Chapter 145: Surrounded

So, let me just start by saying that the drama surrounding this week’s piano lesson continues. The reason I open with this is because it was the main focus of much of my day today. I wondered to myself why this was stressing me out so much – after all, $15 for a cab there isn’t such an ungodly amount and would likely be well worth just getting to the lesson and not having to worry about it anymore. Perhaps this stress is about an underlying issue – tomorrow I am expected to actually play something for the first time in my lessons. Not only am I expected to play something but expected to play something that I, very foolishly, put off even trying to practice until today. It’s a very short, simple piece called “Computer Games” but at this point I am pretty much a complete train wreck playing it. That’s not entirely true, actually – I am pretty good with the right hand portion of it. The left hand portion is where the train wreck takes place. That’s not entirely true, either – I am kind of okay with the left hand part. The train wreck really takes place when I try to put the two together. It just sounds like a giant mess. I can’t help but feel like had I been practicing it all week it would sound somewhat better by this point but, as it is, it pretty much sounds like shit right now. This means I have to walk in there tomorrow and play something that sounds completely ridiculous and bad. Obviously, I recognize that this is my own fault and I deserve whatever embarrassment I suffer from going in there and playing like shit, but that doesn’t help alleviate the feeling of having to go in there and be shitty. It certainly doesn’t help that I have to pay $15 to get there to go in and be shitty. It sucks. I am taking these lessons very seriously in my head, but obviously not practicing until the day before my lesson doesn’t reflect that at all. I just feel really ashamed of myself for this, honestly. I don’t know why I can’t bring the left and right hands together – I had this same problem when just learning to play random songs from YouTube tutorials. I was always really good with the right hand, less good with the right hand and a huge mess when trying to pull the two together. I don’t know what it is but it just hasn’t clicked in my head yet. I haven’t had my “a-ha” moment at the piano yet. I know I will, though. Those “a-ha” moments are kind of what I live for these days. I’ve had a lot of “a-ha” moments over the years, honestly.

For example, I have fancied myself a singer all of my life. It has been something I have felt incredibly passionate about and have loved to do for literally as long as I can remember. There has not been a single point in my life where singing wasn’t something that I have absolutely loved and wanted to do with my life. On my 18th birthday I went out to my very first gay bar and it happened to be karaoke night. Me being me, I got up and sang some silly Spice Girls song and got absolutely no reaction at all from the crowd and I remember feeling like, “Oh shit, maybe I’m not as good at this as I think.” I still had a lot of fun with it, though, and my sister, my best friend and I all started going every week to this same bar. As we kept going, I kept getting the same non-reaction from the crowd there and I wasn’t sure what was wrong. My sister told me I wasn’t projecting and I needed to be clearer. My best friend was full of encouragement, as he knew how much singing meant to me. I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I tried singing different types of songs and such and nothing seemed to work. Then one night we were there and I decided to try my hand at this song that I had fallen in love with years before, called “Surrounded” by Chantal Kreviazuk. It’s a pretty slow song and nobody in that entire bar, much less anywhere else, had ever heard it before. I was honestly surprised that this bar even had it for karaoke. Still, I loved the song and felt a connection to it and decided to get up and sing it. As I was singing it, I felt absolutely amazing. Like I said, I really felt a connection to this song and just sang my little heart out and, for the first time, I actually got a reaction from the crowd. I had people coming up to me afterwards giving compliments and everything. Most importantly, though, is that while I was singing that song I had my big “a-ha” moment where I realized that if you are really feeling what you are singing, people will see that and they will feel the feelings along with you and you will make a connection. That is what singing is truly about. Despite the fact that this was just some random gay bar in Riverside, CA, and didn’t really mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things it was the first time that I finally felt confirmation that I could sing and, more importantly, that I could make a connection with people through music. That is one of the most powerful lessons I have ever learned and one that I carry with me every single day of my life.

On the topic of “a-ha” moments brought on by nights in karaoke bars, I also learned another lesson – good singing is enough to make a connection, but if you really want to grab people’s attention you’ve got to put on a show. I have always been a very outgoing person and have always loved being the center of attention in any and every situation. There was no place this was truer than anywhere there was a stage and a microphone. I spent a long time doing karaoke in a variety of different venues and had a lot of fun with it but I was never quite getting the over-the-top, “OMG-WE-FUCKING-LOVE-IT” reaction out of people I had always wanted. Then one day when I was living in Joshua Tree, CA, my sister and I stumbled upon this little coffee shop in town called The Beatnik Café. Joshua Tree is one of those towns where there is absolutely nothing going on and my sister and I were really kind of lost, miserable and bored out of our minds living there until we came upon The Beatnik Café. We just stumbled upon it one day and talked with the couple that owned it for a while, and we both just completely fell in love with the place. They told us that they had karaoke there two nights a week and being as bored as we were, we decided to give it a shot. The Beatnik Café became our solace in this quiet little town. We made friends with the owners and a lot of the regulars and we started hanging out there pretty much every day of the week. Karaoke night was always our favorite, though. I went in there and decided to try a different approach to karaoke than I had before and decided to try putting on a real performance rather than just standing and singing. So, I put in a song for myself – something a little different than my usual fare, and decided to really attack it. The song was “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and I essentially faked a very loud woman’s orgasm on stage, while writhing around and thrusting and being extremely perverse on the stage. Suddenly I found that I had the “OMG-WE-FUCKING-LOVE-IT” reaction that I had been waiting for and from then on every time my name was called to sing, people turned to watch and paid attention. It was pretty great, except that then any time I tried to do something a little more serious people all seemed kind of disappointed with it and I had put myself into the category of people who sing “fun” songs and make a spectacle of themselves. Sure, people would still compliment my vocal abilities and such but that wasn’t the reason they wanted to watch me perform. I struggled with that for a long time after that until I had another kind of “a-ha” moment at the Beatnik Café.

As much as we were hanging out there, the owners and friends that we had made there were always telling us about the Open Mic Nights they had every Wednesday night. For one reason or another, Wednesday was the one night of the week that we never really went there. I think Open Mic Night had a lot to do with that, actually, because that tiny little place was always insanely crowded on Open Mic Night. Of course, considering the fact that I started writing lyrics and melodies when I was only 13 years old, I was really curious about the Open Mic Night and how exactly that went down. I talked to the owners a bit about the fact that I had been writing lyrics and melodies for so long and wondered if anybody ever showed up to Open Mic Night and just sang a cappella. They told me that it wasn’t common but they also really encouraged me to come down and try it. They told me all about how people were really supportive of one another at Open Mic Night and how much they would like to see me try. Initially, I was too scared to try it out but after working a bit on some of the songs I had been writing around that time I finally decided to go down and try it. I had my sister, my best friend and my stepsister, who was basically our only friend when we moved to Joshua Tree, all there to support me. I got up on the stage at Open Mic Night, in front of the largest crowd The Beatnik Café could possibly hold, and sang this extremely personal song that I had written called “If You’d Have Stayed.” I sat on a stool on the stage with a mic in front of me, my legs shaking uncontrollably and making my voice kind of shaky, as well, and sang the entire song a cappella. I kept my eyes shut pretty much the entire time and kind of allowed myself to get lost in the song. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and one I that I strive to have again someday soon. It was the very first time in my entire life than anybody aside from my Mom, my sister and my best friend had ever heard me sing an original song of my very own. The reception was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn’t believe it – so many people came up to me afterwards and told me how great the song was and how impressive my voice was for just singing a cappella. I was stunned and on a major high. I kind of became addicted to Open Mic Night after that, although I didn’t perform that often. I just fell in love with going down on that night and watching all the other artists perform and feeling like I was a part of this really fascinating community of artists. Of course, I did continue to perform on that night as well, and the owners actually told me that I was their favorite person to perform on Open Mic Nights, which really meant the world to me to hear. I just loved the fact that people could make a connection and really take something from the songs I had written myself. That is really one of the greatest feelings one could ever possibly have. Sadly, since leaving Joshua Tree I have only performed an original song in public one other time, back in 2007 at the Starbucks in downtown Sarasota, by Whole Foods. The people there weren’t overly impressed with it except for the one person who I was performing it for, anyway – the person I had written the song about. That’s a story for another day.

Essentially, the point is that I have had many “a-ha” moments in my life… I just haven’t had one with the piano yet. I KNOW that it’s coming. I know there will come a moment when the whole thing clicks in my head and I will just suddenly figure it out and make the connection I am waiting for and depending on with the piano. I am on the road to reaching my destiny and the piano is an integral part of making it all happen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times more – the Universe is working in my favor and it will make sure that I get this right. In the meantime, though, I have to make it right for myself. That means I cannot have a repeat of this week, where I put off practicing until the day before my lesson. If I am going to take it as seriously in my life as I am in my head then I cannot allow myself to slack off and screw things up. I have to make sure that I keep everything absolutely on point and MOVING FORWARD. That is the most important part of it all – moving forward. I have every intention of moving forward with this and, with the help of the Universe, I WILL have my “a-ha” moment and it will be fucking beautiful. I just know it. I cannot wait.

