Chapter 115: Getaway

I woke up this morning feeling fine – FINALLY! It was about time that happened! It was about 9:30am and my Mom was at work doing overtime to make up for her missed time at the beginning of last week. Too bad I don’t have a way to make up for my time. Fortunately, I have money to make up for what will be missing from my check – it still sucks, though. So much for extra money, eh? I can’t really say that, though, because I have been spending extra money like gangbusters lately. So, I had extra money that I spent. I got some pretty awesome stuff, too. No need to get upset that the rest of this isn’t extra any longer. Of course, the extra $100 I had planned to set aside for my music lessons isn’t exactly set aside still, (at least not in it’s entirety,) but I will manage just fine. It works out really well that my first lesson is free, I suppose. I am just putting my faith in the Universe that I am going to be fine to get by until the following paycheck, which will be a full one. It is as simple as not spending money the way I have been recently while I had extra. Plus, like I mentioned before, I got some really awesome stuff with the extra money I had, (the most awesome of which will be discussed later,) and am really grateful for it. I am also really grateful to FINALLY be feeling better.

So, can you guess what I did for the first little while after waking up? If you said, “Obsessively played ‘Sorority Life’ on Facebook,” you were correct. That game is a mess and I need to learn to leave it alone. Fortunately, since tomorrow I have to actually go back to work, I should have no problem weaning myself off of it. I wound up playing around with that and other things online until around 11-11:30am, when I decided it would probably be a good idea to get showered and shaved and looking my best. I took a nice long shower and took my time shaving and such, which reminded me of exactly why I had decided to do it in the evenings. I really think I am going to try to go back to that plan. We’ll see how it goes this time. After that I got dressed and sat down to do makeup for the day – I wore my favorite blue DKNY shirt and used my new blue Maybelline eyeshadow I picked up last night – Navy Narcissist is what it’s called and what I was feeling like afterwards because I was like, “I LOOK GORGEOUS!” I also used that under eye serum I picked up, as well. It was pretty weird, honestly. It tightened up the skin under my eyes and felt very odd. It did look pretty decent, but it was clearly meant for wrinkles more than dark circles. I gave it to my Mom because she had expressed interest in it when I bought it and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be using it regularly. It just felt too weird. Shortly after I finished with makeup and everything, I got a call from Rachel saying she’d be over in about 30 minutes. My Mom came home a few minutes later, so I hung out talking to her for a few until Rachel showed up and we left the house.

As soon as Rachel got to the house, pretty much the first thing I said to her was, “We need a Starbucks run!” Fortunately, she agreed. She also mentioned lunch, so we decided to find food and coffee before heading out to the beach for the Arts & Crafts Festival. We headed downtown to the Starbucks by Whole Foods and decided to do lunch at Whole Foods, as well. We both decided to try some of their organic sushi, complete with brown rice. We carried that over to Starbucks and decided to sit and eat in there. There was an adorable guy working at the Starbucks there who seemed to be keeping his eye on me the whole time we were there. This is a plus because, even though I didn’t actually talk to him much or anything, it kind of shows that there is interest from the type of guys that I am attracted to. I mean, I suppose I can never be certain that he was checking me out but there are certain telltale signs people give off, and he was definitely giving them. It may sound silly, but I have been kind of curious/concerned about whether or not the types of guys I would be interested in would share that interest. I haven’t noticed it much because I haven’t really spent any time looking for the past year and a half or two years. I always just kind of dismissed the idea of any sort of involvement with boys, so I didn’t spend any time considering where I would garner interest. I have always had a tendency to “date up” looks-wise but have also lost the will to use some of the tactics I have in the past. I don’t know how to explain that exactly, but basically I am in a place where if I am going to even consider pursuing a relationship with somebody I am going to show them the real me and not paint a picture of myself that isn’t entirely realistic to try to draw them in, as I have in the past. Anyway, so this cute boy at Starbucks checking me out kind of made me feel better about that whole idea. I was less concerned about that, though, than about hanging out with Rachel and enjoying a tasty lunch downtown. After we finished, we walked back to the car and headed out to Lido Key. On the way out there, I took some pictures going over the bridge. I had my camera out for a bulk of the time we were out on Lido, actually, and took a few pictures. They weren’t the best pictures in the world, but I was feeling pretty inspired.

