Chapter 7: Hackensack

I'm back to my normal blog writing time.

I woke up this morning at 8am, still kinda feeling like crap. I really wanted to call in sick again, but I would not allow myself to do that. I was already upset enough at missing one day of work, (aka, one day of pay,) and was not prepared to miss out on another. So, I forced myself up and went in. I guess I'm glad I did, in some ways. I don't know...

It was a strange day. The first thing I did was go in and ask my sister, (my boss,) about using vacation time to cover my sick day, which was quickly granted. Fortunately, it is the end of the year and they are really trying to get rid of everyone's vacation hours so using some for an unplanned day off really worked out in their favor, as well as mine. So, next up is Thanksgiving weekend, which will be a four day weekend for me. Then my last bit of vacation time will be used to get paid for Christmas day. I am glad I got that sorted out.

Of course, since I was still feeling like crap and had sorted out how to still get paid for yesterday my mind immediately went to that place of, "Hey, now that I'm getting paid for yesterday, I wonder if I can leave early today!" That is what Kabbalah calls "reactive behavior." I have been having a lot of reactive behavior lately and I need to stop that. Essentially, according to Kabbalah, the main way to connect to the light, (light represents the Creator, as well as all of the joy and positivity in the world,) is to identify and resist our reactive behavior. By resisting our reactive behavior, we are becoming "proactive" in our lives, and creating our emotions and what happens to us for ourselves. This is something that I truly believe in, and I feel like I have let my faith in this whole concept waver in the past couple years.

When I asked about possibly going home early, though, I was immediately shut down. I was not given any real explanation for this and found it pretty odd, but I didn't think too much more about it. It is pretty commonplace for me to be shut down by my sister when asking for things like that. I did not realize until after it had happened that the reason for my not being able to go home was because one of my co-workers was being let go. This caused a whole onslaught of reactive behavior in my head. I basically felt like I had just been screwed over by a circumstance that was outside of my, or management's, control. It's a long story, and I don't want to go into too many details about the place that must not be named for security purposes, but my initial reaction to the whole situation was, "Well, I just got fucked!" I'm pretty sure that is not the case at this point, though. It may actually put me at an advantage in a few different ways. Again, long story.

Another thing that was weird today, and certainly didn't aid in my illness, is that I did not dress appropriately for the weather at all today. I had washed a lot of my plain white Calvin Klein tees, which are amongst my favorite pieces of clothing, for their comfort, functionality and, most of all, versatility. They feel amazing and work great under sweaters, vests, jackets and, the main reason I had washed a bunch of them, these gorgeous Marc Ecko cardigans I have that I will often wear over one of the Calvin tees. That was my intention when I washed so many of these shirts, and when I woke up this morning... but somewhere in the process of getting ready, I felt like it may be too warm outside for a cardigan and I decided to wear a DKNY vest over it instead. This was a big mistake. It was freezing out today, (well, as freezing as it gets in Florida,) and every time I took a smoke break I wound up shivering. The lesson learned from this? Check http://www.weather.com before getting dressed in the morning.

Work was what it was today, and when the end of the day came I had actually started to feel a little bit better. I came home and sat down in front of the computer to download some music. I decided to try out this new artist I keep hearing about, Justin Bieber, because I had seen an acoustic performance of his on MTV and kinda liked his voice. As soon as I listened to the first song on his album, though, I was kinda freaked out by his voice. It sounded great on the MTV performance, but on the record it just sounds creepy and too much like a Kidz Bop CD. I had to stop it before even getting to another track. I may give it another shot later, but I'm not too keen on trying right now.

I also downloaded something that has been a very pleasant surprise to me, the new Katy Perry "MTV Unplugged" record. When I initially heard that Katy Perry was releasing an MTV Unplugged my initial reaction was, "Really? Why?" Now, let me say this first, when Katy Perry first came out and "Ur So Gay," was floating around the internet as a buzz single, I was all about her. As soon as "One Of The Boys" came out, I was all about it. I was never really a big fan of the song "I Kissed A Girl," per se, but I am aware of how it works in the industry with a novelty single to lure people in to the really good stuff, (for more examples of this, see every single Pink record - she is the queen of the novelty single.) In any sense, I was a big fan of Katy Perry from the get-go. Then she became wholly overexposed and I kind of went off her. I still listened to the album and skipped past every track that was released as a single and dominated radio and such, (except for "Thinking Of You" which, coincidentally, wasn't quite as popular at radio as the rest.) Honestly, I can't even say I ever genuinely went off her, I just kind of felt like it was all too much and too shoved down your throat. So, I became very cynical about her music and had this very sarcastic reaction to the MTV Unplugged news like, "Oh yeah, I'll bet 'I Kissed A Girl' and 'Waking Up In Vegas' sound really great in acoustic form!"

