SipNScribble -- Seated, Repeated

Excited about the Hall Winery event tomorrow.  Incredible day at NewWineGig, today.  All, in this Literary Wine Life, harmonized.  Sensationally syncopated.  Sipping a bit more of that ’08 Dry Creek Petite.  Not sure what form tomorrow’s project will take.  But is that not what makes wine writing so salient, the lack of knowns?  Part of it, intently.  Knowing me, I’ll hop back over the hill, from Hall, with more material than  I know how to manage.  Sipping more Petite, as to evade premature overwhelm.  Had a thought, again, today, of owning my own tasting Room, producing my own wine.  I can sell others’ wines, but could I my own bottles sustainably vend?  Am going to at the very least try.  One day.  Till such surfaces, I’ll just sip, sip ... And scribble ... 

(4/29/11, Friday) 

Before Friday’s Way

Today, again, enrichment.  Wine’s song differs in each scene.  Knew Mom, Dad, and I would be dinning out in Napa’s coercive downtown, but not sure where.  Either way, about I tumbled in day.  Thinking back to the drive, morning voyage, I remember asking Self, “What if I didn’t move back here, out of San Ramon?” Life would be odd, there.  Take that as you want.  But I was meant to be here.  My WRITING needs these vines, their rising tints.  I’m possessing my moments, directing them.  Here, within wine’s wherewithal.  I executed efforts, genuinely, today, even though distracted.  But, I couldn’t wait for dinner, with Dan & Sue.

After a Bounty Hunter beer, we decided to dine at my brother Steve’s joint, Carpe Diem.  Have plugged this savory spot ad nauseam, I know.  But I’m going to do so again, after an interaction more layered.  Steve us greeted, instantaneously, upon landing.  He seated us, poured us some bubbly, of which I can’t remember label.  Either way, all flawless.  Most especially, the hospitality and attention of my new delightful friend, Allison.  All three of us had flatbreads.  Galactic in presence, presentation.  Can’t remember what Mom had, but Dad and I had the Mamma Mia.  Mine, minus the cucumbers.  Dan selected the wine, an ’08 Justin Cab, Paso Robles.  Must have been astrological, as the alignment of bottle and plate was more than persuading.  Fanatically purveying.  The Particular Palates, as I them stamp, Mom and Dad, found Steve’s errorless encapsulation truly encapsulating.  My Self as well, even though I’ve before been.  But this was a night special, most memorable.  Not just because my two favorite Humans were with, but also resulting from Steve’s accommodation, Allison’s nearness, her poignant, unscripted congeniality.

But I don’t want to write another review of ‘Carpe’, as many call it.  It doesn’t need my lines.  It’s above this squating scribe.  I’m in studio.  Sipping, scribbling.  Remembering the day.  Tomorrow, one month from 32.  How did this happen, my age?  Not going to dwell in dismal swirls.  Seizing Days Mine.  Notice those capitals.  They’re intentional.  The dinner pushed me, to change or maintain as I see sane.  Maybe it’s the Malbec, I’ll bet.  Aside from deconstructive druthers, I’m seated.  In sip.  Me, a meditating manuscript mover.  A Professor, 4ever. 

Thinking of wine, this Malbec.  The distant, not-so-familiar.  This glass occupier, I have to be honest, needs therapy.  Not much personality.  “So why are you sipping it, Mikey?” Because it’s one of the last surviving bottles in the refrigerated burrow.  It does have some coherence of character.  One struggling, disenchanted, but somehow tenacious.  Malbec, I’ve found, can do that sometimes.  Maybe that’s Mike, a Malbec.  But my moments, with ones loved, memorable.  That’s what deserves the focus.  Tonight’s dinner.  Steve’s nonpareil, Carpe Diem.  Night’s rhythmic situational rattle, pushed me to appreciation.  For Napa, for Wine, for those like Steve.  All the affirmative, the yeasayers.  Those codified in fermented patterns.  Now, the Malbec encourages me to liven.  But how?  I have to be up at 6:15a.  Want to go to sleep.  I’ll sink, sensing sips, reveling in revering grape mirrors.  The industry’s poetry’s done this 2me.

