Chapter 159: That’s What I’m Here For

Today was… well, it just was. I woke up this morning at 7:30am when my alarm went off and wasn’t able to relish the fact that I didn’t actually need to be awake yet, like I did yesterday, so the day kind of started off on a sour note right there. Still, I forced myself out of bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of coffee and put a smile on my face. Now, let me just say that this was pretty difficult, considering I had a very hard time falling asleep last night. I wound up staying awake until around 2:30am, after lying in bed for an hour and a half trying to fall asleep. It sucked, but it happens from time to time. Normally, I don’t have that problem unless I am anxious or nervous about something but that was not the case last night. It was strange. Either way, I was feeling the effects of getting less sleep than usual this morning and when it came time to work out I was feeling the urge to just skip today. My Mom didn’t sleep well, either, so she seemed like she would go along with skipping, as well. Still, I didn’t work out yesterday and if I am ever going to see results from this effort I have to actually put in the full amount of effort necessary. So, I pushed myself and, in turn, pushed my Mom, as well. Turns out, we got a really great workout this morning. I’m not sure if it was the fact that we were both pushing ourselves harder than usual or if it was the added inspiration of this morning’s workout soundtrack, RuPaul’s album “Champion,” but it really was a great workout. Speaking of the RuPaul album, I have to say it is the best workout soundtrack I have used yet – it is full of the perfect beats and, as I discussed in another recent blog, is full of really inspirational, motivational lyrics. I absolutely loved working out to that record. If you’ve been following the blog recently, or my Facebook page, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve developed quite the obsession with RuPaul lately. She is my muse lately – I have just been finding so much inspiration from her music, her TV show and her general image/personality. I love that drag queen to death!

After working out, I had a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for breakfast and chatted with my Mom for a bit. We hadn’t really had much of a chance to talk since she had gotten back into town yesterday because we were in a rush before work, didn’t get to take lunch together like we normally do and were kind of distracted last night watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” We just had a bit of idle chatter about what we each did over the weekend and stuff. It was nice, though. We normally don’t talk much in the mornings. I mean, we work out together, but aside from that we spend most mornings rushing around to get ready for work on our opposite ends of the apartment. It was nice to take a little time to chat and eat breakfast together. Of course, this didn’t last all that long before we did have to rush off to our separate sides of the house to get ready. Last night I kind of conceptualized a makeup look using black and gold, kind of inspired by the Sam Sparro song, “Black & Gold,” but not in any real way beyond the fact that I heard the song and wanted to put black and gold together. Still, I was really happy with the look. I did gold all over the lid and black with gold glitter in the crease and blended up and outwards. I liked it a lot. It was kind of unfortunate, though, because I was trying to pick out an outfit that had some gold in it and realized that I have absolutely no gold in my wardrobe, not even jewelry. Actually, that is a lie – I do have one thing that would have matched the makeup perfectly. It is a pretty thick Clandestine Industries hoodie that is black with the batskull logo in gold all up and down the sleeves. It is adorable and I completely fell in love with it when I saw it but have never really worn it much. It is a little too thick for the weather here in Florida and it leaves gold glitter everywhere you go. It just doesn’t really fit in with my personal style at this point, either, but I just can’t bear to part with it. In any sense, I have developed a thing for gold makeup and have decided that I need to work more gold into my wardrobe. I’m not sure how exactly I propose to do that, but I will figure it out.

Work was boring today. Tuesdays are typically my hour lunch day but, fortunately, because I am taking Friday off I do not run the risk of getting overtime at all. This all adds up to me not having to take an hour lunch today. I know, it may sound odd to be trying to avoid taking an hour lunch but it is really boring sitting in the atrium at my job for a whole hour. If I had a car and were able to leave for that hour, I would want an hour lunch every day. Since that is not the case for me, though, taking an hour-long lunch break sucks. It was a pretty laid back day. Not much went on. I tried to start reading this book that one of my co-workers just finished, called “The Seven Great Prayers.” Based on what I have read so far, it is essentially “The Secret,” with a slightly more Christian slant. It’s pretty interesting so far but I just couldn’t bring myself to focus on it for too long at a time. I am pretty intrigued by the whole concept of the book. I feel like it could be a good refresher course on “The Secret,” though, presented in a fresh and different way than the same old “The Secret” that I have read multiple times. I have been trying to get back into that “Secret” frame of mind a lot lately. Some days it is easier than others but I guess that was always the case. It’s just that the harder days are more frequent than the less hard ones now, which was not the case for me a few years ago. Still, I am working on it. It’s strange because I am so confident in myself and so proud of the person that I am but it is still really easy to slip into that place of expecting bad things to happen. Like I said, I am working on it. Plus, I have absolute faith that the Universe is working in my favor – I just need to keep reminding myself of that. Nothing truly bad can happen to me so long as I keep my faith in that.

