Musings: August 17,2011

Caryn:  Hi.

Caryn’s Muse: Hello there.

Caryn: So, what’s up with the late hours?  Why can’t you show up, say, 6 p.m. after I finish my workday?

Caryn’s Muse:  Right.  You mean when you are switching gears from accounting work to either riding your horse, driving to your second job, meeting your friends or driving to kickboxing?  When your main thoughts are how much you have to spend on gas, should you grab something to eat and why the driver in front of you is being an idiot?  This is when I should show up?  I show up at 1 a.m. because your mind is finally quiet.  I do not have to compete with any outside influences and you will actually listen to me.  And another thing: you aren’t thinking or mulling things over.  You’re halfway to being asleep.  No hacking my way through the tall weeds of your analysis.  And I laughed when the other muses gave me a machete when I was assigned to you.

Caryn:  I will have you know that rationality and analysis are very important for life.

Caryn’s Muse:  Yes, dear.  But you need to turn it off for me to get you to just appreciate life and everything in it, so that your appreciation can allow for new ideas to percolate and to be born.  Dissecting is just great for the editing and improving stages.  Downloading an idea into you requires an empty space to put it.  A hamster on a wheel isn’t really focused on the periphery, now is it?

Caryn:  I don’t think I much like that insinuation…

Caryn’s Muse:  Look, do you have any idea of exactly what it is like to be the Muse for an overanalyzing person such as yourself?  If I had a brick I would hit you over the head with it just to daze you long enough to knock you out of the looping conversations inside of your brain, and make you receptive for a change.

Caryn:  Not fair.  I have appreciated mountains and sky while driving…

Caryn’s Muse:  Wow.  Great.  Thanks.   That would be as a passing observation between thoughts, right?

Caryn: …………

Caryn’s Muse:  And be honest, occasionally I pick moments during the day to appear when you don’t have anything but a napkin to furiously scribble down all those ideas on.  But are you appreciative?  No.  You’re just annoyed because the felt marker is running all over the napkin and you don’t think you will be able to decode your writing later.  Like it’s my fault that you carry a felt tip instead of a ballpoint.

Caryn:  Fine.  Whatever.

Caryn’s Muse:  Glad you agree.  1 to 3 a.m. it is.  Complain anymore and I swear I will turn you into a morning person.