Chapter 144: Waiting For Wednesday

So, I came upon a bit of a dilemma today. Let me start from the beginning, though. The plan I discussed last night to NOT stay up all night listening to the nerdist.com podcast actually worked out and I was asleep by 12:30am. Unfortunately, I still woke up about 45 minutes late. This wasn’t much of a problem this morning because I didn’t have plans for working out or anything, so I was able to just get up, eat some oatmeal and get in the shower and prepare for the day. I took a cab to work because my Mom was out of town this weekend and wasn’t getting back until her start time today at 11:30am. I almost kind of thought about going in late and riding to work with her, but that would be pointless issues and if I was going to go that far I may as well just call in sick, and I definitely cannot afford to call in sick. After all, I am working on my “free” check this pay period, so there will be no fucking around and missing time. I want my “free” check to be as much as possible so I have even more extra money to spend. I am already coming up with all kinds of things to spend money on when that time comes. I probably won’t wind up with near as much as I am dreaming of at this point, though. I owe my Mom some money and I have to pay on my cell phone bill and I would also really like to set some aside. I will probably only end up splurging on some makeup, although I already intend to splurge on some makeup with the paycheck I am getting this weekend. Have I mentioned yet on here how in love I am with NYX cosmetics? I really am. All of their stuff is high quality and stays on really well, but is also really affordable. Plus, they make so many colors that go on in a really intense, bright, bold color, which I love and want to incorporate more of into my day-to-day look. Over the weekend I watched a whole bunch of makeup tutorials on YouTube by people using NYX Cosmetics and came up with a bunch of really cool looks that can be done with their stuff. Plus, the founder and CEO of NYX, Toni K., was a guest judge on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” tonight and she was fucking fierce! NYX is the official sponsor of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and it is the makeup used by all the queens on that show. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times – I want to look like a drag queen, damn it! I am just kidding, of course, but I do want to do some of the magic that drag queens manage to do with makeup. So, I plan on doing a major NYX haul over the next few paychecks. Should be tons of fun for me! I’m excited!

So, the pre-work part of the morning passed rather quickly and when I got to work I became aware of my dilemma right away. My sister told me that she has to work until 6pm on Wednesday, the day of my piano lesson. In general, that wouldn’t be an issue at all and would actually work out perfectly. Yes, it would work out perfectly if my sister were an agent. Unfortunately, though, my sister is a supervisor and that comes with all kinds of reports to be done at the end of the day, as well as having to wait around until every agent is off the phone. I have seen my sister work until 6pm and, more often than not, it means she has to work until closer to 6:30-6:45pm. All of this adds up to me not having a ride to my piano lesson on Wednesday night. I am left with two choices here – I can either try to reschedule or cancel my lesson or shell out something like $15 to take a cab there. The best solution would be to reschedule. My sister said that if I could get it moved to Thursday or Friday, she would be glad to go ahead and take me. If I just cancel then I lose the money that I pre-paid for this week’s lesson. If I take a cab then I am spending nearly the cost of the lesson to get to the lesson. I definitely want to try to still get there and still take this week’s lesson and, like I said, the best solution would be to reschedule. I’m just not sure how well I will be able to pull that off. I guess that depends on Viktor. I called the Allegro Academy to attempt to reschedule today but the woman I reached, (the same woman who cancelled my first appointment when I said I wanted to keep it,) said I would need to talk to Viktor about rescheduling but that he was in a lesson. She took my number and said that he would call me back. He never did. The issue that comes in, as well, is that the Allegro Academy has a 24-hour cancellation policy and if you need to cancel a lesson but don’t do it within 24 hours of your appointment time then you lose your money. If you have to cancel and do it within 24 hours then your money can be applied to a future lesson. They also have a policy about “Make Up Lessons,” that basically says that you are only allowed 2 make up lessons per year and beyond that, you are just kind of screwed if you have to miss one of your lessons. So, I am kind of scared to use one of those up already. I don’t know if rescheduling for another day this week would count towards that or not. I’m not sure how exactly that works. It concerns me, though, because I’m not sure when I may need to miss an appointment in the future. After all, I know that I am going to wind up needing to spend a few days down in Fort Meyers for my brother’s wedding and I don’t know if that may wind up interfering with my lessons or not. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I definitely need to figure it out tomorrow. It would have been really helpful, of course, if I had been able to actually speak to Viktor today. I will try again tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to reach the girl who is usually at the front desk – she is much more coherent to speak with than the one I have gotten the past few times and is really nice and friendly. All I know is that I need to get this issue sorted by tomorrow. Hopefully I will just be able to reschedule for Thursday or Friday and have the whole situation be easily resolved.

Work passed pretty quickly, surprisingly, considering we were missing a couple of people. One of my favorite co-workers was kind enough to step up when my other evening worker called out and we actually got to have a pretty good talk this evening, which I enjoyed. I really enjoy getting to know the people I work with better, although I do sometimes feel like the more I know the less I actually wish I knew. That is not the case for the person I worked with this evening but definitely is for some of the others. We actually recently moved our seats and are going to have a brand new account sharing our row now, which I am kind of excited about. I do like most of the people I work with but I am pretty excited to have a whole group of brand new people sitting by me. I feel like it is really important to have your surroundings switched up every now and then and to be around new people sometimes. After all, you never know what one of those people could be to you – any random stranger you meet has the potential to be your new BFF, your worst enemy or even the love of your life. More importantly, though, is that every random stranger you come across has the potential to teach you something new about yourself. I feel like I don’t take advantage of that potential very often and I really should. In any sense, I am excited to have a whole group of new people around.

When I got home from work I sat down in front of the TV and watched the new episode of “Jessica Simpson’s The Price Of Beauty,” which saw Jessica travel to Mumbai where she learned all about Bollywood. The thing I really love about that show is the fact that every episode features a lot of fun examples of the concepts of beauty in the different cultures but also features a truly fascinating, captivating story of a real person in these cultures. Tonight’s episode featured a little girl in Mumbai who was born with a really bad cleft palette and, with the help of Operation Smile, they were able to provide a free surgery to repair that and give this little girl the beautiful smile that she deserves. It really brought a tear to my eye. Every episode of this show so far has done that to me, though. It’s just a really intelligent show in the sense that it can lure people in with all of the fun, frivolous beauty tips and such that they learn in all these different regions but it also then provides the viewer with a genuine emotional experience with stories like the one this little girl in Mumbai had to tell. It really is a beautiful thing they are doing and, despite some shallow moments here and there, I think this series is a very powerful thing for people to see. I really appreciate the fact that this series was produced and is being aired. I think it is of the utmost importance to show people that they can feel and truly be beautiful no matter what. This is a message that is very close to my heart and I am so grateful to the people who put this show together for doing this for the world. When my Mom got home we went out and got dinner from Gyros & Seafood and came home to watch “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Sadly, my favorite queen, the hilarious Miss Pandora Boxx, was eliminated tonight. I knew she wasn’t going to be the winner but I was still very sad to see her go. The show is pretty predictable from this point forward – there is a very clear winner amongst the group and now it is just a matter of watching it play out. I’m going to be sad to see this series end. Fortunately, what I consider the very vest show on television at this point is returning very soon – on April 13, “Glee” is back! I am extremely excited for all the new music that is going to come of this and to see what they are going to do next with this brilliant cast of characters. It really is my favorite thing on TV right now and this extended break they’ve taken has really sucked.

I don’t really have much else to say, honestly. I have taken a lot of the feelings that I have expressed over the past few days and decided that what I need to do with these things, my relationships with the people I love, is make the effort to improve them myself. I haven’t quite figured out how exactly I am going to do that but I’m sure I will. After all, if I don’t try to correct these things how can I expect anybody else to? This is something I have come to realize in a lot of different ways recently – I can’t expect anything from anybody else if I am not willing to make the effort to do the same myself. So, from this point forward, I am going to put out as much as I want to get back. I am going to do whatever I can to really try to make a difference in my life. A good friend of mine left a comment on my blog saying that if I want these things to improve I am going to have to reach out for them to happen. She also made mention of the fact that I am pretty good at going about life that way in every other area, which is true, so why wouldn’t I apply that same sort of attitude to my relationships with others? That whole concept had never really occurred to me before but it makes perfect sense. I guess sometimes the simplest things are the ones that we are less likely to see for ourselves and need to be shown. I am very grateful to this friend for showing me this one. Now it is a matter of actually applying it. We’ll see how that goes. For now, though, it is 12:42am and I should really get to bed. Good night.

Chapter 143: This Time

So, you know that thing that the infamous “they” say about “the best laid plans?” Well, it is absolutely true. For example, today my plan was to complete filming and at least begin the editing process for the premiere episode of my YouTube series. That plan fell through pretty quickly when I tried to film another segment for it this afternoon and my camera died in the middle of the process. I stopped and thought about it and suddenly it dawned on me – Cameras, much like any other portable electronics, need to be charged in order to keep on operating. I hadn’t actually charged it in at least two weeks, so I should really be surprised that it managed to film the stuff that it did yesterday. I noticed the battery getting low yesterday but for some reason I just didn’t think to plug it in to charge then. Silly of me, I know, but that kind of ruined my plans for today. It also ruined my hopes of being able to have the whole thing filmed, edited and ready to post by Monday. Unfortunately, this may cause some serious delays in the process of actually getting this thing posted. Just thinking in terms of time over the next few days, I can certainly get finished filming, but I am having trouble figuring out when I would be able to find time to edit the whole thing. This may be a blessing in disguise, though, because I think I may have gotten myself in a bit of a rush to get finished and am now considering re-working some of the segments that I’ve already filmed. What I’ve done so far has been pretty good – but I think it could be better. I think I am capable of much better than I have done so far, so much so that I am considering scrapping everything that I’ve done so far and starting all over and delaying the actual posting of the video for a whole week. We’ll see, though. I just want to make sure that if I am going to do this that I am doing it to the best of my ability. After all, what is the point of doing anything creative if you aren’t going to do it to the best of your abilities?

