Chapter 164: In This Skin

Today was the last day of my three-day weekend and I woke up this morning with every intention of using this day to relax and not do a whole lot. Last night I didn’t finish writing the blog until around 4am, and wasn’t asleep until around 5:30am. I think my theory about the temperature in my room being the cause of my sleep troubles was dispelled but I’m not entirely sure. You see, as I mentioned last night, my bedroom has always had this problem with getting too hot and I determined last night that this was because of a large lamp with multiple bulbs I used for light in the room. I replaced that lamp with a much smaller, single-bulb lamp with a shade. There is much less light in the room and the lampshade gives it a bit of an orange tone, which kind of gives the room a cozier feel. It is really nice. Plus, like I said, it was absolutely correct that the big lamp was causing the heat troubles in the room. Ever since replacing it with the small lamp, my room has stayed really cool. In fact, last night it seemed to stay a little too cool. I tend not to sleep with a blanket and I was trying to do the same last night but it was so cool in the room that I eventually had to get under cover. Fortunately, the new comforter I picked up in yesterday’s shopping trip is thin enough that I don’t feel overheated under it, like I do with most comforters. Still, I wouldn’t really attribute my lack of sleep to that. I did turn on a new podcast I have started listening to, called “Pop My Culture,” which was pretty cute. As I have mentioned previously, listening to podcasts in bed is a terrible idea and something I simply cannot do if I intend to get a decent night on sleep. In any sense, I woke up this morning at 11:30am and found my Mom was not home. I knew she wouldn’t be because on the weekends when she is at home she normally goes to church. I ate my leftover lunch from Mamma Onesti’s on Friday for breakfast and watched last week’s “Gossip Girl” and “90210” episodes. Let me just say that Jenny Humphrey, played by Taylor Momsen, is slowly becoming my favorite thing about “Gossip Girl.” I have always been a big fan of Taylor and wished they would put her to better use on that show and it seems like they finally are. Good for the writers – I like it a lot!

After all of that, I figured my Mom would be home soon and we would need to go out for a while, so I figured I should get dressed and ready to go out. I threw on my green and brown striped DKNY v-neck and some jeans because I already knew the makeup look I wanted to do. There is this video I found on YouTube of this girl, sccastaneda, doing a makeup look inspired by Jessie James’ video for her song, “Wanted.” I loved that video and the look that she had in the video, so I wanted to give it a shot. It was a really simple, natural-looking makeup look using a simple cream color, and a couple shades of brown to create a kind of natural smoky eye look. I don’t know how to explain that exactly but it was a cool look. It also was my first opportunity to try out the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion and the Pop Beauty concealer I picked up yesterday. I have to say that they are both amazing. The Primer Potion goes on super silky and doesn’t feel oily like my Ulta Professional primer does and the makeup stayed on much better than it does with the Ulta stuff, as well. Of course, the true test will come tomorrow when I wear my makeup for 8 hours of work – I am already pretty sold, but if it is still sticking well after that I will be a devoted Urban Decay Primer Potion fan for life. Like I said, what it did today was awesome, although I didn’t wear the makeup for THAT long. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Anyway, I put on the makeup look and, although it didn’t look as natural as it did on Jessie James or the girl on YouTube, it did look awesome. The way I did my eyeliner almost gave me a bit of a doll eye look, which was unintentional but looked really cool.

