Chapter 206: Behind These Hazel Eyes

After two nights in a row of video blogging instead of actually writing you would think there would be a lot of space to cover, right? Well, there’s not really. I mean, I guess there is but none of it is substantial enough to really discuss in too much depth. To be perfectly honest, I am feeling kind of depressed right now and it is putting a gloomy shade over all of my thoughts. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that this isn’t something that happens to me often. What you wouldn’t know from this blog, though, is that it is something that used to happen to me quite frequently – in fact, it would happen to me all the time, on a daily basis. Prior to 2007 I had a tendency to get very depressed very often. Then, in early 2007, I found the cure to this depression. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t find the cure to anybody else’s depression or anything but I did find the cure to my depression. The issue is, I don’t know what that cure actually was. In 2007, I had a bit of a spiritual awakening and suddenly started to see the world in a brand new way – a positive way. Before that time, I had never stopped and thought that maybe choosing to look at the brighter side of life could make a difference. It really does make a difference, though, and even though I have wavered from this whole philosophy a bit it still makes a major difference in my life. Just the fact that I don’t feel this way normally is a major difference. I am just having an off night, I suppose. I don’t even really know how to explain the way that I am feeling right now. I sat down and tried to start writing this blog three hours ago and nothing would come out. So, I distracted myself with random web browsing and experimentation with makeup for two and a half hours then decided that I would do a third night of video blogging. Then I spent about 30 minutes searching for a spot with better lighting than the spot I usually do it from, since the cat is sleeping on my bed right now and I don’t necessarily want to disturb her. Somewhere in this whole process I just started feeling really down. I don’t know why or what prompted it or anything. There are a few different things that I think could be contributing factors in this feeling, though.

First of all, I haven’t done any cleaning this weekend. The house isn’t necessarily any messier than it was when my Mom left on Friday but it isn’t any cleaner, either. I feel kind of guilty about this because I should have gotten SOMETHING done. At the same time, though, I do still have two more days off that I can use for cleaning. In fact, I have two more days off that I absolutely must use for cleaning. My Grandma on my Mom’s side, the one who I went to see back when I had just started this blog, is arriving on Thursday. That means that we have four days to get this place ready for her arrival. I am really excited to see my Grandma, though. After several years of not having seen her, it was really nice to back in November and now to be seeing her again less than a year later is really cool. Then on Friday my aunt and cousin from LA are arriving, which I am also extremely excited about. I haven’t seen them since the last time I was out in California, in December 2007. It is all really exciting. Still, I really need to get to work on cleaning this house up. For me, personally, it’s not that big of a deal but I know it is really important to my Mom to get this place looking nice before they get here. I can understand it, too, because this is the first time any of her family is coming to visit us at our home here in Florida. I can definitely understand wanting it to look nice and make a good impression. So, since she was away this weekend with her boyfriend, it kind of became my job to get that done. I completely failed at that task, unfortunately. Like I said, though, I still have two days off that I can totally use to get everything done that needs to be done. It’s not like there is that much left to do, anyway. I will get it done. Therefore, I have officially negated that reason to feel depressed.

Another factor in this feeling may be money. I was a little foolish on Thursday evening and ordered two new MAC eye shadow pans for my Pro Palette, even though I knew that I would be a little short on money this paycheck. I mean, I didn’t have a short paycheck but I had to put out money on more things than usual, like a gift for my brother’s wedding. Plus, it is the opening weekend of Sex & The City 2, which you surely know based on the videos from the past 2 nights. It was a foolish decision to order anything this weekend. Still, something in my head told me that since I still had enough left to cover it out of my last paycheck I should go ahead and do it. On Saturday, I spent money on the movie, Starbucks and bought some new facial cleansers. After that, I looked at my bank account and kind of came to realize that I screwed up. I screwed up pretty badly, actually. I mean, none of this cost all that much and I did get my brother’s wedding gift covered Friday night. Still, after all of that and once I pay for my piano lessons for the next month, I am going to be left with about $30. I was supposed to go ahead and buy tickets for my Mom and I to see Sex & The City 2 tomorrow night but that would be $20. I really can’t do that. I am considering asking my Mom if we can put off seeing it together until after we get paid again because I really can’t afford it. The other thing I am considering is putting off paying for my piano lessons until my next paycheck. They have a thing posted on the wall at the Allegro Academy that says that there is a $5 charge for each week after the first lesson of the month that you don’t pay. So, if I could pull off paying two weeks late and just paying an extra $10 it would solve a lot of my problems as far as money goes. I think I will call them tomorrow and inquire about that. Or maybe I could pay half this time and half at my next lesson. Even that would be a HUGE help. They seem pretty flexible with things so hopefully that won’t be an issue. If I can pull that off, I won’t have any major financial trouble at this point. Therefore, I have partially, or possibly temporarily negated that reason to feel depressed.

This third thing that may be contributing to this negative feeling is one that is a little difficult for me to discuss. Everybody who knows me can tell that I am a very confident person. I certainly have insecurities but it isn’t often that I let them show. The main reason that I don’t let them show often is because I don’t let them create an issue for me often. What those same people who know me don’t necessarily know is that I don’t have a whole lot of concern with beauty, in the sense of my own physical beauty. I definitely understand that I have my shortcomings and I have my advantages. How those balance out in my head depends on the day, really. Still, more often than not, I have no problem looking at myself in the mirror and recognizing my own beauty. I know what you must be thinking – how can I say I am not overly concerned with my own physical beauty when I wear makeup to work every day and such? The reason I am able to say this is because I don’t really think of makeup as something that I do to enhance my physical appearance. I mean, it does enhance my physical appearance and I love that about it, but that’s not really what it’s about. Makeup does make me feel more beautiful than I do without it but that is not my purpose for wearing it, either. The reason I wear makeup is because it allows me to express myself in a creative way on a day-to-day basis. I don’t necessarily think of makeup as something that I do to make myself more beautiful. It’s more something that I do to make myself more interesting, I guess. It is like creating a work of art on my face every day – it allows me to display exactly what I want to the world on any given day. It does make me feel more beautiful but I don’t harbor the illusion that anybody else looks at it and thinks I am more beautiful because of it. In any sense, as I was mentioning before, I am not overly concerned with my own physical beauty but there are certainly moments where these types of concerns can creep up on me. When those moments come, it isn’t pretty. On Saturday, I happened to get a look at myself in the mirror naked from a very unusual angle, which I am not going to detail here or anything, and I couldn’t help but feel like it looked pretty gross. This kind of catalyzed a whole onslaught of thoughts in my head about my body. I don’t know how another person would feel about seeing me in a position like the one I caught myself in. This got me thinking about sex. I haven’t had it in a pretty long time and I am beginning to feel the desire to partake in it again sometime soon. Still, seeing myself in this way made me start to feel like it is a lot farther off than I initially thought. What could I expect some guy I want to sleep with think of what I saw if I thought it was gross? At the same time, what business do I have presenting something that I thought was gross to somebody else? How can I go out into the world and seek companionship from somebody else knowing that my body is not something that I would find appealing? If I don’t find it appealing, why would anybody else? Still, I am working on it. I have stepped up my workout a lot recently and intend to step it up even further in the coming weeks. I may not be happy with my body right now but one of life’s greatest gifts is the fact that we have the power and ability to change anything that we aren’t happy with. So, I will push forward with my working out until I can manage to change my physical situation into exactly what I want it to be. If somebody comes around in the meantime who finds what I have to offer appealing then I will deal with it when it comes. In the meantime, my focus will remain on getting myself to a shape that I am happy with. More importantly, I will focus on doing it not for the sake of attracting anybody else but for the sake of being able to become what I want out of somebody else. After all, if I try to seek out a person without feeling like what I have to offer is equivalent to what they are offering me it will only end badly. Looking back on many of my relationships in the past, this has been a large issue for me. It’s not one that has ever been communicated to the person I was with but it has always been an issue in my head. In fact, that has often been what has shaped the choices I make in people I am attracted to. I always go for people who I feel are considerably more attractive than I am but also considerably less intelligent or interesting than I am. This always becomes an issue for me. So, I need to focus on becoming the type of person I want to find in life. I need to, like that stupid gay self-help book, “Find The Boyfriend Within.” Therefore, I have kind of sort of negated that reason to feel depressed.

As a matter of fact, somewhere in the process of writing this blog I have managed to stop feeling depressed. It’s kind of a shame it took this long, though, because there were so many fun, less substantial topics I could have discussed like how I recently discovered that I have hazel eyes! I can now sing that Kelly Clarkson song, “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” and totally mean it! I suppose it is good that I did this blog, though. If nothing else, it proves that there is a little something more than the eye can usually see “behind these hazel eyes.” I totally just set up that statement so I could use that little play on words. It doesn’t make it any less true, though. In any sense, it has been a very long day… not because I was doing any sort of work or anything. I basically spent all day finishing off the season of “The Vampire Diaries,” which had an amazing first season, by the way, and doing laundry. I did a bit of piano practice, as well. I spent 30-45 minutes at the piano, which would normally be a really good thing but in this case it was not. I am just having a lot of trouble really getting this new piece. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it is printed so small. I have trouble reading the notes in the first place and, if I am reading them correctly, they are all really far apart, which makes them kind of difficult to play. I don’t know. There are just a lot of factors that are making this one really rough for me. I think I am going to call Viktor tomorrow to see if I can get some guidance on it. I thought about calling today but I don’t know what it is – I just feel bad calling him on the weekend. You know, it’s his time off. Tomorrow, though, I definitely will. In fact, maybe I can discuss the money issue with him directly instead of calling the school. I don’t know, though. It’d probably be a better idea to speak with the school since I make the payments to them, not to Viktor directly. Either way, getting both of these things handled are at the top of the list of priorities for tomorrow. In the meantime, though, it is 4:15am and the first thing on the list of priorities right now is getting to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 205: Rapture

I tried to add pictures in the video but Windows Movie Maker didn't feel like cooperating, apparently. So, here are pictures of the biggest and best fashion moments of the film, as mentioned in the video.







