Chapter 175: Dynamite

I woke up late today, around 7:50am, and found my Mom already awake. She told me she had been up for about an hour and was rushing around the house cleaning stuff. She said that she just randomly woke up early and decided not to go back to sleep but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that she did it on purpose because she wanted to obsessively clean the house since her boyfriend is coming tomorrow. I totally don’t mind her boyfriend coming and have no complaints to make, really. One thing that does kind of get on my nerves about it, though, is the fact that my Mom gets really obsessed with trying to make our house look perfect and she really stresses herself out over it when it doesn’t actually make any major difference. The house wasn’t ridiculously messy before or anything. The dishes needed to be done definitely and there were some things that needed to be picked up, trash taken out and things of that nature, but her boyfriend has seen our house a mess. He has even made our house a mess. I just don’t understand the obsession with cleaning up the house. She is doing it even now, when she should be getting ready to go to bed. Still, despite the fact that I don’t understand it and find it kind of irritating, I leave her to it and don’t make much comment. I even did a few little things to help out, like taking out the trash and gathering up all of my shoes that have been lying around the living room. The thing I have to keep in mind is that, regardless of her reasoning or my lack of understanding of it all, apparently she feels it is necessary and it makes her feel better about things so what does it really hurt for me to go along with it. I think the issue in my head is that it is like she is trying to cater to a man in her own home and I almost kind of feel like she is valuing the man over herself and over me, who lives in this house and is at her side day in and day out. Still, the key words in that statement were at the very beginning – “the issue IN MY HEAD…” It is simply my own issue that is irritating me about the whole thing. The act itself is not an issue, it is just triggering an internal issue that I have.

So, I kind of assumed that because she was busy doing all of this random cleaning first thing this morning she may not want to step away from it to workout. Still, I rushed through washing my face and brushing my teeth and smoking first thing to be ready to workout. We did go ahead and work out and wound up getting some really good exercise. I am glad we did it. I am feeling pretty proud of myself, honestly, because I haven’t punked out of working out once this week. I mean, we didn’t workout on Monday but that was because my Mom was out of town. I could have done it on my own Monday but I normally don’t. I think moving forward I will workout by myself on those days when my Mom is out of town. Of course, with my Mom’s schedule changing, those days may not be happening so much for a while. I don’t know but I am very focused on getting my workout in every day moving forward. In fact, I am very focused on accomplishing all of the tasks I have set for myself daily. I have been doing a really good job of them, although this is the first week that I have had these tasks set for myself. Still, I am starting off strong. That is a really good thing. Tomorrow is the last day of the week and I would really love to be able to end the week saying that I managed to complete my daily tasks every day this week. So, I have to make sure to get it all done tomorrow, as well.

Work was like hell today. It just felt like the day took a really long time to pass and I was really bored through most of the day. I wrote three new songs today. These three were much less dance/pop than the songs I have written over the past few days. They were all still very pop, but considerably less dance oriented. There was no song about being in love with the beat today. Ha. I would say that the songs I wrote today would work as more guitar based pop, like something Natalie Imbruglia would have done on her first record. They were pretty good songs, though, if I do say so myself. If any of these daily musical tasks has come back to me really quickly and just as good as it was before, I would say it is songwriting. I have always said that before I am anything else in this world, I am a songwriter. Before I am gay, before I am fat, before I am 26 years old, before I am a “customer service representative,” before I am Jason Michalchek, before I am even Jason Davis, I am a songwriter. It is, as far as I am concerned, the single most important part of myself. It is my core. It is weird to think that I had kind of stopped doing it for so long. It is very out of character for me. Like I said when I established my daily musical tasks, though, I think I just became so focused on experimenting with so many different types of art that I let music fall to the wayside. That is not something that I intend to let happen. I have kind of been thinking about possibly devoting one of the weekend blogs each week to kind of showcasing the songs that I have written that week. I don’t know if I really want to focus the songs I am writing in this particular venue, though, because I am only 5 days away from hitting the 6 month mark on this blog and I have never made it a place to feature my lyrics before. I don’t know that I want to start that when I am already halfway through the blog. Perhaps I can post them up as a note on Facebook or something, though. I kind of feel like it would be a good idea to share these daily writings but I don’t necessarily feel like the blog is the best place to do that. I also don’t necessarily want to sacrifice one of my blogs every week for that. It just seems like that would kind of be going against what the blog is about. The blog is supposed to be capturing a year in my life, and while my songs are definitely a look into my life I don’t necessarily feel like they would fit in with the general theme and tone of this blog. I do like the concept of a weekly Facebook note featuring my songs from the week, though. That may wind up happening.

Overall, work was pretty bland today. There was a random moment when I let myself start getting really stressed out and irritated while at work and I had to work really hard to shake that feeling off but beyond that it was pretty well uneventful. I drew a bunch of random clothing designs, including a couple different catsuits, which I feel like are kind of lacking in everyday fashion. Okay, maybe they aren’t but I do think it would be fun to see more people walking around in catsuits. I also designed a pretty cool sweatervest with a brick wall style design on it and now I really want to figure out how to make it happen because it was adorable. For the most part, though, I felt really tired all day and really struggled to get through this workday. Still, I did complete my songwriting for the day and did a lap around the parking lot with my Mom on our first break, so I’d say it was a pretty successful day. I also wore a really great makeup look today – it was a really cute lavender and red look. I loved it. I know I said on Tuesday that I was going to take a break from the Maui Wowie shade in my Urban Decay “Summer Of Love” palette, but I totally didn’t. However, both Tuesday and today I only used it as a brow highlight and didn’t use it at all on Wednesday. So, I think I may go ahead and use it as a main color tomorrow. I don’t know yet, but I think I may do the pink, purple and gold look I came up with over the weekend, (which you can see in my Facebook photo album, “Makeup & Junk.”) I’m not sure yet, though, because I would really like to do a look that incorporates all of the shades in the “Summer Of Love” palette. I’ll figure it out in the morning, I suppose.

When I got home this evening, I recorded my daily singing video doing my own “acoustic” re-arrangement of the song “With Love” by Hilary Duff, which I have been toying around with over the past few years. It is pretty cute. Still, I am really noticing and really not happy with my vocal shortcomings. They are becoming more and more apparent with each video that I do. I really need to take some voice lessons. The only real urgency, though, is in the fact that I am kind of obsessing over the lack of strength in my voice. I don’t know why I am so obsessed with this lately – I’m not Christina Aguilera and I am never going to be. I have always known this about myself and accepted it. I have long said that I may not be Christina Aguilera but I could definitely pull of being some of my favorite artists out there, like Robyn or Vitamin C or Geri Halliwell or, the greatest, Madonna. None of those people have very strong vocals but they all make really great music and have found really good ways to make due with what they do have. I’ve even found myself writing songs, a couple of the dance/pop style ones from the past few days, with that talk-singing style stuff like Leighton Meester does on “Somebody To Love,” or like Britney Spears does on pretty much every song she has recorded since the “Britney” album. I don’t necessarily have to have a really strong voice if I can manage to write really great music that kind of transcends that. In fact, look at two of my other top five favorite artists of all time, Liz Phair and Courtney Love. Neither of them can even carry a tune, not really, but they have both gotten by all these years based on the strength of their songwriting and their attitudes towards music. These are things that I could definitely learn a bit from. Still, I would really like to improve my vocal abilities, if possible. I’m going to figure this out somehow.

Speaking of Christina Aguilera, who I only briefly mentioned, there are three albums that I am anticipating more than any others in the coming months and those are “Night Work” by Scissor Sisters, “Aphrodite” by Kylie Minogue and “Bionic” by Christina Aguilera. Of course, I am also really psyched for the new Miley Cyrus album, “Can’t Be Tamed” and the new Sheryl Crow record, “100 Miles From Memphis,” but Scissor Sisters, Kylie and Christina are kind of my main focus right now. Christina Aguilera is the closest of these and, in fact, the world premier of the video for her first single from the album is taking place tonight at 12:01am. Actually, that’s right now. Be right back.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, if I seemed at all excited about this album coming out before I am going completely apeshit over it right now. The video is absolutely amazing. I got about 15 seconds into the video and already caught a glimpse of a theme – CHRISTINA DOES MADONNA!!! The video is basically Christina recreating various classic, iconic Madonna images from her early career but making it so much raunchier than Madonna did at the time. It is like Madonna goes Dirrty. It is absolutely insane and gorgeous. I am completely obsessed with it. I had to watch it twice. It was just the hottest video I have seen in a long time. It wasn’t quite Lady Gaga’s “Telephone,” but it was very close. Christina Aguilera knows how to turn up the heat on her music and image and she is doing a fucking outstanding job of that this go-round. I cannot wait for more of this album and this era of Christina Aguilera’s career – I think it may very well wind up being my favorite! God, that video has got me all wired. That’s probably not a good thing considering I need to be going to bed immediately. It is 12:20am and I simply must go try my best to sleep and stop obsessing over Christina Aguilera paying homage to Madonna. Goodnight.

Chapter 174: Brand New You

As you all surely must know by now, I have recently adopted the Dolly Parton-inspired philosophy of simply expecting things to be great and doing everything I can to make them great. I have been trying really hard to wake up every morning and expect the day to be great and it has really made a huge difference in my life. I hadn’t told my Mom that I have been practicing this philosophy until last night and when I did she said that she could tell I was doing something differently because she has seen a major change in me over the past couple weeks. Now, I’d love to say I am not one of those people who needs validation like this from other people… and I can say that. I am not a person who needs it. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t a person who enjoys it. I mean, on one hand, I believe very strongly in what RuPaul says – “what other people think of me is none of my business,” – but at the same time, I don’t see anything wrong in being pleased when people have good things to say about you. The difference, in this particular case, is that it wasn’t my Mom telling me that my makeup looks nice or that my outfit is cute, it is her telling me that she sees a difference in me. It is her confirming that the work I am putting into myself is showing. I appreciate that. Again, I know it doesn’t really matter if it shows to anybody else because I know it for myself but it is also nice to know that it does show. The whole concept of how I feel about receiving compliments and such from people is one that is much too big for tonight’s blog, simply because I have a LOT to say about the topic and have other things to focus on in tonight’s blog… although, this does actually tie in a bit.

