On break at winery..

met people with intersections in my world— more on that later.. but blind-tasted coworkers on my ’12 NewDadCuvée, and the response was flooring for me, humbling in a way I’ve never experienced— “Magnifico!” I thought.  The end-game I addressed in earlier entries draws closer so much quicker than I measure before.

Outside, possible rain, promising clouds, and me in here by fire, pouring and tasting and writing and gathering ideas.  Keep myself writing with my pages in hand, not in pocket, in front of me when I pour— content, content I say to myself and keep the poetry in its syncopated sense of motion and song, what wine should be, always.. so again to a post, and idea and more and more— this fire I can’t contain and why would I when the story’s right there, begging for me to write, write IT, to bring me the vino-loving beatnik close to IT.

I’m going back out there, to the TR, the bar, behind the bar and learning more for my eventual tasting room and wined story.. and today, more lines and pages, paragraph storms than I expected.. praise the Craft and the page and what it brings to the beat, to my beat and poetry, songs and words spoken—

scribble lines at the gas station,

laughing past like I’m the last patient—

no forego, more Poe & Thoreau,

run fast but think slow, meditate for Zen, for a

when and then… again.

Namaste,

Mike

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MOCK SOMM:  2 Wines from Jesse Katz 

Aperture Cellars, Alexander Valley, Red Wine, 2011

IMG_9274A wildly vocal blend, Bordeaux varietals, Cab/Malbec, and one that commands the sipper to be lost, twirled and whirled in the body of the wine and its speech; darkness of berries and vibrant and confident presence, impact and influence on senses.  And, you taste more than structure, you’re greeted by a communicative being from the bottle; the words and story of the vintage and winemaker, Alexander Valley’s relentless promulgation of Bordeaux varietals.  There’s no halt to this wine’s momentum and palate placement.  Like his father’s photos, you’re caught, not anytime soon release but held in one place to appreciate and be lost in the visual, the scene created and captured, measured and treasured.  Of course I’m partial loving Cabernet and Bordeaux blends, and being one of those fervent followers of Katz, and his father’s work, but I’m instructed to appreciate Cabernet and Cab-honed blends differently with this bottle and most notably since it’s from ’11, the vintage that so IMG_9275many of these wine “experts” and “critics” want to dismiss so knee-jerkingly.  This wine is a taste of place, the alchemical invitation to experience stylistic translation of Cabernet meeting Malbec in bottle, in the perfect accompaniment, actuating its own autonomous atmosphere.  This wine reminds me of my relationship with wine, frankly, what I’m after and what I’ve been after in wine; Literary qualities, a story, the sipped-written; Wines that have their own character development and past, future, that are part of my present.  And I found another, finally, from an old friend, now infused to my wined picture and life more clearly– another sip, and I hear its voice.  Again, again…

MM94

Devil Proof Vineyards, Alexander Valley, Malbec, 2012

IMG_9041A Malbec, on its own, defiant in its delicious dichotomy of a disposition.  Loud and assertive but still very much elegant and poetic, not at all overreaching or stretching into a stance it shouldn’t.  A harmony of red coupled with its principles as a Bordeaux.  And you’re thinking to yourself, “And this is 100% Malbec?” And yes, there’s no support from another varietal, and no odd adjustments or anything strange in the writing of its story.  And like other wines from Katz, we see that understanding, and that winemaker influence and innovation sans trumping the identity of the varietal itself.  So then… we sip again, and experience what wine should be, or wine of this elevation; Art.  A story, a new story and new IMG_9044adventure for Jesse, when I asked him how he knew it was time to begin his new mission and venture he simply responded with “It was the right time.”  and it was the right time in my oeno-apologue to meet this bottle, having me feel immune and impervious to all ill elements, and how could I be harmed with such didactic wine in my glass, and the woman smiling back at me, holding her cigar herself aware that nothing and intrude on her proverbial quietude?  Cinnamon singing from rich raspberry and antagonizing cherry and other wild berry suggestion, lively spice song and tannic accents supply memorable structure, and more story, more memory, and what critics say about Mr. Katz’s passion project matters but doesn’t.  There’s mastery, visible, tasted, cellared or poured, it’s there at your table and you live, feel, and see it.  All.  And you’re proof that nothing negative can puncture you’re moment.  So you smile with her.

