A little late for my personal clock-in target, 9AM, time now shouting outtime 9:10. Have to take care into car wash, write short piece and blog entire day. Haven’t even looked at the papers.. but I have an idea of how to grade through them quickly.. not noting it here, but it will be quick. On my last cup for morning and possibly day. Have to either call or visit SSU for ID for internal lecturing app.. should do that now before I forget. Early to bed to-night as to even earlier rise, earlier than I normally do. Cinnamon bagel ready, little snack before car wash and the adjunct/writer/dad/hoper takes on the day. So tired of wondering and trying — why not just decide ‘life will be this way’. Good idea, I think to Self listening to this jazz, here in kitchen nook, no couch this morning as I want to be fully attentive to everything blog everything and capture everything.. I don’t care about the formality of punctuation or any mechanics I preach in the classroom.. such a beautiful type of hypocrisy.
And on another note… yes, should call SSU now before I forget….. On hold, of course. So I type, I won’t let this steal any of my morning. And — never mind, thought they were coming on the line but no. Would love to be back on the campus, get deeper into the adjunct role and game. I can’t watch anymore of these interviews with adjuncts nor go to any more of those blogs, just embitters me and if not then annoys me. I’m making it all work for me. And Mom again said last night, forget about Mendo, and I’m starting to this the– There, have someone on the line. May have to go down there, fill out some paperwork, I’m guessing, which is a pain yes but what I need to do.
After this call, I’ll go to the carwash.. so much for the writer/blogger/dad/dreamer/coffee-addict to do. On campus, I’ll try to do a bit of writing, maybe the short piece for day. Time 9:26, and I wait still on line.. hasn’t been that long, but you know me I hate waiting… and resolved, kind of, can’t seem to get a straight answer from anyone, so I’ll do an external application and see where it goes. As an adjunct you can only do so much but when all you want is to be brought back onto a campus and you’re given the goddamn runaround it’s delightfully angering. So I carry on with my day. I’ll do that bloody app later. She was in no rush to send me that inconclusive email so why should I rush to complete an app which is in no way guaranteed to get me ANYTHING?! See? Frustrating, that’s all.
There, have a login.. username and password and all the necessary tech shitsense. Now, back to jazz, back to coffee and enjoying my morning. Can’t thank Mom enough for her short fiction counsel.. Dad, too. They’ve always been of the sway that short pieces, stories and sketches and vignettes be my true way. So I follow in stride and with a glowing willingness. Goddamnit!! Coffee done. So now the writer has to go, to the car was, then when home.. FICTION! Maybe even grading a paper or two.. or not!
Wonder what it’s like to be him, my friend Ed Pierce, or ‘EP’ as I’ve always known him. Met him as an undergrad, at SSU, first semester I got there and in that Lit Analysis class with Professor Coleman. I was at the time only writing poetry and he insisted on writing fiction, short stories and eventually longer fiction (also took Sherril’s Fiction class and Personal Essay section with him). He’s a fabulous narrator, though he hates 1st person, and I’ve never understood why. Probably as he’s thinking, like he once said in college, “that’s such a poet thing to do.” We’d joke about it all the time. But he’s there, in New York. And I’m here, struggling with adjunct’d entanglements and stresses and trying to get to the Road, trying and trying.. but today I live as I wish.. writing and relaxing and watching writer-type movies (one of which I have to look for today, “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Farrell), and just whatever I want.. ‘want’, want to run, 5 miles, around Fountaingrove, but later, later in the day right before I pick up the little Artist from his mini-university. Embracing my now will get me to where Ed is, where he sits in that apartment overlooking Manhattan streets, after he gets his morning latte or whatever it is, can’t remember but he’s been drinking them, the same thing, since college, and maybe (now that I think about it) that’s part of what got him there, to NYC, that odd 3rd person consistency, writing habit, and whatever else..
Struggling to reach a thousand before the carwash. Had a thought this morning while walking J into school, that I should write a piece about someone working at a carwash, how the cars keep coming and how everything is always soaked and slow and uncomfortable, he watched the vehicles pile and thin, pile and thin, thicken and dissipate.. he just watches and washes.. idea IDEA! This morning.. mornings are more and more important in this writer’s life and I have to use them as fully as I can and continue with this short fiction and maybe even short nonfict’, giving readers a standalone snapshot insight into me and my writing/adjunct Life, if they care.. I know my son will, I know he will, once he’s old enough to read this prose.. if only he could see me now, hunched over this keyboard, typing and listening to jazz, overcaffeinated and dedicated to my ART, and keeping him in mind.. he’ll read this one day, he will! And he’ll know I was, and am, serious about these words, about the expansive meditation that I paginate and disseminate.
