Powering Forward - 37,047

I had a lot of trouble writing today. Well, kind of. I wrote for a really really long time, but a lot of that time I spent a lot of time planning for the future, and I am set up for an excellent writing session tomorrow.

I will be in Waterloo tomorrow with Jill and Scott, eating Curry in a Hurry and writing like a demon (or is it daemon?). I really want to start moving things along, which means that there are a lot of heavy writing days in the near future.

Not sure what to post today, so I'm putting something pretty old. I'm pretty sure I haven't posted my "Man of the House" segment (sorry in advance if I have), so here it is, enjoy! This part takes place when Mark is in Toronto (before he even goes to Winigo!), and he is opening the box of Jake's personal effects (sometimes he calls him Coop, in case you get confused).

He carefully cut the tape he himself had applied to hold the box together during the flight, and gingerly removed the lid, setting it down on the couch next to him. The first items he saw in the box were what Mark assumed to be the clothes that Jake had been wearing when he was admitted to the hospital. He saw that they were wrapped in plastic, and had a sticker on then stating that they had been autoclaved to remove all infectious matter. Good, Mark thought to himself, whatever he had is something that I don’t want. Wrapped in the same plastic, with the same note, Mark found Jake’s watch, wallet, keys, cell phone, and a small notebook. Intrigued, Mark cut open the plastic and flipped through the pages quickly.

                The notebook was a square, approximately six inches across. It was black all over, save for the front where it appeared that Jake had pasted on a photo of Jonathan Taylor Thomas circa Man of the House, a cult classic to be sure, in which JTT, as he was known by his adoring young fans, had co-starred alongside the inimitable Chevy Chase. Mark himself had loved this movie, and was happy to know that his friend had loved it, too. Perhaps, Mark thought, if Coop had lived longer, we could have watched it together. But Mark wasn’t kidding anybody with these thoughts, not even himself. If Jake hadn’t been dying, Mark never would have come into contact with him again. In fact, Mark knew Jake better in death than he ever would have known him had he lived another ten, twenty, or sixty years. And isn’t this so often the case?  Mark supposed that it was. Being someone who was familiar with death and loss, he knew that when someone you loved left you forever, it was inevitable that family and friends got together and shared stories. Some of these stories never would have been shared with you had your loved one been alive. Not only this, but if you were the person lucky enough, or unlucky enough depending on how you thought about it, to go through your loved ones material possessions, you would without fail learn something new about them. And this was what Mark was experiencing, holding the journal of his best friend, with an unlikely photo on the cover of a 1990s smart throb (as he had toured the campus of Harvard circa 2000, but had not attended nor had he applied) who had not been popular for about a decade.

                He opened the well worn book to the first page, noting the date “April 30, 1995.”  He sees the neat, childish scrawl. Unable to help himself, he reads the first entry.

(The photos are searches of "Man of the House", "Jonathan Taylor Thomas Drunk", and "Chevy Chase Drunk", respectively)

Until next time, faithful readers.