On Friday night I was kind of poking around on iTunes and came across something that seemed like it could be fun – the nerdist.com podcast. I am a big fan of podcasts and actually seriously considered starting one of my own a while back. So seriously, in fact, that I actually recorded a test episode that I never wound up posting anywhere or anything. I did, however, keep that podcast on my iPod for ages and ages and listened to it myself quite frequently. I thought it was pretty fun and I have long had this strange thing about loving the sound of my own voice, so I enjoyed it a lot. It’s not just the sound of my own voice, though – I also love seeing myself on camera and am pretty into pictures of myself. I know this may seem narcissistic and I suppose the only answer I have to that is that I never claimed not to be narcissistic. I don’t really think of myself as a narcissist, honestly, but I do appreciate my own positive attributes and what is probably my most positive attribute is my creative mind. There is nothing wrong with appreciating what comes from that creative mind and this podcast was one of those things, as is more often than not when I am on camera or in pictures. I hate the look of random pictures taken in random places and try to avoid those most of the time. I don’t know… I probably am just narcissistic, though. Either way, that really is not the topic at hand. The nerdist.com podcast is a comedy show hosted by Chris Hardwick, host of Web Soup, former host of MTV’s “Singled Out,” frequent “Chelsea Lately” roundtable participant and stand-up comedian. I have been a fan of his for a very long time and was pretty excited to find this podcast. I develop this problem with podcasts, though, where I always want to listen to them when I’m going to sleep because it’s really the only time I have to devote to an hour-long podcast. The issue is that the time when I’m going to bed isn’t supposed to be devoted to listening to a podcast but to actually trying to go to sleep. It never fails, though, and I let the podcasts keep me awake. What’s worse is that I will stay awake for the full hour that the podcast is running, then I will start another one thinking somehow I will magically not let this one keep me awake. I have managed to stay up all night doing this many times in the past and kind of stopped listening to any podcasts because of that. These past two nights, though, I have been listening to this nerdist.com podcast while I go to bed, and I have stayed up all night both nights. I still managed to get up before my alarm went off at 11:30am today, though, and have taken some pills to help me fall asleep tonight. Initially, I planned not to listen to the podcast while in bed tonight in order to try to fall asleep at a decent hour, but I really want to listen to it. So, instead of not doing it, I am making sure that I am in bed by 11pm and only allow myself to listen to one, that way I can listen to one and still manage to fall asleep not too long after midnight. I really need to stop allowing my sleep patterns to get all out of whack on the weekends – it isn’t doing me any good at all. The nerdist.com podcast, though, is completely hilarious and I highly recommend it to anybody who could use some really fun comedy in their life. What’s really cool about it, though, is that there is always a fairly big name comedian as a guest on the show and aside from just telling jokes and being generally funny, they all talk a lot about their creative process, on-stage experiences, etc. One that I listened to last night featured Drew Carey, who I have never been a fan of, but he was completely hilarious and also really insightful and shared a lot of the intricacies of comedy writing. It was hilarious and informative at the same time, which I enjoy much more than just people being funny. Like I said, I definitely recommend checking out the nerdist.com podcast – it is well worth an hour of your time. Chris Hardwick is hilarious and completely adorable.

So, since I woke up in a bit of a daze from being up all night and only getting a small amount of sleep and the plans for filming and editing the video fell through, I spent the bulk of today in front of the TV. I figured I may as well use this time to catch up on TV shows that I didn’t watch throughout the week. “Gossip Girl” was decent this week, although as I mentioned last night, I just feel like it is lacking a bit and I am kind of losing interest. “90210” was pretty good this week and it seems to be becoming a bit of a trend lately for TV shows to introduce lesbian storylines using characters who showed no interest in the same sex previously. The one on “90210” is, oddly enough, much better written than the one on “Desperate Housewives” and seems considerably less out of left field. Plus, the main character they have going gay is one of my favorites, Adrianna, played by Jessica Lowndes, who I think is a very talented and beautiful young actress and I am kind of excited to see if she can play this whole thing out in an honest way. Say what you want, but I think the new “90210” is an extremely well written and put together show with a very talented cast of young actors. The same can’t necessarily be said of the new “Melrose Place,” however. I don’t foresee that show moving past the first season, which is kind of a shame because I really enjoy seeing all the stuff with the cast of the original series. Even that stuff, though, is not very well played out and kind of sullies the image of the original series, which was so campy and over-the-top and fun. The new series doesn’t manage to capture that like the original did. I also watched the second episode of the Lisa Kudrow produced series, “Who Do You Think You Are,” which featured Matthew Broderick tracking his family history. I was considerably less interested in this one than the previous one, which kind of makes sense because it was mainly focused on the Civil War. I am not a war buff by any means and don’t really feel much connection to that part of history. I appreciate why it is important to be aware of, but it isn’t something that really captures my interest. I do love Matthew Broderick, though. I’ll be more interested when the focus is on his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, who has been such a huge inspiration to me since I was just a child. I was really obsessed with her when I was just a little kid and was in love with films she had done, like “Miami Rhapsody,” “Honeymoon In Vegas,” “LA Story,” “Hocus Pocus,” “Striking Distance,” “Somewhere Tomorrow,” and one of my favorite films of all-time, and one of her lesser known works, “If Lucy Fell.” I really haven’t seen a film that she has done that I haven’t absolutely loved, aside from that bullshit “Rocky & Bullwinkle” film they did. I have loved everything else, though. Of course, it probably goes without saying that the thing she has done that has been the biggest inspiration to me in life, though, has been “Sex & The City.” I can say, in all honesty, that I do consider this the greatest television series of all-time. It has meant more to me than any other television series, as well. I have long said that my favorite TV show of all-time is the “Degrassi” series, which is true, but that is because “Sex & The City” is so much more than just a TV show – it is a way of life. I refer to that big pink “book” of the complete series on DVD as “the bible.” I just really feel like anything you could possibly need to know about life is held within that series somewhere… and the film was just a beautiful continuation of it all. It was absolutely breathtaking and is the film that I have seen the most in theatres, and probably one of the films that I have watched the most at home and such, as well. It’s just amazing, and I cannot wait for the sequel to come out. In fact, that is happening really soon – May 27th, 2010, to be exact. The time to start getting hyped is now.

I don’t really have a lot left to say, but one thing I did want to address here was my post from last night – when I was talking about my friend, Whitney. I feel really bad because I feel like that may have come across as me saying that she has changed because she has a boyfriend or something along those lines. That is not what I meant at all. She is still the same person and she is still great, I just feel like she hasn’t been in contact with me much since she really got into her relationship. I can certainly understand that as I have been there myself, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be happy about it. I’m not happy about it. I do understand it, though, and I also understand that I just need to let her do what she needs to do right now. I’m sure things will normalize a bit as time goes on. Like I said last night, I just feel like I lost one of the few people that I could really talk to. I know I have only lost her temporarily and all but right now I just feel really alone and I hate that feeling. The book “How To Make Someone Love You Forever In 90 Minutes or Less” talks about how people fall into four different basic types and each of those types has a key feeling that they need in all of their relationships. My type was a “promoter,” who is an emotional thinker and is socially outgoing. The key feeling that a “promoter” needs in their relationships is the feeling of importance. Knowing this, I know exactly what my problem is right now – I don’t feel important to Whitney. I don’t feel important to any of the people in my life and it is making me feel wretched. I don’t know how to repair this, but I need to figure it out. I have said many times in this blog that the people in my life right now are very important to me and they are all people that I actually want to make the effort to hang on to. I just don’t know how to do it. It kind of reminds me of one of my favorite songs by Melanie C, a.k.a., Sporty Spice, called “This Time.” The chorus of this song says, “I never look back, I never cry, never try to wonder why, I’ll be on my own and never doubt, never shout or wonder how, I’ll never be lonely until this time, this time I will.” That is how I feel about the friends I have in my life right now, friends like Whitney, Nate, Rachel, etc. As easy as it has been for me to let people go in the past and never look back, never cry or wonder why, without looking back and feeling lonely, I know that if I were to do that this time, I absolutely would. I don’t want that to happen. I’m not sure how to stop it at this point, though. I’m going to figure it out, though. Somehow I am going to figure it out.

Chapter 142: Beyond Imagination

I’m not really sure where to go with this blog tonight, but I didn’t really want to allow myself to skip another day. Yes, last night was the first time I actually fully skipped posting a blog. I mean, I did post something but it was the first time that I actually didn’t do ANYTHING. There were a couple times in the past where I didn’t REALLY write a blog, but I at least wrote a little something or did a video blog or something. Yesterday wasn’t a particularly uninteresting day, but it wasn’t an interesting day by any means, either. One thing that did happen yesterday that I wanted to make mention of was Nate’s BlogTV chat last night, which was pretty interesting. Whitney was there at the house hanging out with Nate, April and Devin and made a few appearances on the cam and, for one reason or another, I was just feeling really bitter towards her. I don’t mean genuine bitterness or anything, but a little bit upset. I haven’t really heard from Whitney much lately. That is a bit of an understatement, honestly. Whitney and I used to have hour-long, if not longer, phone conversations at least once a week and would text back and forth every single day. We also made it a point to see each other, along with Nate, every other week or so. I haven’t actually seen either of them in person in like 5 or 6 weeks now. That’s not really a big deal, honestly, because I haven’t exactly put in the effort to try to get together either, although I have tried a couple times I think but never followed through on those attempts. The past few weeks, though, it just seems like even something as simple as a text message has become scarce. It’s kind of normal from Nate, he doesn’t call text me often and I have always just figured that is just the kind of relationship we have, but Whitney and I have a very different relationship than that. We used to be in contact all the time and suddenly it’s changed. I don’t like it. Still, I can’t blame all of it on her. It is just my natural way that if people are not contacting me, I won’t contact them. It’s how I’ve always been. That is no excuse, of course, and doesn’t make it right. Initially, I was deliberately not contacting her because she is in a new relationship and very into that, as most people are when things are new, and I figured it’d be best to just give her space and let her come back when she wanted to. I think I got used to not being in contact with her and have just kind of continued it. I guess I’m still waiting for her to come back. The question becomes whether or not I will still be waiting when she does come back. I like to think I will, but I suppose it depends on how long it takes and what happens between now and then. It just upsets me a bit because I was very intent on hanging on to my relationships with my friends and they all pretty much seem to be crumbling around me and leaving me with fewer and fewer people to even talk to. In fact, when I think about the people I could call simply because I need someone to talk to or whatever, the list is pretty much down to one – my Mom. Honestly, where I’m at right now in my life I don’t feel like I have the option of “just calling” anybody else. I mean, the just calling without an excuse just because I want to talk or am feeling alone or want to share my ideas or anything like that. I really feel like I just don’t have anybody to talk to anymore and I don’t like that feeling. I am not sure how exactly it happened, but it feels like everybody in my life has just somehow kind of dissipated from being my friends. I mean, they are all still my friends but the closeness in my relationships has become non-existent. I don’t know how to fix that. I have a really bad tendency to consider things to be “beyond repair,” and I have always been one to let go of things too easily. I don’t want to do that but I don’t know how to move forward otherwise.

