Monotony, Deathbed, & The Flow Of Writing

Once again, another same-ol’-run-of-the-mill-montonous-average-day for Justin Tadlock. Good news? Last day of work at the library this week! Now, if that ain’t exciting I don’t know what is.
Okay, so I went through my usual Wednesday routine:

  • 7:30 - Crawl out of bed.
  • 8:30 - Leave for school.
  • 9:00 - Advanced Composition class.
  • 10:00 - Wandered around the Haley Center Bookstore, fussed about waiting for a book (Before Writing) which hasn’t came in yet, until I finally made it up to the 3rd floor to wait for my next class.
  • 11:00 - Modern Drama, in which I almost fell asleep several times (because of my usual lack of sleep), until I started writing on an idea I’ve been playing with in my head for a while.
  • 12:00 - Worked at the library.
  • 3:00 - Got off of work. Stopped and got a cheeseburger from the convenient store down the road from my house. Got home and stared at the computer screen for a while.
  • 4:30 - Took a 2-hour nap.
  • 7:00 - Watched One Tree Hill.
  • 8:00 - Watched Lost.
  • 9:00 - Been doing homework until now.

So, I did get something more exciting than finishing up my last day of work at the library this week done today. I almost managed a whole page of work, although it was dreary-eyed and just-to-hold-my-head-up kind of writing. But here it is, I haven’t even read over it until now:

I stared to the side, just at the foot of the bed, the one with white-sheeted covers. I didn't want to say that I felt nothing, but something was missing. Looking back I know that there was something there. NOTHING. Asleep. Damn doctors keep you alive only to sleep for a few more days.

Heart montiors (the beeps still steadily beeping), IV tubes, a chair or two, the pink water picture, all the settings of that little room welcomed Life and Death. Maybe one moreso than the other. That night it was ready for death. God’s hand was stretching down from the heavens to rip away His rightful soul. Nevertheless what the family felt or wanted, it was His decision.

Words were not as easy to find as those I had rehearsed while showering the night before, each bead of water giving a syllable to the final parting words. It was this last goodbye that had only been, one year earlier, rehearsed before.


I know. I know. It’s not at all polished, but it’s a start. It’s words on paper, or now a computer screen. It’s not even a tittle compared to the envisioned final work, one in which I don’t plan to run through at the moment. But it’s words on paper.

Thinking about words on paper, I sat down for a while tonight and scratched out 3 1/2 pages on my Report from the Field paper for Advanced Composition. I just sat down and started writing; and tonight, the writing process was flowing. I didn’t want to stop writing, but I had to in order to get to my readings I need to have done for tomorrow (or should I say today, now). I did realize, however, that my notes are all over the place. I’ve lost all structure in my Ethnography of Literacy. That’s one thing I’ll be doing in the next week: organizing everything. That way, I’ll have some stuff to post up on the Literacy Website.

Anyways, I’m off to bed for another one of those same-ol’-run-of-the-mill-montonous-average-days.