“I don’t care if they read. It’s not about that.” I lit a cigarette and continued typing.
Well, that’s ridiculous,” she sneered. “Of course you care. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t go to the trouble.”
I was onto the picture search and barely heard the nag rasping in my ear.
“Are you listening to me?” Even when she screamed it was barely a whisper. Really it wasn’t her talking that drove me up a wall but rather that sense of being poked in the forehead. That sense that something was obscuring my view of the screen.
“Uh huh.” I couldn’t find the right picture and I’d been to several sites looking already. It was going to be another long post. Damn! Amazing how finding a picture can hang you up. The post could take minutes (or hours) and then you spend the rest of the night looking for the picture.
“That one isn’t bad,” she said.
“I’m looking for right - not not bad. It has to be right.”
“Why?” she danced in and out of my peripheral vision. A flash of chiffon and feathers. “Who cares? Nobody reads anyway.” It always came back to the same taunt.
I typed in a different key word. Click. Pictures popped up. I scanned. Click. Next page. Click. Next page. “I’ve already told you it doesn’t matter if anyone reads. But of course somebody does. My stat counter says so.”
“Well, if they liked it - they’d say something, wouldn’t they?”
She was relentless, and doing everything she could to distract me. “Sometimes they say something.”
“But if they really liked it - it wouldn’t be sometimes, it would be all the time.” She bapped the side of my head. “You’re just not that good. You know it and so do I.”
Click. Up popped the perfect picture. “Oh yes,” I said. Copy. Paste. Click. Publish.
“So you admit it?” She was delerious. “You’re no good. You’re no good. Baby, you’re no good.” Did I mention she likes Linda Ronstadt?
“I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s all good. If they read then they do. If they don’t then they don’t.” I pulled a drag off my smoke. “I don’t do it for them. I do it for me.”
She rolled her green eyes.
“Scoff all you like,” I narrowed my eyes at her and dared her to speak. She said nothing. “Good, that’s more like it. You see, dear muse despite my pathetic life, my nowhere job and all the other things that can and do wrong - this is the one place that is all mine. I can do what I want, say what I want. Express my ideas and opinions. Even if no one is reading I still publish the thoughts.”
“Okay,” she backed off.
I sighed, relieved the dialogue was over for the time being.
“But if you were really good…some publisher……”
And then. My head exploded.
copyright 2006