This morning I woke up with my alarm again. I stayed in bed for about five minutes, then got up and got myself a drink, washed my face, brushed my teeth and came back to the computer. I had the thought of possibly skipping the workout today but since figuring out last night exactly how it ties in to my long-term goals, I simply let that thought pass. I smoked two cigarettes and was ready to go work out! We are still doing the Beginner’s disc of the “Zumba” workout but we are also both really feeling like it is time to take it up a notch. So, we are going to go ahead with the first disc tomorrow and Friday and review the second disc over the weekend and start on it Monday. As I have discussed here a lot lately, I really love the “Zumba” workout because it doesn’t really feel like working out. It doesn’t feel like a chore. It is a lot of fun and it all passes by really quickly. Every time we do it, I find myself surprised when we’ve reached the end because it hardly seems like we’ve done anything. At the same time, though, you really feel it in your body and get just as much of a workout as with the much lengthier and less fun “Walk-A-Dobics” program. There is this new chain of gyms that have opened here in town, called You Fit, and they have a pretty insane promo going on where you can join for $10 a month. My Mom and I have been talking a lot about maybe joining there in order to step up the workout a bit. I definitely feel like I am gaining momentum and am at the point where I need to be stepping it up. In fact, I have been stepping it up. These past few weeks we have skipped very few days and have also been walking the parking lot at work most days during our first break. I feel really great about the exercise regime and can’t wait to see the results from it.

After the workout, I had a bowl of oatmeal and smoked another cigarette before getting ready for work. I wore my white Marc Ecko t-shirt with a black and silver designed tree with blue birds flying from it, so I decided to do a blue, silver and black makeup look today. It wasn’t my favorite thing I’ve ever done but I liked it a lot. I feel like my blending skills, in terms of makeup, have improved immensely recently and like I am really getting the hang of creating looks that aren’t completely over the top but still make the desired impact. Essentially, I feel like I am getting really good with makeup. I am really feeling a desire to try doing makeup on other people. I find myself looking at other people’s faces and automatically thinking about the types of looks I would do for them. Everyone from co-workers to my piano instructor, Viktor, become imaginary palettes for me to work with. I like that feeling a lot. I feel like I have a bit of an eye for it. Speaking of makeup, I have discussed quite a bit here my ongoing quest for the perfect concealer for me. My friend April gave me the best stuff possible, from Amazing Cosmetics, but it is $43 for a full-sized bottle of it. I tried some orange stuff from NYX, which just always seemed to leave orange marks on my face. I tried a $20 stick from Pop Beauty but it seems like the product is too thick and is difficult for me to blend. After those two, I started thinking that maybe $43 for something that will wind up lasting me quite a while may not be such a bad idea. Of all the concealers I have used, that one has been the best. Still, I was watching the editor of In Style magazine on “The View” and she was showing their list of best beauty buys and showed a product that I was intrigued by – Maybelline Dream Mousse Concealer. It is the consistency of a mousse, comes in 24 different shades and is on their list of best products. I figured that could be worth a shot before I bite the bullet and spend $43 on a concealer. So, this evening I picked up a jar of it and was really anxious to give it a try. I have to say, this shit is amazing! I am kind of in love with it! Best of all, it is only $7.99. Of course, I will probably use well over $40 worth of it in the time that I would have used the one bottle of the Amazing Cosmetics stuff but I still live with that frame of mind where I would rather spend it in small increments over time than in one lump sum. I don’t know why. I buy cigarettes by the carton, why wouldn’t I do the same type of thing with makeup? I don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that I love this Maybelline Dream Mousse Concealer!

So, work was pretty bland today. It wasn’t bad. It was just kind of boring. The day didn’t pass all that quickly and I felt really tired through much of today. I designed a couple of dresses using these little textured things you put under paper and color over to make a pattern. I was playing around with them yesterday and thought all of the patterns that they made would make fun fabric patterns, so I decided to test that theory by drawing dresses and coloring them with these patterns. It worked out pretty well. I really liked the look of them. I really do love the idea of designing clothing. At some point in the future, once I feel like I have gotten where I need to be with music and voice lessons, I would like to learn how to sew and experiment with making clothes for myself and people I know. I would also love to eventually get a silk-screen machine and make graphic tees. The whole hand-painted t-shirt thing just hasn’t worked out the best for me, although I admittedly didn’t try all that hard. I will likely go back to it eventually. My focus is in other places right now, though. I also wrote not two but three new songs at work today. I have really surprised myself since I started this whole daily songwriting thing with the fact that so much of what I have been writing is extremely dance/pop style. The first two days one of the two songs was a dance/pop song and today all three of the songs I wrote were in that style. It makes sense because that has been, for several months now, the primary type of music I have been listening to. It only makes sense that I would be writing with that type of influence. The thing that is even more surprising is that I really like what I have been doing in that style. It was always a thing before that anytime I wrote something that seemed like a full-blown dance or pop song, I always felt like it came across awkward. These ones have been coming out better than any of those I did before and I really like it. I have thought a lot recently about the type of music I want to make and I think that dance/pop could work out really well for me, maybe even better than the whole folksy, singer-songwriter style I have always imagined myself doing. The key for me, I think, is to write songs that could work both in acoustic and full-blown pop forms. I want to make music, no matter what the sound, that begins from nothing more than just a really well written song. Everything else can be built around that. I feel like the artists that really influence me and are my favorites make music like that, like Gaga and Robyn. I don’t know. I’ve got a really long road ahead of me before I start thinking about the type of sound I want to do. I have to learn to do the really well written song first. The lyric and melody part come pretty naturally to me but now I have to work on learning to write the music to go along with that.

Speaking of learning to write music, tonight was also my piano lesson. Tonight’s lesson was probably my favorite of all of my lessons so far. I feel like I really made some great progress as far as the piece I have been working on but I also finally got to impress Viktor. We had a little time left after kind of sorting out the piece I was focusing on this week, so I decided to show him my progress as far as the piece that we had been working on before, that he told me to keep working on. So, I pulled it out and played the first page of it with both hands and actually played it well. It was a really proud moment for me when he was like, “Wow!” It is silly to say and to admit but I have been trying really hard to impress him with my progress every week and have never really gotten the reaction I wanted out of him. This week, on the other hand, I wasn’t trying to impress him and I wasn’t specifically focused on expecting that but I managed to. It was a really great moment for me. This week he told me to keep working on both of these pieces but to focus on the one that I did with both hands this evening. I think he wants me to play that one in the recital. I actually think that the recital could wind up being pretty cool, actually. I am trying to get my sister and her girlfriend to come and maybe my Mom, too, if her new schedule allows for it. It should be fun, I think. It may also be really weird. Either way, though, if I am going to take part in it I need to work on this piece so I don’t make an ass of myself in front of whoever is there. Still, like I said, tonight’s lesson was probably my favorite one I’ve had so far and I am really excited to continue making progress with the whole thing.

After my lesson, my Mom and I picked up dinner from Taco Bell and stopped at Walgreen’s, where I picked up that Maybelline Dream Mousse Concealer that I am so excited about. Then we came home and ate dinner and watched today’s episode of “The View.” I was particularly excited for this episode because their guest was Courtney Love, and they did an interview segment with her and then she and Hole performed “Pacific Coast Highway,” one of my favorite songs from their new album, “Nobody’s Daughter.” I wasn’t sure what to expect from Courtney Love appearing on “The View” because we all know the kind of hot mess she has been in the past. I was really surprised and excited to see her come in looking beautiful and speaking very eloquently and seeming really well put together. It was a complete breath of fresh air, in comparison to some of her past interviews and appearances. I was also really pleased to see how the ladies of “The View,” were so receptive to her. They were all really kind and respectful and open to her and her views. It was a beautiful, and slightly unexpected, thing. The performance of “Pacific Coast Highway” was absolutely perfect, as well. It was a very classy, toned down performance from Courtney and her vocal, characteristically unpolished, was spot on. It sounds silly to say but it makes me really happy to see her seeming genuinely clean and sober. I have been a fan of hers since I was just a little kid and have seen her go back and forth a LOT and to hear that she has been six years sober, although somewhat of a questionable claim, is a really beautiful thing. I hope, no matter how long it’s actually been the case, she can manage to stay that way.

Anyway, it is 12:10am and I should probably get to bed. My Mom told me just a little while ago that her boyfriend was going to be coming to town this weekend. I was actually really happy and relieved to hear this for a couple of reasons. First of all, I know my Mom has been really worried and stressing out about seeing him now that her schedule is going to be changing so I think him coming this weekend will do her a lot of good and make her really happy. The second, more selfish, reason is that this kind of means that I won’t be able to coerce my Mom into taking me out this weekend to shop. I really don’t need to shop this weekend, beyond what I am going to be ordering from Urban Decay, because I have to pay rent and pay for next month’s piano lessons with this check. There won’t be much leftover after that, so doing any shopping beyond my Urban Decay order would just be a terrible idea. If my Mom is off doing stuff with her boyfriend it will kind of keep me from temptation to spend any more. So, him coming this weekend will be a good thing. Plus, he always cooks a lot when he is here and makes some really awesome food, so that is a plus. The only real minus is the fact that since he will be here my Mom doesn’t want to go do the walk over the Ringling Bridge. That doesn’t mean that I can’t go do it but it makes it a lot less likely that I will. It kind of sucks but I will spend my weekend at home doing some other really productive stuff with my time. I want to make it a point to spend a good portion of this weekend practicing the piece for my piano lessons because if I am going to be doing a recital in just a few short weeks, I am going to need to get myself a little more polished at this piece. In the meantime, though, it is time for me to go to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 173: Disgusting

Last night my Mom and I didn’t speak a word about working out today. In all honesty, I hadn’t really thought much about it because I was so focused on having achieved my musical goals for the day. Still, working out is just as important as music. Okay, so maybe not JUST AS important. On my list of priorities for my life, losing weight definitely falls below music… not THAT far below, though. If I shifted my focus, as far as weight loss goes, I would see how the two really go hand-in-hand. For one, music for me covers a lot more than singing – it also covers a certain level of performance. A very important element of performance is fashion and if I want to get to a point where I can fit into the type of fashion I want to convey I need to lose weight. Therefore, working out really kind of falls into the list of my daily musical goals. I need to remind myself of that often. I don’t know why I never made this connection before. It really makes a LOT of sense. This kind of makes me look at the whole workout routine in a completely different way. Perhaps what I have needed all along, as far as working out goes, was as simple as a new perspective on it! In any sense, as I mentioned, we didn’t discuss working out today amidst all of our conversation last night, so when I woke up this morning I wasn’t sure what to expect from my Mom as far as that goes. I woke up with my alarm, at 7:30am, and got out of bed, washed my face with Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser, brushed my teeth, smoked a couple cigarettes, drank coffee and dicked around online until about 8am. My Mom asked me if I wanted to work out and without really considering it I said yes. I went out to the living room and she was saying that her back was hurting her. I told her we didn’t have to workout if she didn’t want to but she pushed ahead. Turns out, we had a really great workout this morning. My Mom even told me that her back felt considerably better after the workout. It was a really good thing and I am really glad that we did it. In fact, I just talked to my Mom about the whole thing and I really feel very re-invigorated for the whole workout routine! I’m excited to work out tomorrow morning now!

