me getting the flank and Alice getting that chicken, can’t remember how it’s prepared. And with the Queen’s order, I open a bottle of the ’10 Sophia’s Hillside Cuvée, Lancaster of course. Decided to keep that wine club as it’s the only one I have and I need to treat myself somewhere, and why not with wine. Right now I type with a glass so full of the CS/CF blend I’m intimidated, one side of me saying, “I have to drink all that?” But I have to remain in Beat mode tonight and think about the day and how nothing happened except the wonderful tour with the SRJC students, with the “professor” gifting me two bottles of Washington reds, one a Bordeaux and the other a ’12 Cab. And I think.. wine, wine.. what do I do with it, how many pictures of vineyards and full wine glasses can I take? It’s all repetition after too long, more redundancy that reiteration, right? The phone, with all those wine pictures, and for what? Would rather read Nate’s article again, the one I’m to post to the blog, about space issues and travel and exploration.. love his short curt venom paragraphs, with the antagonistically edged wit and humor. First sip of this glass, and I think of my time at Lancaster, when I’d cal it ‘AV Winery’, back in ’12, how they came to my rescue after the box executed me, set me up for a pretty failure by giving me that goddamn no-call list– or “non-buyer list” from P—-J—. Those bastards, but they let me go, they freed me, and I remember that walk to my car, feeling that promise that I haven’t felt since graduating grad school. Looking through these pictures in my ‘photolog’, I realize how against me time is but I write through the ripples of this Cab blend and I think abou tomorrow and today, what’s to be is the moment to present me, apparently. And I have to let the box go, what they did– was doing well there for a while but in recent weeks with all I’ve been feeling towards the winery and the industry I’ve been recalling what happened there, in those final days, how I have a Master’s degree– I’ve done all that I should have with college and jobs and being an eventual adult.. ughgk….. I have to let it go, I have to just write and release everything, focus on my students and this new semester and how the morning feels, before the 1A, it’s so off and odd, so early. I’m not used to that.
The tumbler Alice bought me; coffee, not so much an addiction but a mandatory verdict and determiner with my Art, my journal entries, and I’ll need it after this wine, but more that that it comforts, and my son associates me with it, “You have coffee, Dada?” Makes me laugh, makes me self-conscious (Asking myself ‘Am I addicted to caffeine, to these mandatory cups, or cups I think are mandatory?’), and meditative. I’m conflicted tonight, with this blend, with myself, and I sip again, feeling tired, feeling yesterday’s run, and feeling lifted with this new year. And with these classes, with my students– I hate calling them that, cuz if they’re my students then that makes me the allknowing almighty professor, and I’m not that, I’m not smart enough to be THAT.
Want to write a piece about the manager, the one who can’t let it go, even for a minute; always with frown on his face, so serious and so concentrated– Will write a sketch or stream of sketches about him– why can’t he let it go? The work? Why? For what? And while he’s walking out to the parking lot, to this car, he has to confront one of the employees, offer an idea, something that will change, as there needs to be change, and that’s his legacy, what he does at his life’s end, order order, command and delegate. Sick and sad, what I can say, profound pestilence, and I think he knows but he doesn’t know how to be any other way, he has to play that role– sick SICK! Management… I don’t care if it’s a “bump”, it’s sick, it’s minimal, and in the wine industry it’s no enlivening pay ascension at all, believe me. But he doesn’t care, he’ll always get his bonuses, we’re expected to just follow, run, jump, arrange and work. SICK! But what if you question? OH, you can’t!
Tomorrow I’ll write everything he says, everything.. for the book and for my edification and stipulations.. my students, they won’t have a coward for an English Instructor, or Professor, or whatever they call us– goddamn I’m so venomous tonight. And I love it! I’m lionhearted in these verdicts, these paragraphs that make me ME, or I think, and at my age I just have to type, no more thinking or meditating, just write & release. MY wine glass empty, and good, I need sleep, and I can’t wait for the coffee, honestly.
I’m ready for bed. And I’m ready for a vacation. I know, “Aren’t we all?” Yes, but like me, I don’t know. The winery, fulltime, then adjuncting… I mean, how many more days of this reality can I hold? I know, calm down, relax, just even yourself, focus inward, on the center, right? “Have some fun.” I’m trying, believe me. Would love to go to bed right now but I can’t.. I have the writer’s mind, that I always have to be writing, and I’m not in the TR so I’m not distracted by gossip or talk or any wandering tourist that wants to know everything about wine like there’s so much to be known. “Oh, I’m actually a sommelier…” “Oh, I’m a certified wine educator…” “And?” I want to ask. But I can’t. I have to be hospitable, I have to play, act, make sure that fawning boil-brained dewberry quakes contently. I shouldn’t care and I don’t, but I’m playing the game, playing him– look, I’m writing my thoughts sovereignly, posting them here, on this “blog”, and what?
