Like the mother, the muse is a dude.

I had a good chat with the husband last night. I told him of all my misery and he did not judge me or condemn me. But... I couldn't resist asking him what I should do because I just don't know anymore. I guess I'm a little lost and I need to find my way back home somehow. And he told me what he always tells me, "Write!" But this time he didn't let up. He reminded me how less than twenty-four hours ago, he found my most recent and abandoned story (on a floppy disk) in the crack of the couch and brought it to me, obviously upset to find it being treated so disrespectfully. I explained to him how I had tried to write in it several days ago, but did not get past simply reading what I had already written. Didn't get to the actual writing part because it might cause me to have psychological problems. "Psychological problems? It might cause you PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS? You ALREADY have the very problems you are trying so hard to avoid!" True enough. He went on, really hammering home the point. I'll spare you the grisly details. He reminded me of how much happier, how much more HOPEFUL I was when I was writing. Then he did the unthinkable. He resurrected my babies. Scene by scene. And he spoke of my characters as if they were real people. As if they were his friends and I was stopping them from communicating with him and with the world at large. I felt them in their misery then, all smothered and longing in the silence of shelf dust and couch cracks. Then he read the work in progress and demanded to know what comes next. Damn him. He totally knows how to work me. And now I have promised to deliver some written words before he goes to bed tonight. Because he's right. Fine. I KNOW he's right. And now he has given me the permission and the COURAGE. And now I owe him at least the bare-bones minimum of 300 words for Thursday. That's the deal we made. Marriage is a weird thing. But it's nice to know that someone will come and dig me out of the crack in the couch when I'm suffocating on the lint and dust that lives in there. I would dig him out of the crack in the couch if he ever fell in there, too. I would totally dig him. :-)