Speaking of exercise and such, my work has been talking for a while now about this competition they are having with the other locations our company has, where people sign up to carry a pedometer for a month and whichever location has the most steps gets some sort of prize. Nobody is really clear on what the prize is but that’s not really the important part. I think my entire department has signed up to do it. I think it’s a pretty cool thing. I learned today that, in order to kick off the whole thing, they have organized a walk in downtown Sarasota, starting at Marina Jack’s and going over the Ringling Bridge. That is happening this weekend and I would really like to go do it. My Mom and I have talked a lot about going and walking the bridge on our own so why not take our first shot at it with a whole group of people? I think it’d be pretty cool. I mentioned it to my Mom and she seems interested but she also pointed out that it is a pretty damn long walk. This is why I think it is a good idea to do it in a big group because there are a lot of people to motivate each other to keep going on. I also know that a few of my co-workers will be going so I’d have people that I know there. It could be a lot of fun. Of course, it is also taking place at 10:30am on a Saturday… so, there’s that. I don’t know about getting up in time to go walking over a long ass bridge at 10:30am on a Saturday. Still, it could be a really fun and healthy way to spend a Saturday morning. It could also be a good way to avoid going out and spending money this weekend, considering I have to pay for the next month of piano lessons this paycheck and really can’t afford to go out shopping like I did last paycheck, no matter how much I may want to.

So, today at work was pretty laid back. I spent most of the day decorating the random calendar they hand out to us every month, then decorating the calendars for a bunch of my co-workers. In the midst of all of this, I also managed to write two new songs today. Much like yesterday, there was one that was slightly more frivolous and poppy, called “This Beat,” which was basically a song about repeating a pattern of bad relationships and learning that my heart really belongs to “the beat.” It’s a dance song about how music is really my one true love. It is really poppy but not all that frivolous, I suppose, considering that is really how I live my life. The second song I wrote today was called “Let The Darkness Come,” which is about having trouble getting through the day and waiting for the night to come so you can leave the day behind. It’s kind of similar in theme to the song I wrote yesterday, “Steam,” but I kind of like this one better. As the title implies, it’s darker. My Mom and I took our first break together and started to walk the parking lot but my body felt really sore and the pants I wore today didn’t fit right, so I asked to stop walking before we made our way through the whole parking lot. I just felt really drained and kind of achy. I’m not sure what it was but that feeling kind of stuck around through much of the day. I didn’t feel as mentally exhausted today as I did yesterday but my body felt much more tired than it really had reason to. I don’t know why that was but it was annoying. My fellow evening shift worker called in sick tonight and I was worried that I may end up getting stuck on the phone late and not being able to get a ride home with my Mom. Fortunately, I only got out a few minutes late and it wouldn’t really have been a problem. It REALLY wasn’t a problem because my sister was there and offered to take me home instead, so my Mom wouldn’t have to leave and risk getting back from break late. When I got home I downloaded a little music and recorded my singing video for today. I did the song “With Every Heartbeat” by Robyn, which I changed the arrangement on a bit to perform at an Open Mic Night a long time ago. I figured since I wasn’t likely to wind up at any Open Mic Nights anytime all that soon, I may as well go ahead and do it as one of my random videos. It went pretty well, although I did spot a few weak spots scattered throughout. I was also going to make dinner, Tuna Helper, but we didn’t have enough milk to do that.

When my Mom got home, since I hadn’t made any dinner, we decided to go down to Gyros & Seafood and pick up something to eat. My Mom was telling me about her day, which included a couple of things that have her worried. For one, she told me a few days ago that her department at work was eliminating overtime for the moment, which meant that she would not be getting all the extra hours that she has been recently. Sadly, she kind of depended on those hours. Today she also found out that her department was changing to 7 days a week, instead of the normal Monday-Friday with overtime hours on the weekend that they’ve been doing. Apparently, everyone in her department is now required to work one weekend day every week. She is very upset about this because the weekend is normally when she goes to see her boyfriend. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, though, in all honesty. If her boyfriend comes down here instead of her going to his house they could still see each other nearly as much as they do now, and it would give her a day off during the week to focus on trying to find a “real job.” I think it could wind up working out really well for her. Now it is a matter of figuring which weekend day she is going to work and which weekday she is going to take off. I think she is going to try for having Friday and Saturday off, which would probably work out best for her. We’ll see, though. Either way, I’m not freaking out over it and I don’t think she should be, either. Still, I understand it is pretty stressful. Plus, her department took away the overtime previously and gave it back pretty quickly. I am kind of keeping my fingers crossed that this is what happens this time, as well. I don’t know. I think the best thing for her would be to find a better, higher-paying job. I am keeping my fingers crossed that things manage to work out that way, we’ll see, though.

Aside from all that, I spent this evening watching TV. I skipped through tonight’s “American Idol,” in order to only watch the performances. It was a pretty good week on the show. There is this kid on the show, Aaron Kelley, who is my favorite. I wish he would win but I’m pretty sure he’s not going to. I am pretty disinterested in this season of “American Idol,” honestly, but I have watched this far I may as well follow it to the end. What I am definitely NOT disinterested in right now is the best show on television, “Glee.” Tonight’s episode saw the return of Kristin Chenoweth as a guest star, and that just made “Glee” all that much better than it already was. This episode also barely featured Lea Michele’s character, Rachel Berry. A lot of fans on Oh No They Didn’t and various other sites have talked a lot about how they feel like the show focuses far too much on her and neglects some of the other extremely talented stars in the cast. I never really thought that, although I can see where people would think that. I think it is just because I absolutely LOVE Lea Michele. However, tonight’s episode where she only had a few lines was one of the best episodes of the show so far. It was really amazing. It focused a lot on one of my other favorite characters, Kurt Hummel, and even featured him doing an AMAZING rendition of the Burt Bacharach classic, “A House Is Not A Home.” That is one of the greatest songs ever written and this kid sang it beautifully. The episode also featured a really gorgeous rendition of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful,” sung by Amber Riley, who has one of the best voices on the show. She is amazing. I was doubly impressed because you hear a lot of people trying to sing Christina Aguilera songs and they can never compare, however Amber Riley absolutely did Christina justice. It was amazing. Speaking of Christina Aguilera, the video for her first single from her album, “Bionic,” is premiering on Friday. There was a little preview snippet on her website today and it looks insanely brilliant! I am really excited to see this – more excited than I have been for a music video in a long time. Aside from Gaga, it seems like people don’t put the effort into making pop videos like they used to. It’s a shame, too, because pop videos used to be the most amazing shit ever.

It is almost 1am and I really should get to bed. Before I do, though, there is one last thing I need to discuss. After my foray into Nickelodeon stuff this weekend with “Victorious” and Victoria Justice, I decided to give a shot to another Nickelodeon star – Miranda Cosgrove, from “iCarly.” Once again, I saw her on “The View” and was intrigued. Despite how funny looking she is, I thought she was really cute and charming and the clip of her song that they played sounded really cute. I still have no interest in watching “iCarly,” but I downloaded her album and cannot stop listening to it. I downloaded it after work and am now listening to it for the fourth time in a row. It’s really fun, spunky pop music. It is a really well-written, well put together album, full of guitar based dance-pop. It is a lot of fun and I am really loving it. She even does a cover of one of Ke$ha’s leaked demos from earlier in her career, when she was just writing for others, called “Disgusting.” This is one of my favorite songs that Ke$ha has done and I was initially kind of put off with the way Miranda Cosgrove delivered it but as I keep listening to it I keep liking it more and more. The album is full of really solid pop songs. My personal favorites are “Shakespeare,” “There Will Be Tears,” “Oh Oh,” “Daydream,” “Brand New You,” “What Are You Waiting For,” and “Beautiful Mess.” It really is an extremely solid pop record and I really love it. Don’t worry, I do feel ashamed. I can’t help myself, though – I am a sucker for good pop music. It is 1:01am. I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 172: Jealous Of My Boogie

Okay, it is almost midnight already so I am going to keep the blog brief tonight. It wasn’t that eventful of a day, honestly. I mean, it wasn’t a bad day or a non-productive day but it was a day that I just don’t have a whole lot to say about. I woke up at 8am, got to work on time, yada yada yada. I wore a blue and gold makeup look today that I just didn’t feel great about. I mean, it was decent but it would have looked better had I gone with a brown instead of blue. I was wearing a blue shirt, though, and am still obsessing over the Maui Wowie shade in my “Summer Of Love” palette. I am intent to do a look without Maui Wowie tomorrow, though. I may use some of the other colors in the palette but definitely no Maui Wowie. After all, I love it so much that I want it to last and if I wear it every day that simply won’t happen. Anyway, over the course of the weekend I drank all of the soda in this house and, in spite of my extensive work in the café at Borders, I don’t know how to make coffee on a home coffeemaker, so I didn’t have any caffeine this morning. I also didn’t sleep the best in the world last night, so I was pretty tired throughout most of today. Work passed fairly quickly, though. I spent most of the workday finishing Lauren Conrad’s book, “Sweet Little Lies,” which was even better than the first “LA Candy” book, and moving on to reread one of my very favorite books, “Rashomon & Other Stories” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. This is a collection of short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, two of which inspired the classic film “Rashomon” from director Akira Kurosawa. Three of the stories in this book also served as the inspiration for one of my very favorite Off-Broadway shows, “See What I Wanna See.” It is really a breathtaking book, and any of you Broadway buffs who haven’t checked out “See What I Wanna See,” you absolutely should buy the OBCR immediately – it is pretty breathtaking and some of Idina Menzel’s best work, in my opinion.

Now, I mentioned over the weekend that I had set myself the task of writing two new songs Monday-Friday, as well as recording a video of me singing one song every day and practicing piano for at least 15 minutes every day, as well. Today was the start date for that, and I am proud to say that all three goals were accomplished! Both of the songs I wrote today were VERY pop-oriented, a little more pop than I personally want to go but which could work for somebody else. There was one song that was only loosely based on personal experience, inspired by a joke from Whitney Cummings, about somebody getting upset with you for doing things that you had already told them you would wind up doing. Whitney Cummings was making a joke about “Twilight” and how, in the beginning, Edward tells Bella that he wants to kill her and she’s like, “It’s okay, I trust you.” She compares that to how many women are in relationships, where a guy tells them up front all the horrible shit he has a history of doing, and the woman is like, “It’s okay, I trust you.” In my opinion, they don’t really have a right to get upset when the man does go ahead and do those things – they were warned. So, I wrote a little song inspired by that whole concept. I wasn’t overly pleased with that one but it was something. The second song I wrote was much more autobiographical and really rooted in my feelings in life right now. It was called “Steam,” and it’s basically a song about having a shitty day and just needing to blow off some steam afterwards. I liked that one a lot. It was very Miley Cyrus inspired, with a touch of LeAnn Rimes. As far as the video I recorded this evening, I sang one of my favorite songs of all-time that I sang at the last Open Mic Night I did, the only one I’ve done here in Sarasota, called “Gardenia” by Mandy Moore. Singing this song and watching the video back really proved to me what I already knew – that I need work. I remember singing that song at the Open Mic Night – it was gorgeous. I sang it pretty well flawlessly and the people there were impressed with it all. I got so many compliments on my voice that night. Playing back this video, I know if I did that now I wouldn’t be getting those same types of compliments. It just didn’t go like it did then. Practice makes perfect, though, and I am going to keep working at this every day. The piano went well today, as well. I feel like the piece that I have been working on is slowly but surely clicking into place for me. It is starting to make a lot more sense in my mind and I am very grateful for that. This whole piano thing just might end up working out for me. I am just kidding, of course. This whole piano thing will DEFINITELY end up working out for me. I expect great things.