Now, that last picture is from a scene that I forgot to mention in the video. One of my personal favorite scenes in the film was the four girls at a nightclub while in Abu Dhabi getting up on stage and singing "I Am Woman." There were a lot of really fascinating tidbits involving the way that women are treated in the Middle East and it just seemed like such a powerful statement to have these four women, who are kind of the picture of feminism and independence for women in America in the middle of this country where women don't get to enjoy the freedoms that they do here, singing such a powerful, liberating song as "I Am Woman." It was awesome.

Like I said multiple times in the video, the film is AMAZING! I highly recommend everybody go check it out in theaters immediately!

Chapter 204: 2 Different Tears

Chapter 203: Can I Have A Kiss?

I mentioned in last night’s blog how I was thinking of skipping my workout this morning but I wasn’t sure about that. Part of me felt like leaving a day between each workout was a good thing for my body but part of me felt like I would never see results if I didn’t push myself when I was feeling like skipping and such. I was feeling kind of conflicted on the topic, honestly, but it turned out that the decision was made for me. You see, last night I finished the blog at nearly 1am and when I got into bed after that I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. Then I woke up a couple times during the night, which has never been a common occurrence for me but seems to be happening more and more lately. These things combined, I didn’t get the most sleep last night. So, I really had no reason to be surprised when I woke up at 6:50am this morning, in spite of my alarm going off at 6am. I suppose I needed the extra sleep. Still, I felt a little rushed. I’ve gotten used to having a full two hours to prepare myself before work and such. Not having that extra 50 minutes really made a big difference in my morning. Still, it wasn’t a bad morning. I ate some leftovers from last night’s dinner for breakfast and watched last night’s “Chelsea Lately” while I ate. When I went into the bathroom to get dressed and do my makeup, I came up with a really cool makeup concept for the day. I wore a baby blue Old Navy v-neck t-shirt so I decided to try my hand at a very cool “smoky” effect using a couple different shades of blue. The thing that made this a cooler look than your average blue smoky eye is the fact that I used this look as an excuse to use my MAC Brule shadow all over the lid, then blended the blues on the outer corner, so it kind of gave the illusion that it was just skin with blues emerging from the outer corner of the eye. I guess you’d have to see it, and no doubt I’ll post the pictures on my Facebook page, but I really loved the way it came out.

I was in a pretty good mood when I got to work this morning. I spent the first part of this morning going over the sheet music for “Intermezzo (A Love Story)” and writing out which notes were which. I am not yet at a point where I can just look at the placement of the notes on the lines and instinctively know which note it is. The operative word there would be YET. I am thinking that tomorrow I may spend a good part of the day re-writing this sheet music in my sheet music notebook because it is a little difficult to read on the papers that he gave me. I feel like I’ll probably be able to work a little better off of sheet music that I copied myself. I don’t know, though, because there are a lot of little intricacies to this piece that I am afraid I might forget some piece of notation that is actually important to the piece. I spent most of today not really working on much of anything but actual work. It was a little busier today than it has been recently. It seems like business has picked up a lot this week, which is weird. It may be a positive sign, though. I am going to choose to see it that way whether or not it is the truth. I also somehow managed to go another day without writing any new songs, which is weird. That is two days in a row I didn’t do it – three, actually, if you count Tuesday. I am pretty well considering it to be just a workday task, so I am not doing it on Tuesdays now that I am off on Tuesdays. Still, it is very strange that I didn’t write anything new yesterday or today. I need to get back on the ball tomorrow. I think a lot of it may have to do with the fact that I feel like I don’t have a whole lot to say right now. My life is pretty uninteresting the past couple of weeks. It’s annoying. It also makes this blog kind of difficult to write every day. There isn’t a whole lot of interest in my day-to-day life recently so there isn’t a lot to write about. In fact, I am already planning on cutting tonight’s blog short. I am not cutting it short for lack of things to say, per se, but because I am exhausted. After not sleeping well last night and dragging ass all day today, I am feeling really drained.

I got to sit and talk with a couple of different people I haven’t really had much chance to deal with lately, which was nice. It also helps that these were both good-looking boys. I need more good-looking boys in my life nowadays. With the wedding and such, I have been thinking a lot about relationships and such. I try to avoid that type of talk or thinking, honestly, but I can’t help but think of the fact that I am the odd man out in the group I am attending the wedding with. Everybody else is paired off in one way or another. I don’t have anybody to dance with or introduce people to or any of that fun stuff that you do at weddings and events like that. It’s kind of shitty. At the same time, though, I am okay with it. My brother has a limited number of seats for the wedding and probably wouldn’t have room for me to bring a date, anyway. It’s not really about the wedding, though. It is more a matter of watching people commit and celebrate their love for one another that gets to me. I don’t have anybody to celebrate. I don’t have anybody to commit to or to commit to me. Let me stop before this turns into a festival of whining, moping and being generally pathetic. It’s all good, though. The right person will come along eventually and I’ll be ready to share my attention and focus with them. That will be lovely when it happens… in the meantime, though, I am simply going to enjoy my life on my own where my only real focus has to be on creative work. That won’t change, honestly, but I will have somebody around to share in all of that with me.

After work, I made some frozen Lasagna and a salad for dinner. I spent the evening watching Oprah. She had Dolly Parton on last week and that was really a thrill for me seeing the two of them, two of my biggest inspirations in life recently, together on one show. It was really sweet and Dolly was, once again, full of good old Dolly-isms. It was a really good episode. I also spent 30 minutes practicing piano, focusing strictly on the new piece. It’s a lot more difficult than I expected and there are a few spots right off the bat that I am having a bit of trouble understanding. I think I am going to have to call Viktor sometime over the weekend to see if he can shed some light on the whole thing for me. There are just a few random spots that I am having a lot of trouble grasping. I also spent a little bit of money this evening of the cash I have left from the last paycheck. I had initially planed on hanging on to that cash to soften the blow of having to pay for the June piano lessons out of this paycheck but instead I spent $28.89 on two new eye shadow pans for my MAC pro palette. I ordered Espresso, which is a gorgeous matte brown, and Passionate, which is a really gorgeous true red color. This means that I am 1/5 of the way to filling the palette. I am really excited for these colors to arrive so I can experiment even more with MAC cosmetics. So far, though, I am really happy with the one shadow that I have from them. For now, though, I am having trouble keeping my eyes open so I should get to bed before I wind up passing out at the computer. Tomorrow is Friday, though, the last working day before my 4 days off. I am really excited for this weekend, even though I don’t have any real plans. Seriously, this sleepiness is becoming an issue. I have to get to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 202: Penny

It is nearly 11:30pm already and I am just beginning tonight’s blog, which is not a good sign for the night as far as sleep goes. Still, I am optimistic. I am going to try to keep the blog short tonight because I don’t really have a lot to say and I would prefer to get to bed sooner than later. Overall, it was a pretty good day. It all began when I woke up at 6am when my alarm went off. I got up, washed my face and brushed my teeth, then made myself a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and a cup of coffee. While I ate my oatmeal, drank my coffee and smoked a cigarette, I was dicking around on the Internet – pretty much the same old morning routine. Around 6:45am I went out to the living room to do my morning exercise. I did the “Dancing With The Stars” workout I have been doing for the past couple of weeks and I continue to really enjoy it. I also continue to really feel it working. I can feel it throughout the day, in the form of soreness in my muscles. I really can’t wait until that soreness lessens. Still, I am only two weeks into this workout and I really can’t expect to be completely acclimated to it at this point. It will all come in due time, though. I am confident in this fact. The Universe has a way of working things out like that for me but it’s not just going to make things happen for me if I am unwilling to put in the effort to make them happen for myself. After the workout, I smoked another cigarette then headed into the bathroom to get dressed and do hair and makeup for the day. I hadn’t pre-planned a makeup look for the day or anything like that, so I decided to just wing it. I had initially thought of just doing my Taylor Momsen-inspired black and gold look, because I felt like using my Christian Siriano eye shadow in Gilded Fierce, which is a dark black with tons of gold glitter in it. Still, I wanted to do something different and new. So, I took my Urban Decay Summer Of Love palette and did bright gold, (Maui Wowie,) on the inner corners of my eyelids and bright, shimmery purple, (Flash,) over the rest of the lid. Then, I did the crease in the Christian Siriano Gilded Fierce color and used Maui Wowie as a brow highlight. I also got a little experimental with trying to contour and highlight my face. I thought it came out pretty well but when I emerged from the bathroom and my Mom saw me from across the room she said I looked like I was wearing stage makeup. Anybody who has done theater or is familiar with the theater or any type of performance art knows that stage makeup is cool on stage but a very bad thing up close. So, I covered that shit with powder to tone it down and got myself looking a little less “made up.” What I have realized is that I really need to stop playing around with that type of stuff until I have the right products and tools for it. I don’t have the right brushes for contouring and don’t own a single bronzer. I also only own one shade of blush, which I love, but could definitely use a little more variety as far as that goes. There is this company called Sedona Lace that sells a really fairly priced and decent quality blush and contour palette, which I think I may order some day soon. Either way, I need to stop messing with that stuff in the meantime. I don’t want to look like some whore from the 80s or a reject from “Hello, Dolly!”