(4/28/11, Thursday)       

Mission: Back Room Wines ...

Tasting, Prospecting 

Finally had a chance to attend a pouring here.  I’d been in before, a couple times, on lunch breaks.  Earlier yesterday, met Owner and Wine Merchant Dan Dawson.  He told me there’d be a pouring of Sierra Madre, and that Winemaker Steve Rasmussen would about the crowd.  Answering questions, greeting, pouring.  So, as soon as I clocked out, I was there, with a new blogging buddy, Justine.  I walked around the Room earlier, observed what producers were represented.  Abroad, intramural.  Definitely a variety demanding concentration.  But not obnoxious in quantity.  Stabilizing, impressively continuous in quality.  Back to present: we headed for the couches, the tall tables, to the Sierra Madre bottles.

Dan greeted J and I, started us on the ’09 Santa Maria Valley Pinot Blanc.  I liked the setup of the event, in the shop’s bar/lounge area.  The wine in bowl, gracefully subtle, yet assertively energetic with citrus notes and bright acidity.  Next, ’09 Santa Maria Pinot Gris.  Even more uniquely formatted in palate approach.  We then poured ourselves, as per the proprietor’s permission, the ’08 Chard and ’07 Pinot.  A Pinot that flavorful, different, for $30, a must-add to the cellar.  Justine was smart, taking it upon Self to get a bottle, the ’09 Gris.

What I like about this wine spot in Napa’s ever-adorable downtown, most, is its wine array and more-than-optimal stage for wine-anchored events, for which it has quite the record.  It doesn’t beg frenzy, but rather invites melodic interactive synergy.  And the wines featured tonight, with their innovatory creator, rewarding.  Educating.  Still thinking about that Pinot, as I sit here in my studio, a commute--my commute--away, wishing I bought one.  Not that far from the dominant component to my continuance, so I’ll be walking through Dan’s doors.  Soon.  With lots of money.  Maybe not lots, but some.  For Steve’s Pinot, among a cart else.  Looking to add to my cellar.  And believe me, while walking about the racks, on lunch, I found future collection denizens.  Sip, sip ...    

(4/27/11, Wednesday)

Petite Verdot, Delete Slurs Slow

Mike saw the microphone.  Then the glass.  He ignored both.  Shot for the paper.  He remembered yesterday, behind the bar, the couple from Tennessee, their playful poses.  He saw the clock, 10:58p.  Why were days so cruel, swift?  His temperament pulsated.  Simplicity, toxicity.  The Room’s claws descended to homeostatic sugar.  Its own varietal, vintage.  Something became clear.  He didn’t know what, which was fine.  He wanted a puzzle.  Not the blog’s predictability.  Interesting notes in the wine told him to abandon blocks.  “They were only there if you saw them,” he saw them saying.  Games, games.  All of it.  Politics, agendas; “the industry.”

Can’t remember the last time I sipped this character for night’s cap.  On mind: the dinner discussion tonight with Dad, Mom; the euthanizing of this “blog” at year’s close; Professor Coleman, sovereign thought, Orwell.  Me, never swimming in orthodoxy.  Rather, spot me in Unorthodoxy.  Don’t want to talk about that, now.  How the wine industry can scalp wine of its splendor.  Enjoying the quiet of this office.  This Petite.  When was the last time I this sipped?  Saw hot air balloons aloft while just annexing Napa’s proper.  What would it be like, to tilt this glass, at altitude, in an elevated basket?

Should be asleep.  Resting for morrow.  But, why can’t this writer have a night, with his glass?  This “industry,” unsure of me.  The writer.  And I hate how I’m tagged a “blogger.” These writings reside in a journal.  A stack of paper pieces.  They can judge me all they wish, but I’ll still write.  Do what I was meant to do.  Be my own blend’s backbone, like this Petite Verdot.  Bob, Professor Coleman, would tell me to savor Self.  Follow no orders.  Be the stray blend.  I’ll post last night’s writing, but not before I sculpt it to acceptability.  Is that not vomitous?

