Back to Early Mornings

Welp, looks like it's back to early mornings for me! The boyfriend has a new job, which means I'm back to getting to work just over an hour early every morning. As it turns out, that works perfectly for blogging, since it's the only time of the day I seem to have time to write.

I didn't "finish" Nano this year, in case anyone was actually wondering. I, sadly, got bored with my own story and wimped out...again. I could berate myself, but what's the point in that? I still wrote more than I would have otherwise, and there's always next year!

It's that time of year again, when thoughts turn to uncontrolled spending and the giving of unnecessary gifts! Every year I have a tight budget for Christmas, and this year is no exception. I always end up feeling like I should have gotten the kids more, or I should have picked something different. I'm not sure what it is that drives me to feel that way. I'd honestly be better served getting them things like clothes, a new dresser for their room, etc. But the long abandoned kid inside me assures me that those gifts are NOT for Christmas and I will never be forgiven if I try to ruin Christmas with such "lame" gifts so I'm on a constant hunt for the gifts that will make their faces light up Christmas morning. Of course, finding those gifts is more challenging when you're on a budget, but I think I usually do a pretty good job. Either that, or my kids are pro's at faking it!

Going strong!

Cruising right along, over 1000 words ahead of schedule. So far we've established that poor little Nika has been molested, abused, and it an untreated schizophrenic sociopath! She's stabbed a girl with a stick, and at 15 she raped a girl. It's turning into a fun ride into her insanity, and she's not even grown yet. Here's another excerpt.

Her eyes caught on a group of girls standing near the drinking fountain. There were four of them, almost identical in appearance. Nika chuckled. It was amazing how people tended to flock to those who were most similar to themselves. That's one of the reasons Nika couldn't connect with anyone. There just wasn't anyone similar to her, no one who'd understand why Nika was the way she was. The four were laughing over something, a book, or a notebook maybe? There wasn't anything particularly interesting about what they were doing, but Nika continued to watch anyway. One girl lifted her head and looked around, reminding Nika of the way a ferret will go onto it's back legs and sniff the air. The girl looked at Nika, turned back to her friends for a moment, then began walking Nika's way. Nika averted her gaze to another group off to her left, a pack of seven boys throwing paper wads at each other as they raced down the hall. Nika caught sight of the blond again, in her peripheral vision. She turned her head until her gaze met the smaller girl's.

"What are you staring at?" Nika blinked slowly, processing the girl that now blocked her view. She was pretty in a conventional way. Wide blue eyes, clear skin, just a small sprinkle of pale brown freckles across her nose. Nothing to cause her to stand out from the crowd, but just pretty enough to draw as much attention as she chose. "Hey, you. Freakazoid." The girl snapped in Nika's face impatiently. "What the fuck are you staring at?" The girl had obviously forgotten her place. She'd stepped outside her plastic bubble, she'd broken the rules. Nika frowned as the girl began snapping again.

Nika grabbed the girl's wrist mid snap. "Don't." Her voice was calm, but threatening. Nika stared into the girl's blue eyes as she held her wrist tightly. "It's not polite to snap in people's faces." Nika squeezed her wrist until the girl's blue eyes clouded with pain. The girl struggled, trying to pull her arm from Nika's vice like grasp. Nika could see that the girl was about to scream, drawing attention to them both. She dropped the girl's arm and turned to walk away. She limped slightly as she walked, a gift from one of her mom's boyfriends. Bob or Jim or Earl, Nika didn't remember, but she'd never forget the searing sting of the knife across the back of her arm, or the crunch of bone as he'd stomped eleven year old Nika's foot as she tried to run. Her mom had waited nearly two days before taking Nika to the hospital. By then many of the breaks had begun to set. They'd rebroken her foot in multiple places in an attempt to get it to heal properly, but the damage was severe enough that Nika would never again walk without a limp. The girl watched Nika walk away, rubbing her wrist and sneering in Nika's direction. Most people left Nika alone. It was common knowledge that she was dangerous, prone to violence. Numerous stories floated through the halls, that she'd stabbed a girl to death with a stick, that she'd beaten one girl so badly she had to be institutionalized, that she cut people and drank their blood. Most of the rumors were over the top, and some were so outlandish that even Nika had to laugh, but she did nothing to dispute them. The fact that most of the school was terrified of her suited her just fine. Nika cocked her head to the side, a gesture familiar to anyone who watched her for any length of time. "You never have been able to control that temper." Anda chided. "Now she'll go tell a teacher and it'll be off to the Principal's office for us. Why do you always screw things up?"

Nika took her seat at the back of the room, behind a girl with braces and curly red hair that sprung up from her head in a halo of flame. Nika didn't know her name, nor could she recall the name of the girl from the hall. This wasn't her world, wasn't anything she wanted to be a part of. It was just something she had to get through every day. Nika was a pro at just getting through. She watched Mr. Winger as he talked excitedly about their next reading assignment, Alex Haley's Roots. Nika sighed and dug into the desk with her pencil. She'd read Roots a dozen times already. She knew that book inside and out. She felt a certain amount of kinship with the slaves in the book, forced to toil for someone else's profit, unable to live life on their own terms. She could already see how this semester would go. She'd sit in class every day, bored out of her skull, then ace every test and blow the curve for the rest of the class. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered coming to class.

