Chapter 86: Sweet Dreams (Remix)

You know what I haven’t done in a really long time? Had sex! I was thinking about that just now and decided it would be a good way to open tonight’s blog. I’ve always thought that sex wasn’t all that important; it is nothing more than a base need that we have the ability to fulfill for ourselves. I am a firm believer that all of the basic needs we have to make it through life, both physical and emotional, are things that we have the ability to fulfill for ourselves and we are only conditioned by society to believe that we need other people for these things. I watched this movie this evening, called “Post Grad” starring Alexis Bledel, that kind of got me thinking about that whole concept, though. This movie is about a girl who has a very clear idea of what she wants her life to be after graduating college, but then it is all turned upside down when the job that she has been banking on getting her entire life winds up going to somebody else. Not to spoil the movie for anybody, but she spends most of the movie feeling really lost and confused and winds up getting the life that she wanted only to discover that it wasn’t really what she wanted at all because she lost the person she loved in the process. There’s a point in the movie where somebody tells her that half of making your life great is about going out and getting the things that we really want, but the other half, and the more important half, is about the people in our lives who we share it all with. Interesting concept. I do have some really great people in my life, and people who I really appreciate, but in some ways I feel like I am so focused on what I want for my life that I lose sight of that and am slowly losing my connection to these people. The other part of that is that I am so focused on getting the things I want out of life that I am not very open to new people… people who I could be having sex with. Okay, so the sex isn’t really the important part of that who idea, but I think I just have it on the brain today because I have been listening to Nicki Minaj all day, (more on that later,) and her music is very sexual. Whatever it is, it has certainly been running through my mind all day. I have, erm, satisfied that need but I don’t think that was really the answer. It’s not about the physical act of, erm, getting off as much as it is about making a connection. I have said many times lately that this is what is missing from my life. I don’t mean that kind of physical connection, per se, but just a connection at all. I stated that the reason I am staying here in Florida is to work on just that problem but since making that decision I have wound up not focusing on that at all, and focusing on achieving my goals in life instead. It’s difficult for me and I am not entirely sure why. In some ways I feel like all of the people in my life are always putting me off or just don’t care all that much to try to make a connection with me. I’m sure that’s not the case but if it is, I know it is my fault. People have gotten comfortable with and used to me being at arms-length and I can’t imagine why they would see the need to keep trying with me. I don’t try that much when I feel like somebody is keeping me at arms-length, so why should they? The issue here is that I always feel like EVERYBODY is keeping me at arms-length so I feel discouraged from making an effort. It’s all just one big vicious circle. I don’t know how to stop it, but I will continue trying to figure it out.

Today was my Mom’s birthday, but we didn’t really do anything for it. At least, I didn’t. She was out with her boyfriend for most of the day enjoying her time with him. I was perfectly fine with that and glad for her to have a good birthday with him, considering I didn’t really have the cash to do anything special for her. Well, I didn’t before today, anyway. I woke up this morning at 10:30am and didn’t bother trying to go back to sleep. I was still pretty tired, considering I had gone to bed around 3am last night, but I figured it was probably best to just get up and try to keep my sleep pattern fairly regular for next week. I checked my phone and found an email from Sprint on there, but it had an attachment so I wasn’t able to read it on my phone. I got up and checked it on the computer and found that, big surprise, it was another shut-off notice telling me that I had 6 days to pay before service would be shut off. I decided right then and there that instead of paying my dental bill I really should pay off my phone bill and get it current, then pay the current bill when I get paid again and get