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.