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.