Can’t wait to drown this “wine blog.” When the book learns flight, I’ll wine blog in the right that I’ll sip alongside the scribbles with unquantifiably more frequency.  And why shouldn’t I?  With the PV antagonizing me, I grin Self-assuringly.  In this chair, all fair.  They want to censor me, like severed trees.  Cut my strut.

Would go onto media social accounts.  But that would disrupt my peace.  This piece.  Was going to say something other.  But I’m monitored.  Orwell knew.  My wine scores tell truth.  Like yesterday, after the shift.  Simply enjoying a couple pours on patio.  Why can’t “the industry” be that simple, musical? 

Books on his shelf caught eyes.  Both.  The wine, no longer important.  It annoyed him.  Was too late to sip, anyway, he thought.  Certain qualms had to be voiced, he knew.  But entertaining such flavors, octaves, would all the more lower his core.  Mike didn’t need that.  He wanted a forward.  A step success to less stress.  He did need another pour.  One Self-implored.  He bent the bottle’s balance.  Dizzy angles, lights.  His flight, hardly faulted.  One, like wine, in development.

(4/26/11, Tuesday)

Winery Reflection: Deerfield Ranch Winery

Love everything from the entrance, to the cave, especially, to winemaker Robert Rex’s absurdly acute aptitude for bottled brilliance.  I pulled in, so eager to take pictures, shoot footage while walking down the cave to the tasting Room, I could barely stay on the somewhat narrow driveway to the parking spaces.  Have always loved Deerfield’s location, so as soon as I stepped out the Scion, I snapped.  Picture, another.  Another.  To the wines, I told mySelf.  While walking down the infinite cave corridor to the tasting Room, more of a cozy tasting Lounge, or lobby, I tried to remember what varietals were poured here.  For what were they noted, remembered?  Coralie helped me get re-acquainted.  

A Sauv Blanc start, ’09.  Crisp mellon, tropicality, slight peach, bright mouthfeel.  Then, to the ’04 Pinot.  Yes, I said ’04.  What a swift delivery of flavorous rapture.  Before moving to the other pours, I noticed that all the wines boasted older vintages.  ’06 Red Rex, one of the wines for which Deerfield is most known, tangling seven different varietals; ’06 Estate Syrah, which I thought could still use a bit more aging, startlingly, but still serene, sippable; a 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Chamizal Vineyards, one of the star pours of the day.  Coralie continued in her impressive hospitality with three concluding pours: the ’03 Meritage, the 2001 DRX, and the 2000 Meritage.  All, outlandishly ostentatious, dashing in flavor flow and character.  Why has it taken this writer so long to revisit?  

Saw some other wine world friends while there, Michelle, and Assistant Tasting Room Manager Steve.  Between interactions, I just walked around, delighted by my surroundings.  Pretty busy day for Deerfield, and I was happy for them.  This is a winery that delivers wine experience entirety, candidly.  I wanted to stay, just hang out.  Didn’t want to walk back down that barreled hallway, to the Scion, out the sightly narrow road.  Not yet.  So I did, remain caved.  Just walked around, took some pics, enjoyed my time in the dashing dim-lit den, with the guests, wines, barrels.  Loved the little teddy bear on the barrel, leaning against his Rex bottle.  Must have connected a little too tangibly, my cuddly little friend.

Another ingredient that made this return to “The Field,” as I occasionally call it, special, was that it wasn’t in any way scheduled.  I kind of knew what to expect, as I’d always recommended the winery to guests, when I was behind the bar.  But, today, “impressed” is not the simplistic qualifier I’m electing to attach to Rex’s wines, Coralie’s enamoringly adorable and wine-wise hospitality, Ben’s command of a tasting Room.  I’m injecting “dexterous,” and/or “deific.” Wine needs a place and people like this behind it.  Guests need a wine experience of this magnitude at least once in their lives.

