Day in the Life Of…

It occurred to me in the middle of work this morning that I had to write a blog for today! Whoops! Sometimes, my entire week slurs together and I forget that certain days happen when I have to do things and stuff, it’s confusing. In the midst of my morning confusion, I decided I would just write about my day. ‘Cause I figured… I can do that.

I woke up around 10:30, fell asleep, and woke up again, probably several times. If you added up the collection of moments this happens during my life now, there would be like three whole years or so composed entirely of me struggling to decide when to wake up. I was officially up by 11.

Would have had time for breakfast, but I spent a full five minutes staring blankly at my computer screen, fighting the desire to post an interesting Facebook status update. I’m ashamed to admit, this happens on a fairly regular basis, mostly because part of me feels obligated, if I’m on Facebook, to post about what’s REALLY on my mind, considering, that’s the question in the little box when you first log in. It’s my duty to let my friends know how I’m doing, right? HAHA!

So I sit for a while, pondering, “What IS on my mind?” before concluding that most of the things on my mind would probably erase my ‘friend list’ in a heartbeat. No, seriously. I’m a horror author. If I just went around telling everybody what was going on in my head, people probably wouldn’t like me very much. I eventually decided not to post anything, then realized I no longer had time to throw together a peanutbutter sandwich.

I tossed on my work uniform: black, dress pants –check. Orange polo, still kind of stiff from the sweat of last shift –check. Nametag –check. Hat –check. You’ll note that I didn’t shower today; you’d think that, working in food service, being clean –REALLY clean, is crucial. At my campus food court, that’s not quite the case. Really, wearing a hat for 4+ hours, to me, just means nobody can tell that I haven’t washed my hair in a while. And bathing everything else? Well, that’s a little pointless when you wash dishes for hours and get food waste plastered all over yourself.

Brushed my teeth after getting dressed. Gathered what I needed for my drawing class which follows work. That took longer than expected, and with eight minutes before the start of my shift, I booked it to work. On a normal morning, my walk to work takes a solid ten minutes. My apartment isn’t far from the campus food court, so that’s nice. However, when I have to half-walk half-sprint in bursts to make sure I keep my record of punctuality, that’s not so nice.

My record of not-being-late has not been broken yet.

At work, I shuffled into an apron, clocked in, looked over the beverage coolers. They were already full, so I headed to the dish machine and started washing. Luckily, today, two other workers were sent to dish because there was nothing else for them to do. We tackled a rather intimidating pile of dishes in about an hour. I had earned myself a well-deserved lunch break.

For lunch, I ate a big ol’ stack of pierogies with an ice cold Coca-Cola (for those of you who don’t know, pierogies are Polish dumplings filled with  mashed potatoes and cheese. Basically Heaven in your mouth). I sat alone and  ate, watching customers pass me by, wondering what they would eat, smiling casually at those who looked over.

After break, I returned to the beverage coolers to find that a few slots had been emptied. That was my cue. I mounted my trusty steed –the stocking cart, and rolled into the stocking room, where all the bottled drinks are stored. With clipboard in hand, everything I needed written down, I started loading the cart full of drinks. I spent another forty minutes or so putting those drinks in the coolers.

The rest of work consisted of scraping old food gunk out of the inside of garbage cans. Not much to say about that.

Once work was over, I had a few minutes to browse Reddit.com, one of my favorite websites. It’s for posting pictures, funny stuff, news articles, basically anything. Scrolled through the ‘photography’ section, which just has a bunch of cool, inspiring pictures.

At 3:30, I headed to my drawing class. In which, I drew things. But not just any things. I drew my cat, because I did not feel like working on the project we were supposed to be working on. Call me a bad student, but I plan to do the next project in ink and water, and that’s not very easy to transport on foot. And, my instructor liked my cat drawing.

When I returned to my apartment after class, I entered a cloud of the sweetest-smelling aroma of grilled cheese and tomato soup. My roommate had a guest over and was cooking dinner with her, and offered to make me a sandwich. I took him up on that offer with glee. The sandwich –grilled cheese with chicken- was delicious.

By the time I had finished my sandwich, my roommate and his guest had already left to go do…stuff, I don’t know where they went. So, apartment’s empty. Know what that means?

DRUM MYSELF INTO A COMA TIME!!!