Once my Mom got home, I was all dressed, made up and ready to go. My Mom was doing a few things she needed to do here at the house and so I decided to go ahead and take out my broken office chair, (long story on how that happened,) and our trash out to the dumpster. My Mom and I had been continually putting off something we really needed to do and decided that today, before we did anything else, we had to go get it done. So, after I took out the trash, we headed down to the office to renew our lease for another 13 months. We had a little conflict over this recently because my Mom wasn’t sure if she wanted to commit for that long. The thing that I figured out over time was that it seems like she is hoping for some sort of progression in her relationship with her boyfriend, like moving in together, sometime in the not-too-distant future. I can definitely understand that and I would love to see that happen for them… but I also know that I am absolutely not ready to try to live on my own. Not in the next few months or even six months. I also understand that, with the position that her boyfriend is in right now, he probably won’t be ready for that in that time, either. My Mom and I wound up agreeing on the 13-month lease but also kind of have a mutual understanding that this is essentially the timeframe that I have to be ready to get out on my own. I think that signing the lease for the next 13 months is likely what works out best for all parties involved. It gives everybody a good amount of time to adjust to the changes that she needs to make. The more I think about it lately, the more it really doesn’t seem like that bad of a concept to live on my own… 13 months from now, that is. I think it could wind up being pretty cool. My Mom keeps saying things like, “Well, maybe you’ll have somebody that you want to move in with by that point.” Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Either way, though, I think this time next year I should be able to get myself into a place where I can deal with living pretty well on my own. It is really the first time in my life that this has sounded like an appealing concept so I guess I am growing up a bit. Of course, if I am going to get to that point within a year the first thing I need to do is learn how to drive. I need to get myself to a place where I don’t have to depend on other people to get me around. If I am going to live independently, that is a MAJOR step that I will need to take. It is a terrifying concept but one I am going to have to face eventually. I have absolutely no idea how I am going to learn to drive, though. Back when I was planning on moving to LA, I had discussed having Nate teach me to drive but then that concept kind of fizzled out because we weren’t sure of a car that I could use to learn how to drive. I still don’t have a car that I can use to learn to drive. I can’t afford to take driving classes at all because those things cost thousands of dollars to do. Actually, I just googled and found that Suncoast Defensive Driving School offers a driving lesson package of four 90 minute in-car lessons and a group of technical homework type stuff for $325. Most places run somewhere in the $300-400 range. I don’t know why it cost thousands of dollars to take driving classes. If I calmed down a bit on my makeup/clothing expenses for a while, I could easily save up enough to cover that by summertime. What the hell am I thinking? That would be amazing! I don’t know why I had such a closed frame of mind about this. It would be awesome to be able to just random stop in on my friends or leave the stupid atrium at work on my lunch break or not have to wait an hour after my piano lessons for my Mom to come pick me up. I am totally going to work on this! It just makes sense, especially if I am planning to be living independently a year from now. That was an “a-ha” moment if I’ve ever seen it! I’m so excited right now.

Speaking of “a-ha” moments, though, despite my decent progress with the previous piano piece I was working on, I have made considerably less progress on the new piece. As I mentioned in last night’s blog, the piece doesn’t indicate how many beats I am supposed to be doing per measure, so I have sorted out how to play all the notes on it and such but I have absolutely no clue how it is supposed to sound because I don’t know the tempo for it at all. This morning, before I got dressed or any of that, I tried to call Viktor to ask him about that but got his voicemail. I didn’t leave a message because I just figured I’d go ahead and try him again later but then I never did. I am just going to keep working on the same piece as last week, which he also told me to keep doing this week, and ask him about this new piece on Wednesday when I go in for my next lesson.

