Chapter 102: Vogue

Since hitting my milestone 100th blog post on Saturday, I’ve been giving a little thought to what I would like to do after this blog ends. I don’t mean what I am going to do with this blog once it is completed – I’ve got a pretty clear outline for that. The thing is, I have come to enjoy blogging. It has become a pretty essential part of my day and, at this point, I kind of don’t want to stop once my year on this blog is up. I don’t necessarily want to maintain a blog like this one after that, though. I have kind of been trying to come up with different ideas for the type of blog I want to write without a big project attached to it – where the project IS the blog, not the blog being a part of a bigger project like this one. I think I have come up with an idea that I really believe could turn into something really great. What idea is that? Well, inspired by “Ugly Betty” and my growing passion for it, I am thinking that I would like to start a fashion blog once I have finished this blog. I know there are a lot of fashion blogs out there, but I have a couple of ideas that would set mine apart from the rest. First of all, I am a person who follows fashion. I love wearing it. I love looking at it. I love taking part in it in any way that I can. Unlike many fashion bloggers out there, though, I am also a person who isn’t really able to afford it. So, due to this fact, my fashion blog would maintain a focus on fashion on a budget, highlighting different ways to get a high-end look without paying high-end prices, using myself, and the fashionable people around me, as inspiration. I also appreciate a lot of different styles and could showcase all types of different styles and how to achieve them without putting yourself in debt. More than any of that, though, my blog would focus not only on different styles and costs of fashion but the effects of it. I would really like to keep a fashion blog that focuses more on the emotional side of fashion. That is the part of fashion that has really pulled me in and caused me to develop the passion I have for it. One of the most influential lines I have ever heard in reference to fashion that has always stuck with me ever since I first heard it is that “fashion has nothing to do with how you look, it is all about how it makes you feel.” This quote is what really caused me to start looking at fashion as a work of art that, like any good work of art, incites emotion in us and provokes thoughts within us we may not have had before. That quote, by the way, did not come from some great fashion genius, like Coco Chanel or Karl Lagerfeld or Tom Ford, but from an episode of “Ugly Betty.” They were cleaning out “the closet” at Mode, the magazine Betty works for, and the entire staff was there fighting over items that they wanted to take home from it. Betty didn’t want any part of it, but her friend Christina happened to put aside a gorgeous Gucci bag for her because it reminded her of a bag that her Mom had given her when she was a kid. Her sister, Hilda, was still upset that her mother gave the bag to Betty instead of her. Betty came to realize by the end of this episode, after walking around with this Gucci bag and feeling like a rock star because of it, that the reason her mother gave her the bag instead of Hilda was because she knew how it would make Betty feel – like she was beautiful and special. I cried like a baby when I saw that episode. That is the type of thing I would like to write about in my fashion blog. I have a lot of different ideas for a fashion blog, really, but at this point it is nothing more than an idea. I have enough on my plate currently and really shouldn’t be considering taking on new projects until I have completed some of the ones I am already working on. It is interesting, though, because this morning my “twittascope,” (a horoscope service on Twitter,) said “Opening your mind to think about your goals from a wider perspective can be very enlightening as you see possibilities that you previously overlooked.” I definitely believe that to be true and this concept, which had passed through my mind but never really stuck, just kind of flooded over me today. I definitely think it is something that will be worth looking into down the road.

Speaking of looking into things, I REALLY need to get on the ball and start looking into alternative routes to take for music lessons. I still wonder if I may not have been a little hasty in canceling my lessons with Eliezer Rivera. If I have learned anything about myself over the years, it is that if I am wondering if I made a wrong choice I probably did. However, I have also learned that any time I do find that I have made a wrong choice, there is absolutely ALWAYS an alternative option or a way to remedy the situation. So, I may or may not have made a wrong choice in not taking lessons with Eliezer Rivera, but either way I know that I will be able to find something else that will work out just as well, if not better, for me. I’ve been reading the new Yehuda Berg book, “The Power To Change Everything,” and it has really made me realize a couple of things. First of all, it has made me realize that God or the Universe or whatever you happen to believe in, really wants you to have a happy, fulfilled life and, for that reason, it built you equipped with everything you could possibly need to make your every dream come true. Then it sends you off into the world and leaves you to make those choices for yourself. All of the things I dream of and am working towards becoming – singer/songwriter, photographer, fashion blogger, fashion designer, artist, inspiration – are all things that I already am. I just have to make the right choices to uncover those things. Like Jewel said, we are all blocks of stone waiting to be chiseled into something beautiful – but the something beautiful is already inside the block of stone and it is our jobs to chisel away all the excess and unnecessary pieces that surround it to get down to what we truly are underneath. Another thing I have learned from this book is that we all are a community. Anybody that we are bonded with is a part of our community – be it bonded in the sense that they are people that we choose to have as a part of our lives or bonded in the sense that they are simply our fellow human beings. We are all one community and we should treat one another as such. It is far to easy to sit by watch people be hateful towards one another, and even easier to be hateful towards people yourself. The more courageous, powerful thing to do is to treat others as if they are just as much a part of you as a member of your family is, because they actually are. We need to stop ourselves from writing others off so easily and simply giving up on people when they do things that we don’t agree with. I don’t know. It just seems like such a simple concept, but it is very difficult to do. One other thing that really stuck out to me from reading this book is the idea that the people creating problems in the world are not the only ones to blame for those problems. The blame also falls on the people who allow these problems to keep occurring. We have the power to change any situation that is taking place in our lives and if we don’t make the choice to change things then we can really only blame ourselves for the pain that is caused by them. Most importantly, though, is the lesson that, in the words of Mahatma Ghandi, we have to “be the change we want to see in the world.” How can we ever expect anybody else to make changes if we are not willing to make these changes for ourselves? These are all very important, valuable lessons that I have learned from this book and ones that I am going to do my best to heed moving forward in life.