To end this blog, I just want to take a moment to discuss the end of one of my favorite TV obsessions of the moment. Tonight was the grand finale of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” I am sad to see it end but also very excited that they announced during the finale that there is a new show coming this Summer called “RuPaul’s Drag U,” which is basically like “Flavor Of Love Charm School,” with drag queens. They are bringing back contestants from both seasons of “Drag Race” for a “Charm School” style competition series. I am excited, in particular, that my very favorite queen from either season of the show, Miss Pandora Boxx, is going to be one of the contestants. As far as the finale of this show, however, I was thoroughly disappointed. There was a very clear winner in the final three, Raven, who was robbed and wound up in second place. Very disappointing. The queen who did win, Miss Tyra Sanchez, certainly embodied RuPaul’s clever saying, “Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent,” but was really green in comparison to Raven, who never came across as anything less than a seasoned professional. I thought it was a shitty choice. Still, it was a crappy end to a great series, kind of like that final season of “The L Word.” You went all that way with the show only to have everything turned upside down at the very end. Still, I am going to miss seeing these queens every week… at least, until “Drag U” starts. For now, though, it is 12:21am and I should most definitely be in bed. Goodnight!

Chapter 171: Make It Shine

So, today didn’t get off to the best start ever. I woke up this afternoon at 1:30pm. This was after having a lot of trouble falling asleep last night… Okay, so I’d be a little disingenuous if I said I was ACTUALLY having trouble falling asleep. I wasn’t really trying to fall asleep, per se. I was in bed but I was doing other things, namely listening to the Nerdist podcast. Then, around 5am, after I had listened to all the new episodes of the Nerdist podcast, I decided to get out of bed and get on the computer to download some stand-up comedy albums. It’s not something I listen to frequently but I do have a lot of comedy albums on my iPod. Every so often, I get in the mood to listen to a comedy album. Last night was one of those “every so often” moments. Now, I have a general preference toward female comedians and last night I found a couple of gems from a couple that I really like – Whitney Cummings and Jen Kirkman. If you are an avid watched of “Chelsea Lately,” like I am and like you should be because it is hilarious, then you are familiar with both of these names. They are both frequent roundtable participants on “Chelsea Lately,” and are both pretty hilarious. I just genuinely appreciate and GET the style of humor of pretty much all of the comedians of “Chelsea Lately.” It’s good stuff. I fell asleep listening to Whitney Cummings’ album, “Emotional Ninja,” last night. It is really a hilarious set she does and if you are into listening to stand-up comedy, I highly recommend it.

Like I said, I woke up at 1:30pm this afternoon. I skipped the step of washing my face this morning because I was being lazy and went straight for breakfast. I figured since I had already kind of screwed up the day by waking up so late, I should just go “full blown fuck up” mode and ate a bowl of spaghetti for breakfast. I was in the mood for garlic bread and didn’t want to make the stuff that we had in the freezer, (again, because I was being lazy,) so I did my own ghetto version of garlic bread. I couldn’t find any actual bread in the house so I toasted a bagel, buttered it and sprinkled garlic salt over it. It worked well and was actually pretty tasty. Despite my general laziness today, I did also managed to throw in a load of laundry as I was preparing breakfast. After that, I sat down in front of the TV and pulled up my list of stuff recorded on the DVR. I decided to watch last night’s “Saturday Night Live,” which I had been kind of excited to see because it was hosted by Gabourey Sidibe, from “Precious,” who I think is adorable, beautiful and insanely talented. She did a really good job hosting “SNL,” and I was particularly into her opening monologue, where she did a little musical number about how she isn’t actually “Precious” and is sick of people coming up to her and being like, “Wow, life must have been so hard for you,” and stuff like that. I wasn’t sure what they would do with an opening for her but it was pretty perfect. The whole episode was pretty decent – not the best episode of this season but really good in comparison to the majority of the season. There have only really been three or four really great episodes of that show this season, like the Taylor Swift episode and the one with Tina Fey. I think the show has definitely gone downhill since Tina Fey left. I just liked her writing better. It’s a shame, though, because the head writer now is Seth Myers, who I adore and who is hilarious on “Weekend Update,” (not to mention HOT,) but the sketches are just weird and random and it just doesn’t work. I don’t know if the issue is necessarily with the writing so much as it is with the current cast, which is not very strong. I don’t know. They definitely need something to switch things up, though. I am really excited to see what they do with the upcoming Betty White episode, though. She is a national treasure and really a comedic legend, so it will be interesting to see how “SNL” works with her. After I turned off “SNL,” the plan was to immediately get in the shower and shave but I got distracted by MTV’s “The Hills: From The Beginning” marathon. I haven’t really sat down and watched any of it because I actually have all the seasons on DVD and have seen every episode from the beginning multiple times but there have been a few times this weekend where I have allowed myself to get sucked in by a random episode here and there for a little while. This afternoon, however, they were playing the Season Five (part one,) finale episode, with Heidi and Spencer’s wedding, which Lauren kept saying she wasn’t going to but eventually did. I remember when that episode initially aired – I bawled like a baby. Lauren and Heidi drama made me cry a LOT over the course of “The Hills.” I just have always found watching the deterioration of a friendship considerably more heartbreaking and touching than the deterioration of a relationship. Relationship stuff doesn’t make me cry all that often in movies and such, although I will say that “(500) Days of Summer” has made me cry my eyes out every time I have seen it. Even that one, though, while being centered around a relationship, the stuff that really hit close to home for me was the personal growth that the character of Summer goes through throughout the course of the relationship. That is an amazing movie – if you haven’t seen it, go buy it IMMEDIATELY. Still, typically, the things that really hit me emotionally in films and music and such is not typically the stuff that is based around relationships. My go-to movie anytime I need a really good, hard cry is “Shut Up & Sing,” the Dixie Chicks documentary. Without fail, I have an emotional breakdown every time I watch that movie. There is this part at the end of the movie where Martie, one of the two original Dixie Chicks before Natalie Maines joined and they became successful, says that she could tell that any little thing that goes wrong Natalie feels like it is her fault after the whole scandal with them criticizing George W. Bush, and she says something that really hit me – she says that she loves the band and making music and doesn’t want to stop it but that if Natalie came to her and said that she wanted to quit and end the band, she would do it, too, because she can see the toll that all of it was taking on Natalie and she really just wants her to not have that feeling anymore. Just the fact that she would be so willing to make that kind of sacrifice because of the toll it is taking on her bandmate is amazing and makes me cry every single time. That movie is amazing, as well. I love the Dixie Chicks.

So, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t still slightly bummed by my whole “Glee” audition fiasco today. I mean, I wasn’t all THAT bummed about it because I didn’t really give it a lot of thought at all but anytime it did come to mind, I felt a little pang of “ouch.” I was initially trying to come up with reasons why it was so dismal, pointing fingers at my song choice or the list of songs to choose from, but in all honesty I can’t really blame anything but myself. I am out of practice. I didn’t make any bad choices with it or anything – all of the songs sounded pretty similar when I sang them. I mean, the songs didn’t sound similar, but the shortcomings I had in the video I submitted were all the same shortcomings I had with the videos I did with the other songs. I have allowed myself to get out of practice so there are a lot of things, like my breathing and holding out notes and such, that simply aren’t as strong as they once were. I also really need to take some vocal lessons in order to improve on what I already have. It just makes the most sense. I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to start that but I am hoping it will be soon. I have always said that I think vocal lessons would do me a world of good – look at what they did for Madonna after “Evita.” She already had a decent voice but the voice lessons she took for “Evita” made a world of difference in her voice and made it so much stronger. So, that is definitely something I need to do. Still, like I said, I did have some questions about the choices I made as far as the video goes. Maybe I wouldn’t have come across so much like I was shouting had I just gone with “True Colors,” or something like that. I have always thought that my strength is much more in making an emotional connection to the song I am singing than anything else, and “True Colors” is simply not a song I feel all that connected to. Of all the songs, “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is definitely the one that I felt the most connected to. Still, I said all along that the song was far too big for my abilities. The reason I wound up going for that one is because I figured I’d rather try to go bigger and fall flat than go small and seem disconnected from what I am singing. I couldn’t help but wonder, after the fact, if that wasn’t the right choice. Then I watched Nickelodeon and found my answer.

Most of my friends and such have heard my ranting about how much I love Disney and how much better it is than Nickelodeon. I grew up on Nickelodeon and loved the shows they had back in the day, like “Salute Your Shorts” and “Hey Dude,” and the later stuff like “The Secret World of Alex Mack” and such. Even The N, the television network I was obsessed with for years that aired my favorite TV show of all-time, “Degrassi,” was a “young adult” subsidiary of Nickelodeon. I wasn’t a huge Disney fan growing up, however beginning in 2003 or so, I got much more into Disney Channel stuff than Nickelodeon, like “Lizzie McGuire,” “Hannah Montana,” “Jonas,” “Wizards Of Waverly Place,” etc., and the Disney Channel Original Movies, “High School Musical,” “Camp Rock,” “Wizards Of Waverly Place: The Movie,” and “Princess Protection Program.” I just really like the Disney Channel stars. From Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, etc., to some of their bit players, like Tiffany Thornton, Brenda Song and Alyson Stoner, they have a really talented crop of kids coming out of the Disney Channel programming these days. Meanwhile, Nickelodeon has all this weird stuff that I just don’t find very appealing, like “Naked Brothers Band,” and “iCarly.” Still, the other day I saw this girl on “The View,” who was adorable, fresh-faced and funny, named Victoria Justice. I remembered her from the one recent Nickelodeon show that I was kind of into, “Zoey 101,” and always thought she was cute. She was promoting the new Nickelodeon series she is starring in, “Victorious,” which is about a girl attending a Performing Arts High School. Basically, this show is “Fame,” without all the serious stuff. So, it is like a combination of “Fame” and “Hannah Montana.” Still, I thought she was really cute and they played one of her songs, “Make It Shine,” the theme from the show on “The View,” which I was really into, so I decided to give it a shot and set the DVR to record all the episodes that were running this weekend. So, today I sat down to watch them and I have to say, I really like this show. It is funny and brainless and entertaining, plus full of good old-fashioned pop music. This is what I look for in my children’s entertainment. Like I said, any of my friends know that I have a strange obsession with “tween” entertainment. I’m not sure what it is but I find it really entertaining. I like the stuff that is just upbeat and fun without any drama or anything to really keep up with. For example, this show has four episodes so far and they are all on my DVR. I watched them all today and I have no idea whether or not I watched them in order. I wouldn’t want that in every show but I sometimes enjoy shows where you don’t have to keep up with any sort of storyline or anything beyond the episode that you’re watching.