Writing excerpts

I'll be posting some excerpts from what I'm writing for Nanowrimo. Probably not enough for anyone to really make sense of the story, but what the heck. So far I'm doing well, on schedule to make 50k. Of course, at three days in, I was on schedule last year too :P

So here's the first excerpt. Note that this isn't the beginning of my novel, just one scene.

"Nasty Nika booger eater!" The girl chanted in a high pitched sing-song voice. "Daddy left her, mommy beats her, even dogs don't wanna eat her." She pointed at Nika and laughed, one hand covering her mouth. Nika sat with her legs spread, digging in the dirt with a stick just about the size of a pencil, but thicker. She was on the far edge of the playground, beyond hearing range of the teacher, and she'd thought she was far enough away from the other kids that no one would notice her. Her limp hair clung to her face, streaked with dirt and sweat. Nika watched the girl, Becky, with a blank expression. "What's a matter? Cat got yer tongue?" Becky stood with one hand on her hip. Nika squinted up, pausing in her digging. "Freak." Becky hissed and stomped off, back toward a group of girls huddled around the tether ball pole. Nika watched the girls gesturing at her, laughing and tossing their heads back in amusement.

"They're just jealous." Nika whispered. She dug into the packed dirt. "Stupid girls, stupid, stupid, stupid." She punctuated each word with the stick. She looked up at the girls again. They were leaning in, their heads touching. Nika wondered what they were talking about, what they were plotting. She stood up and dusted her hands on her faded blue jeans. Four bruises marred the side of her right bicep, nearly the perfect outline of a man's fingers. She tucked the stick in her back pocket and walked slowly toward the pack of girls. A couple of them glanced at her and giggled. All of them were dressed in clean, bright clothes. Some of them wore braids, others wore their hair loose and shiny straight. They smiled with pearly white teeth and blinked bright, clear, eyes. Nika stood out in contrast. Her brown hair hung limp and stringy across a face streaked with dirt. Her eyes were clouded and dull, and her expression rarely changed. She looked, for lack of a better word, haunted.

"Becky." Nika's voice was barely audible, nothing more than a hoarse whisper among the din that is an elementary school playground. "Becky." Nika repeated, louder. Becky had her back turned, but the other girls saw Nika talking, heard her whisper Becky's name. They tapped her on the shoulder, pointed toward Nika. Becky turned around and wrinkled her nose.

"Eww, what do you want nasty Nika booger eater?" Her voice was a sneer. She crossed her arms defiantly.

"Nothing." Nika stood perfectly still, her hands hanging limp at her sides. "Nothing at all." She turned slowly, obviously intending to walk back toward the edge of the playground. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Anda echoed in her head. "Stupid girls do stupid thing. Bad girl Nika, bad girl Nika." Anda's voice was a chastising whine. Nika gritted her teeth. Anda was going to ruin everything if she didn't shut up. She made a low hissing sound, as if trying to shush her imaginary friend. She continued to walk slowly away from the other girls. "Bad Nika, bad, bad, bad."

All at once Nika felt hands on her back, pushing her forward, throwing her off balance. She stumbled, managed a few more steps, then stumbled again, finally pitching foward. She caught herself with her hands and knees, wincing as her left shin came crashing down on a sharp rock. Nika felt herself being shoved further down against the ground, her hands knocked from under her. She struggled to get back to her knees, but was suddenly pinned down by the weight of someone sitting on her back. "Uh oh spaghetti oh." Anda's voice again "Yer in trouble now missy." Nika grinned slightly as she stared into the dirt. Sometimes people were so predictable. She wiggled enough beneath Becky's weight to get her left arm beneath her and her right arm slightly behind her. The girls were laughing and cheering. All at once Nika began to roll to her left, using her arm as leverage. At the same time she reached for the stick protruding just over the top of her back pants pocket. It was just small enough to hide, but big enough to be used for what Nika was about to do. Using the force of her own momentum as she turned, Nika rammed the stick into the soft inside of Becky's left ankle. She felt the skin give way, like the popping of an under inflated balloon. The blood trickled down Becky's foot and across Nika's fingers before anyone even realized what happened. Then suddenly Becky was screaming.

I haven't died or anything

Sorry about the month long absence. There's been a boatload of stuff going on, and it's just now starting to get a little better. I'm anxiously looking forward to National Novel Writing Month next month. I'd really like to "win" this year, but we'll see how it goes.

I'm debating back and forth about whether I should "write" here on my blog or not. Part of me thinks it would encourage me to keep writing and strive for the 50k word count goal, but part of me thinks I'll get bogged down in the thought of other people reading it and give in to self consciousness. I've got two weeks to make up my mind.