MM97

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1,000 words — barrel 3

Want to sit for a thousand words but I’m not holding myself to anything.  I’m strangled by time and obligation, and tiring of the patternized words used.  A new keyform for me hopefully.  A slow surmise of sorts.  Told my students that if they’re bored or still in their writing, or “blocked”, then they should do something crazy.  But what can I do now here in this home office with my son upstairs asleep and me just here looking at The Bell Jar, and the papers I still have to grade.  Next week, digits doubled for term, and soon I’m liberated on my front.

The members today, at their party, for the most part content and conversational.  Me, in awe of the wines poured and the surroundings, another ride down the hill on the back of that tractor, or on the flatbed bed pulled by tractor.–  I realized on the way down that tomorrow has to be the day, where I wake at 5AM, no matter how tempting it is to go back to that pillow, under that sheet.

Last night’s Cab me calls but I dispute its beckon.  Thinking of myself as a winemaker looks interesting from the eyes out, from the vineyards in.  Hard to punctuate what I feel and what to say, sing, but it’s on page.  Maybe I’ll remember to explain and expand later.  Or maybe I won’t.  The house is quiet now and I feel I have to type in the same volume and octave as everything else so I don’t stir anything or anyone, little Jack.  More I think about teaching, here in the home office and how the full-timers are so sure, some adjunct too, that they’re experts when it comes to form and stories, literature be it poetry or narratives or short stories but have never even self-published or blogged anything, infuriates me.  But I return to my moment, this office, or room as soon as you step in the Autumn Walk hut.

What if I decide to teach nothing next term?  I won’t do this, of course, as I’ll have two babies at that point, but it’s just something to think about.  I can’t enact the craziness I encourage of my students, or at least in this vein.  My mood sinks, as I realize I’m weighed down by my age and place in life, my maturity if you could call it that and how I am, just me, this Mike– goddamn it!  I just want to write crazily and travel and not look back at anything or anyone, come back home to my babies and tell them everything I observed and lived, read it to them from the journals.  I still can, right?  Desultory directions only encourage the writer, and the characters around me yes drawing them and drawing from them, everything I can gather and when I think I’m stuck I’ll embrace and enact the crazy in Mike–  Frankly, I’m just sitting here on this couch just as I did in the condo and wonder how I should write, how I should change and if change is the bloody solution.  “Solution?  Solution to what?” I don’t know really.  Just helped Ms. Alice prepare a mechanized swing for Ms. Emma.  And now the whole wholeness and immediacy of another baby in this house constricts me, yes pleasurably but does constrict.  Alice went upstairs and I back to this couch to finish my thoughts but I lost them.  They perfectly strayed.

Why am I forcing myself to write on this couch, my scribbler sarcophagus; innate and inane and immobile.  And as a writer, I have to ask: “WHERE is my writer story set for, and WHEN?” And I’m not just addressing or entertaining time with ‘when’, I’m talking about character development and me in my zen factored with Personhood and so many other existential variables.  I love the meal of journey, thinking of it.. just imagining the here-to-there-ism of it all.  And writing along the way, everything, from the fold-down trays on the planes to the clouds you see below the wings, those passing mountains that you swear you’re the first one to optically ingest, to the wine they have onboard– atrocious, yes, but you sip anyway, you don’t care, this is an adventure and you’ve never done it before so you throw yourself in, quick and lovingly; the angel’s spin to a musical nondigital bliss–  I’m curious what I’m capable of, terms of testing my written and studious, vocational, efficacy.  Tonight I watched a show with Alice but as soon as it ended I noticed myself relaxing with her and not doing much of anything but idling, immobility– that won’t complete a MS, and Ms. Emma nears in her landing.  So I rose from the couch to Alice’s irritation and made for the study.  Where I began this entry, reading a new book, and now I sip the rest of last night’s Hawley, and forget about all chains, readers who might intersect with these lines and think “wow he writes only about wine, how boring,” or, “What is the point to this?” I don’t mind, and I don’t mind them, pay them even a small cup of mind, not even one of the tasting room’s regulated 1 oz pours.  Life is mine and it’s finally talking directly to me with rich stage-worthy dialogue; monologues and soliloquies and sharply stark sentences propelled into the audience’s space, leaving more space for growth and written diarist escape.