Work was pretty laid back today. It was a little boring but it wasn’t bad. I just realized right now, though, that I didn’t write two new songs today. I didn’t even write one. It’s strange but it completely slipped my mind. I suppose it is okay to miss a day but it is very strange because I haven’t missed a day of writing songs since I started this whole thing. Actually, now that I think of it, I did start writing one today but then erased it because I wasn’t happy with it. Then I tried starting another one but it didn’t work out, either. I got a little busy later in the day so I didn’t ever wind up going back to it. That sucks. Still, like I said, I wound up a little busy. I colored calendars for people and played sudoku and took more calls today than I have most days lately. I don’t really know where the time went. Like I said, the day was pretty boring, as far as work goes. A co-worker passed off a “project” on me, so that consumed the last part of my day. Fortunately, I got out on time and found that my sister’s girlfriend was getting out right on time, as well. So, we hurried downstairs, got in the car and headed for my piano lesson.

All week long I have been extra excited for tonight’s piano lesson, mainly because I was meant to go in and show Viktor how well I could play the two pieces from before and, even more exciting, get a new piece to work on moving forward. Well, it didn’t work out entirely as planned… at least, not at first. I went in and chatted with Viktor for a minute or two, then went to play the first of the two pieces I’ve been working on and totally botched it. Viktor said it was clear that I hadn’t been practicing much this past week, which sucked because I actually did 30 minutes of practice on 5 of the 6 days between lessons. So, after I finished and he was saying that I stopped him and told him that I had been practicing a lot and it was much better at home. So, he asked me to do it again and I pretty well aced it. The thing is, there are a lot of things that I do just fine when I’m on my own at home but then when I get in the room with Viktor at the actual piano it just comes out funny. In some ways, I think that he makes me nervous. I don’t really think it’s him specifically, though, I think it’s just that I’m a little awkward and insecure about playing in front of anybody and it makes me fuck things up that I know I can do right. Still, much like today, I always manage to pull my focus together and get it right. This is definitely something I am going to have to work on. Still, I am glad I managed to get my shit together and prove that I have been working on it. He did give me a new piece to work on moving forward and, I’m not going to lie, it is pretty intimidating. I am really happy with the piece he selected, though. It is called “Intermezzo (A Love Story)” from the 1939 film of the same name. The film stars Ingrid Bergman and Leslie Howard and that is honestly all I know about it. Still, Viktor played the piece for me before anything else and it is a gorgeous piece of music. The thing I like best about it, though, is the fact that this piece feels more like an actual song than the pieces I have been working on up to this point. It is a full-blown song where the others seemed more like jingles or kids songs or something like that. They didn’t feel like I was working on playing an actual song. Viktor told me that he selected this particular piece for me because I want to learn to write music for myself and he felt like this would be a good way to learn about the way that a song is constructed and such. Plus, this song includes a lot of 1/8 notes and 1/16 notes, which I haven’t dealt with much before this point. This is a really good thing, I think, especially considering the fact that this sheet looks like the sheet music that I downloaded for Celine Dion’s “A New Day Has Come,” which I didn’t understand. It also looks like this other piece of sheet music I downloaded the other day, for All Saints’ song “Never Ever.” I am kind of hoping that this will help me with learning from other sheet music. Of course, I’ve still got a long way to go. Viktor did mention, though, come August or so, possibly setting up my own mini-recital with the pieces I’ve been working on and this new one. That, I think, would be really amazing. I don’t know. I am really excited about this new piece, though, and really ready to dive into it.

After piano, Viktor gave me a ride home so I got home around 7:30pm. My Mom and I had kind of planned on eating out tonight because we wouldn’t really have time to cook with her having to come all the way to the Allegro Academy to pick me up after she got off work. Since I got here before she got off, though, I decided to go ahead and make dinner. I made Lemon Pepper Chicken, some boxed pasta and corn. It was a really good dinner. When my Mom got home from work, though, she seemed really down. She was depressed about the fact that her paycheck this week would be the first without any overtime on it. It’s going to be small. I reassured her in every way that I could, I told her I would make sure not to do any shopping or anything this weekend just to be sure I have money available in case it is necessary. I do have to pay for next month’s piano lessons out of this paycheck and, of course, June has five Wednesdays which means I have to pay ahead for five lessons instead of four. It’s okay, though. I just have to make sure not to spend money this weekend. Of course, I have to spend a little cash to go see Sex & The City 2 on Saturday with Whitney. I am also going to pre-purchase tickets for Sex & The City 2 on Monday when my Mom gets back into town. We have already made plans to go see it Monday night because we are both going to see it with other people over the weekend but also really need to go together. We saw the first one together in theaters three times and are both extremely excited for this new one. I really can’t wait. I told my Mom, though, that this paycheck with no overtime on it is really just the Universe giving her a bit of a kick in the ass to do something to improve her situation, like fight even harder to find another job. I have kind of been thinking a bit about trying to find myself another job in the meantime. Not a new job to replace my current job but a second job to supplement my income. I think it could be a really good thing. I don’t know where I could work, though, with a shift starting after 6pm. Of course, there are places. I can think of several places open late, like Target or Barnes & Noble or Borders. It’s a shame I can’t go back to Borders. Still, I think I’ve kind of burned that bridge. You never know, though. After all, I never expected to go back to the place that shall not be named for security purposes for a third time. I don’t know. It’s definitely something I am going to keep in mind, though. I think it could be a very good plan for me to step up and take on more responsibility and make more money to support my household. Plus, another retail job could be a good thing for my social life, in a lot of ways. It seems like every time I have worked a retail job I have met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends. I don’t necessarily know that this is what I need in life at this time but I figure it couldn’t hurt any more than it could help. Either way, it just seems like it could be a really good idea at this point in time and is definitely something I intend to pursue further.

It is now 12:44am and I should have been in bed about 45 minutes ago. It’s going to be an early morning, after all. I am considering skipping the workout tomorrow and just doing three days this week like I did last week. It seemed to work out well last week, as far as the soreness goes. At the same time, though, I think it could be just as good of a thing to push through my soreness and go ahead and do it tomorrow morning. I am still undecided. I suppose I’ll see how I feel in the morning. If the time I am going to bed has anything to do with it, though, it is looking like I won’t be exercising in the morning. Like I said, we’ll see in the morning. I am really just looking forward to getting the next two days over with and getting to the weekend. After all, this is my four-day weekend! Then, I work Wednesday and Thursday of next week and am off for another five days. Still, that is the weekend of the wedding and will surely be pretty taxing. I still haven’t figured out exactly how I will manage to write the blog on those nights but my phone does have really great email capabilities, so I should be able to do it that way. I’ll figure it out before the time comes. In the meantime, the only thing I need to figure out is how to get my ass to bed. Goodnight!

Chapter 201: Favorite

Okay, so today was a day where I didn’t really do much of anything. I did laundry. I made ringtones from the new Christina Aguilera album, “Bionic,” which I probably won’t actually end up using. I made lunch for my Mom when she came home on her lunch break. I cleared out some stuff on the DVR. I finished watching the season of Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty.” These are my accomplishments for the day. Not much, is it? I am writing, or at least starting to write, this early in the day in attempts to save myself a little time this evening and hopefully get to bed earlier than usual. I have been thinking about doing this specific blog post with this specific title for a while now. I was thinking about the fact that I make reference to things being in my top five or top ten favorites, particularly recently, but realized that I have never actually laid out what the other favorites are and such. So, if I am detailing a year in my life I figure dedicating an entire blog to listing my favorite things is probably worth giving a shot. So, I decided to compile some lists.

Before we get into that, though, I did want to talk a little bit about the whole concept of making lists and categorizing things. I don’t know why or how it started but it has been a long-standing pastime for many of the people in my life and I to list things in the order we like them for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories of doing this were with my best friend in the entire world, Don, from when we first met. We would listen to the music that we loved back at that time, particularly the Spice Girls, and spend hours on the phone discussing our favorite songs on their albums in the order that we liked them. We would often do the same with the Spice Girls themselves, (Mine is still Melanie C, Geri, Victoria, Melanie B and Emma.) I always kind of thought that this was simply something that came with the excitement of youth but it didn’t go away as we got older. In fact, Don and I started finding that more and more of the people we knew did the same thing and would wind up in these big group discussions where everybody was listing their favorite Madonna albums in the order they liked them, then breaking each album down track by track and putting those in order. Now that I am 26 years old, I find that I talk about these types of lists a lot less but still do them in my head all the time. I think it is simply because I don’t have like-minded people around me at this point in my life, at least not like-minded in that sense. The people in my life these days don’t share the same interests as I do, for the most part, and thus this type of listing and such just doesn’t happen out loud. This has led to me simply referring to a lot of different things as “my favorite,” as opposed to going into detail about the order in which they actually fall. So, here is where I am going to let all those lists inside my head out. So, here come a bunch of top ten lists.

