Chapter 182: Unusual Way

This has been a very long week. It has had it’s share of really great things, (like all of the Streisand I have been listening to,) and it’s share of shitty things, (like finding myself getting really irritated and throwing mini hissy fits at work,) but if there is anything I can say for this week it is this: It’ll be over tomorrow! I am very glad for that. I am ready for the weekend to come. I don’t really have anything planned for this weekend, except doing everything in my power to not spend money. It is Mother’s Day on Sunday and I feel really bad because I haven’t really done anything for my Mom. As usual, I have allowed myself to get a little too free with my spending on myself and put myself into a position where I can’t really do for somebody else. In most cases, I wouldn’t get too upset about that but this is my Mom. If anybody deserves something special, it is my Mom. She has done so much for me over the years. At the same time, though, I am a firm believer in gifts from the heart that don’t cost a dime. Maybe I’ll come up with something special for her that I can create myself. I don’t know. That does seem kind of cheap, though. My Mom has said that she doesn’t care if we get her anything as long as we see her that day. So, I am really keeping my fingers crossed that my brother will come up to see her this weekend. I talked to him yesterday, mainly about wedding stuff, and he said that he might be coming. I am also really keeping my fingers crossed that my sister comes over, as well. Maybe what I could do for my Mom for Mother’s Day is plan a dinner. I can cook and invite my brother and sister over for dinner. That would be nice and my Mom often complains about not wanting to go out to dinner for Mother’s Day because every restaurant is so crowded. That could be a really good idea, actually. Maybe I will call my brother tomorrow and try to confirm whether or not he can make it and talk to my sister about it, as well. I think I just came up with a really good plan!

As I mentioned in last night’s blog, my Mom and I didn’t work out on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this week and we both kind of felt like crap all three of those days, as well. So, this morning I got to a late start again and really kind of felt like skipping again – I fought that feeling, though, and we did work out. It was really nice, too. I felt like we got a really good workout this morning and I think it really did make a difference throughout the day. I didn’t feel as worn out today as I have the past few. It was still a really long day and I found myself getting really frustrated with matters at work. It seems that many people in the workplace have developed a blatant disregard for rules and just general courtesy to their co-workers. It is really beginning to irritate me a lot because I am not a major stickler for the rules but when they are the rules of workplace etiquette, I do take them seriously. If you are doing things that cause the people you are working with inconvenience or if you are lightening your workload by creating a larger workload for others you deserve to be called out for it. Unlike some people, though, I don’t bother confronting people to their faces for things like that – that only causes unnecessary tension and drama in the workplace. As a rule, if somebody is repeating patterns that are directly effecting my work environment, I will go directly to a supervisor with my concerns. A lot of people may call that “snitching” but we are not in grade school. We are all adults. I don’t consider it snitching, I consider it being proactive and making an effort to change things that are causing you trouble. After all, I feel like snitching is more a matter of just telling on somebody for the sake of getting them into trouble. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble – I just want them to knock off their bullshit because it is making my job more difficult. I don’t really feel like it is my place to confront my co-workers about things that they do because I am not their superior, I am simply their peer. Their supervisors are the ones who are in a position to tell them to knock their bullshit off. It is just really frustrating. I try very hard to avoid any sort of conflicts or moral dilemmas in the workplace. I don’t like reporting people to my supervisors or anything but if they are continually doing things that make the workplace an uncomfortable and unfair environment for people I feel like it is necessary. I don’t know. I hate that place, which shall not be named for security purposes. I really do some days. I don’t have any intentions of leaving anytime soon, though, so I need to make it a point to do everything I can to eliminate elements that are causing me troubles there.

I did this brown smoky eye look today using my new Essence Of Beauty brushes, including one that is made specifically for smoky eye looks, and I can gladly report that these are absolutely my new favorite brushes. They are AMAZING. They are really soft and the precision with which they work is brilliant. I am kind of in love with them. The look today was really cute, and I actually managed to use one of the shadows in my new Urban Decay Face Case. As I was mentioning last night, I have determined that Urban Decay shadows are not my favorite but this one in the Face Case, called Twice Baked, which is a gorgeous, very shimmery dark brown with subtle hints of glitter in it. It isn’t like the other two in the Face Case, which are almost entirely made up of glitter. I kind of love it. I think the key is that Urban Decay’s shimmer shadows are good but they go overboard with their glitter shadows. I do still love Maui Wowie, though – I just have to be careful using it, otherwise I wind up spending all day with glitter all over my face. The bronze and the purple in the “Summer Of Love” palette (smog and flash, respectively,) are both amazing, as well. They shimmer like mad but aren’t 90% glitter. They have more of a metallic finish, which I love the look of. I also discovered this new-ish cosmetic company that I am really kind of anxious to try, called Sleek Makeup. They have these eye shadow palettes called I Divine, which have some really great colors and are supposed to be very soft, mineral shadows with a very nice metallic finish. I am kind of excited to give them a try, although I don’t know how soon that will be. Sleek Makeup also has these things called Eye Kajals, which are a cream-based eyeliner, like the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On or the NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencils, except it is a rollup tube, so there is no pesky sharpening involved. Plus, despite being cream-based, they come out more like a kohl pencil than cream eyeliner. I’m not sure how they do that but the girls on YouTube who used them made them seem really amazing. The best thing about this company is that their stuff is really cheap, like NYX. Their I Divine palettes, which include 12 shadows, are only $10 and the Eye Kajal is only $8. The worst thing, though, is that they are based out of the UK and only ship from there which means high shipping charges and most likely long handling times. If the stuff is as good as it seems, though, it will probably be worth it. I definitely intend to give it a shot sometime soon.