Well, friends, I stand here proven wrong. "Waking Up In Vegas" is probably my favorite of the seven tracks on this Unplugged record. Second would probably be "I Kissed A Girl." The acoustic takes on these songs, as well as all of the others, is actually really brilliant. "I Kissed A Girl" sounds a whole lot less like a novelty single with the cool jazz spin she put on the acoustic version. The record also includes two new tracks, "Brick By Brick," which is gorgeous, and an amazing cover of the Fountains Of Wayne song, "Hackensack." I really don't like Fountains Of Wayne, but Katy Perry turned this song into something beautiful. I am pretty in love with it right now. I had heard the Fountains Of Wayne version before, but had never really paid attention to the lyrics, which are beautifully simplistic. My hat goes off to both Fountains Of Wayne and Katy Perry for that one.

Another thing that I came upon today was a banned music video by Enrique Iglesias from back in the day when he first made his English language crossover. His first album, "Enrique," was a bit of an obsession for me back when it first came out. I fell into that late 90s Latin explosion like a cartoon bear walking over a stack of leaves that cover a giant hole in the ground. Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique, Shakira, Thalia, Paulina Rubio... I loved them all, (a few I still do.) That first Enrique album was one of my favorites of that period, though, and my favorite track on that album was a Bruce Springsteen cover, "Sad Eyes." I just adore that song, by either of them. Well, today I discovered that Enrique had released a video for this song that was never released because it was deemed too inappropriate for the music video networks and the song wound up scrapped as a single altogether. It really is a shame, cos' I just discovered this video today and it is amazing! It was directed by one of my all-time favorite artists, David LaChappelle, and it essentially details Enrique, in the midst of all his fame and glory, being very sad and alone... and masturbating to a girl in one of those phone sex ads you always see on TV. Then, he goes out and finds the girl and presumably pays her to come back to his hotel room and have sex with him. The video ends with a shot of Enrique waking up alone. It really is a gorgeous video, aside from all the partial nudity from Mr. Iglesias. It made me feel very depressed and lonely and horny all at the same time. That, my friends, is what we call art.

(I am LOLing at myself, too, don't worry.)

After all of this, my Mom came home seeming very down and defeated and absolutely hating her job. It turns out, they told her entire department that they should probably plan on working on Thanksgiving Day. We had made plans for all of the family that lives here in Florida, (myself, my sister and her girlfriend, my brother and his girlfriend and my Mom's boyfriend,) and she was very upset at the concept that we may need to cancel this. I told her we could still have it here and she could come home after work and join in. I could make Thanksgiving dinner. I actually really like the concept of doing it. I have developed a thing for cooking lately, and I think that Thanksgiving dinner would be an interesting new challenge. We'll see what comes of this, (at this point, we aren't even sure what type of schedule she may be working that day, or even that she will be working for sure.) I feel really bad for her, though. Working at the place that shall not be named is a major adjustment from the job she had before, where every holiday was guaranteed off, (and more often than not, paid for.) She had all the freedom in the world at that job, and now she is in this place that is full of rules and doesn't allow for much freedom.

We went out to a place that I love, which I affectionately refer to as the "Celine Dion Publix." Publix, for those outside of Florida, is a chain of grocery stores here. There is one they put in downtown Sarasota, right in the heart of where all the ritzy and the artsy types of this city live, that they built a whole structure around... Kind of like how whichever hotel it was in Vegas built a colosseum around Celine Dion. Now, I am not a downtown person, but I would say I am a downtown adjacent person. I enjoy the downtown crowd as a friendly outsider. Well, we also live adjacent to downtown, so we do a lot in the area, including grocery shopping. Plus, this Publix is just considerably nicer than all the others in town. It is also a bit smaller and has less of a selection, but I think it is worth it for the atmosphere. My Mom does not necessarily agree, and pretty much only shops there when I am going with her. We picked up groceries and decided to get dinner out at this adorable little ghetto-fabulous place called "Gyros & Seafood" that we have recently become obsessed with, then came home and watched a Kathy Griffin comedy special, (I have all of them saved on the DVR,) before bed.

So, I managed to end a pretty strange, sort of dramatic and sort of stressful day in a very lighthearted, relaxing way. It was nice.

Tomorrow? Well, it is Friday! It also marks the completion of the first week of this blog, which I have been thoroughly enjoying doing and intend to continue enjoying for another 358 days. It hasn't been the most eventful week of my life, by far, so there is still plenty to look forward to. I hope you all can enjoy reading along.

Now, it is time for bed.