Musing Interruptus

A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. 

Hello. Welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. Today, Tricks Are For Kids!

We’ve all been there. We’ve all confused our deepest, darkest, desires for our crush with the certainty that the other person, the object of our desire, lust, and affection, must absolutely be feeling the same thing. That isn’t love. However, it is so strong, overpowering, and promising. What exactly do we think is being promised? And, Who is doing this promising? Nothing and nobody! That’s what! 

What possesses us to say, ah I’ll just give in to this feeling. I might as well just let it happen. The thing is, it is only you surrendering to that feeling. You want to think that what you are feeling is like a channel that connects you to the object of your affection. Maddening thoughts invade your every waking hour. What if I say this? What if I do that? Can I make him/her love me? Madonna is convinced if you 'open your heart to her' you will 'see the desire burning inside of her'. You can make this discomfort go away if you just realize that what she feels is enough for both of you. If she feels it, it must be true. It’s like the internet. Dude, she tells him in the song, 'don’t try to run, I can keep up with you'… I have one thing to say, if he’s running away,  and it is not towards you, it might be towards somebody else. Also, is she running with sharp objects in her hands? 

Somebody once told me they were running away from me. Vaya con Dios mijo! You don’t have to run. I won’t follow. Despite the daddy issues. Believe it or not.

Mr. Big in 1991 thinks that there is a line. He is standing in line to be the next boyfriend, because, 'he is the one who really loves her'. A line!!! Is she a prostitute?! Are you waiting to be serviced, Mr. Big?! Give me a fucking break. Also, the whole calling her a little girl gives me the creeps. Do you need to think of her as a little girl?? Don’t get me wrong, if the right guy calls me nena with the right voice, well, alright. I’m not immune.  Ok?! But still, immortalizing the whole 'hold on little girl'… I don’t get it. The Beatles do that shit too. There is a big difference between -babe- and -little girl-. Also, babe is more consolidated. 

Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. Taylor Taylor Taylor… feels like this is the definition of the friendzone. A concept which I think objectifies the person you are singing about. 'You belong with me?' So, what does that mean? They are in a relationship because they are stupid? Is that what you think? They are so stupid that they think they are in love with their girlfriend, who is totally hot and fun. Nobody but you understands… Why does this happen? Why do feelings feel so convincing? Convincing of reality. She tells herself that if only he could see how special her love is, he would choose her. Because that is what happens, we choose love. It is like choosing your favorite color. Try it. Choose a favorite color that isn’t your favorite color. Conversion therapy has been banned for a reason. The underlying violence behind these songs astounds me. How unpopular of me. That reminds me of Cat Steven’s Whole Wild World, he is basically saying, if you leave, people are going to hurt you because you are so feeble that you cannot be on your own. The lack of recognition of the other person’s autonomy, agency, and intellect is astounding. That is not love. I don’t think that will ever become love. That is wishing someone you claim to love, a really, really bad time. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Give Me Perfection, Give Me Phil! 

Knowing where you are going is as important as knowing how to get there. In music and in life, you need to have a road map, a storyboard, and if you are Phil Spector, a gun because his “wall of sound” was not always enough. And that is saying a lot. 

What do Ronnie Specter, from the Ronettes, Joey Ramone, from Ramones, and Brian Wilson, from the Beach Boys have in common? If you heard the title, you know it. Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”. The fullness of the music is created by using several instruments, one over the other. Why have one guitar when you can have three? Why have one piano if you can have an organ and a harpsichord too? 

Fullness, reverberation, integration… enough to create the finest neurological reactions. Musical frisson or getting the tingles when listening to music. 

There are geniuses that come up with the most amazing things. Phil Spector is one of them. What he did to the bands he was producing and his family, now that is another part of the story. I don’t intend to glamourize his violence, by any means, I just want to give a little context to the album  “The End Of The Century”.  When I hear Joey’s voice in “Baby I Love You”, my fantasies have switched from being on the dance floor of my next wedding to being in the studio, held at gunpoint, while Joey recorded vocals. I listen to the song over and over again listening for the stress in his voice, the exasperation from recording multiple times a song his heart wasn’t in. You couldn’t tell that if you didn’t know the story. Ramones loved performing covers, however, this is not their style. This is not their speed. Literally.  In general, the album is like dressing the Ramones in preppy clothing and giving them crew cuts. Their sound was corrupted. Which also makes it pretty remarkable. I like it. Joey’s New York crackly punk voice, imploring in contrast with the honey-laced strings in the song make it so memorable. Was the gun necessary? From what I’ve read, he probably wouldn’t have done it. There is no way we can really know. This is not a justification for the use of violence. This is just how it happened.

