MUST... POST... BLOG!!!

Brand new job (that's right ladies and gentlemen, kids of all ages, Kaycee has started her brand new job! Woot!) plus freakishly behind on NaNoWriMo plus stupid stomach issues equals low quantities of blog posts. So, for lack of anything freakishly exciting to discuss, here's the first scene of my NaNo Novel... which is still lacking in a name. All in good time, my friends; all in good time.

Katy’s blue truck’s bed was packed more so with her mom’s things than her own. Her dad and her older brother Cody were tying everything down while her nineteen-year-old brother, Joey, was leaning against the driver’s door. "Don’t miss us too much now," he said.

"Don’t worry, I won’t," she said sarcastically. She added an extra scoff for good measure. For this moment, she would pretend it was true.

"After all," Joey added, "it’s not like we’ll be missing you."

"Uh-huh. How many weeks ‘til harvest?" she asked. "Tell me that one more time once it’s just you three doing the same amount of work."

He chuckled. "Definitely won’t miss you," he teased. "You never made that big of a difference in the work load anyway." She punched him in the arm.

"All set," Cody said, patting the side of the truck. "Easy on the brakes."

Katy nodded. "Will do."

"And don’t let those city guys get away with anything."

"I won’t."

"And don’t make me come up there," he added. "Behave yourself."

That wasn’t something she wanted to promise. "I’ll try." Cody laughed and pulled her into his big chest. When he stepped back, he roughly cleared his throat in a classic attempt to preserve his hard, masculine image. Katy prayed that her own tears would stay at bay, too.

Her mom emerged from the white farmhouse and descended the creaky steps with grace and speed, big black purse over one shoulder and a plastic sack of various things she had forgotten in her other hand. She wore big, rhinestone-studded sunglasses, a cream blouse, flowing black pants, and black designer boots. Her appearance, her dramatic exit of the house, her lack of any backward glance, the pristine black SUV that she was headed for—she didn’t belong here. She had no desire to. It made Katy’s hands ball into fists. "We’ll call when we get there," her mom told her dad as she flung her things into the passenger seat without even meeting his eyes. "Katy, are you ready?"

"In a minute," Katy said, then turned to look at her dad. He was leaning against the back corner of the truck in jeans and a red flannel shirt with the sleeves pushed up. This picture belonged in a dictionary next to the word "Farmer."

When he spoke, his voice was rough. "You take care of yourself, Katy Belle." She nodded and knew that she should say something, but knew that her voice would betray her secret tears. But suddenly, her feminine side won over for a moment just long enough for her to run to her dad. His body absorbed the impact and caught her in his arms as she hid her face in his shirt, breathing in his scent of sweat and straw. She never wanted to leave this place.

He kissed the top of her head and pushed away, scooping her white cowboy hat off of the back of the truck and dropping it on her head. He cupped her chin it two callused fingers and lifted her gaze to meet his. "And don’t you ever forget who you are."

"Katy," her mom called, firing up the SUV. "Time to go."

It was a very subtle exhale and drop of his gaze, but Katy caught her father’s frustration, and related. "You’d better go," he said. Katy nodded and a tear spilled from her eye. Her dad quickly dried it with a quick stroke of his thumb. None of that, now. Be a man about it." She smiled. "I love you."

Instead of answering, she just nodded again, straightened out her hat, and adjusted her posture so that she was standing a little taller, her shoulders thrown back. She turned, flinging her braid and feeling it thump o her spine, and swung her tips with her stride. Joey gad the truck door open for her, so she didn’t have to break her step to swing herself up behind the wheel. Joey shut the door. "Don’t crash and die," he said, stepping back.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and then smiled. "Don’t kill the tractor while I’m not here to fix it for you." His argument was lost in the sound of the truck turning over and the radio blaring. Katy shifted into drive and followed the SUV down the long gravel drive, watching her home in the rear view mirror.

The Official Diagnosis

I can just picture walking into the colorful office of a shrink, plopping down on his couch, and he looks at me over his reading glasses and says, "So, Kaycee, what seems to be your problem?"

"Well I'm not sure, Doc. I was online one night and spontaneously decided to take part in this thing where writers everywhere write a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. It sounded like fun!