While I was talking to Nate in his BlogTV chat, we also got into a discussion about how much he wants to be famous and do what he loves, so he can be able to wake up in the morning and say that he loves his life. I said I hate my job but I love my life, and he questioned that. He didn’t believe that I really love my life but that I tell myself that I love my life for what it could be or something along those lines. I explained to him that while I may not love everything about my life right now, I love the person that I am and that allows me to love everything I am doing right now because I know that it is leading me to better things. That is absolutely true. I remember RuPaul used to have her own talk show on VH1 back when I was a kid in the mid-90s that I absolutely loved. At the end of each episode of this show, Ru would say, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?” I know it is a cliché and surely RuPaul didn’t originate it, but she is the first person I remember hearing it from and it really stuck with me over the years. Not to say that I have loved the person I have been all my life, as evidenced by so many of the ways that I have treated myself over the years. In fact, it has taken me an extremely long time to get to this place. I can remember so many times throughout my life when I have felt like there was something terribly wrong with me, back in my later teen years, and even felt completely worthless, after a very dramatic situation with my mother back in 2003 that kind of led me on a bit of a tailspin that I don’t really care to go into right now. Even as recently as 2006 when I was suffering from a pretty severe eating disorder, desperate to lose weight and become acceptable to the world. After spending so much of my young adult life dealing with the fallout from an abusive relationship, drug use, eating disorders, a bout with self-injuring and a severe identity crisis, I have managed to come out of it all being completely in love with the person that I have wound up as. This is the first time in my life that I have really felt like MYSELF and not like I was playing out some role. It’s funny because for as long as I can remember I have been told by various people in my life that it was so great how I was so much myself no matter what, and I suppose that was true – I was always the version of myself that I was at the time. Right now, though, is the first time that I have really felt like every part of me is completely genuine and organic. This is the first incarnation of myself that I feel like is actually who I want to be. This is the first time in my life that I genuinely feel like I am the person who I have been striving to become for the past 26 years and I am extremely proud of that fact. For that reason, I can honestly say that yes, I absolutely love my life right now. Because I have managed to get to this place, I have absolute confidence that I can accomplish everything else that I am dreaming of and, like RuPaul said, now that I love myself, I feel like I am finally capable of truly loving somebody else. I do love the people around me. I get really frustrated sometimes because I feel like I am in this thing alone, at moments like this where I feel like I could list the people I have to talk to on one finger, but I have to remind myself constantly that I love these people and I know that they love me, as well. Perhaps they just haven’t figured out how to love themselves yet… or perhaps I just expect too much out of people. At the same time, though, I don’t think a phone call or a text message or actually hanging out every now and then is too much to expect out of people. I’m being too harsh here. I understand that everybody is living their own life and I know very well how life can get in the way of relationships and friendships and such. I just need to be more patient with people, I suppose.

So, I woke up at around 2:45pm this afternoon. I got up and ate a can of Spaghetti-O’s and watched “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” Jamie Oliver, also known as “The Naked Chef,” filmed this documentary series in the city of Huntington, West Virginia, which the Center for Disease Control has determined to be the most obese city in America. Jamie Oliver is trying to start a “Food Revolution” there by changing the way that the people in this city eat, mainly focusing on the school system in the area. The series is produced by Ryan Seacrest Productions and I think is doing something really amazing for that city and for our country by exposing what is going on there and making attempts to change it, plus televising the whole experience as an inspiration to the rest of the country. I really feel like this is a wonderful thing and I am extremely pleased with the amount of positive programming that is making it’s way on the air recently. Between this, Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty,” and Lisa Kudrow’s series, “Who Do You Think You Are?” it feels like there is a shift being made in television programming. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it isn’t a huge shift at this point but the way to get more good, positive, inspirational programming on the air is by watching the few things that do make it on the air at this point – the higher the ratings this type of programming gets, the more networks will feel the need to provide more of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love reality television and the sex-filled teen dramas that fill up the CW’s schedule but I have lost a bit of interest in them because I have come to notice more and more how much of a negative influence these things are. I feel like right now in this country, and in my life personally, there isn’t a lot of room for negative influences. I don’t feel like I have the time for things that aren’t going to inspire me in some positive way. Like the lyrics to my favorite song from the band Vedera say, “Throw away all your thoughts if they aren’t moving you forward.” That has really become my philosophy in life right now and I am trying really hard to make sure that every part of my life, every action I take right now is moving me forward somehow or helping me to grow, whether it is personally, professionally or creatively. Anything that isn’t helping me in that way, I am simply better without. Fortunately for me, there is PLENTY to be inspired by out there right now, and “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” is one of those things that I am finding extremely inspiring, although it would probably be better if I didn’t sit around eating Spaghetti-O’s while learning about the perils of processed foods.

After I watched “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” I watched the one new episode of Oprah that aired this week, which happened to feature Jamie Oliver, as well as the producer of his series, Ryan Seacrest. I have always kind of liked Ryan Seacrest, in spite of all the shit that Kathy Griffin talks about him. I attended a couple of tapings of his back when he had his daily talk show, “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” to see Kylie Minogue appear, (one of the highlights of my life was being in her presence,) as well as camping out in front of his studio to see Britney Spears. I’ve just always kind of liked him. After seeing him on Oprah, I am kind of in love with him, though. I just find him really inspiring. His work ethic is amazing and the fact that he has a hand in so much of the happenings in Hollywood is absolutely inspiring to me. I used to always find it really inspiring when people were driven enough to get famous by any means necessary, like Paris Hilton or Anna Nicole Smith, but I have come to find it so much more inspiring when people are driven enough to get famous and gain recognition through actually putting in the work to get themselves to where they want to be, like Ryan Seacrest did, or like Oprah did, or Madonna, or Barbara Walters. Those are examples of people who struggled and put in the blood, sweat and tears required to achieve something truly great in this life. I think this is why they have all managed to maintain something their prominence and status, whereas people like Paris Hilton have kind of faded out a bit. Plus, all of those people are highly respected for the works that they have done and continue to do. You know who else is like that? Tom Cruise, no matter how much I hate to admit it. I am not a fan of Tom Cruise and his Scientology propaganda, etc., but I read the book “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” by Andrew Morton, and despite being highly creeped out by the Scientology aspect of it all, I was also really inspired by the lengths that he has gone to in order to achieve and maintain the career that he has. Good for him. Scientology may not be as bad as it seems, honestly, but I don’t trust it by any means. Still, some of my favorite celebrities are Scientologists, like Lisa Marie Presley, Juliette Lewis and Kirstie Alley. All three of those are people who I was extremely surprised to hear were a part of the church, because they just don’t seem like the types in comparison to like Tom Cruise or John Travolta. Why am I talking about this right now?

I filmed a few more pieces for my YouTube series, which is shaping up nicely thus far. I am a little concerned about what the editing process will be like because this is going to be a group of smaller pieces put together, which I have absolutely no experience with. I’m not sure if the video-editing program I have is able to trim pieces off of each piece or not. It seems like it would be silly if it didn’t, but I just don’t know if it does that or not. Hopefully I will get the last segments filmed tomorrow and can start the editing process tomorrow evening and hopefully have the video posted Monday or Tuesday. We’ll see. I’m really excited to get this series started, though. It has been a lot of fun so far. I am really enjoying working on it. Speaking of YouTube, I spent a little chunk of time today watching makeup tutorials on there and tried out one of the looks I say, which was inspired by Kelly Rowland’s look in the video for “When Love Takes Over,” her single from the David Guetta album, “One Love,” and one of my favorite things that she has ever done. The makeup look she has in the video consists of gold, black, silver and a gorgeous hot pink. I didn’t have all of those colors, particularly the hot pink, so I improvised using white, black, silver and the closest thing I have to a hot pink, which is kind of a dark fuschia. You will actually be able to see this look when the video gets posted, although I don’t know how well it came across on the camera. I also spent a little time window-shopping for makeup online and have pretty much decided that Nyx Cosmetics is my new favorite line of makeup – their stuff is all very affordable but also very high quality and stays on better than the Maybelline Eye Studio stuff that I have. I have every intention of ordering some stuff from them when I get paid next Friday. Doing this makeup look also reminded me of something else – Kelly Rowland is an extremely talented vocalist and highly under-rated as an artist. I spent much of the rest of the day listening to her albums and kind of re-discovered this song that I absolutely loved from her first album, “Simply Deep.” The song is the last track on the album, called “Beyond Imagination,” which kind of relates to where I am at in life right now – the chorus of the song says, “I’ve got to go, to somewhere beyond imagination, I hear my tone, it says I am alone.” The song ends, though, with the repeated line, “I hear your tone, you’re not alone.” It’s true. I needed to be reminded of that today, and as I have been writing this blog – I am not alone. No matter how much it may feel that way sometimes, I am not alone. There is love all around me, sometimes I just need to look a little harder to find it. I am not alone.