My 10 Favorite Musical Artists Of All-Time:

10. Dashboard Confessional
9. Alanis Morissette
8. Darren Hayes/Savage Garden
7. Celine Dion
6. Jewel
5. Spice Girls (Together and Solo)
4. Courtney Love/Hole
3. Kylie Minogue
2. Liz Phair
1. Madonna

Now, there are countless other artists that I would list amongst my all-time favorites, including Aaliyah, Blondie, Christina Aguilera, Dolly Parton, Dixie Chicks, Fall Out Boy, Idina Menzel, Janet Jackson, K’s Choice, Kelly Clarkson, Lori McKenna, Missy Elliott, Natalie Imbruglia, No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, Olivia Newton-John, Shakira, Sheryl Crow and Whitney Houston, who are not on this list. I love them all but it is only a list of 10. The most prevalent artist missing from this list, though, is Mandy Moore. Mandy Moore is the only person, of all the musical artists in this world, who I genuinely call my IDOL. Mandy Moore is an incredible artist and I love her more than most artists out there but while compiling a list of the top 10 of all-time, there were simply too many artists who I have been listening to and loving consistently since I was just a child to make room for her. Still, like I mentioned, she is my idol and has been one of my biggest musical influences/inspirations in my life.

Now, I have long held the rule that somebody cannot be listed amongst my favorite artists of all-time until they have released at least three albums that I have absolutely loved. Because of this rule, there simply has to be a separate list for artists that are a little newer who have affected me in a very big way and are moving up the ranks of my favorites.

My 10 Favorite Recent Musical Artists:

10. Kate Voegele
9. Miley Cyrus
8. Utada Hikaru
7. Taylor Swift
6. Natasha Bedingfield
5. Boomkat
4. Alexz Johnson
3. The Veronicas
2. Scissor Sisters
1. Lady Gaga

This list also could have included plenty of other artists, many of whom only have one album at this point, like Adam Lambert, Katy Perry, etc., or artists who have been around a while but I have only recently discovered, like Owl City and Lights – Even Barbra Streisand, although I wouldn’t dare list her amongst such newbies.

My Top 10 Albums Of All-Time:

10. The Veronicas - The Secret Life Of The Veronicas
9. No Doubt - Return Of Saturn
8. Lady Gaga - The Fame
7. The Veronicas - Hook Me Up
6. Fall Out Boy - From Under The Cork Tree
5. Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah!
4. Dashboard Confessional - Dusk & Summer
3. Madonna - Ray Of Light
2. Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
1. Mandy Moore - Wild Hope

I was initially planning on compiling a list of my favorite songs of all-time, as well, but doing the albums was difficult enough. I knew these were the albums that would be included but putting them into an order was a lot to deal with. Okay, so not a lot to deal with but you know what I mean. Besides, individual songs are a little too fluid to work with in that way. You can really connect with a song for a while but when your mood changes or your life changes, you suddenly don’t find it as appealing. Sure, a great song will always stick with you but it would be too much to narrow down a list of those songs. So, we move on to film.

My 10 Favorite Films Of All-Time:

10. Up In The Air
9. The Devil Wears Prada
8. Muriel's Wedding
7. Josie & The Pussycats
6. Shut Up & Sing
5. The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants
4. Legally Blonde
3. Mean Girls
2. Rent
1. I'm Going To Tell You A Secret

For those who don’t know, “I’m Going To Tell You A Secret” is a documentary following Madonna on her 2004 Re-Invention Tour. It is an absolutely stunning film and one that has changed my life immensely. I would say the same for “Rent” …I mean, except that whole bit about it being a Madonna documentary. “Shut Up & Sing” is the Dixie Chicks documentary, which I urge everybody to see if you haven’t. These are all just movies that I can watch over and over again without complaint.

My 10 Favorite TV Shows Of All-Time:

10. Friends
9. Beverly Hills 90210
8. Desperate Housewives
7. Glee
6. Dawson's Creek
5. The View
4. Ugly Betty
3. Golden Girls
2. The L Word
1. Degrassi: The Next Generation

Many of these are shows that I grew up on, like Friends, Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek, while some are shows that I have seen every single episode of and never get tired of, like Golden Girls & Desperate Housewives. The others are just shows that I have never managed to tire of after several years of watching, like The View, Ugly Betty & Degrassi. Of course, I had to include a new show, as well, because it is already better than most shows I have seen in my lifetime - Glee! Then there’s the L Word – despite it’s craptastic ending, I absolutely loved it. They have all really moved me in one way or another.

My 10 Favorite Beauty Products:

10. NYX Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencil in Black Bean
9. Pop Beauty Eye Topper Palette
8. Clean & Clear Morning Burst Facial Cleanser
7. Urban Decay Summer Of Love Palette
6. Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse Concealer
5. NYX Mascara in Black
4. Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eyeliner Pencil in Bourbon
3. Christian Siriano for VS Makeup Eyeshadow in Gilded Fierce
2. Urban Decay Primer Potion (original formula)
1. NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” Eye Shadow Palette

This list is kind of constantly changing. How could it not? I am constantly buying new shit that I fall in love with.

My 10 Favorite Articles Of Clothing:

10. Siegfried My Old Denim Jeans
9. Old Navy Thin White & Blue Striped Cotton Hoodie
8. Michael Brandon White Linen Drawstring Pants
7. DKNY Blue Guitar T-Shirt
6. Black Calvin Klein Vertical Logo Polo
5. CINTAS Black Uniform Pants
4. Old Navy Lavender Heather V-Neck T-Shirt
3. Hello Kitty Bubble Wand Necklace
2. DKNY Black & Gray Pinstriped Vest
1. Calvin Klein Plain White T-Shirts

The Siegfried My Old Denim Jeans are only at the bottom because they ripped recently, otherwise they’re probably be number 3 or 4. Anyway, that is enough with making lists. I think you all have a pretty good idea of my favorites of all of my favorite things at this point. Sure, there are plenty of other lists I could create here but they would all pretty much be offshoots of these lists. Anyway, making lists isn’t as fun as it used to be, I suppose. I think the reason for this is because I have grown to a point where I understand that I will feel more of a connection to different things at different times, so lists will be forever evolving. With beauty products, for example, I am constantly buying new things that have the potential to knock any one of those items off of that list any time. The same really goes for all of these lists. I think, really, the reason I am less into making lists nowadays isn’t because I don’t have people to discuss them with but because I am always trying to keep my eyes facing forward. I love everything on every list included here but I am always looking for something else to love. This could be a problem if I am EVER in a relationship again. Hell, it has been a problem when I was in relationships in the past. I suppose it is all just a part of being me. In the meantime, my Mom is on her way home with dinner and it is “Glee” night, so I am going to end this here. Hope you had fun with my lists! Goodnight!

Chapter 200: Bionic

Mondays have long been the worst day of the week for me. Millions of other administrative type workers in this world surely know what I am talking about. It sometimes begins to feel like you are living your life for the weekend, only to go through all the exact same motions and repeat, repeat, repeat. It all begins with Monday morning. I mean, I don’t genuinely feel that way most of the time but every now and then that feeling does creep in. It is the simple feeling that everything in life has just become completely mundane and routine and blasé. I hate that feeling. Fortunately, since my schedule has changed, Monday doesn’t feel bad at all. I woke up at 6am this morning and washed my face, brushed my teeth, made myself a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. I ate a bowl of Fruity Pebbles for breakfast and was ready to start my workout by 6:45am. I decided to do slightly less working out this morning than I did last week in attempts to avoid the type of soreness I experienced last week. Instead of doing three sections of the “Dancing With The Stars” workout, I only did two. It was still pretty rigorous, though, and really got my blood flowing this morning. I really like this workout. It is fun, like Zumba, but also really feels like you’re getting a good workout. It’s working out really well for me so far. I like it a lot and have learned to deal with the soreness a bit better, because it was there again today to a lesser degree. I assume that as I keep doing it that will slowly start to get less and less. In the meantime, though, I will simply tolerate it.