Anyway, one of the episodes of “Victorious” that I watched today centered around Tori, the main charcter, wanting to audition for a play at her school. Her teacher explained to her that every student in the school has to pass “The Bird Scene” before they could audition for any school production. So, she learned and rehearsed this “bird scene” and the next day she got up and performed it in front of the class. She did a perfectly fine job with this and afterwards asked if it was good and if she passed and the teacher said no, she would have to do it again the next day. So, the next day she came in with props and a backdrop and everything and performed the scene again. When she asked her teacher afterwards if she had passed, he said no and she would have to do it again the next day. She was really frustrated with this and couldn’t figure out what she was doing wrong. So, the next day she came in costume and built a set and even had a live bird for the bird in the scene. She performed the piece and asked the teacher afterwards if she had passed. He said no, and she was like, “With all due respect, I made a costume, I built a set, I got a bird and I am proud of this scene no matter what you say.” Then the teacher told her she had passed. The point of the whole thing was to teach her to be confident in her creative choices no matter what her teacher or any of her fellow students had to say. This hit pretty close to home for me. “Don’t Rain On My Parade” may be too big of a song for me to sing and it may have not been the best choice for me on the list of songs to choose from for the “Glee” audition but like I said, my emotional connection is probably my strongest suit in terms of singing and I chose the song that would best play up that quality. It was the right choice. It may not have been the right choice to even do the audition because I really wasn’t prepared for something like that but the creative choices I made with the video itself were definitely the right choices for me. At the same time, though, doing the audition was the right choice because had I not done that, I would have continued on thinking that, in terms of voice, I was all primed and ready to get started. That is simply not the case and it is definitely a good thing that I figured it out now, as opposed to somewhere else down the road when the stakes were considerably higher.

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, practicing piano and playing around with makeup. As I mentioned in last night’s blog, there is a gold color in my new Urban Decay “Summer Of Love” palette that is exactly the glittery gold color I have been looking for, so I wanted to experiment with that a bit. I did a really cool, slightly subdued look using pink, purple and gold. I really love the way the look came out – it is really sparkly and fun. I am really obsessed with the gold in that palette – it is called “Maui Wowie,” and it is just perfect! I definitely intend to get a lot of use out of that particular shade. I also played around with the 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil again today and it worked much better than it did yesterday. I am thinking I am going to try applying it with a pencil brush instead of using the actually pencil directly to see what kind of difference that may make. I also spent a little while this evening deep cleaning my makeup brushes, using a method I learned on YouTube with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a bit of shampoo. It worked out really well and they have come out of the process as good as new! Anyway, it was a pretty lazy, uneventful day but I had fun and I learned a little something. So, overall, I consider the day a success! Now, though, it is 11:17pm and I need to get to bed. After all, I have to be up by 7:30am tomorrow to get ready for work in time to take a cab. My Mom was initially planning on getting back here in time to go to work by 9:30am but, as I had expected beforehand, she decided today that this wasn’t likely to happen. Fortunately, I have just enough cash in my wallet to pay for a cab to work so all is right with the world. Now, it is time for bed. Goodnight!

Chapter 170: Don’t Rain On My Parade

Where do I begin with today? I guess I’ll begin at the beginning. I woke up at 11am before my weekend alarm went off. I got up this morning with a very distinct plan for the day – get my “Glee” audition video done and practice piano. The plan was basically to devote the entire day to both of those things. After washing my face and brushing my teeth and all that jazz, I immediately checked outside to see if my Urban Decay order had arrived yet. There was nothing waiting at the front door or on the lanai, so I assumed it hadn’t come yet and I would be waiting until next week. However, while I was dicking around online and studying the lyrics to “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” in preparation for the video, I heard a knock at the door. I knew there wasn’t anybody planning to come over or anything like that, so I knew what that knock was. I rushed to the door and found a small package with a big purple Urban Decay sticker on the front! I hurriedly ripped it open and tore away all the packing paper to reveal my “Summer Of Love” shadow palette. Let me just tell you, this thing is gorgeous! I love the packaging, with a cool 60s style design on it – it is all very Woodstock. I was in love with the packaging itself but was even more in love with what was inside. This palette included 4 shades of eyeshadow – Flash, which is a bright purple shimmer, Maui Wowie, which is exactly the type of bright gold glitter color I have been desperately searching for, Chopper, which is a glittery copper color and Smog, a very rich, dark bronze glitter shade. They all go on beautifully, which I was slightly worried about because my friend April said that Urban Decay products don’t have a great color payoff. I don’t know about all of their stuff but that is definitely not the case for these shades. The package also included a mini bottle of Primer Potion in Sin, which is just like the regular Primer Potion that I have fallen in love with but with a shimmery tint to it. I don’t like this version of the Primer Potion near as much, although I do think it could wind up very useful for adding a shimmer to some looks using matte shadows. The other thing that I have been really excited about in this package was the 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Bourbon, which is a deep brown with gold microglitter. It is a really gorgeous color and when I tried it on my hand it went on wonderfully and after about 30 seconds or so didn’t wipe or smudge or anything. Unfortunately, when I decided to use all these products to do my makeup today, I found that this color went on really well on my upper lash line but I couldn’t seem to get the color to show at all on my water line, which is exactly the reason I was so excited to try it – girls on YouTube have raved about how well these pencils stay on your water line. I don’t know if it will stay because I had too much trouble even getting it to show up well on the waterline. Oh well, I will probably still order the set of them that I have on my wish list at the Urban Decay website, since they are on sale for a really good price and I am still interested in trying them further.

So, this brings us to the part of the day where I started working on my “Glee” audition video. As I practiced the song I started second-guessing my choice to do “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” as well, so I decided to record videos of a few different songs and see which one worked out the best for me. I started with “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” which worked pretty well but I was having a little trouble figuring out my way around all the crazy riffing that everybody does at the end of the song. Every time I did those parts, I felt like I was shouting instead of singing. I watched the video back and just wasn’t happy with the overall sound. I tried it a couple more times before moving on to “True Colors.” I wasn’t happy with this song before and doing it now worked a little bit better but still didn’t quite feel right. Then I tried a bit of a toned down version of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” and it just felt perfect! I immediately decided this was the song. This was the song I wanted to do in the first place but I felt like I didn’t have the voice for it. Still, doing it now I felt a lot better about my vocals for this song. I was really surprised as I was doing all these videos how much of a strain I was putting on my voice. It felt really weird because I had never really had that problem before. Of course, I am also extremely out of practice with singing – I haven’t done it, at least not seriously or regularly, in a very long time. This fact became extremely clear to me today. I kept feeling like I had to push really hard and was having a lot of trouble projecting. Still, I did several takes of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” and then reviewed them all afterwards and settled on one that I felt was the best. I also recorded my personal statement, which I was really proud of. I thought it was really cute and spunky and just a lot of fun. I liked that a lot. I felt really nervous and apprehensive about the whole thing once I had finished with my filming and considered not submitting it at all… but I kind of assumed it was just my own ego-based fears trying to hold me back. I headed over to the Audition site on Myspace and submitted. Once the videos were done uploading they had to be reviewed before being posted to the site. That took a while but eventually they were posted. That’s when things started going downhill.

I went to the site and watched the video myself and suddenly saw it differently than I had before – it was terrible! Well, the personal statement was still really cute but the song was awful. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t “American Idol audition” bad but it wasn’t great. I sounded, once again, like I was shouting big chunks of the song. I mean, I hit the notes and such but there were lots of big breaths and lots of really overstated line endings and it was basically a hot mess. I linked to it on Facebook and my friend Kelly watched it and, in a very sweet, supportive way, confirmed that it wasn’t great. I was really disappointed in myself and really kind of embarrassed. I took the link down from my Facebook page pretty much immediately. I didn’t want to be directing people to look at it. I just find it really upsetting because I have ALWAYS been a singer. People hear me talk so much about how music is my destiny and what I am meant to do with my life and such, and it really embarrassed me to have this video right there on the internet of me sounding so shitty. It just sucks because I know that I am capable of much better than that video. This led me to a bit of an epiphany, though. Why would I expect my video to be great? Like I mentioned before, I haven’t been singing seriously in a very long time. I haven’t been singing regularly in a very long time. Much like anything else in life, the old adage rings true: Practice makes perfect. As I’ve discussed here quite a bit, I have been considering taking voice lessons once I have progressed better with my piano lessons. Suddenly, I am really thinking about maybe doing both sooner than later. Of course, doubling the cost of my music lessons is a little scary to think about. I’m not going to do it anytime immediate but I definitely want to start sooner than later.

If nothing else, this whole “Glee” audition experience has served to remind me of my passion for singing and that if I expect to make a career out of it eventually I need to actually put the effort into cultivating that talent. I feel like I have kind of let myself slip in terms of my music because I have been focused on experimenting with other forms of art. I haven’t been writing new songs anywhere near as much as I used to and, like I said, I haven’t been singing much at all in a long time. So, from this point on, I am regimenting myself and making absolutely certain that I am working on music just as much, if not more, than any other types of art. So, moving forward my Monday through Friday, while at work, I will write two new songs every day. Also, inspired by today’s experience, as well as by Rachel Berry, Lea Michele’s character on “Glee,” I am going to start making videos of me singing. I will do one song every day. I am kind of considering posting these videos on YouTube every day, as well. It won’t be something I advertise every day or anything, like I do with the blog, but it will just kind of be there for my own use. You always see those videos of random people on YouTube singing different songs and such. I don’t know if I will actually put them on YouTube or not but it is something I am considering. Either way, I want to have these things on video so I can watch them back and pinpoint my trouble spots, etc. Okay, I have to admit here, the YouTube concept has a bit of an ego-based ulterior motive to it – I kind of want to do that to prove to people that I CAN sing better than I did in my “Glee” audition video. I don’t know why I am so hung up on that part of it, though, honestly. As far as I know, Kelly is the only one who actually saw it. It wasn’t up for very long at all. I do think, though, that I can do much better stuff on my own, outside of the parameters of the “Glee” audition, because I will be able to select songs that work better for me and will be able to change the arrangements around a bit and such. Hell, maybe I’ll even mix in singing some of my original songs – back in my Open Mic night days I was always told that I sounded much better singing my own songs than I do other peoples song. Maybe this is the key. I don’t know. Like I said, though, moving forward Monday through Friday, I will be writing two new songs every day and recording video of me singing one song every day. This should help me get back into practice with both of those, things that I have always been able to do really well but have allowed myself to get out of practice with in recent times. Now, those can’t be the only tasks I am doing, though. Another thing that I am making a daily task moving forward is doing at least 15 minutes of piano practice every single day, including weekends. This is something that is just as important as writing lyrics and singing – maybe even more important. Those are both skills that I already have and simply need to revive, while piano is a skill that I am learning for the first time. Either way, what I have learned from this whole thing is that if I intend to make music my long-term craft, I need to be constantly honing my skills. I have no time to be messing around. I need to be making sure that my vocals, my lyrics and, eventually, my music composition abilities all stay completely on point.

