Chapter 129: Bump In The Road

You know how yesterday I talked about how I didn’t leave the house but still had a really productive and creative day? Well, today I didn’t leave the house, either, but it definitely wasn’t a productive or a creative day. I fell asleep on the couch again last night. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, it was after 7am when I did finally manage to fall asleep. I tried going to sleep in my bed first, but after laying there for a couple of hours, I got up and went into the living room. I’m not really sure exactly what sleeping on the couch the past two nights is all about, but tonight is the time to get back to my regular routine. After all, I have to get up at my regular time tomorrow and get myself up and ready for work slightly earlier than usual, since I have to take a cab. My Mom is still out of town and is coming back in time for work tomorrow, but she is going in to work at her regular time of 11:30am, instead of her overtime hours that she has been doing every day for the past few months. This means that I have to take a cab to work. One plus side to not leaving the house all weekend is that I didn’t wind up spending any money all weekend, either, and am coming out of the weekend with plenty of money to get through the week, even with my $30 registration fee at the Allegro Academy this week. I should be able to manage that and get through the week without touching the money in my bank account. The only thing I can think of that I need to spend money on is a sheet music notebook for my music class. I don’t know that I will be able to pick one up in time for this week’s lesson, though, unfortunately. This isn’t due to a lack of money but more due to a lack of time. I need to find out the hours of my local Sam Ash music store – hopefully they are open until 9pm so I can have my Mom run me down there after work tomorrow or Tuesday. We’ll see, though.

I woke up just before 12:30pm this afternoon, which is later than I had hoped for. Honestly, it would have been exactly the time I had hoped to wake up had it not been for stupid Daylight Savings Time. That has served as nothing more than an annoyance for me, and I spent all day long feeling like it shouldn’t be the time it was. I decided that my breakfast of pizza rolls and Spaghetti-O’s was so good yesterday that I would go ahead and do it again today. I did switch it up a little bit by having actual leftover pizza instead of pizza rolls. The only reason I did that, though, was because we were out of pizza rolls. I sat on the couch and watched the two new episodes of Oprah from this week, including her big Oscar “after party,” featuring the winners in the four major acting categories, Best Actress Sandra Bullock, Best Supporting Actress Mo’nique, Best Actor Jeff Daniels and Best Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz. It was a really great episode featuring fairly in-depth interviews with each of these winners, as well as Nate Berkus backstage interviews with the stars at the Oscars and Carson Kressley discussing the best Oscar fashions. I loved Nate Berkus’ backstage interviews – I just find him extremely appealing and am very excited to see more of him come fall when he debuts his own daytime show. I am really excited to see how that goes for him – I think it will do well because, as I mentioned before, he is a very appealing and interesting guy. I like him a lot. My favorite part of Oprah’s Oscar special, though, was her giving Geoffrey Fletcher, screenwriter of “Precious,” a second chance at his acceptance speech. Geoffrey Fletcher is the “other” history-maker at this year’s Oscars as the very first African-American to win the Oscar for screenwriting, (the big talk one, of course, being Katheryn Bigelow being the first woman to win Best Director.) It is really an amazing accomplishment for Geoffrey Fletcher and he was understandably overcome during his speech on the show, so Oprah gave him a chance to do what he would have wanted to do in the moment and he was amazing – so eloquent and gracious. He also spoke very touchingly about what a joy and privilege it is for a screenwriter to see his dialogue be brought to life by such a brilliant cast. I thought he was pretty brilliant and definitely deserving of the Oscar he got – “Precious” really is a complete triumph. Yes, I completely championed “Up In The Air” and stand by that, but “Precious” was also an incredible film and so deserving of all the accolades it has received. I also found Christoph Waltz very adorable, sexy and fascinating in his interview with Oprah – he seemed kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing and in awe of the company he was on that stage with, particularly Jeff Bridges. It was really nice seeing these four Oscar winners sharing the stage, interacting and expressing their mutual respect for one another. I liked it a lot. I also watched an episode Oprah did about Lisa Kudrow’s new reality show, “Who Do You Think You Are,” which follows various celebrities as they trace their genealogical roots. It’s a really cool idea for a show and I am very excited to see what they dig up for some of my favorite stars who are going to be featured, like Brooke Shields, Matthew Broderick and, one of my favorite actresses of all-time, Sarah Jessica Parker. Genealogy is not something that I have ever really had much of an interest in, honestly. It seems like a lot of people really believe that it gives them some sort of added insight into the person that they are and I can respect that concept, but I disagree. The history of anybody who may have been related to me is of no significance to who I am as a person. The only history that really affects the person that I am is my own history. Other information is certainly interesting to know, but doesn’t really have any true effect on who I am. This is just my opinion, though, and I do find it fascinating to see how these histories affect others. Should be an interesting show, I think. It was certainly an interesting episode of Oprah. The new reality show that I am really excited for, though, is “Jessica Simpson’s The Price Of Beauty.” This show also got it’s own dedicated episode of Oprah recently, as well, last week. I have always been a pretty big fan of Jessica Simpson. In spite of anything else she has done, she is an extremely gifted vocalist and it makes me sad that people don’t recognize that and even try to lump her into that category of pretty girls who can’t really sing, like Britney Spears. Jessica Simpson has a gorgeous voice and an extreme talent with it, but it has kind of wound up being overshadowed by her image. It’s really a shame. I also have a lot of respect for her because she has always seemed to make it a point to try to effect positive changes in this world, no matter how dumb she may seem, and this new reality show she is doing is no different. Essentially, she and two of her closest friends, Ken Paves and Caycee Cobb, are traveling all across the world to see the ideals of beauty and the extremes people will go to in order to achieve them on different continents and in different cultures. I think it is a brilliant concept and watching her discuss it on Oprah was really impressive and inspiring. This show premieres tomorrow night on VH1 at 10pm and should be a fascinating journey. I am really excited to watch that.

