motion motioned. To halt is to fall. And I can’t. Not this close to 40.
Diet for day… Coffee, only healthy snacks, no full meals till dinner, and then do note to lightly eat. Speaking of my beloved coffee life… I sip…
10/5/18
Sonic Jot
Next day, the second where I feel like I’m on a rocket ship, just ascending and appreciating altitude. Third day of victory, of production, producing, feeling my life and creative tide just going and rising and taking me with it. On lunch now, peanuts and a ginger ale I bought from shop. Stomach still a bit uneasy from that vegetarian burrito, yesterday. Work today is more than enlivening and exhilarating. I did feel this a couple times in the wine industry, but with no consistency. Can’t remember the last time at Roth I had three consecutive days of pure life and topic ownership. My story becomes its own storm, now. Its own Now. In this large warehouse-like quarter with Sonic everything all around me and everything that Sonic embodies, from the communicative facet to people just visibly enjoying what they do. I’m definitely space-bound. My work is no longer work but something that’s redefined and redrawn and re-purposed my literary purpose.
Walking someone through the office and into this break arena earlier, I could see the amazement and disbelief in her facial shape. How the company encourages its people, how the “employees” are more so investors and partners, family members to the immediate and distant motions. All motions overlap and intermingle, creating a creative concurrency. Their own currency to be exchanged and interchanged… I notice my own face change shape, sitting here. Taking another sip, not needing any real lunch but just the snack I have and everything on either side— left and right, 12 and 6. All these corners and visuals decide on magnifying my manuscript’s physiology, writing new one for this writer who anymore writes about work as he’s embedded and invested in work that binds to his moral and ethic etch.
I’m horribly saddened, honestly, when I hear of people going to places they hate for work. Of course someone could ask, “Why would anyone do that to themselves?” Yes, an easy question to ask, but not so easy to answer or attach any formula. It’s not that they do anything to themselves, but haven’t found their pages, haven’t landed in their story. What I recognize, appreciate and further analyze in my sitting here is that only now do I see. Did I find not only a home, but a topic. A book, and another one. Me, a writer, literary guy, beatnik from the wine industry, now more fiery and eager and moved to words. AT A TECH COMPANY. But this isn’t some simple tech company, or start-up or wanna-be startup village. This, here, the creative is basal, inherent. Expected. Sonic, like a university hopping around in exponent climates. Here, you’ll hear people say how they write everything down. You see other writers here, other thinkers, people seeking to enjoy where they work— More than just “enjoy” it. Live it. Be it. The IT, to it all. What they do, yes, but more who they are. That’ how I see myself.
My story just arrived. At 39. Late? No. Lovely timing. If anything, it’s more than punctual and optimal, just before 40. This place has me forgetting I’m 39, if you should know, and you should know if I’m with your attention. I just fixate on the day, whatever project to which I tend. The company’s name, Sonic, denoting and connoting sound, and speed, something audible, and then I think of course of music and being a literary bloke hear Kerouac reminding me that the only truth is music. Here, in the break room and in the office proper, between enclaves and hamlets of encouragingly and electric and eclectically adorned cubes and desk, you hear it. See, feel, then a sixth and eighth sense. Someone you acknowledge or you think you do adequately but only know you’re there, in it all.
New writer, new vision. New understanding and embrace of purpose. I am writing a book, about this place. More than a place but a dimension, a warp of time, timing. Forgot about the ginger ale, peanuts. Hearing co-workers talk of their projects and ideas while on lunch. They don’t talk about any TV show, who’s dating who, where they’re going this weekend. But work. WORK. It’s not work. It’s more than passion. It’s creative escalation and an impassioned saddle of axioms and projects. Seeing each day as its own book, not just a chapter. This is not a new chapter in my life but a new life, a new armada of books I’m about to write. This day— what would it be about? Learning, something new. Spreadsheet. Yes, me doing spreadsheets. I was deathly afraid of them, before coming here, and up until yesterday still quite unnerved at the thought of toying with rows, columns, cells, formulae. No longer, though. My self-certain, assurance and general fortitude eclipse any anxiety. Moving at a speed I’d deem supersonic, frankly. And I don’t see myself working, I don’t. I see the growth and the metaphysical and ontological model re-write itself over and over, from this company’s thesis. New song, everyday. New chords. New opus offerings and new interpretations of everything around me. And, again, spreadsheets are part of this paragraph, part of this elasticized praise for where I now sit, in this lunching province.
Stomach, solved. Today did so. Cured me of whatever that restaurants plate did. And I forget it, universally. I’m made more healthy and assembled as a writer in tech’s clef and step. Anything past workplaces instilled, left, far in days behind me. Today’s book, then tomorrow’s, where I’ll be at Month 6, and yes I have a specific aim and tangible destination for such. Never did that with wine’s world. I didn’t need to, as no such thought was ever invited or encouraged. The culture of not only writing and taking notes here, but education both from self but colleagues makes me feel like I’ve discovered some cryptozoological wonder, asking myself What is THIS? and Where am I? Imagine that, being not merely in love with where you are, what you do, where one works, but seeing yourself as healthier, happier, more composed as an immediate consequence.
10/3/18