It was a pretty uneventful day at work. I think that is because today was President’s Day and people probably expected us to be closed because of it. I hadn’t realized that before and am now slightly concerned about my new debit card coming in the mail. My gorgeous banker, Matt, told me that the card would come in the mail in 7-10 days, but I assume those are business days and that could wind up extending out as far as next Thursday. I am really hoping that it comes sooner than that. We’ll see, though. He did say that they tend to be pretty quick about these things, so hopefully that will work out in my favor and I will have it by this weekend. Why this weekend? Well, first of all, this weekend I will have the extra money from working all that overtime and would like to be able to spend a little chunk of it on Sheryl Crow tickets, and possibly some online shopping. Also, it just feels very weird to me to have $100 just sitting in some bank that I don’t really have access to. I don’t know why I am obsessing about this, though, because that is exactly where that $100 was before, except this time it is under my name instead of my Moms. So, really, that is an upgrade. I don’t know why, but I am really hoping to get the card by the end of this week. I am thinking of trying to make plans with a few friends for this weekend – the usual suspects of Nate & Whitney, and probably April & Devin, as well. I am kind of thinking it could be fun to just hang out with April & Devin, though, and maybe spend some of that money on taking them out to dinner. We haven’t done that in a long time and I think it could be fun. I kind of feel like Nate & Whitney are kind of doing their own thing right now and I don’t really want to interrupt. That sounds silly, I know, but it is how I feel and I guess I am going to go with it. Maybe I will see what Rachel is up to this weekend. I like hanging out with her a lot and think I really need to do more of it.

The highlight of my day was using my new Ulta eyeshadow primer, which didn’t fade from the time I put it on around 7:15am until I took it off around 10:30pm. It’s a beautiful thing – I am kind of obsessed! I went for a bit of a subtle look today, with brown eyeliner and shadow, with a light dusting of sparkly pink underneath. I liked it a lot and it was a very cool alternative to my usual black/grey/silver combination. I really love experimenting with makeup right now and am constantly coming up with different ideas to work with and such. It is a really fun way to express yourself visually and add an external visual representation of your mood and personality that is literally “written all over your face.” It is really cool. I missed makeup a lot. This is just another part of my fashion obsession lately. I think makeup works much the same way as fashion, in the sense that it is less about the way you look than it is about the way it makes you feel. Wearing makeup makes me feel like I am saying something without having to say anything at all. I feel like it tells people things about me before they ever speak to me. It also makes me feel prettier, as gay as that may sound, and more confident as I walk through my day. It definitely adds a bit of a bounce to my usual strut. I once said, jokingly, that I feel like the whole world is my own personal runway. I was only joking but, as the saying goes, there is some truth to every joke. I really do try to walk, talk and act confidently, artfully, gracefully and proudly at all times – just like a model does on a runway.

I don’t know. All I do know is that I am having fun right now in life. Sure, there are things that could be going better but there are also a lot of things that seem to be going perfectly. Like I mentioned above, I know that the things that could be going better are simply choices that I have yet to make. Now is the time for making choices, though, and I am ready and willing to make those choices. For now, though, there is really only one choice I am going to make, and that is the choice to go to bed. Overtime has ended, which means I can get up at 7:30am instead of 6:30am and will be able to workout with my Mom in the morning. See! Already, things are moving in the right direction! Like I said, though, the only direction I am heading in right this second is towards the bed. I am exhausted. Back to regular routine tomorrow, and I am really glad for that.