After signing the lease, my Mom and I went out to get my hair cut because I have been in desperate need of a haircut and, as I mentioned in Friday’s video blog, I mainly just want to be looking my best for my “Glee” audition video, which I need to work on this week. I only have one full week left to get this done and submitted and I want it to be the best that I am capable of, so that means I need to practice the shit out of the song and prepare my personal statement. The personal statement is simply, “Why do you want to be a part of ‘Glee?’” There are a million different things I could say there, it’s all a matter of deciding which angle I would like to take on that. Do I want to be funny? Do I want to be serious? Do I want to be heartfelt? Do I want to be upbeat and spunky? I’m not sure yet, I am leaning towards a combination of heartfelt and funny. I will call it “heartfunny.” Anyway, we were going to go get my haircut at my favorite salon in town, Sassy Hair Fashions, but by the time we got there they were closed. I decided to just go cheap and head over to Super Cuts. This Super Cuts was actually really nice inside and I was immediately greeted, and seemingly checked out, by a mildly attractive hair stylist who was probably about my age. The other stylist there was a guy who was also nice looking, probably in his 40s. He was in the middle of something. The younger guy told me that there was about a 45-minute wait, so my Mom and I decided to go get lunch at Sonny’s Barbecue, which was right next door. We went in there and had a delicious lunch, and got back just in time to not have a wait to get my haircut done. I was hoping that the cuter, younger guy would be the one to do my hair but he was in the middle of some really intense stying for a teenaged girl, so the older gentleman took me back to his chair. I wound up pretty happy with having him do my hair because I love the way it came out and he was hilarious. He was gay and saw my rainbow tattoo, (not to mention the makeup and such,) so he spent the whole time telling me about all of the gay cruise spots in town and such, most of which I weren’t familiar with. I told my Mom that I gave him a good tip because he told me where I could get laid. I did give him a big tip but not solely for that reason. I don’t do the whole “cruise: thing – it just seems kind of seedy. Besides, who needs to do all that when you have the internet? I am joking, of course. I do not have any use for casual sex at this point in my life – that is not the type of thing I am looking for now. I tipped the guy well because he was very fun and friendly and made the whole experience run much more smoothly than it normally does for me at those chain salons. After the haircut was done, my Mom and I decided to go check out the place we checked out yesterday to get her eyebrows done. I was still kind of iffy about the whole concept of getting my eyebrows waxed, although the more I kept looking at them, the more I felt like I should. So, I had my first professional waxing and, I must say, I don’t see what the big fear of waxing is. It was like nothing. Plus, I am absolutely in love with the look of my eyebrows right now – they are still the same shape and everything but much more “groomed” looking. That is exactly what I wanted. Plus, with my eyebrows thinned out a bit, I really feel like my eyes look bigger. I have made it a goal to try to do makeup that makes my eyes appear larger so having the eyebrows helping in that matter helps a lot. My first waxing experience was definitely a positive one, and one I intend to make a regular occurrence.

For the bulk of this ride around town, we were listening to Jessica Simpson. I have talked a lot about Jessica Simpson in the blog lately because she has been a huge inspiration to me and her series, “The Price Of Beauty,” has been particularly close to my heart recently. I just love how she has made such a focus, throughout her career, to emphasize the importance of finding your inner beauty and doing what makes YOU feel beautiful, in spite of what anybody else has to say. I think that is one of the most important messages one can spread and I am truly inspired by anybody who makes it their mission to get that message across to the youth of this world. This kind of leads me to another epiphany that I have had recently. As I have made pretty blatant for most of my life, music is the core of me. It is my ultimate goal and dream in life, and something that I will pursue to the fullest for the rest of my life. It will always and forever be my first and truest love. However, I have realized that I have developed a pretty huge passion for the beauty industry. What I would really love to do at some point in the future, as I continue to pursue music, is get my GED and start taking some cosmetology courses at my local Vo-Tech. I would love to work with makeup and making people feel good about themselves in that way that you do when you’ve just had your hair or makeup done and are looking your very best. That is something that I would love to do – that is a feeling that I would love to give people. I really love the concept of working as a makeup artist in a theater or for people attending events, filming for film or television, etc. I really do feel like beauty is something that I have become extremely passionate about and would love to pursue further in the future. There is a lot that I should work on before that, like getting myself to a point where I am independent and pursuing my own beauty. Speaking of pursuing my own beauty, I need to go get my beauty rest so I can get up in the morning and workout. My Mom and I have agreed to do “Zumba,” the latin dance workout, tomorrow morning. It is really high energy and pretty fast-paced, so I should probably try my best to be well rested in preparation for that. Plus, tomorrow I am making my return to work and I want to look like I had a really restful, relaxing weekend of beauty. That shouldn’t be too hard of a look to achieve, considering I DID have a really restful, relaxing weekend of beauty. I have already decided on my outfit and makeup look for tomorrow, so all that is left to do is actually get up and get it all done in the morning. The first step to doing that, of course, would be going to bed now. I am pretty confident I won’t have any problem getting to sleep tonight because I am feeling really tuckered out already. Goodnight!