myself out from under this whole mess of getting a shut off notice every month. I am so sick of that. If there is anything I don’t need in my life, it is stress over the possibility of getting my phone shut off. Not even 10 minutes after waking up and finding this, I got a call from my Mom telling me that my income tax had been deposited last night. I explained what had happened just beforehand to her and how I wanted to pay that instead of paying my dentist, and she told me to go ahead and do it with her debit card info, which was already stored on the Sprint website. My income tax was $612, and that cell phone bill was $241.31, bringing me down to $370.69. It was well worth it for the security of knowing my phone is going to remain on. Plus, I noticed that after paying this amount my current bill is a fair bit less than they have been lately. Those plan changes I made recently have paid off and, once it is actually caught up, should make paying the bill each month considerably easier. Of course, the knowledge that my income tax had come had my head spinning with ideas. The first of those ideas, of course, was getting my Sony Bloggie ordered. I spent a long time looking at the website and reviews for the camera and such before doing anything. I also looked at shipping costs and found that for only an extra $17, I could get 2 business day shipping, which would have it arriving on 2/2 or 2/3, aka, in time for the Owl City concert. When my Mom came home later, I told her about that whole idea and she was like, “Really? That’s stupid. Save that money to go towards something else and just be patient!” As much as it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, she was right. The camera is now ordered, though, and is estimated to arrive between February 4-6th, so Thursday, Friday or Saturday of next week. This could work out well, too, because my friends April and Devin had talked about trying to get together next weekend so I could probably get some fun footage during that. I don’t know what exactly I am going to do, but I’ve got a ton of ideas for this project and am really excited to get started on it. I am really excited that the camera is now officially ordered and I have an actual idea of when it will be in my hands, although it is only estimated. The Sony Bloggie, plus shipping, was $175.57, which leaves $195.12. The plan is still for $100 of that to go towards my first two weeks of music lessons, which will leave $95.12. I need cigarettes, so something like $50 of that will go for that, which will leave me with something like $45 leftover for my own amusement. I am thinking I will use that for a trip to my favorite store in the world, Burlington Coat Factory, for a little bit of new clothes shopping. I know that I don’t really NEED new clothes, but I have been so desperate for them lately. I feel like I probably deserve a little treat in the form of a few new designer t-shirts or something at extremely affordable prices. I haven’t been to Burlington Coat Factory in so long and I have missed it terribly. Of course, I also did a little browsing on both the Calvin Klein and DKNY websites, and could just buy directly from the designer again and have that wonderful feeling of opening up the big box covered in those beautiful logos and have that magical feeling I got when I got my bag in the mail all over again. I swear to God, fashion is absolutely an addiction. Actually, in just talking about this right now I went back to the Calvin Klein and DKNY websites and managed to narrow it down to 4 DKNY shirts I can get for just a smidge over that remaining amount. The only thing on the Calvin Klein site that I felt really “OMG I can’t live without that!” about was a purple Merino wool sweater, but we are kind of on our way out of the time of year where a sweater is necessary, so I figure I will wait it out. It is already on sale, I may be able to wait it out until it is on clearance and the price is brought down even lower. This is the thing with my shopping addiction, though: I am able to manage it very well. I have held off on indulging it really well for quite a while, and now that I am thinking about partaking a little bit I am managing to get 4 designer shirts, direct from the designer and without concern of “imperfections” or anything, for under $50. Of course, I’ve also experienced how crackheads are able to justify partaking in their addictions by saying things like, “Oh, but it’s only a little bit of crack and I didn’t pay that much for it!” Oh well, though. I should really give that money to some sort of charity for Haiti. I really should.