Ramones were geniuses before Spector and inspired Bono to sing. But I’ve told you that story before. I think. This is just something on the way. A story of creation. 

Ronni Benette, later Ronnie Spector, and her career were held hostage in her home, by Phil Spector. The music she made with Phil Spector put her on the map, with Cher and Sonny Bono singing “Baby I Love You” with her on the album “Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes”. This song has been recorded, covered, and obsessed over. The “wall of sound” bolsters Ronnie’s vocals, beautiful, full, and inviting to fall in love. There are so many instruments.  A producer with a dream and a motherload of instruments: pianos, horns, guitars, and maracas. It feels like a musical; operatic and deadly romantic. You know if you let it in, you won’t ever recover. 

Now, I’ve told you how Brian Wilson wrote a song for Ronnie Spector, answering her pleas in another song… “Be My Baby”. I didn’t tell you that he was obsessed with the song. Obsessed with Spector after he dismissed him from the recording of another song he had written. The vocals here overpower the instruments. Reverberating, like in a church, the instruments are merely supporting actors in the ahs and oos that make “Don’t Worry Baby” so magnificent. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, About the Rats.

When I was a child, such a long, long time ago I enjoyed stories about anthropomorphic mice. Fivel Mouscowitz is probably my favorite. I easily related to the Mouscowitz family because my parents were also migrant mice who came to America, following a dream of education, riches beyond their wildest imaginations, freedom, and cheese. I might be embellishing a bit or confusing things. It is actually I who have a thing for cheese. In any case, the mice. I have wondered long and hard about mice because they are not welcome in our homes. I admit, I would not share my cheese with them. I would not like to discover their colonies in my pantry. They belong in my imagination and movies and songs. 

Another famous mouse that emigrated from the Old World to the United States is Ringo Star’s Scouse the Mouse!!! He clearly says he is an extraordinary mouse, like none you’ve ever seen!!! I can imagine Scouse the Mouse and Fivel becoming friends. Singing and cavorting, a story of two migrant mice out to make something of themselves. I can see the video sequence of the mice going to night school to learn a new trade, burning the midnight oil, learning by night, and working as taxi drivers by day. One has to work the pedals and the other the steering wheel. After night school, they hit the town and enjoy the clubs and museums after dark. There is a take in which we can see the mice laughing at each other because they reached for the same piece of cheese at the same time, the camera follows their gaze from the piece of cheese to them gazing into each other’s beady eyes. This is precisely when Scouse and Fivel fall in love. That is when the music and mood change. Even the color pallet changes. There is light bouncing everywhere. They graduate from night school, get jobs in the city. Scouse is interested in real estate and Fivel decides to become a painter. He paints dairy farms across the country, inspired by country-American nostalgia. Never actually painting his true desire, cheese, he would just paint the place where it is made. As the years went by, the mouse couple felt something was missing, so they adopted a dog. Unfortunately, the dog was not clear that the two mice were family, as he did not grow up watching the Disney Rat and his pet Pluto. An untimely end for our friends Fivel and Scouse. The sadness in this story is replicated in several migrant stories. I myself, a migrant cheese-eating mouse have found myself in sticky tricky situations. The dog that the pair adopted sat on their home, chewed their things up, and urinated over everything. The relationship was strained. To say the least. Luckily, Scouse activated the migrant network to contact, a dog whisperer. Mr. Cesar Millán put everything in order, taught the mice to care for their pet and sooner, rather than later, they were able to buy another home, larger and more adequate for their pet. Not a sad ending. It was just a sad ending for their first home. What did you think the dog had eaten Fivel? Come one. However! This does remind me of another song about a rat. This is a sad one. I don’t even have to exaggerate it. The mouse is killed by the writer’s parents. Real life tends to be more difficult and sadder than art. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, A Two-Horse Town.

Here’s the thing, we need to sell this anxiety medication and you’ve got to come up with and idea and pitch it.  All we know is that horses are involved. Turn it in ASAP. 

Ok. so anxiety. This is a topic I have recently tackled. I’ve made anxiety my bitch, at least for now. Let’s see. Anxiety happens when my imagination runs wild, in the worst possible direction, in a possible or plausible future in which I sink into despair and lack complete control of my thoughts, I sink into darkness, pain, anguish, and punishment. However, there is also the case in which my imagination runs wild in a fantastic direction. A fun, adventurous, sexy, odd, or even romantic and loving direction. First step, take the medicine and see how it works. What better way to sell a product than by testing it out? 