After my mini-marathon of Oprah, I decided to try to do something slightly productive with my day. Last weekend I did a good deal of Spring Cleaning in my bedroom and bathroom, but today I decided to do a different type of Spring Cleaning – I cleaned my computer. There were a LOT of superfluous files, particularly music and videos that had been hanging around on the computer for far too long now. I spent a couple of hours working on that this afternoon, and my computer now seems to be running much quicker and more smoothly since I finished. I have been thinking a lot about it and I think that, once I am in a more financially stable position, I would like to get a new computer. Not just any computer, though – I want to get a Mac. I am thinking that I may look into getting on through Aaron’s, the rent-to-own company that we got this computer through 5 or 6 years ago. I just kind of fell in love with my friend Devin’s Mac computer and feel like Apple is the way of the future – their products just seem considerably more interesting and reliable than Microsoft and Windows. I have also been thinking a lot lately about possibly upgrading my phone. Actually, what I am thinking of doing is actually downgrading it slightly for something that is a little more functional and has a certain status to it – a Blackberry. Sprint doesn’t offer the touchscreen Blackberry Storm, though, so it would be kind of a downgrade going from a touchscreen to a regular QWERTY PDA, but I have been looking into the functionality of the Blackberry lately and feel like it would really be right up my alley. We’ll see what happens with that, though – it will still be a while before I am eligible for upgrade. I have plenty of time to consider my options, as far as phones go.

I did do a load of laundry today, which was also fairly productive but really didn’t take any time at all. Laundry is really, in my opinion, the easiest chore there is, so long as you stay on top of it. You really just have to throw it in and leave it alone until it finishes. While I was doing laundry and watching some other stuff that had been sitting on the DVR for a while, I decided that perhaps I should go ahead and clear out some space on there, as well. Since there is so much new stuff being added to it so frequently lately, with the return of old shows and a lot of new shows starting, I figured it would be a good idea to clear stuff out before stuff that I actually want to keep on there gets deleted due to lack of storage. I have typically kept all the episodes of my favorite shows on there for later re-viewing, but it is actually pretty rare that I go back and re-watch anything, so I figured it was silly to leave them all there taking up storage space, so I deleted a bunch of past episodes of shows and managed to take the DVR from 14% space remaining to 53%. That seemed like a pretty good accomplishment, even though it really took very little time or effort. By the time I finished with laundry and clearing out space on the DVR, I realized it was already about 7:45pm and I had yet to take a shower or eat dinner, so I went ahead and hopped in the shower and took a nice, long, relaxing shower and felt really great coming out of it. I made myself a quick, easy dinner of leftover Arby’s sandwiches and decided to catch up on the past few weeks of “Desperate Housewives,” which have been REALLY good. I really love that show, although this season has been kind of odd. I mentioned back in December when all the shows were leaving for Winter Break how odd and just generally “off” all of my favorite shows had been this season. Fortunately, a few of them seem to be returning much better than when they left – particularly “Desperate Housewives,” and “Gossip Girl.” I was only going to watch one episode in order to be writing this blog and getting ready for bed by 9pm, but I wound up watching all three of the episodes on there, which is why I am still writing at 11:59pm. In fact, it is about to be midnight and I should probably get to sleep. I am feeling pretty ready for bed, actually.

Before I do go to bed, I did want to mention one last thing – iamamiwhoami. For those unfamiliar with this sensation, it is a viral campaign going on for a new release from some musician, but nobody knows who it is. There has been a lot of speculation about who exactly it is that is being promoted with these videos. My personal favorite theory and my hope is that it is Christina Aguilera, who is releasing a new album sometime in the not-too-distant future that is supposed to have a really experimental, electronic sound to it that would really kind of suit the style of music featured in these videos. I don’t know if it is her, though, but she seems to be a popular theory. Another popular theory is that it is Lykke Li, who I was never overly familiar with and downloaded an album from tonight to see what it was like based on all the talk that the music in these videos is similar to hers. I don’t know who it is, but a lot of people are ruling Christina Aguilera after the most recent video premiered tonight, (you can view the new video here,) which kind of shows the face of the artist. The face and body is covered in plastic, saran-wrap type material and you really can’t see much of the face, except the eyes and teeth. The eyes do seem reminiscent of Christina’s but I can’t really tell if it’s her or not. What I do know is that I am anxious to find out who it actually is, because the music in these videos sounds amazing. It is really a fascinating way to promote a new record for whoever it is and I am anxious to see exactly who is behind this whole phenomenon. We’ll see soon enough, I suppose. For now, though, I need to go to bed. Good night.