“What are you doing?” the Muse sneered at me from the bedroom doorway as I stared blankly at my computer screen.

“Getting along just fine without you,” I replied snidely and turned up my speakers. Tool blared forth, perfect for ignoring stubborn and rude muses who come barging in uninvited.

“Could’ve fooled me,” the Muse shrugged and flopped down on my bed. “I hear you’re having problems with that story you’ve been working on. Need some help?”

“From the likes of you? Not hardly!” I snorted. “You’ll give me just enough material to get mine and everyone else’s hopes up, and then you’ll be gone again. No thanks!”

“Got any beer?” the Muse interjected, ignoring me.

“No!” I replied shortly.

“What about a nice glass of wine to help me work?” it questioned.

“NO!” Now I was getting annoyed. “No alcohol.”

“Cheese and crackers?” it intoned cruelly. That bastard! It knew I was still on the cereal diet.

“For God’s sake! GO AWAY!”

“I’m only trying to be helpful,” the Muse responded ever so sweetly. “No need to be rude.”

“Where have you been? People have been asking about you, you know,” I decided to take a different tactic with it. It was feeding on my annoyance and I wasn’t about to feed it anything. It has yet to truly earn its keep, after all.

“Really?” the Muse sat up and looked at me with newfound interest. “What do they say?”

“You know… the usual things. That you have a way with words, you are amusing, you’re talented, and so on and so forth. They miss you when you aren’t around.”

“You don’t say?” the Muse has always been an egotistical little son of a bitch, so I just nodded and smiled. “Did they say anything else?”

“Well, not recently, seeing as how you haven’t been around. I’ve been forced to write about my diet and post old poetry,” I sighed.

“Hey! That poetry was written when I was at the top of my game!” the Muse exclaimed defensively. It pointed to the stack of tattered old notebooks on my desk, still waiting to be typed into the computer and preserved on a CD-RW for all posterity. “That’s some of my best work there!”

“And some of your worst,” I retorted. “I’m running out of good stuff here, and you’ve been slacking! Don’t think I won’t start advertising for a new muse again! I’ve got a story to finish and 3 different blogs to keep up with now. Blogs don’t grow on trees, you know!”

“Well…” suddenly the Muse seemed genuinely impressed. “Why didn’t you say so? I had no idea you’ve been so busy! Three different blogs? Oh MY!”

“That just goes to show you that you haven’t been around too much lately, have you?” I huffed and turned back to the computer. The empty white page of a new Word document continued to mock me. For a minute, I entertained the idea of buying the muse a six pack and a cherry cigar, if for nothing else than to get a new blog entry out of it. I thought better of it, though, as it wandered out of the room and drifted over to the television set.

“Geezus!” I heard it shout. “Sex and the City again? When the hell are you going to get some goddamned television service?”

Yes, friends, it looks as though my muse has returned yet again to plague and abuse me. I can only hope that this time I’ll get some actual work done out of it.