Finally made my way down the hall, out to the parking space.  But not before a couple more button pushes.  Almost forgot how heavenly, eminent, the Deerfield property is.  Especially now, with bud break in motion.  Should I go back in?  No.  Will plan a re-revisit.  Soon.  Already know what I’ll get.  I think.  Maybe one of each.  We’ll see. 

Tremor’d Lecture

Mike walked around the office.  Day’s close.  Repeating the same message, again, again, exhausted him.  So that was his initial aim in leaving seat, to stretch.  But, he saw one of his colleagues, Lisa, about the floor.  More than likely doing the same.  There was a brief exchange, ‘what are you doing tonight’, ‘...this weekend I’m going to...’, topics of such octave and flavor.  Then, Lisa halted, said, “You’re not going to blog about this, are you?” At first, Mike didn’t know what to attach to such a dialogue line.  But then he appreciated its invaluable song.  It’s potential place in project approach.

While driving back to Santa Rosa, while in the Carneros region, Sonoma side, he realized he needed to put the Self back in the spy’s mode.  He needed dialogue.  As much as he could scrape from a scene.  In the wine industry, doing so could foster, breed, enemies.  But he didn’t care.  He wouldn’t skip in defamatory patterns on a page.  Mike wanted tangible, rich, realistically overwhelming pages in his book.  He would still respect characters’ real reality, he Self assured.  And if people were so bent on believing passages were about them, then that’s them, to them.  He wasn’t afraid of virulent reaction.  Capote survived fallout from ‘Tiffany’s’, right?

He couldn’t endanger himSelf, either.  He would practice pragmatic passion, while still delivering genuine prose.  The Literary.  The wine-twined Literature.  When home, he’d type in silence complete, with the exception of the over-sugared and under-monitored children outside.  This book would take him away.  If it were marketable.  Maybe he needed gossip, rumor, others‘ utters.  A little defamation.  What if Lisa didn’t recite her lines in the office, at day’s ending curtain?  He was sipping what remained of last night’s Syrah, cartwheeling in reflective rumbles, within her words.  “To Lisa,” he said to the little monster laptop’s screen.

Selling wine, taught Mike more than he ever thought he’d taste in the business, or rather marketing, realm.  Wine, on its own, was magic.  He knew.  But he also knew that it needed a serious message, mission, behind it.  You couldn’t just leap, he thought.  No, he now knew.  With this new knowledge, only a couple weeks aged, he would pour in the tasting Room of the old winery.  Recording everything.  Transactions; the patterns of vintage arrangement in the back room; the condition of the boxes, approach to guests, the amount of puddles on the counter, how many times he put his elbow in one.  He would record all with the richest of realisms.  And if he recorded a folly, and the winery didn’t agree with such journalistic capture, “Then how regretful,” he whispered.

Everything needed lines.  Present: He sat on the couch.  On the two cushions’ border.  “This is not quite comfortable...ugh,” he thought, squirmed left.  To be closer to the Racer 5 five atop the wine-themed coaster.  He looked at that coaster, remembering he wrote a poem about it, or its visual confession, years ago.  Dwelling on hill, vineyards below, sinking daylight.  Paradigmatic vino stage.  What was wrong with Romanticism in the wine world, “the industry?” he juggled.  Not a thing.  But there need be some order, he now appreciated.  But with covert Lit ops, he could order the order as he pleased.

Mike saw himSelf a boon and bully to “the industry.” He sipped again.  Mouthfeel.    Hoppy gulpfeel.  The typing increased in speed, delicious disorder.  He wanted people to know him as a writer at-LARGE in the wine world.  He wanted to be feared.  He loved  that certain characters knew they might wind up as characters.  As his.  Engraved on his page.  He was thankful to Lisa for the night’s thousand words.  And the Racer that relieved the ravishing Rhône.

