Chapter 107: My Image Unlimited

We’ve all heard the phrase “All dressed up with no place to go,” right? Most of us have even had the experience at one point or another, I’m sure. I know I have. As a matter of fact, that wound up being the theme of the day here in my house. Last night when my sister dropped me off she told me to call her when I got up because she was going to take me shopping. After passing out in the middle of writing last night’s blog, I woke up around 8am this morning. I got up and went out into the living room and fell back to sleep on the couch watching an episode of Oprah. I didn’t wake up until around 11am and decided to actually stay up at that point. I brushed my teeth and sat down to finish writing the blog from last night, then spent a little time being lazy and sitting in front of the computer. I figured that I would give my sister and her girlfriend a little time to get around and get things done or whatever before they came to get me. Finally, I called around 12:30pm and my sister told me that she had to take care of a few things and would give me a call shortly when they were leaving the house. So, I dicked around online for a little while longer before deciding, “Hey, they’ll probably be coming soon, so I should get dressed.” I took a shower and put on this Calvin Klein polo shirt that I haven’t worn in months. I hadn’t worn it in so long because I felt like it fit me kind of funny. Call me crazy, but I was almost expecting it to fit better now. It didn’t fit any better, of course, which I knew wouldn’t happen because it’s not like I’ve lost any weight at this point. The workout plan hasn’t gone the best since beginning – not that it hasn’t been good, but it hasn’t been regular enough at this point to garner any real results, I don’t think. If this shirt was any indication, then it is clear that there have not been any real results yet. I am not discouraged by this knowledge, though. I know that it doesn’t happen overnight and I have to dedicate myself to the process a little bit better than I have been. It just seems like there have been a lot of obstacles recently. However, I have studied Kabbalah long enough to recognize that obstacles are nothing if not opportunities to rise above. This Calvin Klein polo is brown and has a gray and blue design on it and I used this as an opportunity to experiment a little more with blue eyeshadow. I did a small line of dark brown shadow along my lash line then blue across the rest of my lid and brown liner on the bottom lash line. It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I am really into brown liner lately. It’s subtler than black liner, but still shows and makes it’s own statement. I am slowly becoming less into black makeup, honestly. I just feel like black makeup is so closely associated with the whole goth scene, and that is the furthest thing from what I am trying to do with makeup. Plus, I learned a thing or two about using lighter colors today, (which I will discuss further later.)

By the time I was finished with my shower, hair and makeup it was nearly 2pm and I still hadn’t heard from my sister. So, I sat down to watch some TV shows from the past week that I had missed. I went to watch yesterday’s episode of “The View” and found that the first 30 minutes or so were not there. Why wouldn’t they be there? Well, there was a breaking news story that interrupted it. It must have been some major news for my local ABC affiliate to be interrupting their airing of “The View,” right? In general, they only interrupt “The View” for MAJOR breaking news, or Presidential addresses and things of that nature. This was none of those things. What was it? FUCKING TIGER WOODS. I really dislike that guy. Unlike most of America, though, my distaste for him has nothing to do with those fourteen random girls he fucked. No, I disliked him long before that ever happened, although it does tie in to that a bit. I just hate the way that he has always been portrayed as this model citizen, “goody-two-shoes” type. I dislike that in any celebrity. There is a lot of talk about people being positive role models for our youth and such, but I don’t think somebody with an image like Tiger Woods had prior to this scandal is a positive role model. In fact, I think those types may be even worse for people than the Lindsay Lohans and Paris Hiltons of the world. How is that possible? Well, Tiger Woods was setting an extremely unrealistic example for kids. Lindsay and Paris may be setting a negative example, but at least it is one that is possible. Kids don’t need to be faced with people who are supposed to be “perfection” because they are never going to be perfection themselves. What they need to see are people who make mistakes and rise above them. Who do I think is a great role model? Katharine McPhee, who was open with the world about her battles with bulimia and now discusses it frankly and honestly in interviews. She is a great example of a person who has had problems but has kept on going and gotten past them. Mandy Moore is another excellent role model, having suffered from depression and gone through relationship troubles and managed to channel it all into art. I just believe that what kids need to see are people who have faced troubles in their lives and persevered, because every one of those kids are going to face some pretty tough issues in life and they need to see people who have been able to rise above it. So, in some ways, I think this whole Tiger Woods debacle has been a positive thing because it has knocked him off the pedestal so many people had him on. As far as my thoughts on his apology and speech, I found it kind of insincere. I’m sure he meant what he was saying, but he should have just spoken candidly instead of reading a pre-written statement. It would have garnered much more sympathy from the world and would have come across much more genuine. Also, I don’t really give a shit about his family or whether or not he will return to golf, so my opinion on the whole thing probably doesn’t matter anyway.