I formulated something by happenstance, or maybe not happenstance but by inadvertent intent, meaning I intended it but didn’t know I did; some subtexted dance of the Unconscious–  Rescinding certain thoughts, and just going for characters, this new one, not so new, and her name not important in this type but I know her, readers will want to know her, and she will know herself better after I write her.

Only a little wine left.  I study my character, the wine’s more so.  It’s more interesting than me.  I’m writer to it, revolving now around it, that little purple Cab puddle in the coffee cup (was too lazy to reach up and get a wine glass)–  It doesn’t care about me, it’s the celebrity.  I’m paparazzi.

(10/17/15)

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10/13/15

Solano, and my mood has seen the rollercoaster this morning, and I’m sure but not sure what it’s from, so I log more in my mood log, this collection of writings or whatever it is– I can’t surrender my visions of writing, blogging, running and growing my own business, which is what I feel like doing, to be frank.  But later I meet Glenn at the crush pad and I know my disposition and cognitive translation of the moments will change.  Just focusing on wine and making my own, selling my own bottles, going on trips to Florida or Vegas, or Seattle or North Carolina, and telling my story of an adjunct who just became fed up with the system, not the literature and not the students, not the reading or the authors, the stories… but the system itself.  So to further stretch this funk away, I think of the authors I most love, Plath and Kerouac, Hunter S., Faulkner, Poe… and how they get to me and why, I want the same for the bottles I produce, the wine I pour and how I talk about it the same way Plath tells her story and “confesses”, as so many like to label her (“confessional poet”), I’ll do so my motivation for making wine, starting my own label. 

A maintenance guy keeps walking back and forth behind me, out of this adjunct hole then back in and to some back room.  Should have stopped at the Starbucks nearby, worked there.  But I’m here and I embrace the moment I find myself in and keep writing, trying more to rid myself of this goddamn mood– think poetry, wine, little Kerouac, my family, everything I love and that forces the moody writer to smile.  That’s what will get my to the winery and my office, to the Road, sooner.  This morning spent near $10 on a breakfast sandwich and mocha– shouldn’t have but I needed to do something to make me more elevated, with a luminary mood and different disposition, do something nice for ME.  And why not, I never do.  Which is partially to my compliment as well as character corrosion.

My friend Paula yesterday, telling me of her nursing studies, how now it’s becoming more visual and tangible, more real, more than just a bloody classroom and textbook.  And that’s just what I need from wine, its world.  So…..  What’s my next move?  Start the website.. order your cards.. put more into vvv.–  Messing around with technology right now when I should only be writing, writing what’s around me, now 4 other adjuncts; one math, one English, on “medical terminology” (whatever that is)… and one more math at the table next to me.  The math man sits at one of the computers, in the chair but doesn’t look at the computer, just stares off and swivels around every so and again, sometimes looking at me which I find annoying and uncomfortable and with my fragile mood don’t see as anything positive.  Want to leave, want to get back on the Road and just head back to Sonoma.. meet Glenn at the pad and talk about nothing but wine, winemaking, how wine is pictured in his mind.  Again I’m distracted, that has to be from my state in this room; not wanting to be in here or at this school and I never will again, devoting everything to wine and writing about it and my fiction; my classes at SRJC.  It’s too late in my life for mistakes like this, taking classes at Solano or Mendo–  The math man leaves, then the woman– and I’m more centered a bit, as there’s less crowd in here, less of that adjunct film and atmosphere, that feeling of attempted passion but materialized inevitable bitterness.–  Nearly got pulled away from this page again but no.. now another adjunct enters, I think she teaches, not sure, but she leaves as soon as she opens the door.  I think she may be a student with some part-time admin role here..

And the jazz plays on for me, “Good Old Soul” by Tina Brooks, that rhythm that tells me to snap out of it, that this is my day and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to, that’s not part of the story I’m writing.. and what I’m writing is to art and freedom, wine and its trails and traversings around me day to day– the wine I sipped last night, that 2013 Rouge blend, the blaring coherence of it and the delicate but rich and assertive steps it takes on your senses.  One of the wines that reminds me of where I need to be.  And with that, I smelled the fermentation again today on my drive, it telling me to calm down, enjoy the drive and the Road and the coffee–  enjoy the days you have and all the characters and words that round themselves in your wiling envisage.  Vines, soil, barrels, the glass, the glass full– the notes I take and many times they’re just notes, arranged to formal prose later.  Now the song takes a calm turn into a piano solo, and I just want to leave, drive more, go back to my vineyard walk at Scribe, sit and write in my Composition Book, poetry and prose and a blend there in and of.