"But then I was working on my psychology homework one evening, and I just couldn't focus, because my character, Brett, has been really shy and hiding in the shadowed corners of my mind, and I can't seem to drag him out to figure out what his story is. I'm about eight thousand words behind now, and the days just keep marching on and I still don't know what his problem is! I'm certain that he's doing it just to torment me. He's going to wait a week or two until it's too late to catch up, watch me fail NaNoWriMo, and laugh.

"So to cope with my frustration, I went to the NaNo forum and went into the Spork room where I grabbed my cyber spork and, instead of prodding Brett out of the shadows with it, I just jumped up and down screaming "WHY ARE THERE ONLY 24 HOURS IN A DAY???!!!" almost hoping that I'd poke my eye out with the spork. And in all this frustration, I didn't have time to finish my psychology chapter on psychological abnormalities.

"What do you think, Doc, am I crazy?"

The shrink will look at me and smile gently, trying to mask the horror in his eyes, and say "Don't worry Kaycee, I know some friends who wear white coats who would love to help you with your problem."

That's right, folks, NaNoWriMo is eating my sanity. Or whatever sanity I had. And you wanna know something?

IT'S A BLAST!!!

A Quiet Art

I would like to take this opportunity to walk you through the carefully refined steps of a modest art form that has been learned and perfected by high schoolers and college students across the nation:

Procrastination.

First, we have the assignment. A paper, project, or list of problems; the intensity, quantity, or form that it takes on makes small difference. But that assignment looms in the consciousness of the student, flashing in brilliant red lights: "Must Be Done, Must Be Done, Must Be Done." In more dreaded or intense instances, the lights are accompanied with a constant droning noise.

For argument's sake, let's call the assignment, oh, how about Psych chapter 11 and 5.4 homework on logarithmic equations?

Well, I hate math, so I'll procrastinate Psych first. Which is perfect, because I do my psych notes on my computer! Like any art, there are many different forms. Dance can be ballet, hip hop, river dance, or ball room. Visual art can be paint, oil pastel, sculpting, or pottery. Music can be flute, guitar, vocal, or piano. Procrastination can be physical, mental, or cyber. Or, for those students who are versatile in their art, all of the above.

So the lights are on, the sound is droning, but you know? It's been a whole entire four hours since I've been on Facebook, something may have happened while I was away!!! Wow, my status is out of date by four hours, better change it! *gasp* So many things to comment on! (ten minutes later) Hmm, no one has commented on my status yet, maybe if I word it this way... You know? I want to level up on FarmTown, so I'm gonna go plant a whole slew o' Raspberries!!! (For those of you who still remain safe from the evils of FarmTown, Raspberries are ready to harvest in two hours as opposed to 4 hour grapes, 1 day potatoes and wheat, 3 day blueberries and pineapples, or 4 day peppers and cotton.) Oh look, someone commented on my status! I should reply. *POP* Why look, someone wants to chat! Sure, I can multi-task, uh-huh!!! Wow, raspberries are ready to harvest already? Hmm, nothing else to do on Facebook, what a shame. *scroll up and down five more times just to make sure* ... *change status to see if anyone wants to comment on this wording of essentially the same thing* ... *comment on twenty more things*

When the Procrastinator finally gets off of Facebook, there is also e-mail, student e-mail, random e-mail accounts that nobody uses anyway, and on particularly intense episodes of procrastination, the MySpace that hasn't been touched in months (which then also burns the time it takes to remember the pass word). Then there's blogging... reading the blogs you follow, looking at extra blogs on the side, writing a blog on your own blog (Hey, maybe you can write a blog about procrastination!)...

You get the picture.

But in the mean time, while procrastinating via the Internet, the lights are still flashing, the sound is still droning, and half of your attention is still held captive by that(those) foreboding assignment(s).

Which is why I shall sign off of the Internet for now... but you know I'll be back later just to see if that status has gotten any more comments. But I really will sign off. And I will appease the flashing lights and droning sound... You know, that NaNoWriMo story it minimized on my task bar, and writing tends to suck in ALL of my attention...

I'm sorry, College Algebra, but I just don't love you that much. And Psych, you know, patience is a virtue. And Final Projects For Both Psych And Info And Systems Lit Classes, before you turn on your lights and sounds for tomorrow... well... I'll deal with you later. I have more procrastinating to do!!!