I decided last night that I was going to try the natural, shimmering nude eye look that I found on YouTube, inspired by Celine Dion, and I did full foundation and such, and wore blush. The whole look came together really well, I think, and a few people had to ask whether or not I was wearing makeup. Normally, I would take that as a bad sign but for the look I was going for today it was a very good thing. It was a very fresh, natural look and I really enjoyed it. It was a little less than I am used to because I am used to having colors that really stand out on my eyes but it did look really good. My Mom said that I should do that look for the wedding. I don’t know about all that but it was a very good, natural look for today. Tomorrow? Black. I feel the need to do something a little more dark and drastic to make up for today. Of course, I probably won’t do much of anything makeup-wise tomorrow because I probably won’t wind up leaving the house. It is my day off and I don’t have any plans, aside from doing laundry and doing some finishing touch cleaning on my room and maybe doing some further work on my bathroom. I definitely plan on making tomorrow a more productive day than last Tuesday was. I definitely plan on doing a good deal of piano practice tomorrow, as well. I have been really good about practicing piano this past week and feel like I am pretty much there, as far as the pieces I’ve been working on. I am really excited for my lesson on Wednesday and starting on a new piece. I feel like I am ready to take on something a little more serious. Although, last night I pulled up a few pieces of sheet music online and got a little lost on them because they were full of flags. I haven’t actually learned about flags yet, so I wasn’t sure what they meant. I know, I already said that I didn’t want to step outside of my lessons but I had this hankering last night to learn to play “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion. Sadly, like I said, it was full of flags and I didn’t quite understand how those worked. I took that as a sign that it is a better idea not to step outside of my lesson plan at this point. Everything will come together in time – I just have to be patient.

So, work was pretty laid back today. It wasn’t too busy but it wasn’t too slow, either. We moved our desks around so now I am sitting only one desk away from my sister, which is pretty interesting. I don’t really foresee that being a problem, although now she can hear all of my conversations when she is at her desk. So, that could suck. Overall, though, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. The first half of today passed pretty quickly. I wrote my two new songs for the day, one of which was really good and the other was not as good. The good one was called “Volume,” and is basically a really fun, sexual, dance type song about liking a boy who gets loud. I try to avoid talking too much about things that I’m into, as far as that goes, but I definitely enjoy a boy who makes some noise. So, why not write a whole song about it? The not as good song was called “Wherever The Wind Blows,” and it was basically a song about trying to put your faith in the fact that the Universe has a plan for us all and just following where it takes us. The reason this song doesn’t really work for me is because it was trying too hard to be like one of the songs I wrote on Friday. This song I wrote on Friday is my favorite of the songs I have written lately, so I was trying to recreate the general vibe of that song with different lyrical content and it really didn’t work. The song from Friday was called “Nothing But A Rumor,” and is very different from anything I have written before. In terms of melody, it reminds me a bit of something that She & Him would do, but not as old school sounding. The vibe of the song was very inspired by Leighton Meester’s cover of “Bette Davis Eyes,” which had a very retro sound, while still sounding very modern and electronic. She sang that song very much in the style of those 40s lounge singers you see in old movies and such, and I kind of wrote this song with that sort of vocal style in mind. The music in my head, though, is very modern sounding with hints of synth and such mixed in. As far as the lyrics for the song, it is pretty simple. It is basically a song about people talking shit and trying to make sure that the person you love remains unaffected by that talk. It is definitely based on personal experience, although an experience from a very long time ago. I don’t know how to describe it any better than this but like I said, it is my favorite of the songs I have written since I have started the two songs a day plan.

After work, my Mom told me that she had some chicken in the refrigerator marinating and asked if I would use it and make dinner with it. Despite feeling really tired after work, I told her I would. When I got home, I sat down on the couch and watched today’s episode of “The View,” which was pretty boring. It was a “Behind The Scenes” episode, where they showed behind the scenes footage of putting together last Friday’s episode. It was interesting enough but I didn’t like not having a day of Hot Topics like they normally do on Mondays. While I was sitting there, I checked Facebook from my phone and found that my best friend, Don, had posted that the new Christina Aguilera record, “Bionic,” had leaked. There have been three main records that I am looking forward to this summer – Scissor Sisters’ “Night Work,” Kylie Minogue’s “Aphrodite” and Christina Aguilera’s “Bionic.” Despite everybody on the Internet seeming to have a different opinion, I am not disappointed with this record in the slightest. It is not my favorite Christina Aguilera record, by any means, but I do think it is a very strong pop record. I think the main issue is that the album has too many tracks and there are a few that really didn’t necessarily need to be there. Still, aside from one or two random songs that just seem kind of pointless, I think it is a pretty great pop/dance record. I first have to say that I love the fact that Christina has decided to do the electronic/dance style for this new record, because it works beautifully for her. Aside from a couple too many songs, the only other issue I have with the album is a few tracks that kind of feel like they’re trying too hard to be “different.” The best example of this would be the title track, “Bionic.” Someone on Oh No They Didn’t said it best when they said that this song was Christina “doing her best impression of M.I.A.” It really does kind of have that vibe. Still, underneath that it is still a pretty good song and a good intro to the album. This is followed by the album’s two singles, “Not Myself Tonight,” and “Woohoo.” “Woohoo” is a very sexual and very clever song, featuring one of my favorite new artists, Nicki Minaj. It is a really fun song and I think is much better than all the shit being talked about it on the internet. After that, the album continues with it’s experimental electronic/dance sound, including one of my favorite songs on the album, “Elastic Love.” This song has a very modern 80s vibe, if that makes any sense, and is extremely catchy and has a very fun lyric comparing a lover to a rubber band. Another favorite track of mine is “Glam,” which the producer, Claude Kelley, apparently tried to refer to as a “Modern Day Vogue.” It is a good song but not THAT good. In fact, my first thought upon hearing it was that it reminded me a lot of RuPaul’s music. I would call it more a modern day “Super Model,” than anything else. It is a really fun, over the top dance song and I love it. The strongest songs on the album are probably the ballads, particularly “Lift Me Up.” Christina performed this song on the “Hope For Haiti Now” benefit concert and I fell in love with it then. The studio version is just as good. As the title kind of suggests, it is a gorgeous, uplifting ballad written by Linda Perry, who is one of my favorite songwriters out there. Another great ballad on the record is called, “I Am,” which is a very simple, very vulnerable song about opening yourself up. I really fell in love with this song while listening to it, as well, and it may be my second favorite on the album. My very favorite song on this record, though, is the last track, “Vanity.” It’s over the top to the extreme, right from the opening line of “I’m not cocky I just love myself, bitch!” Some other favorite lines from this song are "Everyday I see myself I love me even more, Ain't nobody got nothing on me I'm number one for sure," and “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the sexiest of them all? Nevermind, I am!" This is clearly just a fun, over the top, outrageous song about loving yourself. The only songs on this album that I don’t really love are “Sex For Breakfast,” and “Prima Donna.” These are the two songs that I feel are kind of out of place and are just there as filler. I can say, though, that I understand their purpose because each one gets slightly slower than the one before it and create a smooth transition into the ballads on the album. As individual songs, though, they just aren’t that great. “Prima Donna” is considerably better than “Sex For Breakfast,” but I’m not a huge fan of either one. I definitely recommend this record to everyone who enjoys good, solid pop/dance music. It is really a lot of fun and well worth the cost of an album on iTunes once it comes out, or worth the time to seek out a download if you want to hear it before the actual release on June 8th.

So, it is now 1:22am and I am starting to feel pretty tired. I don’t want to spend another of my days off sleeping until 1pm or later, so I should probably get to bed pretty quick. I am looking forward to spending tomorrow relaxing and being productive in small ways. Also, I’ll probably spend tomorrow listening to Christina Aguilera over and over while I clean and such. Should make for a fun day. In the meantime, it is time for bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 199: Simple & Clean

When last we left this blog, I was saying that I absolutely had to wake up early today in order to prepare myself for having to wake up early tomorrow for work. Well, that didn’t happen. I was up until nearly 5am writing last night’s blog and figured I would be able to simply go to sleep that late and only get about four hours of sleep and be okay. This happens pretty frequently on Sundays and I can normally pull it off without a hitch. This morning, however, that was simply not the case. I didn’t wake up until around 1:30pm. My Mom was in the kitchen washing dishes and such, and my first thought was, “Oh shit, she’s already cleaning and I haven’t gotten a thing done.” Fortunately, I found out that she had just started cleaning herself. My second thought upon waking, though, was “Holy shit, I’m starving.” It isn’t normal for me to wake up and immediately feel hungry. It’s strange, too, because I had a pretty large dinner last night. In any sense, after brushing my teeth, washing my face and such I was pretty eager to get something to eat. I told my Mom this and we mutually decided to get McDonald’s for lunch. She ran out to do that while I sat in the living room in a sleepy daze, watching “Clean House.” I stayed in that daze, in that spot, watching “Clean House” for nearly two hours. Finally, around 4pm, I decided that it was time get my ass in gear and start cleaning. My Mom took on the kitchen, while I devoted this afternoon to getting my bedroom in order. I got a trash bag, sat down on the floor of my bedroom and just started grabbing things to be thrown away. Of course, there were things on the floor that I didn’t want to throw away so I separated them into little piles and put them away in their various places where they belonged. I also moved a few things around and got rid of a TV stand that I had in my bedroom even though I haven’t had a TV in my bedroom in nearly a year. My sister’s TV went out at her house several months ago, so I offered her mine. I rarely ever used it, anyway. My Mom said that her boyfriend needed a TV stand, so she is going to take this one to him when she goes to see him next weekend. After removing that I was able to move my keyboard into that corner and clear out a very large amount of space in my closet by putting the drawers that were in there out in the free space that was added there. I know, most of you don’t know what my bedroom looks like so this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but it makes my room look a lot bigger than it did before. It is really nice in here now.

