Set my alarm on phone and left phone in study area.. ran downstairs at 4:30 only to turn it off, but now my body’s aware of the Newness, my new dedication to running, or that the thoughts want the pavement earlier. So tonight, another nowinenight and early rising for the running I have to do, that I HAVE to do. 7:25 and Jackie’s dressed and I’m eating his waffles. Lawn watered and we are both launch-ready. At the BV SBUX I’ll start and finish and post the MOCK SOMM piece on that last Pinot I had, at work, then hopefully put a thousand into novel, then write a little more in the work log for the novel– I won’t forget about my book, ever, and I need to keep my Wild Writing about Wine–
Interrupted by Jack demanding to sit at the kitchen counter with me, we then had to gearswitch and start our march toward the door– life too quick and too much for me sometimes, this, this writing life, and I think I still may be tired from yesterday’s charge at the articles. Now I wait for feedback. And the eventual check. This has to start paying, my sentences and introspective observations which I hope serve either purpose or me selfishly. So far, so many years later, I– Man blows his nose here in the Yulupa Starbucks, and I get annoyed. I may be too annoyed for my novel, now, may still need to write freely, just type and see and sip the coffee and listen to this horrible folk music in the store– earphones in, find me Hutcherson!
There, much better, I’ll be ready for the novel in a bit– now it’s 8:32, I’ll go to Massamen’s days promptly at 9. The life, the living, the growing up that I’m trying so animalistically to do, taxing.. Look at bank account balance, and further frutstrate. Need to be a roaming writing, a vending writer, selling everyfuckingthing. The track I wrote yesterday, a poem, half in the adjunct cell in the last few minutes before class and the rest in class– fever, disease, one student urging, “Teach on, Mike..” Showing them I’m the realest of teachers, the one that actually knows, and does, and practices, no preaching, daily, my routine, my SElf and diligence make me different, the most ferocious writer on the planet, maybe. And now I start to wake, the coffee, but no wine tonight, have to run in morrow’s cruelest of hours. Saw two runners on the way here, running up Yulupa, about to turn left onto Hoen toward Summerfield. My old route. Do I miss it, a bit, I miss the regularity of my outings and the play with speed, my interval adjustments, and how.. distracted.. someone behind me.. I hate that.. maybe she’s bored.. maybe she’s lonely.. I hope she’s reading this, and she gets her iced coffee and leaves. “Yeah,” I think to myself, “get the hell out of here!” Standing behind a writer like that.. god I fucking hate that!
A song by Dizzy, taking me back in time, so far I don’t know how to interpret it, way before me, and when my parents were young, or even before them. Not sure. But this morning is now being taken by the writer, and the rest of the day, with wine and what I can gather from the Pinots and the Zin, even the Chards, and how they’re changing. Have to be at the novel soon, and good, good, I read this wine blogs and adjunct professor blogs and I’m starting to feel, well, quite bored with their rants. And I know, someone out there probably feels the same about my work. But I’m just doing light research.. like one post I read, recently (actually at the red light on Hoen & Yulupa, headed to this coffee spot), was about how local restaurants are expected to carry local wines. A bit interesting, as I see the potential professional and/or neighborly quandary, but doesn’t the restaurant have their choice? Are they not autonomous? Do they work for the wineries in any way? And, really, how much am I supposed to think about this? Dwell on this lack of communication and sword-swinging impasse?
Starting to exhaust from writing, and I blame yesterday, and the articles.. so why should I touch the novel, now? Maybe I won’t. I know I have to, and I should, but another yell from me, inner, somewhere, says ‘move along!’ Focus on shorter pieces, the poems and entries and the short fiction café idea.. ideas, like drugs, that craving for Newness, the worst and best of addictions.
How about a plan, I hate plans as a writer but I feel I need one now: after entry: finish track 3 (poem), the a piece of short fiction for the whoso magazine and the short fiction café.. done. Now I relax. Oh if I could have the day off today, just not go to that ravishing estate and sit in a café and actually scribble, like a madman, like Kerouac.. so many pages scattered, but now I consolidate and sell them all. Everything. And the first piece for sale, or pieces, are the first 3 tracks I wrote, poems, each a standalone to its own. Listening to that Kerouac recital last night with the students and talking to them about Poetry and actually enjoying teaching again, like I have rarely, lively and engaged with the students and so many of them commenting on my passion and my fire with the words and literature and Kerouac..
8 minutes till I have to shift to other project, whatever I decide.. the track, the poem, recital, sell it, talk it.. walk and fly and worry no– My Beat starts to increase in speed and I feel everything is music. Last night we wrote to a Bonobo beat, and everyone was quiet, scribbling, to their page and newly written Self sense.
And I can only, only, be only, only me with this sight and hope of somehow and day being that, that what I see.
(6/19/15)