Aside from watching that movie, being horny and spending money, I also acquired some really great music today. Yesterday my friend Devin and I got into a little link-trading on Facebook of indie artists doing covers of popular songs and he introduced me to a really awesome artist I hadn’t been aware of before called Danielle Ate The Sandwich. She has this really great album called “Things People Do” that I downloaded today. This album is very offbeat in the fact that the main instrument on the record is the ukelele. Danielle has a really gorgeous, offbeat voice, though, and manages to crank out some really catchy, interesting songs on her ukelele. I introduced him to a band whose Youtube videos I have been enjoying for quite some time now, called Pomplamoose. I discovered them when I found their cover of the song “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” by Beyonce. Their cover was so much better than the original song and took it to a completely different place and really kind of showcased the beauty in the songwriting of that song, (not the lyrics, of course, but the arrangement and instrumentation is pretty brilliant.) When I watched their video for that song I was completely fascinated by it. They do this really interesting thing with all of their music that they call “Video Songs.” A Video Song is essentially a video of them playing the song where every single sound that is played in the song is somehow visually represented in the video. It is really interesting and inventive the way that they do this, and I immediately had to check out more of their videos. They are pretty brilliant and do a lot of really fun cover songs, but their original music is just as good if not better. After talking about them a bit with Devin, I found myself feeling the need to listen to their album and downloaded a zip file of all of their cover songs, as well. They give really offbeat, fresh new takes on songs like “Mister Sandman,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Nature Boy,” “Favorite Things” and “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. They are brilliant and I definitely recommend checking them out. I also came upon a new mixtape by an artist that has become a favorite of mine recently, rapper/singer Nicki Minaj. She seems to be all over the place lately and a few weeks or a month ago I decided to give her a shot and downloaded her last mixtape “Beam Me Up, Scotty,” which I was really impressed with. That mixtape was really hard-hitting but didn’t have a lot of really catchy stuff on it, aside from a few of my favorite tracks like her take on “Best I Ever Had” by Drake and a song called “Shopaholic” featuring Gucci Mane and Bobby Valentino. In any sense, I was definitely impressed with that mixtape. If I was impressed with that one, I was completely blown away by this new one. As soon as I saw the cover and the title of it, “Barbie World,” I knew this one was going to be right up my alley. “Barbie World” is much more poppy, upbeat and fun than “Beam Me Up, Scotty.” I have listened to it all the way through 5 or 6 times since I downloaded it this afternoon. The intro to this mixtape is, of course, a portion of the song “Barbie Girl” by Aqua, which is kind of a gay classic. That immediately leads into a gorgeous track called “Your Love” which samples and repeats the intro to “No More I Love Yous” by Annie Lennox. After that is a song called “Girlfriend,” which has the catchiest hook of the entire mixtape, I think. Other favorites on this mixtape include her brilliant addition to one of my favorite songs from Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel,” called “Up Out My Face,” her addition to the Lil’ Wayne track “Knockout,” (which, by the way, has also got me really curious about checking out Lil’ Wayne, because this song is amazing,) “Fuck You Silly” which features Cassie, “Get Your Money Up” with Keri Hilson and Keyshia Cole, “Sex In Crazy Places” with Gucci Mane, “Bedrock” by her group Young Money, and my absolute favorite, her remix of “Sweet Dreams” by Beyonce. I had kind of come to absolutely hate that song after my sitting by the radio to win Adam Lambert tickets, because it was playing constantly, but her version has really revitalized the song for me. Her rapping over the instrumental for that song really reminded me how gorgeous the instrumentation for that song really is. The piano riff throughout the verses is beautiful. In fact, that song really reminds me of something that I would like to do with my own music – a heavy beat over a gorgeous piano riff. Interesting. I really don’t give Beyonce the credit she deserves, honestly. She is actually an extremely talented artist. I just hate the fact that so many of her songs are not actually songs that she has written, yet she somehow winds up with top writing credits on them. It just seems wrong to take away the work of another artist and then accept all the accolades and praise for your songwriting abilities. That pisses me off. I also don’t think she is as deserving of the praise and accolades she receives as everybody makes her out to be. I will be completely pissed if she somehow manages to win Album of the Year tomorrow night. “The Fame” has to get that. Gaga is a genuine artist and put an immense amount of work into creating and marketing that record. It is absolutely the Album of the Year. I won’t be as pissed if Taylor Swift gets it, but I really think “The Fame” is the most deserving for that particular award.

Anyway, it is now 2:20am, and I am hoping to get to bed a little earlier than last night so I can hopefully wake up at a decent time tomorrow. What’s on the agenda for tomorrow? Nothing, aside from doing laundry and watching the Grammys. That is all. That is plenty for me, though. I have been nothing if not relaxed today. I may try to watch the third of my downloaded movies for the weekend tomorrow, “Up In The Air” but we’ll see how that goes. Now it is time to get to bed, though.