I also decided to take a few small steps towards decorating my room. My computer desk has a large column stretching out above the space that holds the monitor with a shelve type thing on it. I decided to make use of that space by displaying my autographed copies of Cyndi Lauper’s album, “The Body Acoustic,” and Liz Phair’s “Somebody’s Miracle.” I also put up a little display of the Lady Gaga comic book I got on Free Comic Book Day and my Madonna “Confessions Tour” tourbook and a gorgeous lithograph I got from ICON, the official fan club, that has been laying in my closet. I also put up a couple of things on the walls. Back when we first moved into this apartment, I bought this really cool layered frame thing and made a sort of collage of my various thing autographed by the Veronicas, as well as my ticket stubs from their shows, etc. The Veronicas, for those who don’t know, are one of my favorite bands in the world. I’ve met them multiple times and they have remembered me every time, always act really excited to see me and are just really sweet and adorable girls. Also, both of their albums are amongst my top ten favorites of all-time. I also did a regular framing job on the poster I got autographed by Liz Phair when I met her. Liz Phair is my second favorite artist of all time and meeting her was such a huge inspiration to me. I like keeping the autographs from her up where I can see them as often as possible to remind me of the experience. I feel the same way about my autographs from Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional and Mandy Moore, although I have not found a good way to feature those just yet. It’s a little silly looking at the moment because I only have small amounts of wall décor and big empty spaces on the rest of the walls but I figure it’s all a process that I will have to continue. Moving forward, when I have more money and time to devote, I plan on framing some other posters and such that I have and devoting my walls to the artists who have inspired me the most in life. I intend to feature Idina Menzel, Mandy Moore, Dashboard Confessional, Darren Hayes, Kylie Minogue and Barbra Streisand. I’m sure there will be others, like more Madonna and Gaga, but this is just the base concept at this point. I’m pretty excited to take on the project of creating a bedroom that is filled with inspiration and memories of mine. It is going to be a lot of fun to put together. In the meantime, though, my bedroom is looking a million times better than it did before and is nearly ready for company to stay in it.

This evening is a pretty special occasion for my Mom and her boyfriend – it is the series finale of “Lost.” Her boyfriend is a really big fan of the show and converted her recently, as well, and she has wound up watching the entire series over the past few months. I never had any interest in this show before until last night when ABC re-ran the enhanced version of the pilot episode. It was the very first time I Had ever actually watched an episode, because my Mom wanted to watch it, and it was actually really interesting. I was surprised at how much it held my interest. This evening, after we had finished our cleaning for the day, we watched the little pre-show to the finale, which featured the cast and creators of the show discussing the past six seasons and it really kind of sucked me in. I am not watching the finale tonight because I am probably going to wind up watching from the beginning on DVD now. It seems really fascinating. I suppose I have a little bit of “nerd” in me, after all. “Lost” is definitely a “nerd” thing. Oh well, I don’t mind having slight nerd tendencies. They will go well with my slight tendencies towards everything else you can possibly think of… except heterosexuality, of course. Instead of watching the “Lost” finale with my Mom, I decided to get myself all showered and shaved tonight, instead of tomorrow morning. I also found this makeup tutorial on YouTube for a Celine Dion-inspired nude eye look, which will allow me to use my Brule shadow from MAC and will look really nice, clean and fresh for a Monday morning. I found this look while searching YouTube for nude makeup looks that I could possibly wear from a fresh-faced but completely natural look for the wedding. I figure I want to do something to my eyes for the wedding but I want it to be something that you can’t really see or tell is makeup. I think I am just going to wind up going without for the wedding, though. May as well go natural… at least, mostly natural.

For now, though, it is 11:21pm and I have my alarm set for 6am. I had better get to bed. Fortunately, in spite of how late I slept today, I am feeling pretty tired right now and ready for bed. I want to keep up that momentum of tiredness before I keep myself awake too long and let my mind start racing. I have to work tomorrow but I am kind of keeping my fingers crossed that it will feel the way last Monday did. Last week felt like Monday didn’t even exist and I went straight into my third day off on Tuesday. So, last week kind of felt like a three-day week. I am hoping that will be how every week goes on this new schedule. We’ll see how that goes, though. In the meantime, I definitely need to get to sleep. Goodnight.

Chapter 198: Fading

I didn’t fall asleep last night until around 3am, which is slightly earlier than I have been on the weekends and my days off and such, so I suppose that is progress. Still, I should have gone to bed earlier considering I knew that I needed to be up and ready to leave the house by noon. You see, we had big plans for today. Today was my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s bridal shower and she really wanted my Mom to be there. My Mom and I decided that I would go down to Fort Myers, where they live, with her and hang out with my brother. The bridal shower started at 2pm and it takes about 90 minutes to get to Fort Myers. So, when I woke up at 11:15am I knew that I needed to start getting ready immediately. Yes, I knew that but that doesn’t mean that I did it. I had planned to shower and shave and such before leaving the house. When my Mom text messaged me at 11:45am saying that she was on her way home and asking if I was up and getting ready I replied that I was but I was actually sitting at the computer putzing around with last night’s video blog. It was actually noon before I headed into the bathroom to get dressed and ready. I wore a really cute outfit, including my gray & pink argyle sweatervest from Marc Ecko, and did a pink makeup look to match. I also did foundation and powder on my face but I forgot to moisturize beforehand, which wasn’t that bad but it made the makeup look really cakey. Blah. By the time I was finished getting dressed and doing my makeup and such, it was nearly 12:30pm. My Mom had gotten home during that time and was getting dressed. She was stressing out because we should have been on our way by that time. She was having trouble picking an outfit and kind of freaking out.

We also had to stop at the South Gate Mall to go to Victoria’s Secret and pick up a gift for the shower. Another reason we went to that particular mall was so I could use the MAC gift card that Rachel gave me. As anybody who has followed this blog or my status updates on Facebook knows by now, I have been really excited to get started on a MAC Pro Palette of my very own but have been hesitant because I am severely lacking in funds. Thanks to Rachel and a little bit of serendipity, I finally got that collection started today. It sounds silly to say but I was a little nervous to visit the MAC store. I have been there a few times in the past and I always felt a little uncomfortable. It always seemed like the staff was eyeing me, (giving me stink-eye, even,) but never actually addressed me directly. It was just always a little strange and intimidating. So, today I decided to say fuck it and walked in with confidence. A gorgeous, ultra-bronzed woman came up to me and asked if I needed help with anything. I had pre-shopped on http://www.maccosmetics.com so I knew exactly what I needed. I told her I wanted an empty 15 palette and a pan of Brule, and she got them for me. She took me up to the register and was very sweet and pleasant throughout the whole transaction, even calling me by name at every chance she got. I don’t know why I mention any of this but it was a very pleasant customer service experience and it’s not often that you have those. Plus, it was the opposite of what I was expecting. God, this paragraph is gay. Still, when we got back to the car I ripped these packages open and put my single pan into this palette and it was like magic. I picked Brule for my first MAC eye shadow because I have fallen in love with more natural, retro sort of looks lately and this color is perfect for that sort of thing. It is a soft, creamy beige color and goes on looking like a regular flesh tone only more perfect. I have really dark eyelids for some reason so this also seemed like a good idea because it will give them the same sort of color as the rest of my face and make them appear much smoother. I figured something neutral and multi-purpose would be a good pick for my first one. I am already really excited to get more, though. My one little pan needs some company in that big old palette. Okay, this paragraph is getting even gayer. I need to move on to something a little less gay.

So, my Mom and I spent the entire drive down to Fort Myers loudly belting out Barbra Streisand songs. We had the music up really loud because we had to have the windows down. Sometime last fall the air conditioner in my Mom’s car stopped working. She tried to have it fixed by a mechanic that the company she worked for at the time used but he couldn’t figure it out. It was a strange thing where it would start working again then it suddenly wouldn’t until it just stopped altogether. It isn’t that bad, in general, but when driving long distance it kind of sucks. It’s especially shitty because her car is a hybrid and kind of has to be worked on by the dealership specifically, and of course they are very expensive. They are considerably more expensive than we can really afford, especially since my Mom’s overtime has been cut. I can tell that my Mom is stressing out about this, considering summer is pretty much already here. I don’t think it’s THAT big of a deal but I also am not in the car near as much as she is. I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that something somehow comes up to help with our money situation because we are getting by alright right now but it is a struggle. I think we both have bills that we are behind on and have been letting fall to the wayside, like my dental bill. I really need to figure out a way to pay that so I can get in to see the dentist again. There is definitely still work to be done with my teeth. Plus, my dentist is really hot. I guess that doesn’t really have any bearing on the situation but I feel worse about owing money to somebody who I find really attractive than I would about owing money to somebody I didn’t find attractive. Anyway, we drove with the windows down some and Streisand at a very high volume and managed to have a good time on the ride down there. Since we were running late, my brother met us at a Cracker Barrel right off of one of the exits to pick me up so my Mom wouldn’t have to go all the way to his house and then to where the bridal shower was. My brother had to go to the mall to get fitted for his suit for the wedding, so we went there first. It was pretty interesting seeing my brother dealing with stuff like this for his wedding. It is just funny to me because it really reminded me that life can take you places that you never expected to go – like preparing for my brother’s wedding. I mean, I assumed he would get married eventually but it all seems very surreal now that it is actually happening. Also, I was very surprised that he asked me to be his best man. I never expected that I would be the one standing at his side for the experience. I am very happy and honored that I do get to be that person, I just wasn’t expecting it. It does make sense, though, and I do feel honored to be taking part in the whole thing.

