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.