My daughter went to violin camp last weekend. She had a really good time, and I'm glad she'll have these kinds of experiences too look back on when she's grown. It struck me the other day that she's starting to grow up in fast motion all of the sudden. She's still rather innocent, but little things are changing every day, in both her looks and her personality. My little girl is rapidly being replaced by a young woman. I hope her dad and I have given her, and will continue to give her, the basic building blocks she needs to build a successful life.

My son is enjoying school and life. He asked me to have his teacher send home some extra work for him, and he was working on that every day. He also wrote me a cool story about a shark named Anda. I'm constantly impressed by both his intelligence and his caring nature.

Anyway, it's time for me to get some other things done. Hope to write again soon!

Long Week

For some reason it seems as though this week has been incredibly long. I'm not sure if it's the fact that the cats are keeping me from sleeping very well, the fact that I'm without Internet, or just one of those random things, but whatever it is I feel like I've been stuck in this week forever and it's only Thursday!

I don't really have anything to rant/post about today. Nothing interesting happening in the news. E Coli is still popping up all over the place from this tainted spinach, the Atlantis shuttle touched down, but other than that there's just nothing, and I don't usually feel the need to blog on the same old crap everyone else is talking about.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a more thought provoking day.

So Anyway...

As I was going to post on Monday, my mom got married this weekend. I believe it's her 6th official, legal, marriage, but this would be her first one straight and sober. The guy she married is a good guy, and they seem really happy. I'd say this one has the most potential to last.

Her wedding was an outside affair, attended by most of our family, some of his family, and a handful of friends. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm, and I think everyone had a good time. It was nice to see some members of my family I haven't seen in a while. There's always lots of laughs when we get together.

Since they're out of town this week, I'm babysitting their cat, Wingnut. I have three cats of my own, so the original plan was to keep Wing in my kid's bedroom so that there wouldn't be a conflict between him and my cats. You can assume if I'm referring to that as "the original plan" that things did not go as I had anticipated. Our first problem was that our cats were just fascinated with the idea of another cat living in the bedroom. They laid in front of the door, stuck their paws underneath, and tugged on the door. The result is a rather annoying banging of the door in it's frame. This went on all night Sunday & Monday night, leaving two very groggy and tired people.

It became apparent that our youngest cat, Rocket aka Rocky, really wanted to check this new fellow out. So we took Rocky into the bedroom with Wing and let him hang out for a while on Monday evening. They played, goofed off, and seemed to enjoy each other. We repeated it yesterday evening with similar results. Finally, around 8 last night, we opened the bedroom door and let the four cats greet each other to see how it would go. When there wasn't a grand display of poofy tails and hissing, I decided to let Wing wander around for a bit. Come bedtime, the four of them seemed to be getting along ok, mostly chasing each other around and playing. I figured they'd get tired of running and settle down within a couple hours.

But no......

They chased each other all...damn...night, round and round and round and round. It was better than hearing the constant door banging of the night before, but still not exactly peaceful. See, our three have come to understand that we sleep at night and they generally settle down around 11 or 12 at the latest. Wing, apparently, has never learned that nighttime is for sleeping and he wasn't about to let any of our three rest. I put him back in the bedroom while we're at work today and I'll let him out again this evening. Hopefully there will be more peace tonight, but I'm not counting on it. Four more nights until he goes home!

The danger in drug testing.

Imagine for a moment that you were given a drug test as a condition for employment at a company. You knew there was no reason to worry about it, as the last time you'd done any drugs at all was a joint you smoked 15 years prior. Imagine that drug test came back positive for cocaine and you were fired on the spot, with no option to challenge the test. What would you do? Would it change your views about the policies regarding drug testing?

My boyfriend, I'll call him D, encountered the above situation. Now, before you even think it...I am 100% sure this man doesn't do drugs, especially cocaine. He's lived with me a year and a half, and had zero money since he wasn't working until just recently. Aside from the fact that I grew up around enough druggies to recognize the signs of usage, and I know him well enough to know his stand on drugs, he simply didn't have the ability to purchase cocaine. But you believing in him isn't necessary for this hypothetical situation.

You've been drug tested via hair analysis and deemed a cocaine user. Company policy is you're fired on the spot, despite your work record, despite the fact that not one member of management believes you to be on drugs, despite the fact that you vehemently insist the test was wrong. The company provides no method of dispute, even though there is a definite measurable, and reported, "false positive" rate in all methods of drug testing. You're told simply that you can pay to have another hair analysis done and they "might" reconsider your firing.

Would you pay $70 you don't really have to spend, to "maybe" save a $7.50 an hour job? Should a company hiring someone for stocking shelves in the freezer of a bulk item grocery store even be testing for past drug use, instead of current drug use via a urine test? Shouldn't there be a law that permits you to challenge the results of a drug test and be retested at the company's expense...billed back to you if you test positive a second time? Should there be a law saying they have to take two samples, like in cycling, and have both come back positive in order to issue a "positive" result? Why is there no protection for an employee falsely accused of taking drugs?