The pizza was ready.  He needed to stop writing.  But hated his sight for projecting such.  “Book...shelf, book...shelf,” all he could see.  “Fear me, as you’re in my diary,” he recited.  He was hungry, needed to rise from the current seating.  He walked into the kitchen.  With Racer.  He viewed the burnt pizza.  Gorgeous, he thought.  He loved the molten top, caramelized, charred, or whatever an elitist chef would tag.  He needed to buy that little notepad he’d been intending.  He, the artful operative, needed armament.  Always.

8:24p.  Mike, back on the unaccommodating cushion border.  The kids must be indoors.  Too much silence now.  TV on.  Mike didn’t want shows.  He wanted reality.  Scenes.  Characters.  Dialogue.  Chunky personality stews, moments.  He looked over at the coaster, the picture of Alice and him at the Luxembourg Gardens.  What if he took a pen to a places where indecipherable gems were voiced?  He’d scribble anyway.  He was a reborn spy.  Life, the operation, undisclosed mission.  Already he needed a break.  his fingers, famished.  Current pours, Petite Sirah.  Chewy ink sex.  The bottle had only been open for fifteen minutes.  Less, perhaps?  Still, distinguished with its gentle black fruit, leathery progressions, soft chalky finish.  This character, its containment, in bottle, glass, romantic.  Antagonistically waving, caressing.  She taunts me, suggestively.  Another sip.  

She was a spy, too, surprisingly.  Lurking, scouring plains for palates.  She, kissing me like she were the scribe.  He was glad he didn’t get the routine afterwork beer, or Cab glass.  Downtown Napa always pulled him, victoriously.  But not tonight.  Capacitated like never prior.  He flexed in theatrical brazenness.  He was feared.  “So what animal am I?” he thought.  8:55.  He began to see the slow in his paginated strokes.  I heard someone today, while at lunch in that microbrewery, say that they hated their coworkers, that he wanted to “destroy” them.  Mike loved that for once in his day he couldn’t relate.  Raising glass to the screen, that cuddled and housed his session.  The new actualism.  If Mike could accomplish with his book what Truman did with his...He couldn’t construct, project, such result in hypotheticals.  All this, a game to the newly buoyed pen mover.  He felt programmed, pleasurably.  Levitating, following Lisa’s unintended lecture.

(4/21/11, Thursday)

After Seizing a Day

Home, after the day, the visit to Carpe.  Steve’s place, its serene scene, suggests I need to disconnect, for a bit.  Maybe more.  Too much writing, equating to less living.  Tonight, enjoying the Barbera, recollections of day’s calls, sales.  Wine mercantilism, finally forever in this poet’s future.  Seizing this evening, utter ataraxia.  Carrying that Napa wine bar’s scene with me.  Here, on the couch.  Laptop, nightcap.  Not that this little monster computer IS the nightcap.  Or is it, this instant? 

The day’s wines, the one now in the Room with me, urge vacation.  Distance.  The character, she, shoves me into such.  There’d be an escape.  With her.  Into a book.  And onto a shelf.  But it’s envisioned; conveniently materialized.  Still feel like I’m at that counter, doing a tasting.  Three wines I’ve never b4 touched.  Sipping ... 

(4/19/2011)

Another Spur of Wine’s Gravity

Tonight, family gathered.  Wine paired with a meal, two bottles, actually.  An ’05 Syrah, and an ’06 Merlot from Santa Cruz.  Never had these bottles before.  This is what I was writing about yester: EXPLORATION, whimsicality.  Both bottles puppeteering in their prominence.  Marvelous monsters, both.  True palate ballads.  The Syrah, provided a wise character; one providing guidance, education in presentation and verisimilitude, voracity.  Not what I would expect from an ’05 Sonoma Coaster.  The ’06 Merlot, illustrative, imaginary.  NO, illusionary.  A ghost.  Happily haunting my reality.  Wish I had more to sip.  No more, thanks to the table’s characters.  Including Self.  Now that I’m home, in the office, I’m trying to revisit the contact.  Unable.  Only removedly reflective.  So I’ll sip this Carignane, to rehash.