When I got home from work this evening, I allowed myself to focus on what I was really excited about today – the return of the best show on television, “Glee!” I even came up with a “Glee” inspired makeup look, using yellow, orange and red, like the show’s title card and logo. It was really cute. I can’t help but wonder if it is sad that the highlight of my day, or the thing that I was most looking forward to today, was a TV show. I definitely feel like I could stand to, as the Spice Girls put it, spice up my life. I need to do something. I need to get out more. I need to be more social. I need to spend a little less time living inside my own head. I need to just get the hell out of the house more often. I did finally make some plans for my three-day weekend. I had a little Facebook conversation with one of my nearest and dearest friends, Rachel, and we made plans to hang out on Friday. The plan is basically to find some cute little bistro in town and sit outside and smoke cigarettes and just generally be “leisurely ladies who lunch.” I am pretty excited for that – as I have talked about more than a few times in this blog, hanging out with Rachel just makes me feel better about the world. She has this wonderful ability to put things in a different perspective for me and I absolutely love that about her. I am really excited to go out and just have a little fun, leisure time with her on my three-day weekend. As far as the rest of the weekend, I just want to do a little shopping. Because I don’t have to pay out near as much money from this paycheck as I usually do, I kind of have some extra cash to play around with. I need to go to Target to pick out something off of my brother’s wedding registry. I also want to check out some more of the Sonia Kashuk makeup brushes they have there because I am in love with the set that I picked up there before. If I am going to be down in that plaza on University, I’d be remiss not to stop in at Ulta and see what I can find. I need to pick up a full bottle of the concealer that April gave me a couple weeks ago when we hung out because it is amazing. It works so much better than the orange concealer jar I got from NYX Cosmetics. I don’t know why I thought the orange would be a good idea because I really don’t like it – I just feel like no matter how well I rub it in, you can still see the orange. I don’t want to have orange spots on my face. So, the concealer that April gave me was from Amazing Cosmetics and I definitely need to pick some up because I have fallen in love with that stuff. It looks great on me! Aside from that, though, I can’t really think of much that I need from Ulta. That is probably a good thing because I don’t want to spend too much money there. Where I really want to drop some cash is at Old Navy. Last time I was there, when I was kind of broke, I saw all kinds of adorable things that I fell in love with but couldn’t afford to buy then, so now that I am going to have a little extra cash I definitely want to go back. Plus, I love the fact that Old Navy stuff is really cheap but not low quality and can be paired with all kinds of other things. I am really kind of into more plain clothing these days – I am enjoying wearing basic patterns and solids in cool cuts. Plus, Old Navy seems to have a theme for the Spring of really fun, bright-colored heathers, which I am really loving lately. In any sense, an Old Navy trip is definitely in order this weekend. Depending on where my financial status is by then, I also would like to run by Borders and pick up a few books, and visit April on her Saturday night closing shift. I don’t know. Whatever I do, though, I definitely plan to have fun this weekend. Even more, though, this weekend is all about leisure. I don’t want to face any type of stress or drama this weekend. I just want everything to be relaxed and fun.

So, this evening consisted of “making dinner,” (I just reheated some Turkey Stew that had been in the freezer since Thanksgiving, which was delicious,) “American Idol,” and, most importantly, “Glee!” I happened to take a brief look at one of my favorite websites, Oh No They Didn’t, and the people there seemed to have been slightly disappointed with the return episode of “Glee.” I don’t know what the hell they were talking about, though, because I absolutely loved it! I especially loved the Broadway guest stars in the episode, and probably for the rest of the season, Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele’s co-star in “Spring Awakening,” and the one and only, my favorite Broadway diva, Idina Menzel. Whitney was text messaging me throughout the episode and going on about how pissed off she was with Idina’s character, because she did make a lot of horrible bitch moves, but I couldn’t possibly bring myself to dislike the character. She is too gorgeous and amazing! I just love Idina Menzel so much, she could stab a baby in the face and I would say, “God, she’s so fierce!” Okay, obviously that is a bit extreme, but I think that woman is amazing at whatever she does. She is a brilliant addition to the cast of “Glee.” Speaking of additions to the cast of “Glee,” the producers of the show are doing an Open Casting Call online to find people to fill roles in the second season of the show. You submit a video to the Myspace page for the auditions with a one-minute long personal statement and performing a song from a list provided on the website. I have never fancied myself an actor by any means and it is never really something that I have dreamed of doing but this seems like too cool of an opportunity to pass up. I am seriously considering submitting a video. I don’t know if it would do any good, as far as actually getting on the show, but I think it would be a lot of fun and would be a cool way to get my voice out there to a large number of people, as the videos are posted on the Auditions Myspace page and can be voted on and rated by others. I think it could be a really cool thing to try. I am not 100% sure that I am going to do it yet. The deadline is April 26, 2010. So, we’ll see. Still, there is just something in me that tells me it could be a good idea. Like I said, we’ll see.

It is now 12:29am and I should really be getting to bed. One thing I wanted to mention, though, is the fact that today was the release of “American Idol” Season 7 contestant Jason Castro’s self-titled debut album. I was not particularly a fan of his when he was on the show, mainly because his vocal abilities could not compare to many of the cast of that season, (especially my now-of-legal-age dreamlover, David Archuleta,) and was just not a good fit for “American Idol.” Since his season has ended, though, and I have heard a bit more of his original music I have kind of grown to like him a lot. The album, if you can call it that with only 8 tracks, is very impressive. It is all very singer-songwriter with a pot-smoking edge style, spunky, upbeat songs. Basically, every track on the album kind of has the general vibe of Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” but not trying so hard. I listened to this album twice in a row as I wrote this blog and I really love it. My favorite track on this record is probably the song, “That’s What I’m Here For,” which is essentially a song about being there for somebody you love no matter what. It’s a very sweet song and has this lovely, light, airy sound to it that I love. His vocals are much improved from his time on “Idol,” as well. I definitely recommend this record if you are into that singer-songwriter with a reggae/pop twist vibe. I am not normally into that type of thing, honestly, and I love the album. So, really, even if you’re not into that type of thing it is worth checking out. I’m really feeling it right now. What I really need to be feeling right now, though, is my head against a pillow. I am exhausted. I just have tomorrow and Thursday to get through before my slightly extended weekend begins! Wednesdays are normally pretty cool days for me because I have my piano lesson. I put in my 15 minutes of practice this evening and am feeling pretty confident that I will be able to go in there and kick some ass tomorrow evening! We shall see. For now, though, all I can really say is this: Goodnight.