Chapter 141: Empty

Chapter 140: Wind & The Mountain

Today I spent pretty much the entire day feeling worn out. As I went through all of the actions of the day I just felt really exhausted and like everything took so much more effort than it normally would. Don’t worry about me, though, I am not getting sick again or anything. It all started last night. I finished last night’s blog at something like 12:45am, which is later than usual but nothing major. I was in bed a few minutes later. In bed, instead of music as usual, I turned on the "Comedy Death Ray Radio" podcast, which featured Sarah Silverman and Andy Richter alongside the usual host Scott Aukerman, and figured it would be okay to get a few laughs as I tried to fall asleep. I’m not sure if it was this podcast, which was absolutely hilarious, or something else but for one reason or another I just couldn’t fall asleep. After this hour-long podcast ended and I was still pretty wide awake, I put on some music and lied in bed trying to force myself to sleep. It had to be well after 2:30am before I did fall asleep. For this reason, at 7:30am when my alarm went off, I wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed. My Mom and I recently discussed cutting back on working out to only Monday, Wednesday and Friday since we keep missing doing it so often but we hadn’t made any official decision on that matter. This morning, however, that decision was made for this week. I didn’t get out of bed until around 8:15am. It’s like Liz Phair says in her song, “Wind & The Mountain,” “You lose your way, You’ve got to land, You’ve got to make another plan, but sometimes I am too tired.” That was exactly how I felt this morning. I quickly ate a bowl of cereal, smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of coffee and was in the shower by 8:30am. After the shower I did hair and makeup and got dressed. I decided to finally try wearing my first piece of genuine couture, my lavender John Galliano shirt, and no matter how tired I felt, I also felt pretty gorgeous. The shirt is in my size but in this super stretchy fabric, designed for things to be skin-tight. Was it ever skin-tight! It looked really good, though, I think. It was definitely something different for me; different and beautiful. I absolutely loved it!

When I got to work I found that my sister was not there. I wasn’t sure why exactly, but she wound up coming in a little while after me. I found out later that my team lead, who normally works 9:30am-6pm along with me, had some sort of appointment this evening and needed to switch with my sister. So, my sister was working the late shift with me today, which was a pretty nice change and also meant that I had a ride home if I wound up on the phone late or something that would prevent my Mom from bringing me home on her break. This was cool. As it turned out, my sister also wound up taking lunch at the same time that I did and we got to talk a bit more than we usually do during the workday. My Mom also got to take a 15 minute break while we were on lunch so all three of us got to hang out for part of our lunch break, which was fun. The main topic of conversation was my brother and his upcoming wedding. My sister made some joking comment about how she wasn’t sure if she should feel offended that she wasn’t asked to be best man. She was joking, although I’m sure there was a little bit of truth to the statement. I’ve always felt like she and my brother were closer growing up and such than I ever was with my brother and wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been asked to be best man. I think they’ve been less close in their adult life than my brother and I have been, though. I would probably make my sister best man if I were to get married. Actually, that isn’t true. I would ask my best friend, Don, to be my best man. I would ask my sister to give me away because she has been more of a father figure to me throughout my life than anybody else has. It’s kind of silly, but all this talk about my brother’s wedding has had me thinking a lot about weddings myself. Of course, I am years and years away from having to actually think about a wedding for many, many reasons. First of all, it isn’t legal at this point. It’s terrible, but it is a fact of life right now – I do not have the legal right to be married. I don’t really have the desire to be married at this point in my life, either, but the fact that it isn’t an option for me, and for so many other people who really do want to get married, is a terrible injustice in this world. Then there is also the fact that I am not even dating at this point, let alone dating seriously enough to consider marriage. Still, I have been finding myself getting a little caught up in thinking about how I would plan my own wedding, were I to ever get married. I wouldn’t want anything TOO big, in terms of guests or anything, but I would want something completely over-the-top and fun. I wouldn’t want to wear a tuxedo, but I would definitely want to dress it up – maybe in a suit by Tom Ford, with one of his signature offbeat patterns. I would want a lot of music involved, although nothing as cheesy as singing your vows or anything, unless maybe it were a song I wrote myself. I would want to walk down the aisle to something contemporary and meaningful to us as a couple, as opposed to the old school wedding march piece. I would want to have a mixed gender group of groomsmen/bridesmaids. I would want to wear a lot of makeup and glitter and maybe a tiara with my suit. I should stop talking about this. It’s getting a little creepy for me.

The workday felt like it took forever to end. Once it did, I had to wait at work for about 45 minutes while my sister waited for the last person to get off the phone. We just kind of sat there talking about random stuff. My sister, during this time, managed to kind of talk me out of the Blackberry Curve that I have been wanting and into a Palm Pixi, which is adorable, has a touchscreen and a really amazing operating system that allows for multiple applications to run at once and simple movement between them, which is something that my current phone is seriously lacking. Don’t get me wrong, my HTC Touch Diamond has served me very well, but I would be able to get this Palm Pixi for about $50 with deals Sprint is offering, which is much cheaper than the Blackberry and a LOT cheaper than what I paid for my current phone. I really think I may wind up doing it next month with my “free check.” I watched a bunch of video demonstrations of this phone when I got home and kind of fell in love with it. The rest of the evening, once I got home, was very relaxed. I sat around and watched “Chelsea Lately” and “The View” episodes from the past few days on the DVR. I also filmed a little mini-segment for my YouTube show, which I am still really excited about. Like I keep saying on here, I really cannot wait to get this finished and posted up for everybody to see! I really think it is going to be a lot of fun to watch. It has been really fun to put together so far and I can’t wait to see the end result. More than that, though, I can’t wait for everybody else to see the end result – It is going to be so much fun! I actually intend to spend a good chunk of time this weekend finishing up filming and editing the video and hopefully have it posted up on YouTube by Monday morning. My Mom is going to be out of town this weekend and I haven’t made any plans, so hopefully I will be able to manage some major productivity during that time. I also intend to spend a good chunk of the weekend catching up on all the new TV shows from this week that I have missed. My main focus, though, will be on the show that really matters – MY show! It’s also kind of exciting because once I get the first one done, I will kind of immediately have to start working on the second one in order to have it up by the following week. Despite the fact that I haven’t finished the first video, I am already thinking up ideas for the second episode. It is going to be awesome. I am sure of it!

For now, though, it is 12:42am and, despite the fact that this blog is considerably shorter than usual, I really should be getting to bed. I downloaded another episode of the “Comedy Death Ray Radio” podcast featuring Sarah Silverman, as well as the podcast “The Nerdist,” from G4 personality and frequent “Chelsea Lately” roundtable guest, Chris Hardwick. It would probably be a better idea to try going to bed listening to some music, as that is less likely to keep me awake. Maybe I will skip the podcasts and listen to some Liz Phair – she is my second favorite artist of all-time and a true genius in terms of creative songwriting, in my opinion. She is another one of those artists whose music I can always find answers in. What is the answer tonight? “I will raise my hands and say I don’t understand, but there are days when I am too tired.” Goodnight.

Chapter 139: Keep It Together

Today was an interesting day. It had good and it had bad, just like every other day. It didn’t have TOO much boring, thank Gaga. It all started with my alarm going off at 7:30am, which woke me up. I wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed, though, so I did the 5-minute snooze thing twice and finally got up at 7:40am. I did the normal first thing stuff – teeth, face, cigarette – until time to workout. My Mom’s stomach was hurting her today and I was feeling really tired, so I offered up the option of skipping the workout today but my Mom said she wanted to go ahead with it, and offered me the option of skipping, as well. It is the morning battle of, “I don’t want it to be my fault so I’m waiting for you to say it.” Fortunately, neither of us did and we went ahead with the workout. We put on “8-Bit Heart,” which you SHOULD know about by now if you have talked to me, seen my Facebook and Twitter postings or read last night’s blog, which turned out to not be a beautiful, emotional journey but also an excellent workout soundtrack. It really is just an incredible record all around, and I am still urging anybody who hasn’t yet to go download it immediately at http://www.simon-curtis.com - it is absolutely worth the time and is 100% free, a gift to the world direct from Simon Curtis himself. My Mom was pretty into it, too, and we got a really good workout to this record. It was amazing and left me feeling really energized and ready for whatever the day may bring. I had a little bit of a skip in my step as I got dressed and did my hair and makeup.

Of course, that only lasted long enough for me to get to work. Once there, I suddenly felt really tired. When I got to work it became clear immediately that there was something going down. There was a very distinct, though thinly veiled, tension in the air. I sat down and signed into my station and before I could even get all of my applications pulled up, I was hearing about it. The issue was basically the same issue we have at least once a month – my department is full of really strong personalities and they are all constantly clashing. People who were cool with each other a few weeks ago are suddenly completely at odds with one another. Then there are the less strong personalities who just allow themselves to get caught up in it all. Then there’s me, making the extra effort to get along with everybody but really just keeping to myself most of the time. This typically works out well for me because I don’t need to get involved in anybody else’s drama, and I am certainly not going to have any drama myself. I have found the easiest way in the world to avoid all that kind of drama, too, whether in the workplace or anywhere else in my life – it is as simple as understanding that nothing anybody else has to say or think about me can make even the slightest ounce of difference in my life unless I allow it to, and that there is not a single thing in that place that is worth allowing that kind of power over me. Not a single thing. I don’t understand why others don’t understand that, but it isn’t really my problem at the end of the day and doesn’t really affect me in any substantial way. I do wish that I could get people to see the light on this, though, because it would make for a much more peaceful workplace. Until that day comes, though, I will be sitting in my cubicle working on things that actually matter to me and can make a difference in my life.

Of course, I didn’t do a whole lot of that today. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but I just couldn’t seem to focus on any of my creative work today and spent most of the day turned around talking to my co-workers, providing a friendly ear and hopefully a bit of a voice of reason in the midst of all the drama. It sucks, though, that I sit at the very end of my row because I was right near one of the involved parties in the drama and talking to her a lot while the other one, who I have hung out with outside of work a few times, was all the way at the other end of the row and seemed to be scowling at me a bit and probably assuming that I was down there talking shit about her. Assumptions are very bad things for people to make and only end up causing unnecessary feelings of hurt. I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to do in that situation, though. I don’t really want to appear as if I am taking sides because there is only one side I am on in this and any other situation in the workplace – my own. It is one of those things that everybody thinks but you’re not really supposed to say, but if I were asked I absolutely would say it. I am not working there to serve anybody’s interests but my own and that of the company. Anybody else’s agenda belongs to them and I shouldn’t and won’t be expected to take part in any of it. It just all seems so silly, although I can certainly understand people’s points in the matter. I just don’t see why they allow it to become such an issue. As evidenced by most of my daily blogs, I normally wouldn’t take the time to even bother discussing something like this but since I wasn’t very focused on my creative work today it was what consumed pretty much 8 hours of my day.