We had this thought that because of the Arts & Crafts festival taking place by the parking lot of the beach, we would probably not be able to find parking there. So, we parked at the entrance of the beach and walked over to the parking lot, which was a good distance. It was fine, though, because it felt really nice to just be out in the sun, walking along the beach and just chatting it up. Of course, while we walked we kept noticing open parking spaces on the street and once we got to the parking lot found it pretty empty. Then we saw the Arts & Crafts festival. It was tiny. It probably took us 15 minutes to walk through the entire thing, including stopping to look at things. Every booth seemed to be run by some geriatric who took some stones and attached them to a string and wanted to charge $30 for them. It was really kind of a bust. It was still good to go out there and check things out, though. It also made me think more about the concept of hand painting some clothes because if I did I could easily get a booth at something like that and sell them. Plus, if I didn’t charge like they did there, they could very well be a hit. I love the idea of doing that. I love the idea of one of a kind, hand painted clothes that I made myself. This is definitely something I intend to look into because I think I could do some really cool things with it. Designing clothing is still something I really think I could pull off and do something really cool with, and I think hand painting would be a really cool place to start. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day out on Lido with Rachel. The thing I liked the best was just being out amongst people, which I haven’t done much of in a while. It was really nice to just say hello to people as we passed along the beach or in Whole Foods or whatever, or briefly chatting with the baristas at Starbucks or whatever. I miss the simple act of interacting with people aside from the ones I see every day of my life. I definitely think I need to do more of that. Another thing that Rachel and I discussed while we were out was the Lady Gaga Flash Mob and our shared excitement over it. I am really looking forward to it. We were both kind of concerned with the fact that there are still only 9 confirmed guests for the event and have decided that we totally need to “word of mouth” it a lot more in the time remaining. I really think it is going to be amazing no matter how many people show up. Plus, it is in the same plaza as this awesome little sushi place I love, so we figured we’d do dinner afterwards. I am really excited for this. It will definitely be a good time.

Rachel dropped me off at home around 4:30pm and my Mom had gone on a cleaning spree while I was gone. The house was all spic and span looking and she had even made spaghetti. We watched last night’s “Saturday Night Live” with host and musical guest Jennifer Lopez, which wasn’t overly impressive. The thing that stuck out the most was Jennifer Lopez’s musical performances. She sang two brand new songs that I had never heard before, “Pieces” and “Starting Over,” both of which were a completely different style from her usual fare, and both really gorgeous songs. Sadly, what was not as gorgeous was her live vocal. I was optimistic and initially tried to say, “Oh well, it was just one bad note.” Unfortunately, it was a whole series of bad notes, though. It was just bad. I’m sure the songs, both very well written, guitar-based pop songs, will be gorgeous in their studio versions but live they were a big mess. I can’t say it is a huge surprise or anything – there are artists who never tour or anything for a very good reason. She has never done more than one-off performances and such, and now I can kind of see why. Still, she does make good music when her vocals are corrected in the studio. Sadly, from what I understand, she was recently dropped from Sony and these performances were kind of critical to showcasing her new music to labels and such, and I don’t know if they will wind up being much help. At the same time, though, she is Jennifer Lopez and that will likely wind up being enough to get her a deal with another label. Plus, like I said, they were both really strong songs – they just weren’t sung by a really strong voice. I’m sure she’ll get a deal just fine, and I hope she does soon because I have been really anxious to hear her new record and this whole label dropping thing has delayed it for God knows how long.

I also spent a good portion of this afternoon watching and waiting for my last Ebay auction to end. I had the two, for a MAC eyeshadow trio designed by Heatherette and a pair of Van’s designed by Richie Rich, (from Heatherette,) that were set to end today. I wound up being outbid on the eyeshadow yesterday and did not re-bid because I figured it was wiser not to spend the money on that. The Richie Rich Van’s, on the other hand, I completely fell in love with and was determined to have. I watched like a hawk all evening and, around 7:20pm, wound up winning them for $32.01. I had initially had a maximum bid of $31.01 in, but since I was going out and such, I had raised it to $40.00 just in case. Fortunately, they only went for $1 more than my initial maximum bid and they are now paid for and should be coming sometime in the next week. They are the most gorgeous shoes possible, and I cannot wait to get them on my feet!

Despite the fact that I am feeling better now, I was pretty worn out at this point. This was less sickness-related, though, and more about the fact that I was exposed to more sun today than I probably have been in the past month, if not longer. Still, it was a really nice feeling being out in the sun. It may have tired me out, but it was definitely worth it. I had a lot of fun today. While winding down this evening I got this urge, and I’m not sure where it came from exactly, to listen to Monica. You know, “The Boy Is Mine,” “Don’t Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days,)” “So Gone,” Monica? I have always been a pretty big fan of hers, but hadn’t really listened to her much in recent times. So, I downloaded all of her albums and added them to my iPod this evening and have been listening to her while writing this blog. I also found a bunch of new music that has leaked off of her new album, “Still Standing,” which there apparently was a whole reality show around, called “Monica: Still Standing.” This show has since ended, and I am very sad that I didn’t know about it in time to watch it. She is a very talented girl and, even more, has a very interesting story – including her boyfriend having committed suicide right in front of her, which inspired my favorite song of hers, “I Wrote This Song.” There is this one song from her last album, “The Makings Of Me,” called “Getaway,” that I had heard before but never really paid attention to until I heard it tonight. The chorus of this song says, “Sometimes I wish I could hide away, Looking for a place to getaway, Getaway from all the heartache and pain that life can bring, I really don't want to sound like I can't hold my ground, But everybody needs some time that they can getaway.” Those lyrics really stuck out to me tonight. I think I have spent the past little while in that mode – trying to getaway from it all. That time is over now, though. The time for getting away from my hopes and dreams because of fear is in the past. Now is the time for going full speed ahead and doing whatever it takes to get to where I need to be. Now is the time for music. It is the time for fashion. It is the time for art. Now is the time for me to create a masterpiece – create a masterpiece artistically but, even more, create a masterpiece out of my life. I see a lump of clay and I know what it is meant to be – now is the time to start shaping it to exactly what I want it to be!