I’m just going to pop this pill here with a little water and let it do its thing. Mmm, now that I think of it, maybe I should have waited to have the symptoms before taking this, what if it sends me into an extra passive place, the anti-anxiety place, maybe it will demolecularize me. What if the last bit of anxiety that I had in my body was actually keeping me together? Oh well, I bet this pill is going to help me make sense of all of this, I just have to wait a few more moments for this to get into my  blood stream. Meanwhile, I’ll start thinking about the story with the horses. I think we should start in a town, in the old west. I can see it, the saloon and general store, and the funeral parlor, next to each other and across from the bank. Poor bank, it gets held up all the time. There is only the main street, it is dusty and at the end of the road, there is a building with a clock tower. The only clock in town. Perfectly located, next to the two only horses the town has. Clocks are important in these towns. As you may know, shootouts have rules and one of the rules is to have them at the strike of - an hour- on the nose! You have to pull out your guns, not before, not after, but right at the moment the clock strikes twelve. The best slots are high noon. That is when you get the best ratings. I mean, everyone is doing something around town at that time.
There is a whole economy around showdowns. You’ve got the saloons that serve the liquor diminishing common sense and activating or letting loose the more animalistic instincts that result from throwing back shots. If the amygdala and prefrontal cortex go unchecked, you’ve got yourself a booming economy. It only takes one funny look, rubbing someone the wrong way… and someone might suggest you take it outside, if they are a gentleman, if not, you might get a bar stool cracked over your head, and that will be that. Bartenders need to be vigilant about these things, because they are part of the economic system. The man at the gun store needs to be ready to supply the bullets, and paraphernalia in general for the shootout. You can’t just buy a gun, you need a holster to keep the gun from pulling your pants down, you can’t just stick it in your pocket, less you want to blow off your winky, if you are a winky holder. I guess women could just put a gun in their pocket, however, as we all know too well, women’s pockets are either nonexistent or can’t hold anything. It is a patriarchal move, like high heels. Anyway, You’ve got yourself the gun salesperson, and you need someone to preside over the event, to establish the rules of the duel are properly observed. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you why that matters… Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Anticipation

I’ve been waiting for this moment for three years. She whispered. I’ve been waiting my whole life, he responded with a sigh of relief, and they fell into each other, acquiring pieces from the other, all secondhand, all lived in, perfectly lovable. A transformative peace fell over them. 

What a great scene. I’d start the movie there, cut through the time and complications. I’d just make a movie of the moments in which there is resolution, cutting anticipation and resistance to zero. However, only those characters and the writer would be able to appreciate everything that had to happen for that moment to take place. That is the difference between pornography and a romantic movie. Throw in Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, and a sandwich shop and you’ve made it. What is Casablanca without the resistance, WWII, and only two letters of transit? I don’t know, but the answer is in the movie, it doesn’t amount to a molehill of beans. Ultimately, who would be satisfied with the last minutes of that movie? Another question that comes to mind is, who is satisfied with the resolution of that movie?! I know I’m not. 

The more  I think about it, the worse the idea of just cutting to the last scene. The immediacy of it all reminds me of 30-second videos, elevator pitches, and non-committal relationships. Most are easily forgotten and provide less gratification than soggy broccoli. Anticipation prolonged by the hurdles faced by the characters in a story determines how much more we appreciate the ending. The road might lead to ruin or glory, the only way you will find out is if you walk it. 

I love how you can trace empires, beautiful works of art, and scientific and technological advances to brilliant ideas that seem like anybody could have had them. What sets us apart? Why is there only one Madam Curie? 

I like stories that have happy endings, in which triumph tastes sweeter because the protagonist had to overcome inner demons and build through sheer will. I like my triumphs. Anticipation can be an essential element. It is the preview, the free sample, and the accelerant. Anticipation is key. You know you are on the right track if you feel anticipation and peace. When you are caught off guard by thoughts of what is to come. It is the looking forward. The feeling of es muss sein or as it should be like electricity coursing through your veins chased by a sensation of ease. This is what I want and I will have it. If only it were as easy as just feeling it. We all know it takes more. Building empires, creating works of art, solving complicated problems, takes time, and talent, and know-how, and determination. Add in a pinch of luck, and a liter of anticipation, and you might make history.

