just another day

The Sun reached out from 93 million miles away, pushed against the curtains in my bedroom until it found a small gap, and poked though it. As it moved across the sky, it crept silently down the wall behind me, then deliberately down the headboard until it landed on my forehead. Once there, it took careful steps until it found its target and blazed relentlessly into my eyes.

I was jarred from my wonderful dream, forced to trade my viking garb for the Wheaton college T-shirt I sleep in, and my trusty wolf companion for my dog, who thumped her tail against the bed and licked my face when she realized I was awake.

I scratched her head and then my own, sat up, and got out of bed. She jumped down behind me and trotted down the hall toward the living room. I heard movement behind me and turned to see my cat, stretched out on his side next to Anne's pillow.

"Morning kitty," I said.

"Mrrow," he replied, but what I heard was "I again chose not to kill you while you slept. You're welcome."

I stretched, blinked my eyes several times, and made my way toward the kitchen, where I hoped I'd find coffee.

When I got there, I found not only coffee, but my wife.

"Is there coffee?"

"There is coffee," she said. We always ask each other if there's coffee, whether we know the answer or not; it's part of our morning routine.

"I like coffee," I said. I kissed her on the shoulder while I stepped around her and poured myself a cup. I took it into the dining room, and sipped it.

Ten minutes and half a cup later, I was officially awake. I became aware of the birds singing on the patio, the distant drone of an early morning lawnmower, and then the smell of something familiar on the air. I looked into the kitchen, expecting to see pancakes or waffles on the stove, but it was empty. I shrugged and went back to my coffee. When it was empty, I returned to the kitchen to refill it, and while I stood in front of the coffee machine, Anne took a loaf of banana bread out of the oven.

"Banana bread!" I said, excited. "I thought I smelled it, but I didn't know you were making it!"

She put it on a cooling rack and said, "I told you that I was making banana bread when you were getting your coffee."

I put on my best Homer-Simpson-is-exasperated voice and said, "I was tuning you out. Jeeze!"

She poked a toothpick into the center of the loaf. "Oh, that's sad."

I waited a second, and then I said, ". . . what?"

She looked at me and slowly shook her head as I giggled.

53 thoughts on “just another day”

  2. What a wonderfully-written post. I particularly like the description of the sun hitting your eyes. That is exactly how I am woken up about five days out of the year and I was immediately transported there when I read those sentences. Thank you for this little piece of art in my otherwise drab day. You’re a brilliant writer Wil.

  4. OH MAN! Banana bread is the best. I am so jealous. I may have to make a batch myself now.
    Really, though, just another day? A celestial body that stalks you. A cat with homicidal tendencies. I would love to hear of your exciting days.

  5. Awww…the cuteness that is you and Anne is just so awesome. And hey, you…you…ignorer of awesome wife that actually BAKES YOU BANANA BREAD…I sure do hope you appreciate the fact that she BAKES YOU BANANA BREAD!
    Really, that’s all I could come up with. Other than the fact that your wife is awesome, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that a few times in this reply…BTW, your wife is awesome.

  8. Dude – should you ever happen to require a recipe for vegan banana bread, I have a GREAT one. I’m just sayin’.
    -Alicia (@AliciaWag)

  9. This is so damn cute. Fun to read little snippets about your life. You’re a really good writer, especially the way you described the sun. Maybe you will delve into fiction one day….sci-fi?

  15. Dude. You’re baiting me into another semantics debate and it’s just not going to work. Nice try, Wheaton, nice try! Now let me get back to working on that whole “I’m going to try to be nicer to Wil.” thing that I’ve been working so hard on for the past couple of weeks.

  22. Aw, what cuteness? I wish my husband was not a morning person. I am the groggy shuffler, and he’s all sunshine and rainbows and puppy farts. Thanks for the little story. With all this book writing and SECRET PROJECTS the internetz was beginning to miss our Wheaton.

  23. Wil, this was very Douglas Adams-esque, particularly the poking sun and homicidal feline. I know because I happen to be (re)reading the HHG series. If you had given the banana bread’s outlook on life, you’d have totally pegged it. Very colorful and inspired writing – it’s got soul (finding the magic in the ordinary).

  24. Wow, that’s an incredible compliment. I LOVE Douglas Adams, and HHG2G is a huge influence on me. Now I wish I’d thought about the bread’s POV!
    Thank you.

  25. You are a lucky, lucky man, Wheaton. You have a wife who bakes you banana bread, and who tolerates your geekery. You also have a homicidal feline… so maybe not quite so lucky after all.
    Thank you for a lovely chuckle early on my on-call weekend. Off to the salt mines for me!

  27. Bruce Bethke (“Cyberpunk”, “Head Crash”) hosts a blog for SF/Fantasy writers (some good ones hang out there). Henry Vogel, a comic writer, does a guest post for the blog’s “Ultimate Geek Fu” Wednesdays. He had a post this past week that reminded me of your writing, which I enjoy very much, BTW. He told about how he grew up playing D&D and believes it made him a better storyteller. It’s a nice post.

  29. Wil, it never ceases to amaze me that you can turn “Just another Day” into a compelling bit of reading. Made me smile 🙂
    Oh and remember, dogs have owners-cats have staff.

  30. You and your wife are so cute. Also, when are you going to come out to the east coast? I would love to meet you, but California is a bit to far away.

  31. You know, I was idly wondering why you weren’t up at Anticipation, basking in the aura generated by the Gods of Science Fiction Literature. Now I see that you had something much better to do.
    This story made me furiously hungry for banana bread and lonely for my sweetie who’s working late. I HATE you, Wheaton. Thank God it’s a date night, or I’d never forgive you.

