50,081

Finished my novel today, though I won't officially admit it till 3.4 milliseconds before deadline - midnight tomorrow. Meanwhile it's time to get drunk beyond all reasonable limits. Or at least have some ice-cream. Or get really really really ridiculously drunk. Ah, life is full of choices when one doesn't need to be alive the next day to finish a novel.

To be honest...damn...there is no way to finish this sentence. Scratch that from the shorthand. No, don't write this down. Stop writing what I'm saying. Ugh, nevermind. Stupid stenographer...hmm, didn't think you'd write that.

My drive for writing this novel gradually disintegrated as the month wore on. By two weeks in, I was pretty bored with where the plot was going. However, I couldn't have the one or two people that still have respect for me lose that last drop. So I kept writing words like a really intelligent and good looking zombie, occasionally having a burst of creativity and writing readable content, but mostly trundling or trudging or whatever it is that guy in A Knight's Tale was doing when he lost his clothes to gamblers and found himself left only with dignity and nudity for companions. No, I have absolutely no idea how that analogy is relevant, but there are whole books that are entirely irrelevant. Catcher in the Rye for one.

Now that the novel is done, I'm in the position of that Jew with his hive of sheep and gaggle of cows living in his bedroom/kitchen/living room/house with him, when he goes to the rabbi and the rabbi says "now let the beasties out." My day is suddenly a good two hours longer and I feel as free as a naive American thinks he is.

Having written the worsd 'naive American,' I am reminded of Native Americans, a subject which was responsible for many admissions of ignorance a week or so ago. I had just seen a French movie where the main character was discussing the relative carnage of various centuries. The 20th century wasn't the bloodiest, he claimed, with a violent death metedout to a mere hundred million. By comparison, this character stated, the 16th or 15th or whatever century was the last for Native Americans, was a bloodbath. The combined forces of European colonists murdered "150 million" Native Americans.

My often misanthropic words belie the intrinsic optimism of my nature. I am trusting bordering on gullible. I listen to people with an innocently agape mouth, unprejudiced ears and dilated pupils. I believe pretty much anything anyone says when I don't have the option of arguing with them. As this Frenchman was merely a few pixels, and fictional ones at that, he could not be challenged even if I spoke French. So I took him at his word and thus had to endure Mario's horse-like neighing when I decided to show off my knowledge to him. By his estimate there were 10 million at most, and 9 million of those he attributed to his penchant for being an order of magnitude optimistic. I decided to research the question on Wikipedia upon regaining my composure lost in the unforgiving storm of Mario's ridicule.

Turns out, there were anywhere from 10 to 112 million plus or minus a tribe or two. Hard to believe that it's so exact, but that's modern statistics for you.

Armed with this knowledge, we headed to the Sunday feast at the Hinshaw's and demanded of everyone there in turn to give their estimates. At the end of the meal we came to several conclusions:

1. All Americans know how many Native Americans there were, but no two can agree on so much as the order of magnitude.
2. There was definitely at least one Native American.
3. Native Americans were most probably counted by being shot. So a Native American may have been counted many times depending on his/her relative immunity to bullets. Let's hope we never have to take a census in China.

Your easy life

So National Novel Writing Month is steadily chugging along. I've been keeping to a pace of ~1666 words a day in an unprecedented feat of anti-procrastination. Yes, I feel very ashamed. No, you can't leave judgmental comments, I'm under enough stress as it is. For those of you who haven't already read it in Scientific American, it has recently been discovered that the pain of childbirth is like popping zit when compared to creating a novel. So it's been hard to force myself to procrastinate, as much as I would love to.

Because judging anyone is heavy on the psyche, and because I claim to care about others' well-being, I will help you not to judge me. I will justify my betrayal of the technique so fundamental to success in school, college, the workplace, testing of oddly shaped lumps in the breast or under the armpit...well maybe not the last one. You see, I'm up against a formidable enemy - the cold vice-like hand of fear. There's a fundamental quality that separates this project from past ones. This quality is the voluntary nature of the undertaking. I am not doing this project for a grade. I am not doing because my fat boss is breathing down my neck. I am certainly not doing it because my personality demands a high degree of planned action. I'm doing it because I'm a badass, and doing it will scream my badassness (short for bodaciousness) to the world. I'm doing it because every word that brings me closer to meeting the deadline makes my enemies weep bitter tears of envy and defeat. And...I'm doing it because I care.

Now normally, the word "care," when used by a male and not preceded by a negation, raises suspicions of high estrogen levels, homosexuality, or homosexuality. It is common courtesy to follow up a statement involving the word "care" with "Did you mean scare?" as in:

"I love caring for old people."
"Did you say care or scare?"
"Umm...scare, of course. Ha! Caring for old people, that's for sissies. I scare for them. They pay well to scare their own. Extra, if you cause a heartattack."

The exception is when "care" is uttered by a badass, in which case the world takes it in stride without a second thought. This is that case.

Caring is the procrastinator's nightmare. For those of you amateurs who think procrastinating is easy, try investing some personal interest and you'll quickly find yourself slipping. Caring about a project makes procrastinating feel like you're holding in number one: for a short while it's bearable, and then you get to thinking that if you don't go now, you may never go again. Or, for those of you with tubes taking care of your urine I/O, it's like not sleeping for more than forty eight consecutive hours: you experience an acute lack of will-power. You brain says to you: "Come on, just go to sleep for a little while, and try this experiment tomorrow. Really, there's all the time in the world to try this another time. Listen to me! I'm so convincing!" And you give in, unless you're Jesus Christ or a donkey.

That is my situation. Daily, I dip below the threshold of will-power necessary for fueling procrastination, and I give in and write another 1666 words. Once I do, I feel guilty. It's a hellish existence. Prometheus had it easy.