What surprises me about wine’s ability to co-mingle characters, its consistency in doing so.  That Merlot, its match with the Syrah, how all at the table stated their favoritism.  One over other.  Not with vexing vein.  Just in fun.  Conversation.  Shouldn’t gatherings entail such?  Just thinking about both bottles, forces me to scribble barreled fanaticism.  And I swirl in such.  For bottles like this night’s.  In the chair, sipping Kaz’s effort, I’m tempted to turn my turn.  Could I do it, make wine?  Like my sis?  Surely my bottles couldn’t stand with hers, but I should try, before close, to produce vinified curiosity, carelessness.  What if I execute a certain cultish caress?

I want to explore more.  Not just numbers of wineries.  But, more so, what I entertain when sipping.  Right now, with this Carignane, I see shores, cliffs.  I see not here.  The distant, the fantastic.  The ravishingly removed.  So I’ll sip again.  Private tasting.  Here.  In this Room.  Only one pour.  Probably more than four ounces.  In fact, I can more than assure it’s about six.  IS that bad?  No.  It’s my night.  Carrying the synergistic swells from dinner back to these stacks.  The authors around this chair--Pickett, Poe, Pac, Shakespeare, Melville--order me to sip again.  Again.  vinoLit, at this desk.  All I know.  Carrying on with Kaz’s Carignane.

(4/18/11, Monday)

Mechanized Insight, Hall Pass

NEw movie on screen.  No editing in this entry.  No photo, either.  Feel like I’m obligated to post a picture with my prose on this “blog.” Which is precisely the warrant for why I quarrel with a blog.  A book not needeth photos.  Yes, when 2011 shuts, so doth mikeslognoblog.  Looking at the mic, its stand, to right.  Should record one more track.  One more extemporized effort.  Would be a more useful use of time than checking in with “social” media “accounts.” I just want to write books.  And it’s quite plausible that such a drive unhealthily slide my stride.

Tomorrow, I’m selling wine.  Lots of it.  Going to shock mySelf, the page.  A couple more spaces, and I’m truly clocking out for this evening.  At least it’s not excessively late.  Even if it were, I’d still revel in the comfort of this Madigan abode.  Cigarettes; don’t smoke them, but I find them a captivating image for character.  Sip ...

Studio Log

Writing, impromptu reciting.  Feels good 2B free in artistry.  This Pinot, speaking to me, fervently.  One track, recorded.  Shooting for one more.  What am I trying to accomplish?  Not sure.  Just life, I think.  To be truly alive.  Not just to merely exist.  Some, even characters close to me, have a hard time understanding my mission.  And that’s fine.  They don’t write, recite.  But tonight, I more than might.  How does Pinot make Mike so productive?  Time, 7:45p.  Still haven’t printed the pages I wanted to.  Not on any schedule set, this evening.  Relaxing.  Delighting in delusions.  Beautiful, this Inman Pinot.  Swirling me, more than I do the glass’ pour.  Back in Wonderland.

(4/17/11, Sunday)

Yesterday’s wineries, both treats. Valley of the Moon, and one of my eternal attachments, Mayo. Hadn’t been to Valley in some time. It was Meliss’, a.k.a. Alice’s, notion. Glad we did, as the wines were every bit as expansive and enrapturing as I remember. Jack was our host. Witty, informative, entertaining. Meliss wanted to start with whites, so we did. A couple Chardonnays, the Pinot Blanc. Some sparklings, one of which we bought a bottle to have with lunch. I chose to additionally taste the 2009 Rosato di Sangiovese, an ’09 Carneros Pinot, and the ’08 Sonoma County Cab. All scoring 3.5 to 4.5 with me. Yes, I’m using a rating system now. Was easy to use with Valley of the Moon, as all their wines suit my palate.