So, needless to say, you won’t be seeing me on “Glee” anytime soon. In all honesty, that was never actually the goal for this whole thing, anyway. All my life I have said that I don’t really have any interest in or desire to pursue acting. It simply isn’t my thing. I don’t think it’s something that I would be good at or would ever really feel passionate about. I find actors fascinating because I really don’t understand the process of it. It seems to me that acting is all about stepping outside of yourself, whereas music is focused on going within yourself. I have never had that desire to be somebody else or anything like that, so I find it fascinating when people do. Still, like I said, I don’t think I’d really be good at acting or anything along those lines. Music is my passion. Music is what I am meant for. It is funny, though, because I haven’t really discussed it here in the blog or with anybody else or anything before, but I have recently found myself questioning my pursuit of music a bit. In some ways, I have felt a little bit like I really enjoy drawing and visual arts and am getting a lot better at them lately. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought a bit recently that maybe it would be easier for me to succeed if I pursued a career as a cosmetologist or some sort of visual artist. I do feel pretty passionate about the things that I do in these areas and I guess it’s not unthinkable that I could develop those things into my main passion in life. I mean, my sister has told me many times before that she thinks that I am better with drawing and visual stuff than I am with music. I know, though, that these thoughts are ego-based. These thoughts are my ego trying to convince me not to fulfill my purpose in life out of fear that I won’t ever be able to make it happen. That is a valid fear, though. It is my greatest fear in life that I will wind up living a life in which I don’t fulfill my purpose. What is my purpose? My purpose is very clear and has been since I was just a child. My purpose is to inspire people, to comfort people, to make them feel less alone in this world, to incite emotion in them, etc. I was born equipped with certain tools with which to carry out this purpose. I was born with the gifts of passion, drive, determination, a voice, a heart and a genuine talent for melody and songwriting. I know that I have a certain amount of vocal shortcomings. My voice could stand to grow in a lot of ways. This is why I need vocal lessons. I need somebody who can teach me the things that I don’t know instinctively. I am working with a very strong base, in terms of vocals, but I need to learn technique and how to maintain that base and build upon it.

The only thing keeping me from signing up for voice lessons next time I go in for a piano lesson is the fact that I also really need to learn to drive. Like I mentioned in another recent post, there is a school in the area that provides four 90-minute in car lessons for $320. I could easily save that up over the next few months. First I have to get my learner’s permit, though. I definitely need to re-focus on that, as well. Driving would make a major change in my life; a change that I could definitely use. A change would definitely do me good at this point in my life. More than anything, I think the change that I need is to change my focus back to where it was before – MUSIC. You see, as much as I may have the thought that I could develop something else into my main passion in life, I genuinely can’t imagine ever being truly satisfied with a life where music wasn’t my main passion. Music is the ultimate goal in everything I do. Music is the single most important factor in my life. They say nothing is forever but, for me, music is the one thing that is. There is no changing that. I have no choice in the matter, it is what I was born with and what I have every intention of carrying out. Today’s events could have easily been just the excuse I needed to pull away from it but instead I have made sure that it did the opposite and reconfirmed what I have known all along. I had been saying that I expected something great out of the “Glee” audition experience and I got something great. I got something even greater than expected, actually. So, today was a good day. Now I need to get to bed. Tomorrow will be more dedicated to piano practice, as well as laundry and lying around watching TV. I did practice piano for 15 minutes today but the piece that I am working on now, in spite of having my questions about it answered, is still giving me a lot of trouble. Hopefully it will click with me a bit better tomorrow once I have managed to shake off a bit of the shitty audition malaise I have been feeling today. I just have to remind myself of the song that I sang poorly today – “Nobody, no nobody is going to rain on my parade.” For now, though, it is time for bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 169: Dancing On My Own

Chapter 168: And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going

Okay, so let me start off by saying that this blog probably will not be posted until tomorrow… at least, I hope it will be tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure what happened exactly but my Mom disconnected our Vonage box, because we cancelled service with them, and now we don’t seem to have Internet service. I have tried a few different things, including the simplest thing possible that took me forever to figure out – moving the modem cord from the Vonage box to the computer. Still, that didn’t work, either. It still said that the Local Network Connection has limited to no connectivity. I am not a computer person, at least not in the technical sense, so I have no idea what I am doing with this thing. It sucks, though. In keeping with my new philosophy, I expect great things. In this case, the great thing I am expecting is to wake up in the morning and have the Internet magically returned to me. That would be the best thing possible. It is funny because one of my first thoughts after this happened was, “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? The Internet is such a major part of my whole shtick in life, what am I going to do if it is out for a few days?” I never really stopped and thought about it before but that is very true. After all, this very blog is on the Internet. So much of my communication outside of work takes place on the Internet. So much of what I have to say to the world is put out on the Internet. Most importantly, or at least most timely right now, is the fact that my “Glee” audition video is supposed to be posted on the Internet. This video needs to make its way to the Internet by Monday, April 26, 2010 by 11:59pm. If my Internet service is down all weekend, I won’t really have a lot of time to post it. Plus, if it’s down all weekend, what’s to say it will even be back up by Monday night? Okay, okay… my little voice of negativity has gotten that out, now my genuine, true voice of positivity will take it’s turn to simply say, “Thanks for your opinion but that is simply not going to happen.” The Universe is working in my favor and it will simply not allow me to miss out on this opportunity. Plus, I expect great things. I expect my Internet to be working again tomorrow and I expect to get my video posted tomorrow night or Saturday morning and I expect it to be great. This is what I expect and this is what I will make happen. I’m not entirely sure of how I will make that happen but I will.

Today was a pretty good day. Work was really odd. Today, as I’m sure you all know, was Earth Day and management at my work made a big old ordeal out of it, and rightfully so. Earth Day is a very important day to raise awareness of environmental issues that this world is facing. Of course, these are issues that the world is facing everyday and should be aware of accordingly. However, since that is not the way our society works, it is nice to have a day in acknowledgement of these things. Management at my job held a raffle for a bag of organic food items and such, and the agents could earn raffle tickets by completing different little games and puzzles and such. It was a decent way to keep everyone entertained, which was a good thing because it was a really slow day. I didn’t participate in a few of the games because I just felt like reading instead. I finished the RuPaul book first thing this morning, then made a pretty big dent in the second book in Lauren Conrad’s “LA Candy” series, “Sweet Little Lies,” which is really good so far. I also drew a picture of Lauren Conrad by trying my hand at copying from the photo on the back of the book. It was my very first attempt at trying to do a fairly detailed drawing by studying a photo and I think it came out pretty decent. I liked it, anyway. I also toyed around a lot with the shading and lighting in the photo, which I haven’t really done much with in drawing. So, that was fun and allowed me to challenge myself a bit at work. I also walked the parking lot with my Mom on our first break, mainly because we skipped working out this morning. The only reason for this was because my Mom had to run to the bank before work, so she did that at 8am when we would normally be working out. I honestly don’t really recall what I did with that time but if I had to guess I would say that I was window-shopping for makeup online. That’s what I do with the bulk of my idle time.

After work, I came home and decided to get straight into trying to prep my “Glee” audition video. I changed my makeup from the blue and brown/bronze look I did at work today to a look I designed recently, which was basically a really cool rainbow effect moving diagonally across the eye, (pictures may be included when I actually post this,) to go with the song that I had chosen to perform, “True Colors.” I recorded a rough draft version of the personal statement video, which I think went really well and was a lot of fun. It had a few random pauses and such where I was thinking of the next thing to say, so I am not going to use the one that I recorded then but it was pretty funny. I stated my name, where I live and a little bit about why I should be on “Glee.” My reason to be on “Glee?” Because Kurt needs a “fairy Godmother!” I thought it was pretty clever. I said a few other bits, as well, but that was my favorite part of the whole thing. After filming that bit, I decided to try a rough draft version of the song, as well. As I mentioned, I had selected “True Colors” as my song. It is a classic, has a very positive message and is something that I can relate with and connect to emotionally. I had been having a little trouble singing the song while practicing over the past few days, though, and all of those troubles surfaced in trying to sing it in this video. Suddenly, I found myself REALLY second-guessing this as my song choice. After all, my initial instinct to doing that song for my video was not to. Perhaps I should have trusted that instinct. So, I toyed around with a few other songs from the approved song list, even making an ill-advised attempt at the song “Lean On Me,” which I absolutely hate, and I think I have finally settled on one – “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” I know what you must be thinking right now – “You’re crazy! You can’t sing that song!” I think I can, though. Obviously, it will not sound quite like Jennifer Holliday, Jennifer Hudson or Amber Riley’s amazing performance of it on “Glee,” but I can put my own little vocal spin on it and make it work for me. Of all the songs on the list, this is the one that I am most familiar with and the one that felt most comfortable for me vocally. Most versions of the song include a LOT of riffing and showing off but I intend to tone it down a bit. I am keeping the same arrangement but taking a completely different approach to singing it. I did a practice run of it and really liked the way it sounded. When I told my Mom that I was considering switching to that song she looked at me like I was crazy. We were in the drive through at Gyro’s & Seafood and she was like, “Well, let me hear it.” It was kind of silly and I was like, “NO!” but once we drove away I let her have it. She totally saw what I was doing with it and said it sounded really good. Hopefully, the producers of “Glee” will agree. Once again, I am not necessarily expecting to be cast on “Glee’ from this video but I am expecting something good to come of it. Of course, singing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” requires a very different makeup look than “True Colors.” The big, bright rainbow eyes work for “True Colors” not only because of the lyrical references but because it’s more of a spunky, bright type of song. “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is darker and more dignified. I am thinking of doing kind of a muted brown look, with some bronze shimmer mixed in and maybe a bright color somewhere in the mix to make it pop a bit more. I tried a little something this evening, using what I call the “ballerina pink” from my NYX S104 palette, a dark brown shimmer and a bronze shimmer. I kind of like the way that one turned out except that I will probably replace the pink with a cream or nude shade instead. I’m not sure. I will toy around with that a bit tomorrow night and see what I can come up with. I am really excited to get this done, though. This could lead to something really great for me. In fact, I expect it to. I expect something great to come out of this.