Now just two adjuncts.  Me, the other English.  She’s in the conference room, earphones in, grading papers.  I’m refusing to grade papers this morning.  I deserve a surge of moments to myself, no interruptions or distractions.  Only dreams in this early stage of day, of my wines, my travels, returning to the life of a student like Paula–  Today I’ll ask Glenn to teach me something about making wine; when something either goes wrong, or the wine is lacking something but you can’t quite pin what.  I also want to know what his approach is to “selling” the wine.

I’m picturing myself right now, in my tasting room, opening bottles, preparing for the first appointment; 4 people from GA, first time out here and certainly the first to my little Room off the Burg’s Square.

The math man comes back, sits at a different computer, begins his latest swivel pattern, reminding me of planes at an airshow.

And I feel my mood falling again– what can I do to stop it.  What can I do to shift the momentum more in my favor and more in my moreness.  And I know.. I know.  Rather than these momentary and jerked knee writings, finish something; a book.  OF ANYTHING.  That’s always slowed me– and I’m 36.  Do it al-fucking-ready.  About me about wine about writing, about teaching and becoming so disenchanted that you can’t help but curse “the profession” as they say over and over.  And think about all the people you know with their own businesses.  Literally CRAZY people with their own offices, that travel quite often and make a significant annual sum.  Are they more skilled at what they do that you with words?  With your paragraphs and poems?  Your lectures and thoughts that you have the bravery to push onto a page, share fearlessly with the world?

11 more minutes of freely writing, then I have to plan for class, go over the Plath chapters and talk to them more about this blasted CME, which encompasses “Composition Mastery Exam”.  And this is for a developmental section.  Have you ever heard of something so insane, so asinine?  MASTERY?  What a joke.  Anyway, I do have to prep a bit, the maybe get some more coffee from the caf’, or at least some water.  How about water to calm me down.  I’ve had enough caffeine.  How I can’t wait to get out of here, for the semester to end, to never have to come back to this bloody dingy campus again.

And the math man was just staring at me.  I hate it here more than I can articulate.

`

I looked back up at him.  “Hi”

“Hi,” he said.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m not looking at you.  There’s an interesting picture behind you.”

“Whatever,” I thought to myself.  Still rude.  Still uncomfortable.

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Thrall Depth

IMG_9018Finally at the desk to write freely.  Met with winemaker friend Jesse earlier, and before so met with Gary, former K—- friend for some tasting, the Stonestreet set.  Not a “bad” wine there, not in any respect or ramble.  In fact, I just finished my second glass from the Chardonnay I bought today.. nice oak ebb with syllabic fruit form and arrangement, placement.  Just another brilliant Chardonnay in this recent white wine rile I’ve been on.  Thinking what else I have to do tonight.. more house-keeping keeps; officialize website, order business cards…  I now see that this content marketing shop will interfere with certain or all writing urgencies– but “Mike Madigan, Author” is an mmc client, so not too much can off the ledge leap.  OH– want a night’s capping.  But what?  More Chard, or one of the Lagunitas?

Smelled the fermentation again today, just on the “Walk” patio, this morning, so now I’m promise a future in wine, making wine for my own label like my friend Jesse and touring the country for pourings and explanations as to why I made the wine I did and whatIMG_9024 food I’d pair it with– actually, I want to have food in mind while making my wines, as my sister explained at Dad’s 70th, while introducing the Chardonnay and telling a story of how Mom would not just cook to and with it but sip it as well.  Everything I do now is WINE, and all stories are wine-sewn, as so many people talk about terroir I seek to be one truly living it, like Glenn, like Jesse, like my sister– in the vineyard and seeing what the vines want us as winemakers to say.. now, we may not always agree, but there can be a certain syllabic synergy, most luminously.

Tomorrow I’m in the Sanglier tasting room, learning from Chelsea and learning more about their model and wines and how the wines are spoken, what they orate in the TR context–

IMG_9026Just checked on my little Beat, qualmless in his sleep, dreaming of things I;m sur eI have no idea how to interpret, jaded as I am with my age and advance life lording.  Night’s cap, at left, a Lagunitas.. should go in other room to watch what I want, something for next week’s lectures.. secured classes for next semester, today; a 5 and a 1A.  Remembering when I first started teaching and how eager I was and how I’d go anywhere and teach anywhere, any class and at any place– so eager and they know that they feed on it and us, our optimism and open bags, notebooks and car doors; we’re on the fucking freeway more than at that class’ helm.