We also decided that while I was down there we needed to find my outfit for the wedding. The outfits for the groomsmen are very simple – black pants and a black button down shirt. This simplicity, however, gets a little more complicated by the fact that these things both need to be linen. As it turns out, black linen is pretty difficult to find. We had to go to four different stores and were having a lot of trouble finding these things and even more trouble finding them in my size. Yes, this is where the lack of results from my workouts for the past few months became troublesome. We found a really great pair of black linen pants at a Casual Male store, which I was really surprised by. I have never been inside a Casual Male store before because I have always been pretty adamantly against shopping in “Big & Tall” stores. It just always seemed to me that this would be like saying, “I give up, I’m just a big fat ass.” I was wrong, though. This store was amazing! The pants I picked up there were awesome and are totally going to be worked into my regular wardrobe after the wedding. They are so cute and comfortable. I love them. I also discovered that this story happens to carry designer jeans in big sizes. They had Levi’s and stuff like that but also had really cute jeans in various washes and such, from designers like Ralph Lauren and even, my favorite, Calvin Klein. My whole quest for weight loss kind of began with my desire to buy Calvin Klein jeans. Turns out, I could have been wearing them all along. Still, I have already decided that I will not buy any Calvin Klein jeans until I have lost at least 4 pant sizes. I don’t want to go ahead and buy them in bigger sizes and just give up on my quest for weight loss. Plus, I don’t want to buy them in my current size when I fully expect that size to change in the not too distant future. Still, after the wedding and such, I fully intend to visit the Casual Male store here in town and pick up some cute jeans that will fit me in my current size. I figure just because I am waiting to wear Calvin Klein jeans doesn’t mean I can’t wear some regular, cheaper cute jeans in the meantime. I was also really surprised at where we found the shirt for the wedding – Macys. I didn’t think Macys would have anything in my size but my brother thought we should try there. He said, if nothing else, we could pick up his shirt there. As it turned out, we managed to find the same shirt in both of our sizes. It was a Geoffrey Beane black button-down shirt, with a slight sheen to it. Initially, he said he didn’t want the shirts to have any sheen to them but changed his mind when we found these ones. I think it is going to look really cute. I am also really excited because this shirt can remain in my wardrobe for future occasions when I need to get dressed up. I spent about $90 and got my entire outfit covered. The groomsmen are going to go barefoot for the wedding, so I didn’t even need to buy shoes.

After we finished shopping, my Mom was ready to leave the bridal shower so we met her at this little Chinese buffet in town and had dinner together. It was nice to all hang out together. Plus, in my distraction and the rush to get ready this morning, I hadn’t eaten anything all day. The main topic of conversation was the wedding, of course. There had been some confusion about certain people who were and weren’t invited and such since they do have a limit but we got it all sorted out. I also had initially intended to broach the topic of whether or not I could wear makeup to the wedding but throughout the whole shopping process I decided myself that I wouldn’t wear any. Well, that’s not entirely true. I decided that I wouldn’t wear eye shadow or any really obvious makeup. I will wear makeup on my face to make my skin look more and such. I was discussing with my Mom how much you don’t really think face makeup makes much of a difference until you actually start using it. It REALLY makes a huge amount of difference. Since there are going to be pictures taken and such, I want to look my best. Still, I will keep it nice and natural. After all, I know firsthand how much attention a man wearing makeup can get and a wedding is not the place to be doing things that could call attention to anything but the bride and groom. I’m really excited, though, because this is the first wedding that I will be attending in my adult life and the first wedding I have ever been in. It’s going to be a really nice one, too. The resort the wedding is being held at is gorgeous and the whole setup sounds amazing. It is going to be really gorgeous.

Of course, all this talk of weddings and such is bound to get one to start thinking about love and relationships and all that jazz. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad about the fact that I don’t have a date for the wedding. Of course, with the limit on attendance it’s better that I don’t have a date. Still, I just think about my brother getting married and my sister being so happy in a long-term relationship and even my Mom’s relationship seems to be moving in the right direction. I can’t help but think that it would probably be really nice to have that for myself. I have always felt like my life was meant for something greater than romantic love. Love is a beautiful thing and all but I have never believed that love, in the romantic sense, was the focus of my story. I don’t feel like it really carries the weight that people put on it and such. I feel like there are much more important things in life than that. In fact, I feel like there are a lot of things that are much more important – friendships, family and, most of all, art. As far as I am concerned, art is the absolute most important thing in this world. Nothing comes before it. At least, that is the case for MY life. I also understand that the world is a very different place for each individual living in it. While romantic love may be the main focus of some of people’s stories it will never be mine. After I got home this evening, I was watching “Hole: On The Record With Fuse,” which was basically a 30 minute interview with Courtney Love. In this interview, Courtney talked about the fact that while writing and recording the new Hole record, “Nobody’s Daughter,” she was deliberately celibate for five years. When asked why, she said that the stuff distracts her from her work. The interviewer asked her what the stuff was, like sex or love or whatever else, and she said more love. That stuff is a big distraction. I completely understood her sentiment. As I was watching that, I thought to myself that most people probably wouldn’t fully understand the gravity of that statement but I absolutely do. Still, I can’t help but feel the desire for some sort of companionship at this point in my life. It’s been a really long time since I have dated or anything. It would be nice. I figure it will happen again when it is meant to and in the meantime I will continue to focus on art. After all, like that line from the song “All That Jazz,” from “Chicago,” says, “I’m no one’s wife but I love my life.” I can definitely relate to that line.

Speaking of focusing on art, I have faithfully done my 30 minutes of piano practice each day since my last lesson and I feel like the pieces I have been working on have improved immensely over these past few days. Tonight I actually played them at their proper tempo. Of course, playing them faster I found myself making more small errors. I suppose that is natural but I still find it troublesome. I am assuming that as I practice them more at full tempo, it will improve. I just really want to have these songs down by my next lesson so we can finally move on to another piece. I am really hoping to move on to something a little more contemporary, like Lady Gaga’s “Speechless,” which I have kind of been dying to learn to play recently. I don’t want to step outside of my lessons, though, because I would probably get ahead of myself and find all kinds of stuff in the sheet music that I am not familiar with yet. We’re moving at a steady pace and I just need to be patient. We’ll see what happens next. Also, on the topic of art that isn’t my own, I also came home to find that the new Jewel record had leaked today. This is her second record on Valory Records, her country label, and it is pretty brilliant. I like it a LOT better than her first country record, which was good but didn’t have a lot of songs I could really connect to. This record, on the other hand, is full of them. The album is called “Sweet & Wild,” and it is actually a lot less country than I was expecting. It really sounds more like a pop record to me, aside from a few choice songs. One of those songs is the first track on the album, “No Good In Goodbye.” It is a very sweet song about getting frustrated with your partner and considering leaving but realizing that being apart simply wouldn’t be the answer. This is a recurring theme on the album, most cleverly portrayed in the song “Ten,” which describes getting into a fight and being filled with anger, then counting to ten and realizing how much you love the person you’re fighting with. It is a really fun, spunky song. The album also features a song called “What You Are,” which Jewel released as a demo recorded on her laptop a couple of months ago. This is one of the best songs she has ever written, in my opinion. It is a really pop sounding song that is best summed up by the line “Everything I hope to be I already am.” I discussed this song and what it means to me in pretty great length back when that demo version came out, so I won't go over it all again now. It also features her two recent singles, “Stay Here Forever,” from the “Valentines Day” soundtrack and “Satisfied,” which is a gorgeous song about realizing that you already have everything you need in life, another recurring theme on the album. One of my favorite songs on the album is called “Fading,” which is a song about looking at yourself in the mirror and realizing that you’re slowly starting to lose sight of who you are. It’s a concept I can definitely relate to in a lot of ways. Of course, this concept is expressed by way of a story of getting naked in the bathroom of a Wal-Mart. I don’t really know how to describe this properly but I definitely recommend checking it out for yourself. I recommend checking out the entire album for yourself, honestly. It is really a beautiful album. It is probably my favorite album from Jewel since her 2001 release “This Way.” “This Way” is still my favorite album of hers but I do really love this record. It is definitely worth picking up. I am also really excited for the deluxe edition that is being released, which features a second disc of acoustic versions of every track on the album. I’m sure that will be gorgeous because Jewel is always at her best when she is acoustic, I think.

Anyway, it is 4:35am right now and I absolutely must get to bed. My Mom and I have both decided that we need to devote tomorrow completely to cleaning this house. After all, we only have two weeks to get this place looking presentable before company comes and my Mom is going to be out of town with her boyfriend next weekend. So, really, this is our only chance to get this done. I mean, I have a little more time to get my room done but that is also the weekend "Sex & The City 2" comes out, so I will probably be fairly busy going to the movies three or four times. My Mom and I actually discussed this and are already planning on going on Monday evening when she gets back from her boyfriend’s house. I am also thinking that I will talk to a couple of people I know who are always seeming to come up with bootlegs of movies in theaters and see if I can get the hookup on a bootleg of it after it comes out. It’s not like I won’t be seeing it in the theater multiple times but I may as well save myself a little time and money and get it for home use, as well. We’ll see once it comes out, though, how available it is as a bootleg. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t do that. It is illegal, technically. Anyway, it is late and I have to get up and clean all day tomorrow so I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 197: Make Me Wanna Die

Boring day = boring video blog. Sorry folks, hopefully today will be more interesting.