Of course, also on my mind today was tonight’s piano lesson. I arrived at the Allegro Academy a few minutes early, so I sat in the lobby and waited for Viktor to finish with the lesson before mine. When my lesson began, he had me identify some of the notes in the bass clef, which I learned last week, and I did a pretty good job with it. The rest of the lesson was mainly dedicated to working on learning a piece – an extremely simple piece called “Computer Games.” When I looked at it initially I thought it would be a cinch – then I tried actually playing it. It is, as I said, a very simple piece but I kept tripping up on which notes I was supposed to be playing from the ones on the page. My fingers just kept going to the wrong keys, despite the fact that I could look at the page and think, “That’s a B, that’s a G sharp,” and so on. It was kind of frustrating to me, but Viktor didn’t seem to think much of it. He kept telling me that I was trying to go too fast and confusing myself, which was a pretty accurate description of what I was doing there. It just seemed so simple and I couldn’t understand why I kept messing it up. I will continue to work on it this week, though, and am expected to come back and play it properly at next week’s lesson. I don’t think it’ll be a problem and I am actually really glad we are getting to the more hands-on part now. I really do love my piano lessons and am really excited to watch myself as I make even more progress. It is so worth all of the mess that comes along with it, like having to feel guilty that my sister is going so far out of her way to get me there and the hour-long wait I have every week after the lesson before my Mom gets off and can pick me up. It is worth the money I am spending on it that I really could be using for things like rent and bills and such. It is worth every single thing attached to it. I absolutely love my lessons and look forward to them every week. This evening I even managed to come up with some interesting ways to use the time between the end of my lesson and the time that my Mom came to pick me up. I walked down to the 7-11 on the next block and bought myself a coffee and a candy bar, and then went and sat in this covered bus bench midway between the 7-11 and the Allegro Academy. I decided to use that time to film a segment for my new YouTube series, which I am still trying to come up with a better title for than “Weekly Inspiration.” I was worried about how the sound would come across because there was a lot of passing traffic on the street and such, but it came out okay. I must admit, I am pretty excited for this YouTube show to come together and to actually put it out there because I think it will be a lot of fun and will be something really cool and positive and, hopefully, inspiring to somebody out there. I am really hoping to have it all pieced together and ready to post by early next week. I also started a bit of an impromptu photo shoot on the bus bench, which I intend to work on further when I am there again next week. That was pretty fun and it was pretty cool working with photography in a different setting.

While I was waiting for my Mom to get off I also decided to go ahead and call my brother. I had missed a call from him yesterday and tried to call him back last night but didn’t get an answer. I found that I had missed another call from him today while I was at work, so I figured I would use this time to call him back. I actually got an answer this time and he had something really interesting, although not entirely unexpected, to ask me. We just found out over the weekend that my brother’s girlfriend is pregnant and my brother is actually really excited about it and has asked his girlfriend to marry him. They have had this ongoing back and forth for a few years now about getting married and my brother was always really opposed to the whole concept, but he has really turned around about the whole topic. He actually seems pretty excited about all of it and I couldn’t be more excited about it. While I was talking to him this evening, he asked me to be his best man. My Mom had already told me that she thought this was why he was calling me yesterday, but I wasn’t so sure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that my brother and I are not close we are just very different people and haven’t spent the most time together in our adult lives, so I wasn’t sure if I would be the person he would ask to do that. We do get along really well and have gotten considerably closer in recent years but I just wasn’t sure if I would be the person that he would want to be at his side as he goes through such a big change in his life. I am extremely honored that he has asked me, though, and I am really excited for the wedding and to take part in the whole wedding process. It’s funny, though, because it isn’t the part of a wedding that I have ever imagined myself taking part in – isn’t the best man the one who organizes the bachelor party? Dear God, what the hell am I going to do with that? I’m sure I can figure something out. I know that the best man gives a speech at the reception and at the rehearsal dinner and such, which my brother said if I ever asked him to do for me he wouldn’t. He’s considerably more of a shy person than I am. I have absolutely no problem with public speaking and am actually really looking forward to it. I am really looking forward to the whole thing. It really makes me think a lot about my life and the roles that my brother and sister have played in it. We have all gone very long periods without one another in our lives and such but I think we also all know that we can depend on each other if we ever really need to and while we may not be the biggest part of each other’s lives, we are all very connected where it counts. It really makes me feel a lot better about where I stand in this world, with all of my feelings of being alone lately and such, it is a beautiful thing to really stop and think about the fact that I have, at least, these two people who I can trust will always have my back. Like that classic Madonna song, “Keep It Together,” “When I get lonely and I need to be loved for who I am, not what they want to see, Brothers and Sisters, they’ve always been there for me.” You got that one right, Madonna. Score one for her. Actually, score about eight million and a half for her. She gets everything right, as far as I am concerned.

Once my Mom picked me up, we went out and picked up sub sandwiches from Publix and came back home to watch “American Idol” before getting ready for bed. When I first sat down at the computer to start this blog, I decided to pull my camera out of my Calvin Klein bag and check out the pictures and footage I took today. When I reached into my bag, though, I noticed that my hand got wet. Then I remembered something – my spill-proof cup was in there. When I pulled it out, I found that it wasn’t so spill-proof anymore. The lid had somehow broken and Mountain Dew Code Red was spilling inside of my bag. The first thing I did was check that my camera was safe and dry, which it was. Then I quickly pulled everything out of the bag to see what kind of damage was done. Fortunately, nothing important was damaged at all. The sheet music notebook that I had been using got a few small wet spots on it, but none of the work I did in it was damaged at all. I’m concerned about the bag itself, although part of me does feel like this was the Universe’s way of condoning me purchasing this other Calvin Klein bag that I have been eyeing up on his website. I can’t afford to do it right now, of course, so I am temporarily reverting back to my old Kenneth Cole bag, which I had stopped using because I thought it felt too professional for the summertime. Now it just feels old, although it is still gorgeous. It will get the job done until I can get the other one run through the laundry… or until I get that new one ordered! It really is adorable – made of a dark gray colored denim with a big, bold Calvin Klein logo on the outside. It is also not a messenger bag, which is my usual forte, but a “daypack” bag, 11” wide and 11” tall with a zip closure at the top. I really love the look of it and think it could be the perfect bag for me for spring/summer 2010. The best part, though, is the fact that it is only $33.60. I love Calvin Klein! For now, though, it is 12:30am and I should be getting to bed. Good night.

Chapter 138: 8-Bit Heart

Have you ever come across an album that completely captured the period in your life when it was released? Have you ever heard an album that you felt was created specifically for you to hear at the exact moment that you heard it, as if it’s sole purpose were to reach your ears and tell you that you’re not alone in this world? Have you ever felt like an album has completely captured the very moment you are living as you are listening to it? Have you ever heard an album that you felt was sent to you from the Universe, or whatever you believe in, to deliver some sort of message to you? I have. I have been fortunate enough to have this experience a few times in my life. The first I can really remember off the top of my head was back in 2003, with Michelle Branch’s sophomore record, “Hotel Paper.” This happened again with the debut album from The Veronicas, “The Secret Life Of The Veronicas.” It’s a pretty rare experience, honestly, to have an entire album really capture the experience of your life in the moment that you first hear it – it’s as if it was made just for you. I was fortunate enough to have had that experience again today and it only seemed appropriate to dedicate tonight’s blog to sharing that experience with you all.

The artist who has provided this magical moment for me is 24 year-old Oklahoma native, Simon Curtis. I can’t honestly say that I know a ton about him as a person except what I have picked up from following him on Twitter, which is basically that he is adorable, he is close friends with brilliant photographer Tyler Shields, Andrea Lewis, of “Degrassi: The Next Generation” fame and Josh Hutcherson, from one of my favorite movies, “Bridge To Terabithia.” I also learned from following him on Twitter that he has a very deep, genuine passion for all things POP. I initially heard of him when I saw a post about him on one of my favorite music blogs, Jon Ali’s Blog, featuring his first “single,” a brilliant, hard-hitting power-pop song called “Delusional.” I was pretty impressed with the song and his interview with Jon Ali, so I decided to follow him on Twitter and found him completely charming and fun. Then I heard the next song he released, “Diablo,” which I fell in love with instantly. “Diablo” is just as hard-hitting as “Delusional,” but much more experimental and irreverent. It’s a very tongue in cheek track, which opens with the line, “Here’s the thing, we started off friends, but this is not a Kelly Clarkson song and not where it ends.” That opening line was enough to suck me in and make me fall in love with this song. Fortunately, the song only gets better from there. Having only ever heard these two tracks from him, it was enough to make me fall in love with this kid and become very anxious for an album from him. He announced via Twitter that he was preparing an album that he intended to release for free via his official website, http://www.simon-curtis.com, as soon as he got to 8,000 followers. It took a while but as of late Sunday night, he officially reached 8,000 and announced the album, titled “8-Bit Heart” would be released today, March 23, 2010.