After the tasting, Alice and I walked out the door, took a hard right as to walk around the building. We enjoyed a nice lunch paired with the NV Russian River Sparkling. Crisp, delicious, unique. Incredible weather, nice vineyard vistas, gentle wind whisks. Again, I’m urged by the surrounding intricacies how lucky Alice and I are to live here. How fortunate we all are, here in Sonoma County. With lunch done, we decided one more tasting Room had to be hit. Not a surprise where we’d next be. And it needn’t be unexpected. Why not add to an already marvelous day by visiting some wine friends, their tasting Room?

Mayo. Back again. I needed to sip from some of these bottles. Been too long. Alice wanted some of Mayo’s staggeringly swift sparkling, as did I. But my good buddy Rich said I should start with some Chardonnay. Whoa; rich, not excessively weighty, formidably flavorful; deep. Since on the Burgundian path, why not lean on some Pinot? Poured me the ’07 “Barnstormer,” followed by the 2008 Sonoma Valley/Laurel Hill Vineyard. Both astonishing interpretations of the varietal. Jazzy, sporadically frenzied, stormy with mysterious note arrangement. Bought one bottle of the Sparkling, for Alice. I’ll come back for a couple Pinots. And the Cabs, especially that ’07 I had a few months ago.

Been a while since I’d had a day of tasting on this side of the mountain. By mySelf, or with Alice. The varietal/style of the day, have to say Pinot. No surprise, again. Want to put forth a refresher course for mySelf, as to be re-familiarized, re-acquainted with Kenwood, Glen Ellen. Sonoma Valley’s entirety. Not going to wait long, either. Believe me. Yesterday taught me that much. Sip, sip ...

Early Thousand, Mocha’d

Finally, Mike could have a few to Self.  To add to the book.  He needed more pages, if he was going to have a rough rough rough rough draft by May 29, birthday 32nd.  He needed to put this date in the work calendar.  He couldn’t believe that this Saturday was his.  His schedule.  His words, pages.  His.

4/16/11, Saturday.  What a concept, my Saturday is an actual Saturday. Been writing here and there, pen2paper, especially at the Napa Roasting on my lunch breaks.  Speaking of caffeine...

There, mocha on right, just like old times.  This new wine gig, instructing on multitudinous tiers of discovery, elemental alignment, entanglement.  Wine is much more vast a plain than I estimated prior.  Where I’m from, the Literary lair, I’m joyfully incarcerated in such more tangibly, irrevocably than one not moving a pen, or brush.

This morning’s aim, 1000 words.  All being thrown to the blog.  There is a wine tasting on the books today for Alice and I, at an old favorite.  I mentioned it, she became enthralled at prospect, so it was settled.  Not sure I know about this character that wears my ring.  On her approach to wine, that is.  What she thinks of it, how she views the bottle full, empty.  How it looks to her on a shelf.  I’m aware of her fondness to Chardonnay, certain Sauv Blancs, on elite colonies of reds, sparkling.  The bottles I have here, surrounding the little laptop monster, remind me that I need to find out what others feel about the sophisticated mass in the labeled caisson.  You have the sommeliers thinking they know everything there is to understand and appreciate about wine, food; then, industry people, which can be either humble or peremptory; then, most importantly, the consumer, whom “the industry” should always be all about.

Wondering if this sitting has desideratum, or more of a lawless prance.  To be honest, I’m just relieved, mended, to situate in this chair.  Me, the mocha, the morning manuscript, all again blended.  No!  There is an ambition in this Room, 1k by 11:30a, 1hr 16min from this very tick-tock.  Where is my camera?  Oh, in the work bag.  Should bring that with me to the winery.  What I was writing in the log the other day--again, pen to paper: that I should hunt for bargain French, Spanish, Portuguese wines.  Don’t want 2B obnoxiously clingy to domestics, even if I them view as immovable from position dominate.