Making dreams come true generally is a group effort. You have to start with the idea. That might seem like the most complicated part. Was it the conception or inception of the dream? I remember reading that the best ideas can come to you when you stop thinking about needing an idea. Idea-making is a group effort as well. How exciting to be motivated by a new idea. It can make the brain come alive again. Woe is me if I get stuck in the frustration of not knowing what the next step is. It is a group effort. Ice cream comes to mind. Do we owe it all to the Tang Dynasty? Their idea spurred through time and space, experiences, ingredients, and technological advances, have culminated into Cherry García, the sweet creamy frozen dessert many of us love. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Now That’s Dark!

I am willing to bet that most everyone has dark thoughts out of fear or sheer joy. Dark thoughts make me nervous and laugh, especially when I say them out loud. Traveling with a black dress, stockings, and high heels in case somebody dies, just in case. Creating a box with important documents and instructions just before I go bungee jumping. Telling myself, I can always get a divorce, 15 minutes before I get married. 

There is a tendency to think that dark thoughts are not good for us. However, bear with me for a moment, I’m going somewhere with this. Dark thoughts can result in very healthy outcomes. They become an escape valve for tension, fear, and resistance. Dark thoughts are necessary. They are natural and they may be sublimated into art or a different types of products. Just because you think it doesn’t make it true or mean it will come true. The dark thoughts can become a catalyst of feelings and a bridge to creation.

Dark thoughts are healthy. Whoever came up with dark chocolate had an extraordinarily healthy dark thought. There is an analogy waiting to happen. The darker the chocolate, the healthier it is. Think about it, dark chocolate comes in different concentrations of cacao. The more cacao the healthier, is has less sugar, at least, that is what Lindt does. The less amount of sugar, the more cacao, the better an antioxidant it is for your body. Someone thought I, a chocolate lover, would appreciate 95% cacao chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Not the best surprise. I know now, that the person’s intention was to extend my life. If you ask me, I prefer unhealthy and sweet milk chocolate.  

Antioxidants are supposed to help ward off the materialization of one of a big dark thought. I’ll give you a hint, it starts with C and ends in ancer!  That is a dark thought, a looming fear. However, the thought of the big C word has led people to change their diets, and habits, to even enjoy their lives and the people around them more profoundly. It didn’t stem from sheer joy, it came from a dark place, motivated by the possibility of loss and the certainty of impermanence… 

Marriage is like dark chocolate. 95% cacao, it isn’t sweet, it doesn’t taste that great, the package is prettier than the contents, but it is healthy for you, so you live longer. You can either buy 95% dark chocolate or get married. The effect is the same. 

Marriage is a dark endeavor. You get to know the most intimate side of a human. Their darkest thoughts, the healthy ones that are vents and the ones that take you into a vortex of pain and anguish. Marriage is dark. You can tell your spouse, careful, that is a poisonous animal and your spouse will get bitten or stung and have the gall to say, I had no idea! Meanwhile, the other spouse thinks it will make a difference to say BUT I JUST TOLD YOU THAT IT WAS DANGEROUS. Only to hear in return, what? You never said that. Knowing your spouse you can anticipate what they are going to do and still be useless in stopping something horrible from happening because it is like your voice becomes inaudible. That is a part of being a witness to someone else’s, like a sociological experiment, you are not to intervene, not out of ethics, but because you are invisible. We protect our spouses as best we can knowing that it is terminal. Everything is terminal. Now that is dark. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, The Matter Of The Heart .

It is all about the heart, that is the most important thing. Listen to your heart,  Roxette says it, she was right. The heart is connected to everything, it pumps blood, it keeps us going, and brings oxygen to our body. Our heart can tell us a lot about ourselves and the decisions we need or want to make. Listen to your heart, it communicates the truths that are most basic to us. Remember, the heart is the percussion in the music of our life, it sets our rhythm. The beating, pounding, and thumping of our hearts alerts us, to danger, and to love. What a feeling when you see the person you love and your heart explodes! Love flows with each beat, through every pore of your body. The Drifters (the band) sing about “This Magic Moment”. It is magic, how someone else can elicit or bring out such a strong and warm feeling. Listen to your heart and you will find love. Once you fall in love you run the risk of getting your heart broken. That sucks! So you might try to steal someone’s heart. If you succeed, you will be in love and it will be reciprocated. If you don’t, you will get your heart broken. But that is the price we pay. There is no free lunch. When you get your heart broken, it is as if the feeling of love goes in reverse, even though love is still there, there is no hope for reciprocation. The heart breaks. How do you explain to your heart this basic life lesson, just because you feel it doesn’t mean it is there. The object of your affection does not feel the same way about you. Heartbreak. You had your heart set on something happening, that relationship, for instance. You might have your heart set on something else, like getting a job, going on a trip, or buying something at the store. When we were children, we might have had our hearts set on Santa bringing a particular toy. A heart might sink if you get a sweater instead of a toy. If our parents taught us correctly to repress our feelings, we smiled and said, thank you, this is great. I will enjoy playing with this sweater so much more than with a  Barbie Dream House. Listen to your heart, it tells us things! It gives us clues or even strong messages about what we need and want, and where we should be going. The brain is there to work out how to get it done in an ethical and legal way. Well, at least that is my expectation. You might be on a path on your way to building something, on a project when you have a change of heart. That means you changed what you wanted and realized you wanted something else. I had a change of heart I no longer want to swim across the ocean. Or maybe, you lost heart. This means you no longer feel capable of crossing the whole entire ocean. I kinda like the fact that you thought you could cross the ocean swimming in the first place. Kudos to you. 