I also watched a fascinating episode of Oprah, where her guests were Jim Jones Jr. and Karen Gacy. Jim Jones Jr. is the son of Jim Jones, the founder of the People’s Temple cult and perpetrator of the Jonestown Massacre. For those who don’t know, People’s Temple was originated as a church of “apostolistic socialists,” (Wikipedia’s words, not mine,) who wanted to eradicate racial, economical and any other labels that separated human from human. They were really working for a good cause, all in all, in my opinion. However, their methods were certainly questionable – to the point that members of this church were living their lives solely for the church, turning over 100% of their income to Jim Jones, etc. In 1977, after receiving a lot of criticism from the media here in the U.S., the church organized a mass migration to a large area they had purchased and cultivated in Guyana, that they wound up naming Jonestown. Nearly 1,000 members of this church picked up and moved to Jonestown. These people were promised a sort of utopia in Jonestown, which it appeared to be for a short while. Then, after the arrival of Jim Jones, it became a bit of a living hell. They were forced to labor 12 hours a day and spend the rest of their time studying socialism and were even said to have been subjected to some forms of mind-control and behavior modification techniques. Essentially, it was a mess. In 1978, after claims from a few families in the U.S. that loved ones were being held against their will in Jonestown, Congressman Leo Ryan paid Jonestown a visit to see what exactly was going on there. Jim Jones, of course, worked to make everything appear happy and good there but eventually two residents there told journalists who had accompanied Congressman Ryan on his visit that they were being held against their will and wanted to leave. So, Jim Jones made it out as if they were free to go. Then, as Congressman Ryan, the journalists and the two residents were attempting to leave a group of Peoples Temple members ambushed and murdered them on the airstrip they were leaving from. This is when the shit hit the fan. After this happened, Jim Jones gathered the 900something members of Peoples Temple that were there in Jonestown and forced them all to drink from a giant vat of Kool-Aid, which also happened to be laced with Cyanide. 909 people all stood there in line and knowingly drank this Kool-Aid and committed the largest mass suicide in history. It’s pretty insane that this is a part of our nation’s history. I had heard of the Jonestown Massacre before, but never knew what it was actually all about. How insane is it that this actually happened? Here I thought Heaven’s Gate was some crazy shit. The worst part of the whole Peoples Temple/Jonestown situation, though, is that these people weren’t just following some bat-shit crazy guy telling them they were doing God’s work or something, (although, they were,) but they all were working towards a goal that they genuinely believed in. Worse than that, they were working towards a goal that I genuinely believe in. I guess it just goes to show that positive intentions don’t always garner positive results, particularly when your leader gets drunk with power and goes completely insane. Jonestown is a very long involved story, though, but a fascinating one. Jim Jones Jr. survived this situation because he happened to be traveling outside of Jonestown when the incident took place. His father radioed to him and the fellow members that were traveling together instructing them to commit suicide, as well. He did not but, from what I understand, some of the others with him did. There were only seven or so survivors, of the people who were actually in Jonestown that day. I am just so shocked to learn all of this. It is such a monumental incident in our history and I just find it so shocking that this is the first I am actually learning the details of it. In any sense, it was a really good episode of Oprah. John Wayne Gacy’s sister didn’t really have anything too interesting to say, except that to her he had always been a really good person and she loved him in spite of his crimes. Oprah also tossed around a few theories about him being such a repressed homosexual that he wound up going insane, which I found fascinating because I always thought that about Jeffrey Dahmer. I wonder if that may be some sort of recurring theme in serial killers. Aileen Wuornos was gay, too. I don’t know. I don’t follow serial killers well enough to know of any patterns amongst them, except that a lot of them have the middle name Wayne. That is my brother’s middle name. Interesting.

