A Musing.*

Now, I'm all for working and whatnot, but I've determined that I don't have the discipline to have a real office job. 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year? That is definitely not for me. (I am very French comme ça, they have a lovely 35 hour workweek they're trying to cut down to 30.) I need the flexibility of up and taking random days off if I feel the urge. And I definitely need a winter vacation, spring break and summer vacation. My last jobs have all given me this option, thereby spoiling me for any steady position I might want to hold down in the future. Hence why being a professor would be perfect for me - after the first several years of toiling away, you get tenure and then, if you're like crankypants's parents, teach one seminar a week and spend the rest of your time travelling for "conferences." Based on his parents' travels, these mythical conferences are just excuses to get out of the midwest on the university's dollar. They instead look at beachfront properties in California. Or if you're my friend's Emily's mother, you don't even bother seeking tenure because your husband is so rich you can have 5 properties scattered throughout the US and Europe and you can wear Jil Sander suits to work. This is not a shabby life at all. And as a professor, you get all those school holidays. I'd never have to give up my summers again.

But then, I thought, why expend this much effort? Why actually work? And then I remembered my long-standing dream of being a muse. That's right. Like Sharon Stone's character in, well, The Muse. All she did was inspire people. She didn't even have to come up with ideas of her own. Rather, she just sat around, sponged off people, smiled every once in awhile - and got great gifts in return. Definitely not shabby, if you ask me.

What re-spurred this interest was reading what is currently my favourite book - maybe even my personal bible, at least for the meantime - Bergdorf Blondes**. This book is full of all sorts of fabulous quotes, such as " 'Honey, when you're drinking martinis and your martini glass is full of tears, you gotta ask yourself, is the Universe trying to tell me something?' " and "When it comes to sexual politics, my view is that the liberated modern girl is better off acting like a virgin so that she can do all sorts of pornographic things with no fear of getting a reputation," and "The heavenly thing about anti-anxiety pills like Xanax is that you can be at the epicenter of your own personal romantic tragedy and you don't even notice." I could go on forever. There is also an absolutely fabulous quote about champagne bubbles, but I can't find it right now.

Anyway, back to my point. Because it is a brilliant book, Bergdorf Blondes also mentions muses. For example:

However, there is one career here to which they [Manhattan society girls] are positively addicted - if you could call it a career, that is - because it's the kind of career that doesn't involve much actual working, or ordering staples, or being handcuffed to a PC all day, or anything grim like that. The most coveted job here is to work as a "muse" to a fashion designer. The "chores" consist mainly of sitting home all day waiting for clothes to arrive by messenger and being photographed at glittering parties every night.

Now, if that doesn't sound like a perfect job for me, I don't know what does.

My friend Nick***, who currently plays soccer in Hungary, said that if he became a writer I could be his muse, for senior year in college he based some creative writing pieces on me. See? I have training already. He needs to stop fooling around in Europe, get home and start writing. I promise you, I am real good at sitting around and doing nothing but inspiring people. I am indeed that fabulous. I feel like I could get started on this career path straightaway.


Notes:
*Sorry for the pathetic attempt at a pun above. Obviously, I need my own muse to be inspired. Do you get it though? Please say you do.
**I am not a blonde, despite how airheaded these posts are. Just needed to make that clear. Although I did find a blonde hair once. Not grey. Blonde. That scared me.
***This is obviously not the Nick described below. This Nick - really, I think of him as Nicky to keep things straight - and I get along smashingly, because he is not desperately in love with me (just occassionally in lust), and because we used to go shopping on my lunch breaks in Paris. He also has been accused of being gay, but no, he's really just a metrosexual. Although even I question it sometimes.