I wrote two songs at work again today, which I was surprised by because I didn’t start the first one until after 4pm. I really like the songs a lot, too. The first song was almost an angry song but was also a very hopeful song and quite optimistic in the end. I was basically venting my frustrations at work. The other one was called “Just Like Water,” and it was definitely the better of the two. It was pretty unusual, in comparison to most of the stuff I write, because it had a major R&B slant. I listen to a lot of R&B and love hip-hop/R&B music but it is never something that I have really written much of because it isn’t a sound that I would really want to pursue. At the same time, though, this song wasn’t really all that R&B. It was more like R&B the way Kylie Minogue does it on the song “All I See.” You can definitely tell that the influence is there but it wouldn’t REALLY be considered an R&B song. I really loved the way the song turned out, though. It is basically a song about finding someone and the feeling that they are such a huge part of you, like water. You know, because water makes up so much of the human body? I don’t know – I liked it a lot. I also did a singing video, although I completely half-assed it. It was kind of last minute before my Mom got home and I knew I needed to do something. I prefer to do these things when I am alone, though. I sang the song “Secret Love” from the Doris Day movie “Calamity Jane,” although I sang it closer to the Mandy Moore version. It’s a really short song and one that doesn’t involve a lot of vocal acrobatics or anything, so it went pretty well. I did kind of rush through it, though, because I had pushed it off to the last minute. I also did 15 minutes of piano practice, which was a really good thing. One my Mom got home we had leftover lasagna and pizza from Little Caesars and watched the Hot Topics from all of this week’s episodes of “The View.” I managed to have my nightly skin care routine and piano practice done by 10:30pm tonight and am nearing the end of this blog before midnight, so hopefully I will manage to make it an earlier night than I have been lately. I have my make-up piano lesson tomorrow, which I am excited about, and then have the weekend off.

I am just really glad to see this week come to an end. Like I said, the highlight of this week, by far, has been listening to Barbra Streisand. I can pretty safely say that this past week I have completely fallen in love with her. She is absolutely amazing. She has so much great music and is such a fun, interesting, brilliant woman. Tonight I am listening to the last playlist of the set I downloaded, the 2000s, plus live recordings. It is really amazing. I just love her to pieces. As far as the songs from this 2000s playlist, it is every bit as good as the early stuff. I have yet to find any of her music on these playlists that I don’t love. My favorite track off of this set is probably Barbra’s version of “Unusual Way” from the musical “Nine.” I know Nicole Kidman’s version from the film version of “Nine,” as well as a version from the show’s revival back in 2003, but Barbra definitely does the best version I have heard at this point. I also really love the song “A Cockeyed Optimist,” which I can certainly relate to a lot. I work very hard to be an optimist. It is a lot more work than it seems but it is also very much worth the effort it takes. Also, just as I loved the music from the album “Guilty” she did with Barry Gibb, I also really love the music from “Guilty Pleasures,” her 2005 album with Barry Gibb. They work beautifully together. I also lover her version of the song “Make Someone Happy,” from her 2009 album, “Love Is The Answer.” I am actually currently downloading that album because I really liked the music she did for that album that is included on this playlist and would like more to listen to. Like I said, I have completely fallen in love with Barbra and I really feel like this 150 song collection I downloaded is just the beginning. I’m excited to hear more and see some of her films and such. She is really the ultimate diva. I really can’t say enough great things about her.

For now, though, I need to stop saying great things about Barbra and get myself to bed. It is now 12:13am, and still early enough to get a decent night of sleep. I don’t have to go into work until 10am tomorrow, so I have an extra 30 minutes before work. I can definitely afford to sleep in a little bit but I don’t plan to. I really want to use that time for something more productive. My Mom and I talked about trying to do the second disc of Zumba, so some of that extra time will probably be used for that. Aside from that, I may just use that time to enjoy a longer, more relaxing show in the morning. We’ll see. No matter what I do in the morning, I know what I need to do right now, and that is go to sleep. Goodnight.