A Muse Meant

An awful night's sleep last night. Occasionally I can hear my downstairs neighbor. Last night he wouldn't stop coughing. It sounded like a jet engine passing a cat. It was too random to tune out. I had to sleep on the couch.

I wake up groggy as hell, I want more sleep, but I know I need to get to work. Rushing to my truck I think I might be early to work. Upon starting my truck I realize I'm going to be late. My truck is running on dust. The gas station is in the opposite direction, this is going to take a big wet bite out of my drive time.

Usually I only have to drive the 22 freeway about 10 feet, thanks to my trip to the gas station I have to take it for a lot longer. I considered walking, but I'm too damn lazy for that. Bumper to bumper till I get back to where I would have been if I hadn't gotten gas nearly 45 min ago.

I pull up to work, I'm running late. Way late. The back door is my best bet. Walking up to the back door I realize my security pass is on my desk. Now I have to walk all the way around the building. The building, by the way, has a crap load of windows, all of them used by our bosses to watch us come in late.

I rush to my desk and unpack. A brown paper bag reminds me that I don't have any food for lunch. It's either don't eat or go out today.

As soon as I sit down the problems start rolling in. Work piles up and I'm officially swamped. Everyone gives me something, and it's all priority. For every order I process I get two more. To make matters worse there's a glitch in the software. Errors are being generated thought me without my involvement.

Soon I'm called over to the desk of our head of logistics. "Are you planning on going to Florida today?" he asks me. The idea became more and more appealing as I found out that I put the address in the wrong field in an overnight emergency order. The customer go the bill and we got the laptop.

I'm constantly getting bombarded with e-mails about a project that is 3 months behind that will soon be 4 months behind.

My brain feels hot, waves of frustration I suppose. It's like I'm ready just to shut off my computer walk out and deal with it all tomorrow. Damn the consequences.

But then I check my e-mail. There, among the spam and porn rests an e-mail. It is from my muse. Just knowing that there's a letter from her begins to lift my spirit. Opening the e-mail is like standing in a snow flurry, each icy flake cooling down my mind. When she says silly things I smile, when she says naughty things I smile more. She says thing that I haven't hear in so long that I could swear she is the first person to have ever said them to me.

I write back to her and tell her all the things that I can possibly say. All the things that I doubt I can capture in words. It lifts my spirit just to know that she appreciates what I write, and that she smiles at my corny jokes.

And with only this brief encounter with my muse, I can look back and see that it was actually a good day today.




Exile

Original_exile@hotmail.com