But that stops for me.

Now.

This semester.

And next.

And after next, if I get to next, I’ll be a winemaker, writing fulltime and only having priority and universal impetus in my own layered notes and whimsical musings, all wine-riled and ruled.

Such kalological code.

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from today’s sessions

…vineyard walk this morning on Arrowood’s property definitely helped.  I feel so calm, this morning driving over here to campus with downed window, smelling Sonoma morning air notes and the fermentation around me.  Poetry and a real narrative that only I can interpret.  Wine was calling me, it always it now, and I answer– the dactyls and iambs and versed steps in my jargon now, momentary and evergreen, spanning this day and the next, and to next vintage when my tangible and immediate wine, all mine, is in true barrel.

Done grading papers for bbl 3.. or in winemaker speak, doing my adds and checking levels.  Now I get to write freely and think more of and grow from that vineyard walk this morning.. I love the jazz in my ears, and dread when 12 rolls to me and I have to take them out–  The wine I’m to sip tomorrow night, a Cab from Santa Lucia.  My first ever.. and I have ideas more, have to log them in the little black book and not here, just know the writer’s thinking about wine and in a language of wine– a savory jargon than we understand in Sonoma, and Napa, and wherever there’s a block to walk, be it Viognier like this morning or some Pinot micro-block on Arista’s grounds.  Everything this morning is wine, and the adjunct around me would envy my disposition…

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Out early and now I sit

in the conference room here at SRJC thinking of everything I have set in motion, and how I turned the day and my mood, and a mood that could have demolished my day if I let it have its way.  But no.. the new blog/startup is up and running, one post only as of yet, and so much more material, visually-driven material on its way.  Tomorrow’s the freeway flyer day, where I drive to Fairfield, stop for a quick break in SR, then head to Mendo…  Won’t look at it that way, though, but more of a day of gathering content, translating everything on the drive and at both campuses as a winemaker.. my “end-game”.  So…..  Right now in the conference room, it’s bland, no flavor, not a lot of life until I see a full-timer walk in, Anne-Marie, who used to be an adjunct like me but hung in there and refused to let the system deter her.. she attended professional development workshops, sat on panels and committees, and now she’s resolute, one of the tenure-track team.  So how would I translate her in wine terms?  A gentle but assertive Viognier, oak’d but not to a point of interrupting fruit message, to symbolize her strength, supported by her experience and dedication to students and her teaching practice.  I would not ferment it dry, my personified Viognier, but leave just over 1 gram of RS to bolster floral suggestion and convey her amiable and sweet disposition..

This room is not a wine, but more the barrel for someone like me, the confident and nearly confrontational Cabernet.. robust, bold, nearly cocky but with poetic principles..

No wine tonight.  Maybe a beer on the patio with the little Artist for tradition’s sake, but nothing from the oenoverse.  Going to search through my material, wake early tomorrow and write about the wine I’ll sip this weekend, maybe invite people on the block over for a bit of a tasting.. perhaps in the garage– no, the kitchen.. I’ll pour five wine.. two whites, three reds, see what they think.. a wine event on the Walk.

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Rather than being up

last night with Jackie from him being sick, or coughing, or just restless and needed mama or me, he wanted to play; he wanted to talk and joke and show off his funny voice acts.  At first I went into this room from hearing slight coughing and him citing some ache in his leg.. but that faded, quick after some sped cartoon screening.  Then I pulled out the mattress under his bed, set in that large holder or under-cabinet.  He quickly fell into his joking mode, talking to me and asking if I remembered certain things, bits and jokes we share like throwing his stuffed animals from the bed to the floor, over me on the pull-out bed pretending they fly.

