The Other Lyrics

I know there is at least one book dedicated to frequent misinterpretations of lyrics (He’s Got the Whole World In His Pants). Some of them are so funny you wonder how anyone every thought that could be what a singer was saying, others though, are better than the original lyrics.

Tonight while steaming in the shower to try to open up some sinus congestion, I was doing what I so often do in the shower - sing. Everything in the relationship with R has been so good lately, I was singing, “Love is Many Splendored Thing” (from the 1955 film by the same name) when I was interrupted by a coughing fit as some of the lovely mucus broke loose. It sounded more like, “love is a many splintered thing.”

Between fits of laughter and fits of coughing, I tried singing it that way, and it really works.

In some ways, it’s just as true as the original lyrics, but I’m much happier to keep love splendored than splintered.

Excuse Me

Since I have fully determined to lose the 20 pounds I added last year (and the ten I started the year wanting to lose), I have been packing my lunch daily. My lunches have all been a very healthy chopped vegetable salad with a nice garlic and onion vinaigrette dressing. The salad fills and satisfies.

It also causes gas.

Shortly after lunch, I resumed work. At one point I turned from my computer screen to look at a paper on my desk. Midway through the turn, a burp erupted that echoed across my office and out into the greater room outside.

Four people share the space outside my office. The way it is organized, I cannot see if anyone is present at any given time or not. I waited a moment to see if any shocked response emanated from the outer area. No response came, but I felt obliged to offer up an apology, so matching the volume of the burp, I shouted, “Excuse me.” out to any unfortunate person who may have heard the offense.

My embarrassed cry was met my the motion sensor turning off the lights in the outer area.

Life on the Beach III

The lifeguard stands along Miami Beach mostly looked like the square stands on poles, but this one stood out among them for it's aerodynamic shape and bright colors.

Of course, it was along the border area to the gay section of the beach according to R. If he had not told me this, I never would have noticed based on any observation of people along the beach, as it was a mix of men, women, families. Maybe in the summer it is much more segregated than on a windy winter day.

The Creative Nuisance

I do now know why creativity works for me in quite the way it does, but the writing notion most frequently strikes me while I am in the middle of some essential task from which I cannot break away. While I did have a significant amount of deep thinking and creativity over my recent break, the fun creativity struck about the time the first annoying email crossed my screen at work. People with whom I work are generally fine, it is the people in affiliated organizations who expect their whims and wishes to take precedence who grate on my last nerve. With the first annoying email, I began to think of names I could call the person and what fun it would be to recreate her parents’ thought process in generating her name.f

But no!

I had important work to consider. Tasks to get done. Meetings to schedule. I did not have time to whip out pen and paper and start writing jokes.

So I pulled out a post-it pad and scribbled down the most memorable puns and posits regarding her parental moniker manipulation.

Soon work engulfed me and I began to make real progress for the day until my phone started chiming with emails and texts - mostly work related, but some socially connected ones immediately distracted me with thoughts about how to respond.

Some days I think I need Ritalin - and I should have not Googled the correct spelling of Ritalin as it took me to new and wondrous topics I never expected from a drug designed to help one concentrate - but then again, Google knows someone looking up Ritalin probably is having trouble concentrating.

The truth behind it, I think, is that when I am not working, my mind really can go wherever it wants and take as many tangents as it wishes. When working, though, my mind gets trapped in a little box called “work,” and seeks any window for an escape.

One reason I keep finding post-it notes with various phrases or sentence outlines originates from the creative interruption in my work cycle. Sometime it originates in taking bad notes and forgetting what they all mean.

Whatever it is, the creativity does often for me becomes a nuisance. I appreciate the creative juices when they are directed at fulfilling the demands of the job, but dread the interruptions that take me far from the workplace in my mind. Until I have a job that fully integrates my creative and productive desires, I am stuck with battling the wills of each value and occasionally catching myself boundlessly bantering with silly sentences of alliteration.

Life on the Beach II

The day we were walking along Miami Beach, Portuguese Man 'o War had washed up all over the place. R. constantly warned me about the tentacles spreading across the sand as I was only wearing flip-flops (of course).

Despite the danger of the tentacles, I was fascinated by the beauty of the doomed creatures up on the beach and walked along photographing almost all of them a we made our way down the beach.

My photography was so much better than the woman walking along with a board sealing the doom of each Man o' War she encountered by popping them.

Life on the Beach

On Christmas Eve, R. took me for a walk along Miami Beach. It was really nice to be able to go down on the beach in late December and enjoy it. Although the temperatures were nice, it was a very windy day and the shore had seaweed and Portuguese Man o' War all along the water line and higher. Amid all this, there were sponges and other kinds of debris washed in with the wind and waves.

At one location amid the seaweed, I noticed the bottle cap and a seed of some kind. I could not tell exactly what kind of seed it was and it seemed to be growing, so I pulled it out for a closer look and found two signs of life. One end of the seed had well developed barnacles from its time in the water, but at the other end, a green sprout was just beginning to come out of the brown shell.

Nature can be quite amazing with the resilience of her many life forms. I enjoyed seeing all the different things along the beach and look forward to more trips back to the beach with R.