The Secret Lives of Procrastinators By Faye Clark The girl sighed, reclining in an easy chair as she waited, frustrated and anxious, for her muse to return with whatever ideas the spirit had managed to scrounge up. The digital clock on the nightstand read 11:30 PM. That was nothing new. The past weeks had all become a confused blur of homework, essays, and projects. Glancing at her disheveled features in the mirror, it was easy to deduce high school was not agreeing with her. Perhaps she had taken on too much. Band devoured her social life, while clubs and extra classes divided the spoils. There was simply no room for the endless amounts of time she would love to use to escape into her secret realm of ink and pen. A place where she could write, never connected to the repetitive and easily predicted occurrences that besieged her normal life. Writing was her escape. This was her way of relieving the pressure that was closing in about her and constantly threatened to crush her mentality. But all good things, even this divine nectar of peace and fulfillment, must have their fatal flaw. Immersing herself so completely in writing had pushed important things by the wayside. After she had felt so comfortable in her ink and paper bubble, she had, quite understandably, been loathe to reshoulder the burden she had so successfully tossed off a cliff and left to die. Now she was suffering the ill effects of her cloud-watching. The past week had been spent burning the midnight oil in an effort to regain some footing lost during her mental vacation. This only served to exhaust her more, disorganize her more, and frustrate her more. It was a classic case of too much of a good thing. Just as she felt it was a good time to throw in the towel, however, the weather turned and the sky cleared and it looked as if she might actually survive this year. She had received, and finished, an astonishing two hours of homework for the night. Her favorite TV show had made its return after a long exile of re-runs and canceling in favor of the World Series. Perhaps best of all, there were no more annoying, infuriating, brain-liquefying political infomercials! Life was good, now that the midterm elections were out of the way. Now if only the same were true for midterm exams . . . . The girl sighed, searching in vain for a reason for her insomnia. After having been violently attacked by a muse earlier in the day (an unspeakable incident involving a misplaced wet floor sign and the presentation next period), she wondered at the intelligence of waiting for this one. The inner hunger for now appeased, she drifted off into the ethereal world of dreams.