Before I discuss this album, though, I do want to make mention of another record that Simon Curtis did, called “Alter Boy,” which was recorded and intended for release sometime around 2006-2007 but was eventually shelved. It’s an absolute shame that this record hasn’t seen the light of day, either, because based on the 11 tracks from it that I have managed to dig up online it was an incredible record. It was very similar to the sound of “Delusional” and “Diablo,” but less experimental and slightly more poppy. It was really ahead of it’s time and, unfortunately, I can kind of understand how it wound up shelved because there was really no place for pop music, especially pop music that was so offbeat and different, on radio at the time that it was being worked on. I’m not going to lie, I really do attribute the recent onslaught of unique, original to Lady Gaga. She really paved the way for a lot of the artists that have emerged since she came onto the scene and that is just another reason why I am so grateful Gaga has made such a splash in the industry. As far as “Alter Boy” goes, though, it is pretty incredible all on it’s own, filled to the brim with experimental pop/dance music with extremely powerful lyrics taking on all kinds of issues facing the world these days. The most powerful song from the “Alter Boy” sessions that I have heard is a track called “Put Your Makeup On.” It’s a song about experiencing troubles in your life and always trying to put your best foot forward and not let the pain or stress or worries show to the outside world. The most powerful part of this song for me is a line from the bridge where he says, “As a kid I got a lot of shit for liking my music, but what is it for? ‘You should listen to this because it gives more,’ ‘Yeah, but it sounds lousy on the dance floor.’” That line really captures so much of my experience growing up, and I would imagine the experience of so many young men who were “not supposed to” listen to pop music or enjoy dancing or all of those things that so many people stereotype as being gay qualities. Not only does that capture much of my personal experience growing up but I feel like it really captures a lot of the gay experience growing up. I feel like a lot of “Alter Boy” captures that experience, honestly. I have absolutely no idea if Simon Curtis is gay himself and it really doesn’t make a lick of difference to me if he isn’t – I just know that he really captured a lot of the experience from my perspective and I am grateful for that.

Much like “Alter Boy,” the new album “8-Bit Heart” is also extremely upbeat, completely unique and really pushes the limits of what can be done with pop music, particularly by a male artist. Unlike “Alter Boy,” though, this record has a very clearly defined theme and really takes you on a journey and tells a story that is introduced right off the bat with the spoken word intro to the record, “BoyRobot.” It introduces the concept of the record beautifully, stating, “There once was a boy who was made, not created. He wanted to learn. He wanted to indulge his senses, to understand pain, but most of all he wanted to love, for only when he found true love would he become real. He traveled far and long but love eluded him. The humans around him complicated the word, strove to drive it around altogether, and this he could not understand. For what could be simpler than to love and be loved in return? He was made with an 8-bit heart.” This is such a powerful statement and it made me cry the first time I heard it. I feel like that, in so many ways, is the story of my life. I feel like I, too, am a BoyRobot. This immediately leads into a short little song called, “Don’t Wanna Be Alone.” This song also hit extremely close to home for me, particularly the second verse which states, “I get scared sometimes, when I see all the connections happening around me, that fate will evade me, that time will betray me, that future I just don’t want to see, Don’t want to be that synapse swerve that missed the nerve and now is dead for eternity. Listen to me, I’m not gonna be alone. I’m gonna find someone. I swear the fire will never grow cold.” This is basically a description of where I am at right now in life in a lot of ways. I know I am extremely focused on my creative work right now but I am also really terrified at this point that I am going to wind up all by myself with heaps of creative work and nobody to share any of it with. I know that isn’t going to happen. I know that there is somebody out there who will be absolutely perfect for me. It is scary, though. The next track is a very catchy song called “Fell In Love w/An Android,” which is a song about falling in love with somebody cold and unfeeling and seemingly perfect in every way. Let’s just say that I have my share of experience with that, particularly in my last relationship type thing. It is exactly the type of relationship I am trying to avoid moving forward, but the type that has always been the easiest for me to fall into. Of course, Simon tells this story in a way that is completely offbeat and clever, complete with the line, “Try to play it like you think you’re something so hot, Hate to say it but I’d rather fuck a robot.” This song is followed by a track called “Super Psycho Love,” which is about the other type of relationship I have had experience with – the type with somebody who makes you feel completely unwanted causing you to go out of your way and do all kinds of crazy things to get their attention. This is definitely something I have a great deal of experience with, as well. This song makes me think a lot about my last “real” boyfriend, who I obsessed over for ages after he moved away even through another relationship. He just had this power over me and I think a lot of that had to do with making me feel like I was never really good enough. It worked, I suppose. This is another type of relationship that I am trying to avoid moving forward.

The song after “Super Psycho Love,” is probably my favorite track on the entire album, the title track “8-Bit Heart.” It is the slowest track on the record, although it is a pretty upbeat mid-tempo, and the real emotional core of the album I think. This song has a really simple, yet incredibly heartfelt set of lyrics and the chorus really captures it, echoing the sentiment of the BoyRobot intro, “Is it so, so wrong to love? Baby, is it so, so wrong to love? Is it so, so wrong to love and to be loved in return?” This song alone is reason enough to download this album immediately. I cannot say enough good things about this song. This song is followed by the aforementioned single, “Diablo,” the Spanish word for Devil, which is basically a song about being with somebody who you really think of as evil. The chorus of this song is so fun and over-the-top, saying, “You’re the devil, you’re a filthy piece of trash, Gonna brush you off my shoulder, Gonna let you kiss my ass, You’re a Diablo.” This song is just extremely catchy and clever, referencing lyrics by both Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears, who is clearly a big influence on a lot of Simon’s work, (there is an entire song on “Alter Boy” referencing her song titles.) This is followed by an adorable little interlude of Simon in an elevator on the phone with the producer of both “Alter Boy” and “8-Bit Heart,” Jadion, which leads into the aforementioned first single, “Delusional.” “Delusional” is actually a lot better than I thought initially when put into the context of the record – it is basically a song about people who don’t have faith in you and your dreams, and trying to go out and prove them all wrong. Anybody who has read this blog before should know that this is a topic that I am VERY familiar with and feel very passionate about. This is followed by another favorite track on the record, “Joystick,” which is an extremely sexual song, creating innuendo out of video game talk. It is absolutely brilliant and just one big musical turn-on. It is funny, too, because it reminded me a lot of a new song I wrote at work today. I mean, it is completely different from the song that I wrote but it reminds me of it in the sense that it is full of cleverly disguised but still very over-the-top innuendo. This song is very fun, catchy, offbeat and extremely sexual. This is followed by one of the catchiest, most fun tracks on the record, “Beat Drop.” This is one of those songs essential to any pure pop record - the song about going out and dancing, partying and having a general good time. What is my favorite part of this song? The line “Tell the DJ drop the beat, don’t play some motherfucking band.” Of course, there is also a brief sample of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” that doesn’t hurt at all, either. This is followed by a song called “Brainwash,” about getting caught up in your own grandiose and “fame,” and that feeling that you want it to happen but are unsure of whether or not it is genuine. Now, I am not famous by any means, but the ideas of getting caught up in your own grandiose and wondering if those feelings you have about yourself and other people’s perceptions of you are genuine is something I am very familiar with. In fact, that is a topic that has been briefly touched upon in the blog for the past couple of days. This is followed by one last full-length song, “The Dark,” which features a brilliantly placed sampled rap from Jay-Z, and is basically a song about feeling lost in your journey to achieve your dreams. “I can’t figure out how to get in, Can’t somebody show me? I can’t see in the dark.” It is really a beautiful song and the perfect way to almost cap off the album.

Then comes the outro, “Victory,” and this is where the true message is delivered. “…and so the boy traveled on, undeterred, upon his quest. For he now knew that it was not another’s love that would make him real but the love within his own heart, and with that he knew that he would never be alone.” That is making me cry all over again just re-typing it. It is such an incredible message and one that I have dedicated so much of myself to trying to get across to others but sometimes what we preach is truly the hardest thing for us to practice. It is easy to see things, to know that they are true, than it is to really put them to use in your life. The term “easier said than done” comes to mind. However, as I mentioned before, I feel like this record was made for the purpose of delivering a message to me, and that outro is it. I cannot say enough great things about this record and I urge each and every person who reads this blog to visit http://www.simon-curtis.com where “8-Bit Heart” is available as a 100% legal free download, direct from Simon himself. I cannot even put into words how much this record means to me, and the fact that he wrote, recorded and released this all on his own is absolutely incredible and awe-inspiring. THIS is an inspiration, as well as a swift kick in the ass reminding me to step up my game. If I can create a record that will make even one person feel the way that “8-Bit Heart” has made me feel then my entire life, every hurt, every scar, every beautiful moment and every completely heartbreaking moment, will have been worthwhile. This is the other thing that I have taken from this record. Again, I urge you ALL to visit http://www.simon-curtis.com and download the record for yourself. I can nearly guarantee that you will be able to take something just as powerful from it for yourself. Thanks for listening. Good night.

Chapter 137: Wishing Heart

It seems like I am pretty quick to label my days in this blog right off the bat as either good or bad, or just plain boring. I’ve talked a lot in this blog about the fact that I have been pretty irritated with how boring so many of my days have been recently but I am beginning to think that perhaps the days are not as much the problem as it is my perception of them and quickness to label them as “just another boring day.” Today was a perfect example of that because, depending on the way I chose to perceive it, it could easily fall into any of those categories. The day started off pretty good. I woke up at 7:45am, about 15 minutes after my alarm went off, and brushed my teeth and washed my face, then smoked a cigarette and was ready to workout. The only negative part of my initial waking up experience was the fact that my alarm didn’t actually go off because my phone somehow froze in the middle of the night and stopped charging or functioning at all. Not only did my alarm not go off, the phone also only had two bars of battery power in it. It wasn’t anything severe, though, and I just plugged it back in and let it charge until time to leave for work. I had bigger concerns at that moment, namely my first workout in over a week. I wasn’t quite sure what I should go for, music-wise, for today’s workout but through some random last minute inspiration I decided to go with Britney Spears’ Greatest Hits album. Let me just say that Britney Spears is not somebody who is an inspiration to me by any means but as a gay man and a lover of pop music, I have a healthy respect for her work. Regardless of what has gone on with her personally she has managed to consistently release some of the most fun, catchy, upbeat pop music you can find. Is it the best music you can find? It certainly is not. It lacks any real emotion or artistry but it is always good when you’re in the mood for something fun and catchy and upbeat. Those are all vital in a good workout soundtrack. It worked out well for me, too, and the workout today went really well. It was a lot more intense than anticipated, but I suppose that is to be expected considering how long it had been. I had a little trouble cooling down from the workout, but I did eventually and headed to the bathroom to get dressed and do my hair and makeup for the day. As far as makeup goes, I decided to try something new today. Last night, while going through my Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga appearances on the DVR I happened to watch Gaga’s appearance on Oprah again and was very taken with her makeup look on there, so I decided to recreate it for myself today. It was a pretty simple, kind of understated look using a very light shade of purple across the lid and a darker purple in the crease and the inner corner of the eye. I loved it and felt very pretty today. With the workout, the makeup and a fully charged phone by the time I left the house, I was feeling really good.