After my Mom got off work she picked me up at home and we went to get some cash out of my ATM that I owed her and pick up a carton of cigarettes. This has left me running a little low on cash. Good thing I didn’t go ahead and order a set of the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencils the other day, like I was really tempted to do. I don’t have any plans this weekend, beyond working on my video and practicing piano, so I shouldn’t be spending any money then and I don’t really spend any money out of necessity during the week. I should be good until next Friday, when I get paid again. Since I have recently developed this Urban Decay obsession, I will likely place an order with them when I get paid and then I have to pay rent and next month’s piano lessons, as well, so I will have to be pretty frugal then, too. Not frugal enough to not place an order with Urban Decay, though. Of course, I shouldn’t get too hyped on them just yet. After all, I haven’t actually tried any of their products aside from the Primer Potion yet. I can make a much more informed decision once I have received my “Summer Of Love” palette. It shipped on Tuesday, so I am hoping that it will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. Then I could play around with it a bit over the weekend, as well. I am really excited to give this stuff a try, especially the 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil that comes with it, because those things seem amazing from what I have seen on the Urban Decay site and in various YouTube reviews and such. I am really excited to give the one that comes with the palette a try. If it works like everyone on YouTube says it does, I will definitely be ordering both of the sets that are on sale right now. We’ll see how that goes, though.

My Mom and I went and picked up dinner from Gyros & Seafood, as I mentioned previously, and came home and ate. She was kind of rushing around, getting prepped to head out of town to her boyfriend’s house for the weekend and I watched today’s episode of “The View,” with Vice President Joe Biden. I must say, I was extremely impressed with Elisabeth Hasselbeck putting aside her own political views to look at Joe Biden as a person, not an enemy. It was really awesome the way that she handled herself in that interview. I have been a big supporter of Joe Biden ever since the Vice Presidential debates took place. Not to say it was an overly impressive debate, (how impressive could it be that to outwit Sarah Palin?) but he came across as very down-to-earth, very real and very “Average Joe.” He seems like a genuinely kind, caring man. So does Barack Obama, which makes them a really good pair. I think Obama could not have made a better selection for a running mate. I always really enjoy seeing political figures sit down with the ladies of “The View,” too, because those women are always really good at bringing these people down to the public’s level. After that ended, I went into the bathroom to remove my makeup and wash my face with my Yardley gentle bar soap, with Aloe and Cucumber, and moisturize for the evening. It was while I was in the bathroom that my Mom removed the Vonage box and the Internet went out. I did my very best not to freak out about it and think that I did a pretty good job. I am absolutely clueless when it comes to the wires going to and from the computer, but I tried a lot of different things trying to make it work. My Mom came in and dicked around with it for a minute, as well, but neither of us had any real luck with it. It still kept saying limited to no connectivity. My Mom went off to talk on the phone with her boyfriend and I stayed here and started writing this blog. Once she was off the phone with her boyfriend, I told her that it still wasn’t working and she came in and messed around with it some more. Still nothing. Now it didn’t even say limited to no connectivity, it just didn’t say anything. The little icon in the corner of the screen showing the Internet connection was just gone. I told her not to worry about it and we would just deal with it in the morning. It took a few minutes before it dawned on me that normally when it is working properly it doesn’t show an icon for the Internet connection. I pulled up my web browser, Google Chrome, and typed in the first website that came to mind, Google, and it came right up. THE INTERNET IS BACK!!! What happened here, my friends, is the power of simply expecting great things. I don’t know what my Mom did, nor did she, but it worked out all because I simply expected something to work. So, with that in mind, I am expecting even greater things tomorrow. I am also expecting to make a great video for the “Glee” audition. I expect great things out of life, and if anything doesn’t end up great I will do everything I can to make it great. For now, though, I could use a great night of sleep. Goodnight!

Chapter 167: Keeps Getting Better

Okay, so it is 11:39pm right and I have wound up putting off the blog for a little too long this evening. With that in mind, I am going to keep it brief this evening. It wasn’t the most eventful day in the world so there isn’t really all that much to be said in the first place. I do want to begin, though, with something I intended to include in last night’s blog but forgot about because it didn’t really fit the tone or theme of last night’s entry. One really great thing that I didn’t necessarily expect but happened upon yesterday was a HUGE announcement from one of my top five favorite artists of all-time, Kylie Minogue. A YouTube video was put out with a very brief instrumental snippet of what is set to be the first single from her brand new album, “Aphrodite,” due out July 5, 2010!!! As I have mentioned a few times recently, 2010 hasn’t seen the release of a lot of really great music so far. The summer season is shaping up to change that all around, though. First there was the release of the brand new single, “Invisible Light,” by the band that created two of my all-time favorite albums, Scissor Sisters. Their third album is set for release in June and now Kylie has a new one in July! I was already feeling uncharacteristically excited about this summer for no real reason but now that there is new Kylie coming out, I am even more excited! Seriously, Kylie Minogue hasn’t disappointed me once in her career and I certainly don’t expect it to happen this time. To make both of these recent announcements even better, there is a very exciting link between these two records – they were both produced by one of my absolute favorite producers out there, Stuart Price. He produced my very favorite Madonna album, “Confessions On A Dance Floor” and has done amazing remixes for a large number of my favorite artists, as well as doing amazing music all his own with his band Zoot Woman. I am really excited to see what he has managed to cook up for both Kylie and Scissor Sisters!

Today was considerably better than yesterday, in spite of one really big mess that could have easily ruined my day but didn’t at all. I woke up late again today, at 7:45am. Keeping in mind the sentiment of yesterday’s blog and my new Dolly-inspired philosophy, I didn’t let that get in my way and I made it a point to simply expect great things. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and smoked a cigarette all before 8am and was ready to workout again by then. My Mom and I decided that this week was going to be all “Zumba” workouts and, in spite of being kind of tired, I pushed myself to go ahead with it, expecting a great workout. Turns out, it WAS a great workout! After we finished the workout I was feeling really energized and the endorphins flowing were putting me in a pretty great mood. I went to get ready for work and decided to try something a little different. I have pretty well decided that my makeup concept for summer is all about combining bronze tones with bright colors, (which, I’m not going to lie, is a concept I kind of stole from the Urban Decay “Summer Of Love” ad campaigns.) I decided to give that a try today with my NYX S104 palette. I did a smoky eye look using a shimmery cream color on the inner corners of my eyes, a few different shimmery bronze colors on the outer corner and in the crease and, to spice it up a bit, a bright purple underneath the eye, connecting to the bronze colors on the outer corner. I really loved that look and felt really cute today. I wore one of my favorite pairs of jeans, from the Siegfried “My Old Denim” collection, and my solid lavender crew neck t-shirt from Old Navy with a long peace sign dog tag stile necklace to add something to the plain shirt.

The first couple hours at work passed by fairly quickly. On my first break, I walked the parking lot with my Mom to get a little extra exercise. It was a really nice day and it felt good to get a little outdoor time and a little extra exercise. I also spent my lunch break with my Mom, as per usual. After lunch, I went back upstairs and sat down in my chair and heard an awful sound. I also felt an awful sensation that I was all too familiar with. I have a very long history of randomly splitting my pants. It happened as soon as I got back from lunch at 2pm, and I immediately went and told my sister about it. She told me to stay in my seat and wait until my Mom went to her lunch break at 3:30pm, then I could go home and change. I felt very self-conscious about this but made it a point not to get out of my seat for any reason during that time. I didn’t mention it to any of my co-workers and I’m honestly not sure that any of them even knew what happened. When I did get up to leave, I placed my bag behind me enough to cover it, as far as I know. The whole thing really sucked but at least I got to come home long enough to change. Like I said before, that easily could have ruined my day if I had let it, but I refused. I still expected great things out of the day. I also spent a large portion of the day, after our client left at 12:30pm, reading the new RuPaul book, “Workin’ It.” I am pretty well finished with the book, actually. It is a really quick and fun read filled with all kinds of tips on fashion, makeup and drag which are all things that I am very interested in. I have said it a million times before and I will say it again, RuPaul is a huge inspiration to me. This book is really a lot of fun and also filled with tons of gorgeous photos of Ru in a wide variety of looks. I felt very inspired by it.

This evening was also my piano lesson. As I have discussed a few times during the past week, I was pretty worried about tonight’s lesson because I got so lost with this new piece that I had a lot of trouble practicing and pretty well didn’t do much practice at all. I was worried that Viktor would be pissed off at my lack of progress and did not want to be a disappointment. When I explained the matter to him, he was really friendly and perfectly okay with the whole thing. That was very nice. It was a really good lesson this evening, too, and I am really excited to practice the piece now that I have sorted out my issues with it. It is a really fun piece and I am excited to learn to play it better. I am very happy with the progress I have made so far with the piano and am only expecting things to get better. I am expecting to be great… and if I am not great, I am going to do everything in my power to become great. Viktor offered, as he has for the past few weeks, to give me a ride home. For the first time, though, I decided to take him up on it. We had some very pleasant conversation all the way to my house and got to talk on a much more personal level than we have before. It was really nice. He asked a lot of questions and told me a lot that I didn’t know about him before. I love getting to know people in my life better. It only makes sense that I should get to know him on a slightly more personal level, too, because he is the man who is teaching me piano. In all likelihood, he will be one of the most important men in my life story. Piano is the gateway that will lead me to all of my dreams, and he is the one guiding me through it. I am extremely grateful for that and also for the fact that he is such a nice guy and we gel really well with one another. Sure, his looks may be a bit distracting for me at times but I am definitely learning a LOT from him.

When I got home, I sat around watching makeup tutorials on YouTube for about an hour before my Mom got home. She picked up one of those things of Publix fried chicken and we heated up leftover sides to go with it. I watched “Idol Gives Back,” which wasn’t as good this year as some previous years. I donated $10, which I learned is enough to buy a bed net for a child in Africa, which could actually save them from contracting malaria. Malaria is a major epidemic throughout Africa and it can be prevented in a way as simple as providing a net to go around people’s beds to keep out mosquitoes transporting the disease. I really feel like I should have given more but I am broke enough as it is. If there is one thing I hate about the life I am leading right now, it is the fact that I don’t have the money to help all the people I would like to help. Whether it is my friends and family who are struggling, or children in Africa and various other countries throughout the world, I just hear about so many issues and really wish I could do more about it. Still, what I can do, and frequently do, is wish the best and send positive energy out in their direction. It still makes me feel a little wrong for spending such large amounts of money on things like clothes and makeup for myself. It kind of sucks. I was going to say it kind of sucks not having the power to change the world but regardless of my money situation I know that I DO have the power to change the world. I am going to keep working on it. I expect great things.

