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!