Ahhh the fact of the matter is some projects cannot be left half-done. Sometimes you have to finish, like when you decide to swim across the ocean. You get the metaphor. 

Things can change in a heartbeat that means it changes from one moment to the next. In an instant. I think a New York Minute is the same amount of time. It lasts just as long. The phrase, in a heartbeat, is a great answer. Would you marry me? In a heartbeat. Would you buy me an ice cream? In a heartbeat. Would you write a story with me? In a heartbeat. There is no hesitation in that answer, that is how clear and true the answer is. 
Your heart skipped a beat when you saw the person you fell in love with it can also skip a beat when you get bad... Continue Reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Big Picture Stuff.

The big picture refers to everything that comprises or makes up a situation. The biggest picture might be life itself. The opposite or its antonym is a little picture or when you have a limited perspective of something.  

Perspective is important. It can make or break your capacity to cope, find a solution, or even get up in the morning, depending on what you are going through. Getting perspective can help a lot. You get perspective or things are put into perspective with information, evidence, and events.  For example, when your priorities change because something has become evidently more important. Having children or caring for beings that depend on you. That provides a decent perspective of what matters. When your health has been compromised because you haven’t taken care of yourself, you might be motivated to make changes to get healthy. Sometimes it is not in your hands. That sucks. That royally sucks. It might be a pivotal moment, when you change how you fundamentally make decisions or do things. Things change and plans change. Dancing is so symbolic of life in this sense. You cannot stay in one place, you need to engage your whole body and mind to move, and if you want it to look effortless, learn to control your facial expressions. This also avoids wrinkling your face in the wrong way. The right way to wrinkle your face is by smiling and laughing. I’ve avoided the other types of wrinkles. At least, that is what I like to say.

You might hear yourself saying —if only I had known then what I know today! I would have made a different decision. And someone might answer, hindsight is 20/20. This phrase means when you have more or all the information (who really knows if we ever have all the information??), information regarding the consequences of your decisions. Lots of movies deal with this topic, if you know what is going to happen, you might get into a time machine and go back to tell your past self or someone else in the past to make a different decision. This is a great fantasy. 

Hindsight is 20/20… but you know what? If you stick around long enough, you get answers to certain questions, the value of a certain variable in an equation. Thinking that something is meant to be and then having that fall through, like a job opportunity, a scholarship, or a relationship can be devastating. Thinking to yourself — this was a sure thing, and not getting it can be confusing and painful. There are times we are lucky enough to get a glimpse into what we avoid by not getting what we want, maybe a hardship or a bad experience. Sometimes, not getting what you want is a blessing in disguise. It might be you’ve dodged a bullet. Like when you don’t get the job you thought you were perfect for and you find something that is even better, more fulfilling, and hopefully, better paid. I know I’ve wondered about certain events, like leaving the house 5 minutes later than I had planned only to see that I avoided a car accident. It has also been the case that I don’t avoid it. Was it fate? A bad combination of factors? Did those factors come together to make my own personal perfect storm? In the words of my father: shit happens. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, I’m Jealous 

Once upon a time, there was a young, scratch that…. Let’s not go full out toilet immediately . 