So now we’re up, all us, and the only one with energy and vocality is he, little Jack, my little Beat, now watching cartoons so he’s contained and content, and I struggle with no coffee in the house.  Can barely wait for that larger than large cup of med’ roast from the Yulupa spot.  I have to push through this exhaustion, like the winemakers I saw at the crush pad that one day, a couple weeks ago, my jovial and ever-theatric friend Hardy smiling and saying how nice it was to see me, moments after conceding how tired he was but I couldn’t tell.  He seemed just fine, flying around the pad going form bin to bin and barrel to barrel.  I have to shift and re-shape my attitude this morning as PARENT, writer and soon-again-winemaker.  Keep my Self in movement’s lip…

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Centered and Not Copied

And on this Tuesday I find my Self in a more empowered mood than I’ve experienced or felt in days.  Here in the adjunct hole, hut, parlor or whatever I let nothing get to me as I only see growth with the mmc project and launching the ‘vvv idea’ in days.  The copycenter on the other side of that door to my right is all atwitter, people rushing and copying pages for instructors.. interesting.  Have to edit-down the winemaker interview from yesterday, I’ll do that at the Starbucks on 12&Mission after the 370 class.  We meet in just under 90 minutes to discuss our first taste of Sylvia Plath’s work.  Sorry, was distracted by a message incoming on phone.  I know I should let myself get pulled by a device, but I’m Human and am flaw-ridden.

And what else, this day… what else…..  Nothing much other than Alice and I have been married 8 years, which I can’t believe, another sharp and stark reminder of Time and its vicious persistence only aging us but uniquely motivating the writer in ways many.  May stop by St. Francis on the way to 12&Mission to pick up a bottle or two, and how symphonic, no?  As St. Fran’ was the wine chosen for our wedding.  Well, that and McManis wines, a couple of them.  Not sure if I’ll do any tasting but I really should, always, have St. Francis in the cellar.  Or, closet.

Already into Week 7.  And how do I feel, what do I want?  For it all to be over?  Not really, as this morning while buying one of those accordion file holders for my papers I understand and blazingly saw that there is material in the student submission.  Even in the weaker pieces– how they understand language and words and writing their own word and language to page.  And, how so many teachers become frustrated and incensed with what’s on a page.  I guess I understand the frustration of certain teachers, but more so I urge them to learn from it, and why the student struggles with the transference of words, thoughts, what’s “in there”.

The usual English adjunct, and the older Math adjunct in here with me.  She, ‘English’, is at one of the computers.  Around the corner, the edge of that tall grayish brown cubicle wall division.  But ‘Math’ is just to my right, grading some submissions and doublechecking work with a calculator.  She always looks at peace and quite communicatively connected to her work while he looks truly beat, disinterested and exhausted.  I said hello to full-timer at SRJC yesterday, in the Emeritus hall and he laughed, mentioning something about “decrepitude”, suggesting he either wasn’t happy, was frustrated, or just surrendered.  “And he’s a full-timer!” I thought to myself, walking outside to the 3PM meeting.

I again think of the “perfect world” discussion with Dad, at Monti’s a while back, where he asked about teaching vs writing.  The answer was obvious about both and he urged me to write about wine, creatively as I do.  So that’s what I’ll do and keep doing and writing crEATively for my clients and showing and sharing with people a different view and appreciation of what’s in the glass.  So, yes, I will go to SF Winery, maybe even say hello to my baby sister– in fact, let me text her.

I should target a varietal or style when there.. something to review or study.  So, then, obviously, Merlot.  And SB.  But what else?  What about a blend?  Bordeaux or Rhône or something odd or innovative?  Not sure what they have it’s been so long.  But I’ll walk in only with a Comp Book.  And I’ll not everything, slowly, and with loving labor and finite detail to all nose and palate parts.  The “End Game,” as Kevin and I discussed Saturday… for me: MY wines.  So I study and with angry passion and intention.  Oh I can’t wait.  Yes, I will taste after class and report my findings to my sister and see if she has an opinion on my thoughts and translation of what she translated through varietal and style.  Have several projects going now– need to make a list in my little black mmc book.

Heard from Katie, I’ll meet here there just before 3 and taste with her till about 3:15.  Researching their site, I feel out of touch with my first favorite producer– so many new releases and projects and varietally-centered efforts.  This is a re-immersion.  A certain reckoning of my wined Self.  Ugh– it can’t come soon enough.. so I center and meditate and wonder where I’ll be right when my daughter is born, a full-time writer, writing, Mike Madigan Author and business owner/blogger/wine consultant but not in the cheesy way, one offering honest and useful consultation, much I hate that word, on wines being poured, the order in which their poured, release dates and what be–

Just checked out the portfolio, and I am most excited to taste there with Katie.  And, I just learned she was voted “Best Woman Winemaker”.  How did I not know this? She’s a loft and stratospherically so with her career.  And I aim to catch her.  Not with some embittered competitive edge, not at all, if anything she my little baby sis inspires me like no one else does with wine and winemaking and showing me that you can have whatever you want in life, from your career.  I think quite frankly she’s a paradigm that can’t be mimicked, certainly not copied.