Which is exactly what I did. Drums. Then naptime. When I woke up, I typed this, and now I’m posting it. Later tonight, I’ll probably draw some more, catch up on my NaNo wordcount (I confess, I’m too embarrassed to post my wordcount here for all to see. It’s pathetic), and I might hang out with some friends if they show up like they normally do after the Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) meeting. I used to go to those, but choose not to now, for reasons I might explain another day. My friends who go usually come over to the apartment afterwards. If they don’t, more drawing, more writing. Maybe some reading in there, we’ll see. Bedtime anywhere from 3 am to 7 am. No, I’m not kidding. My brain works best during those hours.

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my day. If I had anything else interesting to talk about, I would have posted about that, and not my day. So yes, I legitimately hope you got anything out of this. Cheers and God bless!

In Christ,

Luther D. Powell

Where were you ten years ago?

My birthday is in a few days, and I’m going to reflect a little on my life ten years ago. People always ask, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” and you always want to hope and have ambitions for yourself. For once, I can look way back when and think, Wow, God has taken me pretty far.

Ten years ago, I only had two classes during the school day. My class would switch between two teaches; one who taught English and ‘Social Studies’ (which I don’t remember being all that social), the other who taught Math and Science. MAN I miss the simplicity of those subjects. No Biology, no Chemistry, just SCIENCE. No Trigonometry, no Algebra, no Geometry, just MATH.

Ten years ago, nobody gave a rip about whether or not I had a job. I might have been babysitting by then, but I think I started babysitting in Junior High. Either way, I sure wasn’t trying to save money for anything!

Ten years ago, I got in the habit of drawing pictures, just to draw pictures. Up until then, I would literally draw out entire stories, picture by picture, using an entire sheet to draw a single frame of a plot. My first three drawings that had nothing to do with stories: a dragon, a werewolf, and a family of Tyrannosauruses.

Ten years ago, I decided I wanted to start writing stories instead of drawing them. The first full-length story I attempted to write was heavily-inspired by the Lord of the Rings, which was newly adapted to film. I shelved that story in high school after discovering how much I loved horror.

Ten years ago, I liked a girl. Back then, I had no other idea how to talk to the opposite sex than to speak my mind, be honest, tell her how I felt. Didn’t go so well. I once saw a boy buy her a Fruit Roll Up snack during lunch, and she was so happy she broke it up and shared it with her friends. I, being Captain Studmuscles, decided to buy her a Fruit Roll Up also, on a different day. Leaving it wrapped up, she threw it at me from across the table while her friends were putting their trays away, the disgusted look in her eyes melting my little 5th grade heart. When the bell rang, holding back tears, I passed one of my friends and casually dropped the Fruit Roll Up onto his tray.

Ten years ago, Big Wolf on Campus was the greatest TV show of all time. Look it up.

Ten years ago, I couldn’t shoot a basket in gym class if my life depended on it. But man, could I play Dodgeball.

Ten years ago, a bully on the school bus tried to break my fingers, so I bit his arm open. He never bothered me again, and I was sent to the counselor, who gave me every reason to feel like a disgrace to humanity for not getting the bus driver’s attention instead.

Ten years ago, I began questioning why I went to church, why I sang songs to this guy Jesus, why I ate little wafers and drank the grape juice. It didn’t take ten years for God to answer those questions for me.

Ten years ago, Creed was the first rock band I listened to. Between then and now, I’ve gotten into heavier and heavier music. My CD collection went from Creed, Linkin Park and Evanescence, to Demon Hunter, Impending Doom and Mortification. Those last three are Christian bands, by the way…

Ten years ago, I started drumming.

Ten years ago, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to college. HA!

I have now sold seventeen + drawings. I’ve been in two rock bands, as well as a handful of church worship bands. I’ve had two short stories published. I’ve had a whole lotta cats, now down to one. I’ve had two girlfriends (not at the same time, obviously), both of whom are still on good terms with me. I’ve read a lot of good books, made a lot of awesome friends, got my drivers license on the first test attempt. Storms keep knocking down trees, but my house still stands. Coming up on my fourth year of college. Still have a job in food service. My bro Nick is still my bro (we met in Kindergarten, by the way).

So tell me, where has God brought you in ten years? Whether or not you believe it’s God who brought you there, you should pick out the good things, even the little good things. All those little things aided in making you who you are today, and there are more little good things yet, to make you who you’ll be in another ten years.

I had no idea how I was going to end this blog, so here’s a goofy picture of myself and my best friend. Cheers, happy summer, Batman, God bless!

In Christ,

Luther D. Powell