If you mess with the monkey...

 

...expect some feces to be flung.

My Monkey Playing Cymbals has popped up in umpteen of my posts since I first introduced him in August 2004. He is my self-professed muse. He reminds me in his own monkey way to grin and bear it. Though his visage seems more frozen in a grimace than a grin. 

The monkey is a symbol with cymbals that he no longer plays. 

I don't know what that means, but I like how it sounds. 

The monkey sat out the pandemic alone in my abandoned office in downtown Seattle on the fringe of the International District (which has kind of become a no person's land that even Starbucks won't serve anymore). I found him sitting patiently when I returned to the office last August with the primary goal of packing up my old, spacious corner office with lots of windows and stuffing 25 years of memorabilia into 19 moving boxes that were transported to an office that is half as big and is sequestered on the interior of an 11th floor far from any direct light.

When I finally unpacked all 19 boxes into my tiny office I began to understand the people featured on Hoarders. I like to think my hoard has a bit more order than your typical hoarder.  I'm an ordered hoarder. All of my stuff has meaning to me. There are several props that have been used in the various television commercials I've created over the years. This includes rubber hands, a gas mask, a fake man in the iron mask mask and signs from a transporter portal from a shoot in L.A. just before the pandemic.

And of course I unpacked the monkey. He was a bit pissy about being left alone for two years and then being stuck in a box. But I could tell he was relieved to be back on a shelf above my desk and computers where he could once again lord his muse musings over me.

I have to admit that my pandemic posts without the monkey's help were pretty pitiful. I wouldn't tell the monkey that. He has too big of an ego as it is. But I have missed his moronic grin/grimace and his beady little sunken eyes.

It is hard to believe that the monkey has been with me more or less for 19 years writing this blog. That is much longer than anyone who ever read my blog has lasted. 

Before I wrote this post, I searched through my past posts to ensure I was coming up with a new title. I was originally going to call it "Don't mess with the monkey." But sure enough that was the title of the original post about him in 2004. In the process of my search I uncovered some posts from those early years that were pretty darned good if I do say so myself. I think 2004 through 2006 or so were my best years. It was all still relatively new and fresh. I could be creative without feeling any pressure.

I'm not sure when it changed. I went from being lighthearted and whimsical to being dark and cynical. And I started repeating myself. That has been what I have found the most disturbing. Not that it really matters. No one stumbles on a blog like mine and starts reading from the beginning to the end. If they did, they would eventually pick up my patterns of repetition and regale me to that stereotyped old guy sitting in the corner telling the same stories over and over.

In my defense, some of my stories bear repeating. And if I repeat them in my blog at least it spares my children from having to hear them over and over. Trust me, they have no interest in most of me and the monkey's musings and would not find them amusing. 

Good thing I do. 

Oh well, that's enough abusing of my muse for now. I see the monkey has something in his hand and is ready to go on a fling.

Literally.