Anyway, 5pm rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from my sister. I called her again and she told me they had driven down to Port Charlotte or some shit down in that direction to get a movie that her girlfriend’s daughter needed for school and she would call me once they got home. So, here I had been sitting here dressed and ready to go all day long and it seemed pretty clear that I wasn’t going to wind up going anywhere. What’s worse is the fact that I hadn’t even eaten because I figured I would get something while I was out with them. So, after this I figured it would be a while before anything happened if it were going to happen, so I decided to have a bowl of Cupcake Pebbles. I also watched an Oprah “make-under” episode and an episode of “The Robert Verdi Show starring Robert Verdi.” Robert Verdi, for those who don’t know, is a celebrity stylist and television personality. He recently got his own show on Logo, which is hilarious. I love this show and find him pretty inspiring. I can relate to him in a lot of ways, honestly. In the opening credits of the show he says, “Some people think I have it all – those people are blind…” and he starts listing all these random things he wants. Every episode of the show is centered around him trying to come up with a new scheme to expand his brand. The first episode was about him trying to become an internationally beloved children’s character and this episode was about him trying to create an international diet craze. Throughout each episode he comes up with about a million different random ideas he wants to do and has his staff try to make these things happen. Basically, he is exactly what I would be if I happened to have a staff and I like seeing what that’s like. I’ve got to say, I like it a lot!

I’m not sure how exactly it happened, but somehow I managed to find myself watching makeup tutorials on YouTube. I had never done that before, but my friend Whitney has told me about it and somehow I wound up doing it today. It kind of sucks you in and after just watching one out of curiosity I wound up sitting here watching a whole string of them for over an hour. Of course, at this point I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t be leaving the house today since it was after 8pm and I still hadn’t heard back from my sister, so I decided to get back into pajamas and take off the makeup I had on so I could try to use some of the tips I had learned from YouTube. One thing I have always been really curious about is how to make your eyes appear larger since mine happen to be small-ish. Well, these girls on YouTube taught me that it is all about using lighter colors and doing it a little higher up than I usually do. Also, it seems like keeping eyeliner very thin on the inside of the eye, (the area closest to your nose,) and going thicker on the outside, as well as blending some darker shadow on the outside, gives the illusion of bigger, brighter, wider eyes. I must say, I gave it a try and the pretty little asian girl on YouTube who taught me all this stuff was absolutely right! She’s my pretend BFF now.

So, around 10pm I decided to go ahead and call my sister again, not to see if she was still coming, (duh, she wasn’t,) but to see if she could pick me up tomorrow and take me to a store. In the midst of all of these makeup tutorials, I realized that I need more, and better, makeup brushes. I also need to pick up that facial cleanser I looked at last weekend at Ulta. My Mom called me earlier today to tell me that she found some Avon eye makeup remover somewhere she was at for super cheap, so that is no longer on the list of shit I need. I am also hoping that I may be able to wind up at Burlington Coat Factory and pick up some new clothes still. Amidst everything else I did today, I have spent much of the day looking at clothes on Ebay. I found this company called Youstar, based out of Hong Kong, who makes really gorgeous clothes that I kind of really want to buy. We’ll see how that goes, though, once I actually get my debit card. I am holding off on any further Ebay purchases until that happens, although I am currently the highest bidder on a MAC 120 color eyeshadow palette that I am pretty excited about. Of course, that auction doesn’t end until Friday. I don’t doubt that I should have my debit card by then. I am limiting myself right now, though. I already ordered the Galliano shirt, and I fully intend to buy the Cavalli shirt I have been talking about once my debit card arrives. Aside from that, the only other purchase I will make on there right now is the MAC palette, should it not go any higher than my current maximum bid… and maybe if it does, but doesn’t go TOO much higher. I am also waiting on my debit card to buy my Sheryl Crow tickets, although I find myself questioning that whole thing at this point. I’m not sure why, honestly, but I kind of keep telling myself I can’t afford it. I have already laid out in my head multiple times how I can, but for some reason I keep getting this feeling like there is something I’m not factoring in that would make it less affordable for me. I can’t imagine what it is, though, and for now the plan is still to move forward with buying those tickets as soon as I get my debit card and deposit some of my check into the bank.

It is now after 3am, and it’s been a few weeks since I have been up this late. I don’t want to make a habit of it again, so I am going to try to go to sleep now. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be writing a blog going on about all the fabulous new clothes I spent less than $100 on. We’ll see how that goes, though. For now, sleep is where I’m going.