  33. Are you writing fiction? Based on that intro you should be writing fiction. Please tell me you’re working on some fiction. Gosh, what vivid imagery. (Also, thanks for sharing a nice, funny, happy story.)
    Cheers!

  34. LOL! Are you actually telling me to stop trying to be nice to Wil? Man, I’d really hate to incur some sort of psychic injury or get a case of brain cloud, that sounds serious! But I kind of promised him that I’d make more of an effort to be nice to him after the “Danyiel got drunk and said some really mean shit to Wil.” incident a few weeks ago. And by mean, I mean really mean, insulting his manhood and accusing him of hating a certain region of America mean. Whoa, I think brain cloud must be kicking in because I used the word “mean” four times in one sentence!
    Just how serious can psychic injury and/or brain cloud be, and what are the side-effects?

  35. Funny you should mention Wil writing a fictional story. A few years ago, he wrote this short 300 word or less story called Room 302 after a friend of his posted a picture of some old motel on his blog. I believe it was called “The Mystery Motel” or something to that effect. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that it was Wil’s idea that people write short stories inspired by this picture, and he was really nervous about how his story would be received by all of us since it was his first attempt at writing a fictional story.
    I enjoyed that story so much that I actually bookmarked it, and read it about a million times, but since that time and now, having changed my ISP, computer and several browsers and upgraded versions of browsers, I don’t have the bookmark anymore. It was a really good story, though. For a 300 word story, it really drew me in to the point to where I actually cared about the characters and what became of them once the story was over. I remember that the main character was a freelance photographer that was having a hard time paying the rent because he hadn’t sold any pictures in a while, and he needed to sell some pictures because his rent was due and he and his wife had a baby on the way. I actually think that I pleaded with him to write more to the story because it ended before I found out if the guy ever sold a picture, but alas, I never did find out what happened to him.
    I wonder if I Googled it if the link would come up? Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? Hold on…yep, I am officially an idiot, but that’s hardly news to anyone! Cross referenced “Room 302” + WWdN and that fast, there was the link! All this time and I never thought of doing that until tonight. D’oh! Oh, and his friend that posted the picture? Shane Nickerson! How the hell I remembered so much of the details of this story but failed to remember Shane Nickerson being the friend that posted the picture is really beyond my comprehension at this point. lol
    http://www.wilwheaton.net/2006/04/the_mystery_hotel.php
    I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do, and YAY! I can bookmark it again! LOL, I just got done reading my reply and I really did plead a pretty good case for more of that story. Now I’m upset with Wil again for not giving me the closure I was begging for at the time, and this was over three years ago! Three years, Wil! That’s how long I’ve been waiting to find out if Martin ever got and/or sold the money shot! That’s just wrong, man. You are so lucky that I’m still working on trying to be nicer to you, side effects of brain cloud and all, you don’t even want to know what a three year grudge coming from me is like. I may just have to rummage around for my bottomless bag of tricks if the side-effects get too bad.

  36. OK. I just decided that my super-extra-long-reply-on-steroids to Angie is actually enough revenge against you for not giving me proper closure for Room 302. That could just be the side-effects of Brain Cloud talking though, so you’re still not off the hook yet, Wil!

  38. Your wife is all kinds of awesome! Meeting your wife would be such a pleasure. The two of you have a wonderful thing going on there.
    Now that I am done fanning over Anne, your cat (well at least how you personify the cat) reminds me of Stewie. I bet the cat goes around saying, “Damn you vile Wheaton!” quite often then when you look at it and ask, “What?” it sticks its ass in your face and says, “I’m a pretty kitty, pet me.”

  39. Great work, Wil.
    Just read the room 302 story – you’ve got to do more fiction.
    And hey, Danyiel – I think the extra long post shows that not being mean to Wil might actually come easier to you.:-)

  40. I am working on fiction. That’s why I’ve been blogging so little the last couple months; I’ve found that I can’t seriously write fiction and post in my blog simultaneously, because it’s too much like moving from 3rd base to right field in the middle of an inning.
    This post happened because Twitter was down, and I wanted to post the funny (to me) exchange between us when I told Anne I was tuning her out.

  41. Oh, I’m not going to lie to you, Marge, that exchange was quite funny to the rest of us, too.
    I’m glad to know you’re branching out to fiction. As you can see you have a regular cheering section out here under the “Hey, he’s good at fiction, too, so let’s give him support on that as much as we laud his narrative non-fiction skills” banner.
    Cheers!

  42. Wow, I didn’t realize you and I had the same cat! I wonder how he manages the commute between the East and West coasts?

  43. That’s a very sweet picture of domesticity. I’m still giggling over your cat’s unspoken thoughts. Heh. Too funny (and probably true).

  45. Well, so far as I can tell, brain clouds cause you to go on long, magical journeys so that you can jump into the volcano of Waponi Wu. Bring good luggage. The effect of psychic damage is a loss of hit points.

  47. Wow the sun and the cat are after you. How much more anthropomorphic violence can you take?
    And yeah… thanks for giving me the 435Kth reason to want to be in a relationship v. the 557Kth reason not to. By my calculations, keeping in mind I am neither Vulcan nor an Android, I have less than 6 months of futile resistance to the cuteness that is Anne&Wil left before assimilation into the Me&HeWhoMustNeverBeBloggedAbout collective.
    Oh, if your banana bread starts talking to you RUN!after you post the exchange.

  49. I love that you were forced to trade your viking garb for a T-shirt!
    Two Simpsons references in a snapshot full of great imagery. Brilliant.
    “Oh boy, sleep! That’s where I’m a Viking!”

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