It is now 12:26am and the only thing I can expect right now is a great night of sleep. I am going to make it happen. My sleep has been coming more and more easily lately. I am very grateful for that. My days have been passing a lot more easily, too. Like Christina Aguilera said, “It keeps getting better." That is my new motto to accompany my new philosophy. I expect great things, and I expect it to Keep Getting Better. For now, though, I am off to bed. Good night.

Chapter 166: The Climb

As I discussed in last night’s blog, I have decided to try to follow the wise words of one Miss Dolly Parton and live my life by the concept of simply expecting things to great and doing everything in my power to make them great when they don’t turn out that way naturally. I started this yesterday and it wasn’t really much of a struggle. Today was a different story, unfortunately. It started as soon as I woke up, at 7:50am. In general, I wake up at 7:30am and have time to go through my normal morning ritual in time to be ready to work out by 8am. Having woken up only 10 minutes before 8am, my automatic reaction was to skip working out today. I am not sure why it would ever happen this way, because I KNOW what it means to be reactive and the error in taking your immediate reaction and running with it, but I let that automatic reaction take over. I skipped the workout this morning. The worst part is, I think I had subconsciously pre-planned this so that instead of working out I could spend that time in front of the computer for the Urban Decay sale on Haute Look, and when I got to Haute Look just after 8am I discovered that the sale began at 8am PACIFIC. Then, after 30 minutes or so of sitting here in front of the computer just dicking around online, my Mom tells me that she had gone ahead and worked out. I felt really bad about that. I like to think that, had she pushed, I would have gone ahead and done it but I don’t know that this is true. It sucks but I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it this morning, I guess. I told my Mom that in lieu of a workout this morning, we should walk the parking lot at work on our first break. She agreed to that, in spite of the fact that she had worked out. She often does both, so I should have no trouble doing just one, right? Well, when we arrived at work I realized that I had somehow managed to leave my phone at home. This meant, and I knew this as soon as I realized it, that we would not wind up spending first break walking the parking lot but instead would spend it driving home to get my phone. So, I didn’t get any exercise at all today. I feel really shitty about that.

The first portion of the workday, the two hours before my first break, felt more like 4 hours. I just was in a sour mood this morning, apparently, and I carried it with me into the workplace. Not to say that I had a bad attitude with anybody or anything like that, I just wasn’t feeling very positive about anything in those first couple hours there. Our computers kept going down then coming back up briefly only to go down again. It was pretty irritating. We weren’t getting many calls, anyway, which already makes time pass slowly for the most part. Normally, I am not one of those people who complain about a lack of work to do because I can find plenty of other ways to keep myself entertained but today, since our client was still in the building, we weren’t allowed to read or do a lot of the things we would normally do. On days like that, I wind up spending a lot of time thinking about the things that I could be doing instead if I weren’t at work. There were two main things that I was thinking a lot about this morning – the piano and my “Glee” audition video. With the weekend and all the shopping and such that I did, I kind of allowed myself to forget about the “Glee” auditions for a few days. I wouldn’t say that I forgot about them so much as I lost focus on them. The deadline for videos to be submitted is Monday, April 26, which means I only have 6 days left to get this video done and submitted to the Myspace page for the auditions. I have pretty well decided on singing “True Colors,” because I think it is probably the one that suits my voice the best and that I can connect to while retaining a decent vocal. Like I said before, I just have this good feeling about the audition for some reason. I don’t necessarily think that I will become a part of the cast of “Glee” from it or anything but I do expect something great from it. Like Dolly Parton, I expect something great to happen. I am not going to get overly concerned about what exactly, just something great. I can’t expect anything at all, though, if I don’t get this video done. I can’t really expect to make any major progress on it tomorrow because I have my piano lesson tomorrow, but I really need to get it done Thursday or Friday. I want it to at least have a couple of days to be voted on and such by viewers. I will get it done and it will be great – I am confident about that.

What I am less confident about right now, though, is tomorrow’s piano lesson. I have made some really good progress over the past few weeks but I don’t feel like I have made any progress at all this week. As much as I was making great strides with my daily practice before, I somehow allowed myself to fall out of that habit this past week. I have practiced maybe twice. I feel really shitty about this, too. As I mentioned in a couple of previous blogs, the piece that he gave me to work on this past week didn’t include any information on how many beats I needed to include per measure and so I just got completely lost every time I tried to practice it. I really should have tried calling Viktor again after I didn’t reach him on Sunday, or left him a message so he could get back to me. Instead, I did nothing. I didn’t even continue working on the piece from last week as he told me to do. That sucks. What REALLY sucks, though, is that Viktor warned me against thinking of practicing as a chore or something that I HAVE TO DO instead of wanting to do. I apparently didn’t heed that advice well enough because I completely allowed myself to fall into that trap this past week. I don’t know why I am allowing myself to do shit like this. I expect great things out of myself at the piano so I don’t know why I am allowing myself to struggle with it like this. This isn’t how it is supposed to be. I have expressed many times before here exactly how important it is for me to succeed at learning the piano – it really means absolutely everything to me. I think that perhaps that is a part of the problem – I am putting way too much pressure on myself about this. It is difficult not to, though, because this is such a HUGE part of me being able to really pursue my dreams. This is what stands between where I am now and where I want to be in life. I need to make this happen. I have to make this happen. I expect it to be great. It has to be. At the same time, though, I am taking these lessons and trying to learn the piano because it is my passion in life – it’s not my chore or my duty but something that I truly want more than anything else. Of course, on the flipside of that, I have always felt like it IS my duty, in a lot of ways. Not to say that it is something I am obligated to do except that it is something I am obligated to do. I hate to start saying shit like this but I have been given a gift and it is my obligation to share it with the world. It IS my duty. It is my purpose in life. I suppose the only true obligation in that is my obligation to myself – I owe it to myself to make my life the best I possibly can and I can’t imagine that my life will be that great if I never fully carry out what I have always known to be my purpose. I don’t know – but basically what it all comes down to is that it sucks to not have done the things that I KNEW all week that I really needed to do for myself. I guess I’ll deal with the repercussions when I walk into my lesson tomorrow and have absolutely nothing to show for the past week. It’ll suck but it is what I deserve.

There was this line that Marlee Matlin said to Jennifer Beals in an episode of the craptastic final season of “The L Word,” that went something along the lines of “every day we wake up and we promise ourselves we will be better… the problem is in the execution.” That line has stuck with me ever since I heard it because it is such a powerful, profound statement and so universally true. Today I may not have been better than I was yesterday but all I can do about it now is try again tomorrow. So, tomorrow I will wake up and I will expect things to be great. I will work out. I will make the most of my time at work. I will really be open and learn from my piano lesson. I will practice, both at the piano and at my song for the “Glee” audition. I will make progress. I will move forward. I will be better. I will be great, and if I am anything less than great I will do everything in my power to become great. THAT is my true obligation to myself. At the end of my life, if I never wind up fulfilling my goals or making anything of myself, as long as I can say that I did everything in my power to be as great as I possibly could then I will have succeeded. That is the truth. That is what I believe… Of course, that doesn’t mean I will ever stop trying to achieve my goals and make something of myself.

Now, on a lighter note, let’s talk a little bit about the Urban Decay sale on Haute Look. The worst part of Haute Look is the fact that you don’t really know which particular items will be on sale until the sale starts. When I got home this evening, the first thing I did was download the new “Glee” music from tonight’s “The Power Of Madonna” episode, (which I will get to in a minute,) while I shopped the sale. I’m not going to lie – I was disappointed with this sale. The only item I really fell in love with was the Urban Decay “Hall Of Fame” gift set, which is a collection of travel-sized versions of some of their best selling products, including the 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Zero, (black,) the Skyscraper Multi-Benefit Mascara, an extra large bottle of Primer Potion, (which is exactly what I already bought this weekend,) their Midnight Cowboy lipstick and a Pocket Rocket Lip Gloss in “Timothy.” Now, I don’t really do lip makeup and already have the Primer Potion, so there was really no point in buying that set. I mean, sure I would like the Eye Pencil and Mascara, and could always use extra primer, but it really wasn’t enough to warrant buying the whole set. As cheap as the set was in this sale, though, I was totally willing to do it. Unfortunately, it was already sold out. The rest of the sale was mineral face powders, lip glosses and loose pigment shadows. I considered buying up a bunch of the loose pigments but I have never worked with loose pigment before and don’t really know exactly how that would work. Plus, I wasn’t all that crazy about any of the colors. I have a lot of comparable colors in my NYX S104 palette so it just seemed silly. What I don’t have in my NYX palette, though, are colors like the ones in Urban Decay’s “Summer Of Love” palette, which I had absolutely fallen in love with yesterday. So, I finally just decided to break down and order that palette. It also comes with some Primer Potion, in the Shimmer formula, which I don’t already have, and a 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Bourbon, which is a dark brown with gold micro-glitter. Like I said before, I fell completely in love with this palette, from the packaging to the shades included and the fact that it includes the Eye Pencil and Primer, which were my main draws to the “Hall Of Fame” set. It just makes sense and was also on sale through Urban Decay directly. So, that should be coming in the next week or so and I absolutely cannot wait! I watched this video on YouTube of a makeup artist using this palette to create the look used in the summer ad campaign and it was absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to see what I can do with this thing! It’s definitely going to be fun.

Sticking with the lighter tone here at the end of this blog, tonight was the premiere of the “Glee” episode, “The Power Of Madonna.” It was absolutely amazing! It is funny because I always said that “American Idol” or anything like that, where there are really strong vocalists at work, would never be able to do a Madonna episode because her music just doesn’t lend itself to real powerhouse vocals but after seeing this “Glee” episode I realize that I was completely wrong. Lea Michele, as far as I am concerned, is one of the greatest voices I have heard in ages and she took each one of those Madonna songs and made them her bitch. It was so good. The storyline focused on the boys of the Glee Club not having enough respect for the girls, and Mr. Schuester trying to teach them by assigning them Madonna songs to perform. This episode also heavily featured the new recurring guest star, Jonathon Groff from the original cast of “Spring Awakening,” and I am completely in love with him. He is gorgeous and he has the most amazing male voice possible. I am typically not that into male vocals but his voice is just gorgeous, as is his face. I am so glad “Glee” is back. I will be even gladder if I can be on it! We’ll see how that goes, though. I am excited to at least try. For now, though, it is off to bed to wake up in the morning and make this climb all over again. I expect tomorrow to be great but I also understand that life is a climb, as Miley Cyrus said. However, as No Doubt said, “So high the climb, I can’t turn back now, must keep climbing on to the clouds.” THAT is the climb that I am on, and there is no turning back from here. Of course, No Doubt also said, "Unfortunately this is the case, you've got to catch up and win the race, straighten yourself out... You can do it." Not to end with a barrage of song lyrics, but like Vedera said, “Throw away all your thoughts if they aren’t moving you forward.” That is exactly what I intend to keep striving to do. Wish me luck.