Then as we were leaving the house, my Mom and I kind of started discussing the fact that the management of our apartment complex had approved for us to sign another year’s lease without the rent going up at all, as it was initially supposed to. I had been so relieved when I got that news on Friday and felt like one of our potentially major problems had just been solved for us. I was telling my Mom that I feel like we need to get down there and get the new lease signed as soon as possible. Then my Mom dropped a little bit of a bombshell, or a potential bombshell, on me. She said that she wanted to wait to sign the lease because she wanted to talk to the management first and find out if we absolutely had to sign a year-long lease, or if it is possible to only sign a six-month one. My immediate reaction was, “WHAT THE FUCK,” because unless she has been hiding something from me there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t sign the lease for another year. Then she said that she has been looking for another job, which I have known, but that she is not only looking for another job in this area. I’m not going to lie I felt like this was complete bullshit. I was extremely upset particularly considering so much of the reason why I decided not to move to California was because I didn’t want to put her through having to stay here alone. Come to find out, at least from what she was implying, she is sitting here considering jumping ship and leaving me to fend for myself. It just really pissed me off because I thought it was kind of understood that neither one of us can really manage to live on our own at this point and we were both dedicated to sticking together until we are in better positions. We wound up fighting about this all the way to work. I just can’t imagine surviving on my own right now. I’m sure I could manage to sort it out somehow financially but I also feel like I would be pretty miserable, much like I was imagining my Mom being miserable if I moved to LA and she stayed here on her own. It just seemed incredibly unfair to even be considering trying to move off somewhere else. When we got to work and were riding up the elevator I said to her, “So, basically, you’re telling me I need to start thinking about how to live by myself?” and she denied that but I told her that if she is thinking about going somewhere else then obviously that IS what she was saying. We parted ways at the elevator and basically both walked away mad.

It wasn’t until I got to my desk that I realized that I was missing something: My bag. If there is anything that is absolutely essential to my day at work it is my Calvin Klein messenger bag – it carries all of my materials to keep myself entertained and keep my creative juices flowing all day long while I am at work. It also included all of my stuff from my music lessons and my new sheet music notebooks, which I had mentioned last night I was really looking forward to working on this morning at work. Not having my bag with me left me feeling really kind of naked and lost. I was already overly emotional after fighting with my Mom without a resolution and not having my bag kind of put me over the edge. I basically sat there freaking out in silence. I wrote a couple of new songs, on random loose paper I had on my desk and eventually asked my sister if I could run downstairs to check and see if my bag was in the car. Since I was freaking out so much, I decided to smoke a half of a cigarette while I was outside to calm my nerves a bit. When I got to the car, I found that my bag wasn’t in there. I figured I must have left it at home. That is just so out of character for me to do, and I just felt really out of it. While in the car, I text messaged my Mom to say that I left my bag at home and to see if she could run me home on one of her breaks to get it. I also used that text message to apologize for freaking out so badly earlier. I know that she needs to do what she needs to do and I can’t always expect to be a deciding factor in those things. It’s still an extremely upsetting concept that I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around, but I also understand that my reaction was extremely selfish and probably more than a little melodramatic. While I was sitting in the car, with a cigarette in one hand and my phone in the other, I noticed one of my co-workers passing by, walking to the CVS across the street on her break. She gave me a smile that was hard to read and waved. I wasn’t sure if her smile was like, “Ha, I just caught you screwing around when you’re supposed to be working,” or if it was just a regular smile. I’m not overly concerned about it, but I just really don’t want to become that person that all of my co-workers decide to hate and gang up on. I don’t see any reason why I would but stranger things have happened. I know how these people talk about everybody behind their backs and I don’t really want to become the next person that they are all talking about. We’ll see, I suppose. I just try so hard to get along well with everybody but lately I have been keeping to myself more often than anything else while at work and it does concern me that people will see that as me being a bitch or thinking I’m better than others. As I discussed last night, I worry that I do come across as if I think I am better than other people or like I think I am more than I am. As much as I may joke about it sometimes, I do not think that way at all. I’ve just been so focused on my creative work lately, particularly while at work, that I just haven’t been the most social person in the world. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter that much to me what the people at work, or anywhere else, think of me but I also don’t want to create negative situations for myself. Like I said, we’ll see.

It took my Mom a long time to respond to my text message once I got back upstairs and I kind of took that as a sign that she was still pissed off. When she finally did respond, though, she said she was sorry and that she wouldn’t leave me in the lurch or suddenly go without giving me time to prepare or anything. I still absolutely HATE the idea of it, but that puts my mind at ease a slight bit… Sure, it’s the slightest amount of ease possible but it’s better than nothing. When 11:30am rolled around, I saw my Mom come up and talk to my sister, so I figured she was on break. She walked away before I could get approved for break, as well, but I managed to catch up with her and we ran home and grabbed my bag and got me to feel complete again. We also talked a little bit and I was starting to feel a little bit better about the world. When I came back from my break, I pulled out my sheet music notebook and the loose sheets that Viktor had given me at the last two lessons and spent the next portion of my day copying them into the notebook. I feel like I have picked up the G Clef really well, as evidenced by how well I seemed to know them in last week’s lesson, but I’m feeling a little less confident about the F Clef. I think I know it pretty well – they aren’t overly complicated. I think I will spend parts of tomorrow and Wednesday studying up on it a bit more, though, to make sure I really have it down in time for this week’s lesson. I also gave my sister some gas money today for driving me to my lessons the past couple of weeks. She seemed to really appreciate that and I was very glad to do it – after all, she is going extremely out of her way to drive me down there each week and it is only right that I contribute in some way. Copying those into the new notebook was a very good way to pass a little time, though, and a really good way to kind of review the work I’ve done so far in my lessons. I am really excited for this week’s lesson, as well. I just love my piano lessons, honestly. Not only do I feel like I am FINALLY really learning something about writing music for myself but I also just have a lot of fun there. It really is one of my favorite things in the world right now.

The rest of my day at work, between calls and such, was spent kind of mapping out my YouTube show. I came up with a basic outline for the way I want the show to go and then used that outline to write out a sample script for the first episode. Yes, I have finally decided who the subject of my very first “Weekly Inspiration” will be. I am not going to reveal it here, because I kind of want it to be a surprise, but I will say that I figured out the perfect person to start the series off. While thinking about the whole thing, I figured out a person who not only embodies everything that I want the show to be but who has also been one of the biggest inspirations to me for pretty much my entire life and has probably influenced me more than anybody else has throughout the course of my life. I’m sure you can come up with a lot of guesses just based on that but you will have to wait and see. The sample script I wrote up came out really well, I think, and now I just have to re-write it to make it flow a little better, do a minor bit of fact-checking online and come up with ideas for the visual presentation of it all. I am really excited to get started on this. I am hoping to have the first episode all set and ready to go by next week. It is pretty exciting and I really can’t wait to get it all put together and share it with the world. I know it probably won’t wind up going very far but I think it will be a really good experience for me to put it all together and really get started on this project. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully will help some other people find the type of inspiration that I have managed to find for myself.

After work I came home and decided to make dinner to have ready for when my Mom got home. I also decided that it would be a good surprise to bake up some of these delicious cookies that I had purchased from a friend/co-worker recently from some school fundraiser. They were selling those giant tubs of Otis Spunkenmeyer cookie dough and I bought these amazing “Strawberry Shortcake” cookies, as well as “The Pink Cookie,” which is a chocolate cookie with pink M&Ms for chips with a portion of the proceeds going to breast cancer research. The cookies came out delicious, as did dinner, and I was stuffed but very pleased to have done something to make my Mom happy after her day at work. We sat down and watched “RuPaul’s Drag Race” together, which has become a bit of a Monday night ritual since the current season started, and just had a lovely time over a lovely meal, not to mention all the lovely drag queens. No matter how the morning was, I would say that the day wound up pretty great. Sure, there has been an element of uncertainty added to a very big part of my life but I also feel like it was good that my Mom was at least honest with me about the whole situation. Like I said, I think it was a pretty good day all around. The main reason that I feel that way, looking back on the day at this point, is because I have made the decision to perceive it that way. I could just as easily have chosen to perceive it as a really terrible day but what good would that really do? I am listening to “The Very Best Of Lisa Loeb” as I write this and am trying to select one of these songs for the title of this chapter of the “Story,” and based on my perception there are two options I could go with – the first would be “Bring Me Up,” a song about feeling low and all alone in the world and just wanting somebody to bring you back up, or I could go with “Wishing Heart,” a song about facing uncertainty and choosing to follow your heart. “Wishing Heart” wins out, of course, because no matter how natural it may feel to beat myself down and go with something focused on the low points of the day, it is not my personality. I have always said that I am nothing, if not hopeful. Like the Lisa Loeb song, I have a “wishing heart.” “If it doesn’t brush my should and it doesn’t beat my heart, that’s not what I want, no, that’s not where I will start, I never kissed somebody so that they would break my heart, that’s not what I want, no… if you don’t know what you’re missing because you don’t know where to start just follow your wishing heart.” That is great advice, Lisa Loeb, and I am going to follow it. For now, though, it is 12:47am and I should really be getting to bed. I have to get up in the morning and workout again, so I’d better get myself rested up. Good night.