Let’s start in bed. I bet that is where most of you started out, especially those who have unadventurous parents. Actually, we should go further back. Gordon Mathew Thomas Sumner, a.k.a Sting reminds us we need a space to imagine when he describes the inspiration for the song Why Should I Cry For You. Believing in the importance of, what some call procrastination, which I think is better known by those whose creative process requires space, the space for imagination. Believing in the importance of this space is fundamental and crucial. The space for thoughts and wandering down paths. This can happen in many places, in bed, letting the mind wander, in my case, atop my bicycle, taking a walk, or just sitting in my thoughts, surrounded by silence or music. I call it the planning stage and much like Sting, for me it is the place where stories gestate, up to the moment when I just can’t stand it, and I have to write or create something, anything. Like a pressure cooker. I notice how as soon as I have that space, more pressure builds up. The creative energy builds up. The more space there is, the more time I have, the more ideas I get. Dave Chappelle describes feeling like he is getting into the trunk of a car and the idea is driving. That sounds like a fun roadtrip. Not all ideas are good or do us good. Imagination can take us to very good and pleasant places, and other times, it can take us to dark, scary, catastrophic places. 

Jealousy is a sour little sphincter, retaining, and holding in. Rotten feeling, isn’t it? Then again, it is probably the stuff that was being retained, the insecurities, projected on the other, of course, the feeling of being unloved, overlooked, discarded, dejected, and forgotten. Retention only keeps those feelings in, inside and in a vicious cycle, increasing the yucky feeling. And it is not just those feelings, for instance, imagine being jealous of the object of your affection loving someone else. Jealous of how they discover all the wonderful things you want them to discover in you. The mental images you won’t utter out loud for fear that saying them out loud could make them real, if they aren’t already. You are of course, certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they are real. You feel it and that feeling is so strong, wretched, and painful, it must be real. Say it and, like some masochistic incantation, make it real. Funny how you might believe that, and you won’t believe in how you could use your magic to your own benefit. That is another Musing Interruputs. Continue reading

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Don’t Die That Way!

I hope you are sitting down and paying close attention. This might save your life. I can be good that way. Let’s call this, me paying it forward as someone else has helped me avoid death. So settle in… are you ready? 

The wind is changing direction, erratically. I can feel it pulling me in opposite directions, blowing my hair across my face. The mist in the air is quickly becoming drops of water, getting fatter and fatter with each passing gust of wind. Frankly, I’m happy to be tossed around by the wind for a while.

Just before the peaceful sky was interrupted by the thunder, rolling in, I could feel my chest tighten in anticipation. Of what, I couldn’t tell you just yet.

I’m no stranger to facing storms on my own. Blackouts and shuttering windows. The deafening relentless beating of rain on the protective shell I call a home. What a thing to lie on my back, under the skylight wondering if the hail will find it way through the glass, I’m reassured it won’t—this time. My e-reader is my best friend on long nights when the power is out. The howling wind is no match for the stories and worlds that open up after a few lines.

There is music in the storm. Sometimes louder, menacing even. Others, it is softer. It brings back memories of my father yelling and the calm once the scolding was over. A storm is coming, and the anticipation is mounting. The rumbling of clouds rolling in, is like waiting for a concert to start.  
Storms bring change, destruction, growth. It’s nature's laundering process. Speaking of laundry, I’m reminded of what a special place the laundry room is. The thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, of the dryer. The swishing of the washing machine. Repetitive noises you can count on, like a familiar song. Oh, a great many stories have occurred in laundry rooms. Generally, a secluded part of the house. Not far enough you cannot hear the thunk thunk thunk or swish swish swish. I like cleaning it. Other people like murdering in it… I just watched the Candy Montgomery story, and boy oh boy, what an impact that made. I can imagine the wa chi ca wow version, that is not an ax coming at you.

Which brings me to, please, don’t die that way! I was reading an article by Lauren Gray and she has a lot to say about this. Did you know, that 73% of lightning deaths occur during the summer months. She indicates, “there are three key conditions needed to create a thunderstorm: Excessive moisture in the air, atmospheric instability, and a trigger that gets the atmosphere moving.” According to this article I’m reading, there are things we shouldn’t do during a storm: for instance, go near water, because water conducts electricity.  So stay stinky, and stay germy. Stay alive. Unplug electronics. This is a no-brainer, you don’t want to kill your appliances and modern technology. Do not, I repeat, do not go near your fireplace. I do not have one of these, so I will build one and subsequently stay away from it and stay alive. 

Stay alive, do not stay outside. The outside is a peculiar place. So if it thunders, do not stay outside, stay alive just far away from the shower, or any faucet and the fireplace. Oh, and, concrete can conduct electricity too… so, be prepared to play the floor is lava if you have concrete floors or concrete walls, don’t touch. The house is becoming an electrified maze of pain and possible death! Continue reading