Chapter 196: Touch

I woke up this morning at 6:15am and did all my normal morning routine stuff. I was feeling really sore still and decided to skip the workout today because of it. I don’t know if that was the right decision because, honestly, I believe working out today would have helped the soreness more than skipping did but I just wasn’t feeling it. It is really strange because even my stomach was really sore. None of the other workouts I’ve done before have left my stomach feeling the way that this “Dancing With The Stars” workout did. It was a really weird feeling because my entire body was sore, for the most part. While I normally would have been working out, I instead was browsing the recently re-incarnated Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul, now called Musicology Treat. While I was on there I discovered something that I was very excited about – a new single from one of my favorite artists, Natasha Bedingfield. The song was called “Touch,” and it isn’t actually the first single from her upcoming album but what they call a “buzz single,” that labels put out prior to an album being released to kind of gage the reaction from the public. Well, record label, my reaction to this song is “HOLY SHIT, IT’S AMAZING!” Seriously, hearing this song this morning really hit me in a major way. The lyrics to this song are telling a beautiful story about a girl who was walking down the street and spilled coffee on a man who was in a hurry because he was running late to work. Because of this coffee incident, he called his secretary and asked her to cancel his appointment with a guy who had been waiting in the lobby. While this guy was waiting in the lobby, he was talking on the phone to somebody and being invited to a party that he thought he couldn’t go to because of something to do with this appointment. In the second verse it is revealed that the girl walking down the street was the one throwing the party and was out picking up supplies, (alcohol and chocolate chip cookies, to be exact,) when she saw a dress in the window of a store that she had to have. As she crossed the street to go to this store, her heel broke and she slipped and spilled her coffee on the man from the beginning. So, because she spilled her coffee, this man cancelled his appointment and the guy the appointment was with was able to come to her party and, presumably, they fell in love. It’s a little silly, I’ll admit, but the overall message that this song is conveying is an extremely powerful one. Essentially, this song is saying that every seemingly minor, unsubstantial moment of our lives could be setting something into motion that will wind up changing the course of our entire lives. It is a beautiful concept and, as far as I am concerned, a universal truth. There is no telling what any random moment in our lives may lead to. The issue with this concept is that there is no telling what any of these things may lead to. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, “Sliding Doors,” with Gwyneth Paltrow. “Sliding Doors” is the story of a woman who gets fired from her job and is headed back home, where her boyfriend is cheating on her. Then, as she goes to get on the subway, the entire film splits into two different stories. One is the story of what would have happened had she managed to get on the train and the other is if she didn’t. Based on this one very minor incident, these two stories are drastically different but both eventually lead to the same thing. I don’t want to give it all away because I strongly urge you all to see this movie because it is such a beautiful story and one that really puts a lot of life into perspective. This Natasha Bedingfield song does the same thing, although on a much smaller scale.

For example, something like a year ago a girl went into a Burger King to eat. I’m guessing it was shortly after her birthday or some other gift-giving event, because she had a gift card from MAC cosmetics. Somehow or another, she dropped this MAC gift card on the floor at Burger King. Later that day, one of the employees of Burger King notices it there and picks it up. She doesn’t think much of it and just puts it in her wallet. It stays in her wallet for nearly a year without her really noticing it. Then one random day, it happens to pop out at her. She calls the number on the back of the card and finds out that it has $25 on it. She realizes that she probably won’t ever use it and recalls a good friend of hers posting on Facebook how much he wanted to start a collection of MAC cosmetics and decides to give it to him. They happen to have plans for later that week and she gives it to him. Now, he has been having a certain amount of financial troubles and can’t really afford to start the MAC collection he wants anytime soon so receiving this gift card is a really big deal to him. That’s a true story. The former Burger King employee is my friend Rachel and the Boy who desperately wants to start a collection of MAC cosmetics happens to be me. I am really excited! I talked to Rachel on Tuesday and we had made plans to hang out tonight after I got out of work. I decided to cook, (which was delicious,) and we just hung out and talked a lot. It was a lot of fun. It turns out that Rachel and I are kind of in very similar places in life right now, in a lot of ways, and it is really good to have a friend around who understands how I am feeling in life these days. It seems like I have been severely lacking as far as that goes. The MAC gift card was just icing on the cake. I am particularly excited about this because this will be plenty to buy myself a MAC Pro 15 Eye Shadow Palette and probably the first pan to go in it. That will be a great way to start my palette off. I came up with this other idea, as far as the MAC palette goes. You see, my birthday is only 2 months away and I am thinking that instead of making people think of gifts to buy me for my birthday, I may ask them to select an eye shadow to go in my palette. That way, the palette will be even more special than a MAC palette is already. It will be like a little cosmetic scrapbook of people that I know and love. Plus, the pans for the palette are only $11 each, so it will also be cheaper than most birthday gifts generally are. I really like this idea and think I may wind up running with it.

So, in spite of skipping my workout today I did walk the entirety of the parking lot at work today. According to my pedometer, which I don’t think I have discussed here yet but don’t feel like it right now, the parking lot is just under 2,000 steps, which is just under a mile. So, walking a mile in fifteen minutes is quite a bit of exercise on it’s own. I don’t really feel bad for skipping the workout this morning. Of course, I was still really sore all day at work. Work today was really boring. There simply wasn’t much of anything going on and it really dragged because of this. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to simply sit in my desk and read my book, which probably would have made the day pass a little more quickly. I just wasn’t in a mood for reading today. Unfortunately, all of my co-workers did seem to be in the mood for reading and all spent most of the day with their heads in their own cubicles reading books. I wrote my two new songs for the day, which were both pretty decent. They were both dance/pop songs but were very different from my usual style, lyrically. The first was called “Too Many Things,” and it was kind of listing all the different things in life that we allow to weigh us down and hold us back from doing what we really want to do. This song was really inspired by the Scissor Sisters song “Fire With Fire,” which I discussed in last night’s blog. The other song was called “Jealousy,” and it was basically a song about how, for much of my life, I have found that people start imitating me in many ways. I mean, not really imitating me but it just seems like I have a lot of influence on the people around me. This sounds very conceited. I don’t mean that I am so great that they want to be like me but it just seems like my habits, speech patterns, interests and such rub off on people really easily. This song began when I randomly came up with the line, “Jealousy is just a perverted form of admiration.” That instantly became the first line of the song. Now, I don’t really think that people envy me or anything it is just a very tongue-in-cheek, over the top song based on that concept. I also did a bit of drawing today and came up with a makeup look that I am pretty eager to try. It is basically just a purple smoky eye but with a bit of a twist. I think I may try it out tomorrow. Today was also the first time that I decided to try wearing foundation and powder for the entire day. I must say, it worked out beautifully. Last weekend I bought myself the Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse foundation and Maybelline Dream Mousse Powder to experiment with face makeup. It turns out I did a really great job of picking the colors because my face and neck matched perfectly. I really loved the look of it and it held up really well. I think I may start doing this every day because I just loved the way that my face looked with this stuff on. My face developed a weird bit of unsavory redness in the cheeks over the course of winter that I can’t seem to get rid of and also has a bit of a color continuity issue but wearing foundation and powder did a really great job of evening everything out. Plus, these Maybelline Dream Mousse products are great because it doesn’t actually feel like you are wearing makeup on your face – they are so light and smooth. It is really the perfect texture, I think. It works beautifully on me.

It is now 11:50pm and I absolutely must get to bed. I have agreed to work 8am-6pm on Friday for the next few weeks because my co-worker who would normally come in at 8am isn’t able to start that shift until her children’s school lets out in the first week of June and the other usual 8am worker has Fridays off now. So, I agreed to it without any hesitancy. Of course, now that I am faced with the concept of going in 30 minutes earlier, the hesitation has begun. I don’t foresee it being any problem, honestly. I am setting my alarm for 6am instead of 6:15am and should still have plenty of time to workout and get ready with time to spare in the morning. I will just make sure to start my workout at 6:30am instead of 6:45am, and make sure I am working on my makeup by 7:15am. That should leave plenty of time for everything. Plus, those extra 30 minutes mean that I get an extra break, which should help the day pass a little more easily. I am really happy with the new schedule I have. It doesn’t feel at all like tomorrow should be Friday. In fact, it feels kind of like tomorrow should be Wednesday. If this is the way that it works every week I will be thrilled. Imagine every week having Friday feel like a Wednesday instead. That way I can get through the day with that Wednesday feeling but not have to go back the next day. This week Monday felt simply like an afterthought and I can’t imagine a Monday feeling any better than that. I am really excited for the weekend to come. We are supposed to be going down to Fort Meyers so my Mom can go to my brother’s fiancé’s Bridal Shower and I can go hang out with my brother and possibly shop for my outfit for the wedding. We also need to do a lot of cleaning this weekend. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I also need to go to the MAC store to use this gift card and official start my MAC Pro Palette Project! It should be a good time all around. For now, though, I need to go to sleep. Goodnight.