11:43– shit.  I need to get ready for class.  Okay, breathe… where did time go?  I know, I know, let Ms. Plath do the talking in what I orate in class, it will be here and her past and what she wants to share with us– the battles with Self and depression and the poetic urge to tell us all of it!

(9/29/15)

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Another Island

IMG_8805 Wine, today was all wine.  But as well, a return to running.  6.2 treadmill miles today, then home to shower before the crushpad, where the Cabernet, the last Sanglier lot as I understand was crushed.  Now the writer’s at home, battling several distractions but here in the homestudy writing about the day and how it only moreso convinced me I’m a writing/running winemaker.  Tomorrow morning, although I’m sure the wine will still be felt, I’ll be writing and journaling, inventorying all.  The run is starting to catch me, a bit, but not as much as I thought it would.  Must still be in a bit of shape.  After the 6.2 I took to the basketball court to shoot a few.  But not many.  I know Glenn would call any minute and ask me to come to the press and I did and he later messaged me to be at this house for the wine club/employee/grower event at his house.  Myself, didn’t sip much, but there at home I have surveyed both the La Rochelle Chardonnay and the Selby Merlot.  Not aiming for any level of effect but just to be in wine’s story– the write can only think of how many weeks are left in the semester and how much longer he has to wait to launch both the startup and the website for ‘mmc’.

Smelling the other fermenting wines in that room, one of the barrel rooms showed me what wine can IMG_8812do to senses and the story, how it’s perceived by a writer like me.  A writer– like me.  Down comes Alice, what haveth she to say– “Where’s my ipad?” Then up she goes, pointing out to the writer how big her stomach gets.  I remind her she’s pregnant which is unnecessary but I do to comfort her and she smiles airingly and I can’t help but imagine my little girl here in this house, crawling around like Jackie used to in the condo.  Wine is family, and a family business.  So I need to push harder with mmc and vvv.  There are universes and solar strokes nearing that I never before pictured.  So here it is, what the writer has always wanted and I can’t be slowed even for a minute– I should be drinking coffee right now no worry I will in the morning keeping my story going and all these short stories and narratives involving and revolving wine and winemaking and wine drinking, what the grape says to me, leaving behind the bloody adjunct de-signification, how they lower us and throw us where they need us and– no matter, this semester, F ’15, will be a bold forward in my wine label’s methodology and bottle titles.  Already have one thought of , the “Adjunct’s Succession Blend”.

IMG_8814Now, for cap, the write sips his Lagunitas bottle.  Then I need bed.  A fine rest for the writer and a sturdy state for the winery, Arista, come morrow, where I know I’ll taste more wines, Pinots, and a Zin– oh and that Chard, maybe two.  The writer’s exhaustion him catches but the book grows and I hope to be on the Road soon with my little pages and whatever pens I can steal from the plane and hotel– simplicity in my saunter and syncopation, my synapses rile in new realizations and thought so going back to Mendo someday soon and confronting that tight-greasy-faced pig that rejected my writing pulse, telling him something like “Oh I’m doing fine, I’m writing.. and what are you doing?  OH.. still teaching English at a community college?” And yes that sounds vindictive and petty, ‘cause it is. It’s warranted.

Then I calm down.  It’s the weekend, if I even get those.  Do I?  The downstairs of the Autumn Walk IMG_8824base, quiet, and me with this laptop on my lap and my family upstairs asleep except for possibly Alice who took a nap only a handful of hours ago.. provides the writer some pause, some collection, and another sip of this Lagunitas Sucks– was tempted to have more of that Selby Merlot, but the writer’s done with Merlot tonight, done with wine.  Beer’s what the character craves.  And another cruise through the day’s stills.  So I deep breathe, hear the back neighbors but ignore them, already fantasizing about the coffee– oh, I should make some now, and I would, but I know that would anger Alice. I should be upstairs now but I’m a writer with a flurry of character quirks.

(9/25/15)

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