Dream house delusions: wine bar, underground; music, low lighting, espresso machine, coffee; wooden furniture, table, chairs; two sofas, fireplace; PERVADING COMFORT, for me, family.  How long will it take me to acquire this true castle?  How will I it possess?  Can’t preoccupy Self with such, not now.  I’ll just enjoy such visions while driving to Napa, early AM.

The other morning, tide of commute, I was reciting poetry for, in discrete measurement, near three minutes.  I keep saying this, but I need to return to spoken word.  Write at least a couplet everyday.  If any spot suggests such, it’s the Napa Roasting Company.  So Human, gritty, stacked with savory stimuli.  It has all the bricks I need for compositional structuring, restructuring, from surroundings, wall color, adornment.  And characters, most imperatively.  But, with poetry, a shop like the Roasting Co permits and encourages poetry’s anarchistic arrangement.  Could just be regaling mySelf with this paragraph, maybe this entire session, but it feels delectable.

10:30a.  An hour left, till deadline.  Listening to a movie, behind me, one I’ve seen, heard during session, thousands, if not innumerable swarms, of times.  There, movie off.  WineLounge/WineWriting/Writing beats, on.  Loud, but not stratospherically.  That’d annoy, disrupt.

Finally, drenched in rime.  Intrenched in mine; philosophies

predicated on obtuse oddities;

Manuscript, molded by Grenache; I spill sentences, on then

off; recitalist like Mike, mourned when lost.  1 hour appearance,

high cost.  I’m sloshed.  But, another glass, please.  Don’t ask me

if I’m okay.  No way.  In battle, low lay.  Undisciplined, I go stray.

Shots erratic, I’m bad at mathematics; this sonnet, the best thing

that happened to the atlas.     

Unstable surface, climb to trees, quick.  I shine when sea sick.

Invincible; I make my decimals edible.  Syllabic experiment; the

lab is inherent, then.  Looking unruly writers and critics to execute

after a split of Zin.  Pick one, sit and grin.  Candle lit, you run.

Paris, Portugal and Rome.  Never thwarted from the throne.

Afford a pool of cones, endless ice cream.  I send these eyes, mean.

Street delete.  You’re obsolete, like a slab of cracked concrete.  Wine rime

in mine, so inclined...  

Still haven’t gone to the store to get a little notepad.  Why do I procrastinate so horribly?  Listening to poets recite, now.  Need wordplay.  And I know for a fact that winemakers fool with their percentages when blending, pushing till perfection palates.  250 words to go.  And I know, I shouldn’t invest in that number, word count function here on the monster.

Need to move the fingers faster.  Forgot about an errand I have to run.  Up to Geyserville, to drop off some WineLounge beats for my successor.  Will miss that tasting Room.  Love the wines, paintings, roominess.  Enigmatic, in a solitary diamond of a wine town.  Maybe I should bring the camera with, snap a still of that street.  Stale sentences, new paragraph...

Mike didn’t return to the session.  He went for his drive, thought about the fantasies that wine could vinify, bring to fruition.  He somehow felt that his tendencies in the worlds Literary and Wine could soon somehow skirmish.  But how, he thought.  Wine, its “industry” occasionally demanded script subscription.  Censorship.  If that were to ever be enforced upon, demanded of, him, he would enlist with Lit.  The pages, always supplying salvos in instance of dispute.  But, he hoped not for this.  He enjoyed the current harmony, the current current.

He saw a couple drops hit his windshield.  The vineyards on either side of 101’s stretch, their tenacious budding, encouraged the clouds, Mike’s camera.  But he couldn’t pull over.  Not now.  He had an appointment.  A meeting with a winemaker.  “How much free creativity is this one gonna try and get out of me?” Mike thought.  Perfect dozen, needle drops.  No wipers.  He’d let the air tend.  “None,” he resolved.  And why should he?  Would this grape stomper make him a few complementary cases?  No.  So, to free, always no, Mike internally paginated.


(4/16/11)